Kashmiriyat

by Kunal Lunawat
Branford College, Yale 2011
Q. What are your first associations when you hear about this region?
A. Conflicts, struggles, armed barricades, hard-nosed diplomacy, human-rights violations, a frustrating and politicized status quo, cross-border terrorism, rising fundamentalism…

And so I began my journey into the Valley...

It was rather apt that the first few days of my stay were marked by the closure of the summer capital of the state, Srinagar. I was there to get a feel of what living in Kashmir is like, and truly bandhs, day-long curfews, had become an integral part of life in the region.

You would have to be ultra vigilant and in touch with your environment to find out the real reason behind the current shutdown in the city. It could be anything, from a mere political gimmick, to a preemptive move by the security forces and, sometimes, genuine public dissent at the current state of affairs in the city. What fascinated me the most was how these three factors merged into one another; often obliterating boundaries of individual reason and catalyzing one great mess, marked by sheer political ineptitude.

Take the Shopian rape case for instance. In a small town of the Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, two young women were raped and murdered this summer. A rather gory incident, despicable in all forms, was transformed into political mileage by the opposition. The call within the political circle seemed to be:

“A visit a day to Shopian,
Will make National Conference*
Go astray.”

(*National Conference is the ruling party in Jammu and Kashmir. Most of the political visits were made by the rulers of the Opposition in a bid to make the former unpopular.)

Impassioned and emotionally charged protestors took to the streets, provoking the armed forces to take action. There were barricades in sensitive areas, curfews in others, and monitoring throughout the region for fear of further repercussions. And while all this was happening, the state government, watched and mulled; a week later it set up a judicial inquiry into the incident which had been politicized, militarized, and sapped of any empathy for the victim’s family.

And while all this happened, I stumbled into these people…

We often hear of silver linings which line thick, dark masses of precipitation, but seldom come across one. Here, in the midst of standstill and chaos (Because both standstill and chaos are contradictory, yet visible in Kashmir. I guess it is nature’s beauty and man’s fight against it which make both co-exist.), I happened to meet a few people who introduced me to another side of Kashmir.

They were authors, economists, businessmen, professors and doctors: men and women who were determined improve the quality of life in their society. Yes they were affected by the debilitating political dispute, but they were also driven to look beyond it and work for the greater cause. In fact, many of them believed that by doing so, they would render the dispute sans its venom, the fear and instability that has plagued Kashmir since 1991.

And these people introduced me to what Kashmir once was…

Nature at its purest and hospitality at its best. This other Kashmir – places like Sonamarg, Gulmarg and Pahalgaon - was testimony to its claim of being paradise on Earth. These regions lay in stark contrast to the rest of the valley, almost unperturbed by the conflict which had afflicted its surroundings.


Was it Nature herself that had stood her ground and made it impossible for state and non-state actors to extend the turmoil in these regions? No. There is something more. The firm resolve of people to stay unaffected by what was happening around them, the resilience of the local populace to remain this way, come what may, and an inherent desire to retain the spirit of Kashmir had left the area in its virgin and truest form. This, I am told, was once known as Kashmiriyat, or the essence of what the Kashmir Valley stood for.

The name's Khan. Shahrukh Khan.

by Sarika Arya

Indians speak over 400 different dialects and devote themselves to as many different religions and spiritual followings. The country finds common ground in its worship of cricket players and movie stars who are demigods among the population of more than 1 billion. Among even these select few, some, like Shahrukh Khan, stand out as Herculean when compared to the rest.

Khan is an actor (he has been in more than 70 films), film producer, television host, and a Bollywood king; which is really film star royalty since Bollywood is the largest film industry in the world. Bollywood produces 850 films annually (about 2 films a day), while Hollywood churns out about 450 films annually. Khan is slowly gaining prominence among Western audience who were hitherto still clueless about Bollywood. In 2008 Newsweek named Khan one of the 50 most powerful people in the world.

So, Khan is an internationally recognized name: but, as the megastar realized, not always for the right reasons.

On Friday, at Newark Liberty International airport, Khan was detained for inspections. Immediately, tales of racial profiling hit Indian newsstands, enraging Khan’s extensive fan base. Apparently inspired by the incident, 'The Times of India’ published this affronted, defensive, (and oddly patriotic) segment:

My name is Khan? Too bad. SRK feels the heat of American paranoia.
Chidanand Rajghatta and Bharati Dubey, 15 August 2009

WASHINGTON/MUMBAI: “My name is Khan.” “Oh it is, is it? Step aside, please.”

The way it was related, that might well have been the opening exchange between Shahrukh Khan and an unnamed, uninformed, super-empowered US immigration official who had no idea (and didn’t care) that the man in front of him is the star of a film by the same name (My name is Khan), much less that he is a universal Bollywood icon.

SRK, as the actor star is known by his popular acronym, was asked to indeed step aside for a “secondary inspections” at Newark’s ironically named (in this context) Liberty International airport on Friday en route to an event to celebrate India’s Independence Day in Chicago, President Barack Obama’s hometown. But that was only after a “primary inspection.”

(Click the link above to read the entire piece on 'The Times of India' website.)

Apparently, Khan, who has travelled to the US before and was never singled out then, believes that he was questioned because of his Muslim name and heritage. “I told them I was a movie star,” he was quoted as saying. But Khan’s stardom did not shield him from detention and a barrage of irrelevant questions, excused away by security reasons.

It has become disturbingly easy to generalize notions of human rights, simplifying the particular down to vague umbrella terms like “security,” “peace,” and “freedom.” In doing so, specific human rights law has been forgotten as governments tries to forward greater, unspecific, ‘humanitarian’ missions. The means justifies the ends. America tortures for security, bombs for peace, and detains for freedom. Paraphrasing Harold Koh, Dean of Yale Law School, in recent times America, instead of being a country of “zero tolerance” has become a country of “zero accountability.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the US bureau of Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP’s) “suspicionless search policy” violates the constitutional rights and privacy rights, as well as the right to freedom of speech, inquiry, and association, of international travellers. CBP is even permitted to search laptops and other electronic devices of passengers, retaining their personal information indefinitely, regardless of whether they are suspected of wrongdoing in the first place. Human rights groups claim that CBP’s policies allow them to severely discriminate against travelers who are, or even appear to be, Muslim, Arab, or South Asian – those most associated with extremism and terrorism in light of the 9/11 attacks. Towards it end, the Bush administration issued a report to the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination stating it was making efforts to end racial profiling, but included an absolute reservation against previous U.N. recommendations concerning “national security” or “border integrity.” Bush- era policies have become status quo in airport security, although the Obama administration has pledged to reverse this effect.

Racial profiling in airports can actually undermine security initiatives. According to Reginal Shuford, a senior staff attorney with ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, “It is a dangerous and slippery slope when we allow our government to take away a person’s rights because of his speech or ethnic background. Racial profiling is illegal and ineffective and has no place in a democratic society.” This does not mean security should be absent in American airports; far from it. "American paranoia" is very much so justified, to a certain extent. Recent events prove that it is necessary, more than ever, to maintain high vigilance – especially in ports of entry. But nations must be careful that in protecting human rights and civil liberties, they do not actually provoke and instigate the desire to revolt against such measures. For instance, detaining international Muslims is not a good way to promote peace and gain respect for democracy in an already alienated part of the world. Continental Airways employees are still suffering the backlash of frisking A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a Muslim, Indian V.V.I.P (very very important person), and, not to mention, the former president of India, before he boarded a flight to New York back in April 2009. A standard security procedure should be required for all travelers (whether they be tourist, businessman, movie star or president) but further detention should only be implemented when suspicion is warranted by very specific behavior – one’s ethnic makeup does not qualify as a security breach that justifies a round of humiliating questions, full body pat- down, and retainment of one's private documents, in an isolated back room. In the case that security officials grossly misjudge someone, apologies, for the goodwill of all, must be made. Being treated in an otherwise degrading manner would only encourage hateful sentiments, fuelling desire to actually commit an act of terrorism. Big ideas about human rights can be reinforced and actually achieved by ensuring the detailed intricacies of human rights, those rights enshrined in national and international law, are respected.

US officials disputed the claim that Khan was detained. CBP stated that the agency routinely questioned foreigners and that Khan was questioned for exactly 66 minutes – not, as is being reported, 2 hours. Following intervention by American and Indian officials, Khan was ultimately released and is now focusing on completing his next film, which has since become a kind of art-imitates-life-piece, “My Name is Khan,” in which Shahrukh stars as a man subjected to racial profiling in America.