Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Arundhati Roy strikes again

Once again Arundhati Roy has political parties of all hues frothing at the mouth. This time it is her comments on Kashmir that have both side of the spectrum coming together. It is amazing see her achieve something so monumental by simply speaking her mind. Even major national calamities don’t have these parties speaking in the same voice.
Though I don’t generally agree with much of what she says on this one occasion I feel she has a point. For a very long time I have held the view that you cannot live with someone who doesn’t want to live with you. It is a simplistic argument but it holds true in any relationship. Be it a partner in a marriage or a grown child in a parent’s house or, on a larger scale, entire communities living in a country. This is especially true for a country like India which is an amalgamation of diverse identities who have come together to live under one constitution. The simple assumption is that we must want to belong to India for India as an idea to work.
In light of this India’s obsession with Kashmir just doesn’t make sense to me. Here is a community that hates Indians. They have been reluctant ‘Indians’ from the very beginning. They don’t feel the need to contribute to India in anyway. They have their own little world that is sustained by monies paid by the Indian tax payer. The Indian state has bent over backwards in trying to keep them happy over the last 6 decades. Special economic packages and constitutional acts have done nothing to endear the Indian state to the people of the valley. The political rhetoric is so strong that nothing India ever does will be good enough. The calls for azadi are today louder than ever. Frankly I think the time has come for India to cut its losses and let Kashmir go. India has spent far too much in human and economic terms on a piece of territory that is unproductive for Indian purposes and wholly unresponsive to any efforts made in amalgamating them in the Indian mainstream. In the end they have to want to be a part of India, they have to want to contribute to India and they have want to let their identities merge with India for this relationship to work. Otherwise it is a one way street. We give and give. They take and spit on us back. I quite agree with Arundhati; India needs azadi from Kashmir too.

1 comment:

Ravi said...

First of all I am sad about the passing away of Ravi Baswani. That's how I landed on your blog while searching for more info about him. May his soul RIP.

Good point about Kashmir. The fear is if Kashmir were to become part of Pak, then a biiger enemy is what worries India. Kashmiris however don't want to be part of Pak, but I see no other option for them to survive as they have China and India bordering them, and neither of wheom they trust.