Kashmir: Where history never ends

In 1989, Francis Fukuyama, an American intellectual and academic, wrote an influential essay titled “The End of History and the Last Man”. Fukuyama, writing towards the end of the Cold War, expanded the essay into a book which became a controversial best seller. Fukuyama  essentially asserted or posited that with the end of the Cold War, (absence of any major competing ideology and government) , mankind has arrived at the penultimate socio political evolution;  the success  of Western liberalism and liberal democracy constituted the apogee of mankind’s evolution.  While history as a series or compendium of events would continue, but in the sense of an idea or ideology, and government and governance accruing from this, history had ended. This startling thesis elicited controversy and criticism but it also became a truimphalist tone setting academic theme in the West and elsewhere.

Reference to Fukuyama’s thesis and Kashmir, of course, is a stretch but I use it as a metaphoric of allegoric parallel to point out the state of affairs in Kashmir- a place where history never ends; a place which is in thrall to history and where, to use the cliché, history keeps on repeating itself. The ongoing protests which have exacted a death toll of 75 people (mostly youngsters) is yet another manifestation of Kashmir being a prisoner of history and history repeating itself. These protests are not merely a reaction to the killing of popular militant commander, Burhan Wani but they pertain to Kashmir’s very history- a convoluted saga of betrayals, intrigues and violence emanating from clashes over sovereignty and respective nationalisms. The reasons cited here are the well known and pedestrian one and perhaps go to the heart of the conflict in and over Kashmir. There are other reasons too and these pertain to what the scholar of scholars, the late Professor Samuel Huntington, called, “political decay”. While the context of Professor Huntington’s memorable and astute phrase was different, it could be held to be apt in terms of Kashmir, if “political decay is held to occur when institutions fail to adapt or change”.  The aim here is not to isolate political decay as the only factor that is responsible for the conflict in and over Kashmir but rather as another layer to the extant historical and political realities that go onto feed the conflict.

Kashmir, to state the obvious, is in transition with a new and younger cohort of people replacing the older one. The social, economic and political “reality” of Kashmir is also changing. However, the institutional ingress and grid of the vale is ossified and does not speak to the changed “realities”. The structure of this institutional grid is, in turn, defined by patronage and culturally it appears to be designed to be tied to the Centre. The asymmetric federalism that is said to hold in Kashmir, in this sense is as notional as can be. The ties of this structure to people are merely functional with politics denuded from it. In specific terms, this means that real power does not lie in Kashmir; it lies elsewhere- with the Centre and perhaps security agencies of the state. In this schema, people matter as long as they can be used in instrumental terms and as long as they can be pacified.

Kashmir, to state the obvious, is in transition with a new and younger cohort of people replacing the older one. The social, economic and political “reality” of Kashmir is also changing. However, the institutional ingress and grid of the vale is ossified and does not speak to the changed “realities”. The structure of this institutional grid is, in turn, defined by patronage and culturally it appears to be designed to be tied to the Centre. The asymmetric federalism that is said to hold in Kashmir, in this sense is as notional as can be. The ties of this structure to people are merely functional with politics denuded from it.

A broader philosophical point may be needed to be made here. People (humans) are intrinsically political beings. Being political entails “autonomy” and “choice” and individual or collective “agency”. The structure of politics and institutions in Kashmir denies these to people in Kashmir. The consequences manifest themselves in political behaviour, and even governance and government.  When this condition is overlaid by the historical and politico-sovereign issues, what we have is a fissile or even combustible Kashmir. The governing idiom that then becomes operative in Kashmir is “control”. That is, control of Kashmir and controlling Kashmiris. Containment and management of the conflict becomes the natural and default reflex of powers that be in Kashmir and outside Kashmir. The overall consequence is that Kashmir remains in thrall of history and that history repeats itself here.

The question is: can these conditions be remedied?

Yes but the answer is contingent.

It depends on reversing the institutional grid that obtains in Kashmir and rebuilding these in consonance with the needs of the people. The idea here is not merely governance and government but the sub and super institutional structure that has become path dependent in Kashmir. But this means putting the cart before the horse, to speak. This revamp or rebuilding can only work when history is confronted in Kashmir. That is, when a genuine and sincere approach that probes deeper into the historical issues of Kashmir is instituted and the truth confronted. In specific terms, it means a sober conflict resolution paradigm which departs from hackneyed and sterile ones is adopted. This would mean a paradigm that is a multi-stakeholder and a win-win for all. It is only when this paradigm is considered and then instituted that Kashmir will no longer be a prisoner of history and a fresh beginning can be made. Is this paradigm forthcoming? Have protests 2016 concentrated the minds of powers that be and directed their energies to discover this paradigm? No is the sad answer. What, instead, we have is a power game. Alas!

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