(Mani Shankar Aiyar is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha)
In the week that has seen Mahatma Gandhi's statue being unveiled beside Winston Churchill's in London's Westminster Square, the question surely arises: what do governments gain by jailing political dissidents? Certainly, in the end, Gandhi, the convict, won and Churchill, the jailer, lost. Ditto Nelson Mandela, whose statue also stands in the same square. Home Ministers who arrest those they do not like might win temporary kudos, but inevitably, a term in prison enhances rather than diminishes an activist's reputation among his present and potential followers. It does not snuff out the cause for which he seeks incarceration.
With judicial hanging, the impact is even more decisive. Bhagat Singh remains an icon. Afzal Guru, who in his lifetime was a marginal player, has now acquired cult status as a martyr among his growing band of followers. His remains remain buried in an obscure, unmarked grave in Delhi's prison grounds, but memorials to him are being erected in the hearts of many, many Kashmiris. We have offered a hostage to fortune by hanging him - and hanging on to what is left of him.
There are only two ways of resolving disputes: the authoritarian way of putting away the other side on the principle of 'out of sight, out of mind'; or the democratic way of discussion, dialogue, negotiation. The problem with the former is that 'out of sight' does not take away from the mind's eye. Indeed, the silenced one put away from his followers gains immensely by being portrayed (and portraying himself) as one prepared to be punished for his beliefs - especially when he cheerfully accepts his punishment and even urges the unjust judge to be as severe in unjust judgement as the unjust law provides. The world discovered this in 1922 when Gandhiji was arraigned in front of the Ahmedabad district sessions court judge. At Gandhiji's instance, the poor man pronounced the harshest sentence possible, but then, in open court, expressed the hope that the executive would see fit to reduce or remove the sentence. Gandhi at that moment emerged as the Mahatma, not only in the eyes of his followers (who had long regarded him a Mahatma) but to an ever-widening world-wide circle of admirers that has now resulted in the irony of Gandhi standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the same Churchill who had once denounced him as a "seditious fakir", under the benign gaze of the same Parliament where Churchill had so traduced him!
Afzal Guru would not have attained martyrdom status if he had been found guilty of a palpable crime, as Ajmal Kasab was. There was simply no doubt in anyone's mind - not even Kasab's - that he was guilty as charged. In Afzal's case, the case against him was fuzzy, so fuzzy that first the High Court discarded much of the evidence against him as being unproved or improperly obtained, followed by the Supreme Court relying exclusively on "circumstantial evidence" to sentence him to death avowedly to satisfy the "collective conscience" of the country. It led to a collective howl of disapproval in the Valley that propelled the PDP to a massive win in Kashmir in the December 2014 election. Since death cannot be reversed, even the PDP's arch opponent, the National Conference, demands the return to the family of the remains for a proper burial, a demand repeatedly endorsed by Omar Abdullah personally. While the issue festers, Afzal is perhaps as widely regarded as a martyr in Kashmir as he is regarded as a murderer in the rest of India. Keeping his remains in Delhi only causes the wounds in the Valley to fester further.
Temporary peace might be bought by keeping Alam incarcerated or Afzal's remains buried under an unidentified mound in Tihar. But a lasting solution to the challenge of Kashmir's emotional integration with India can come only through engagement. Of course, we will never succeed in changing the minds of hard-liners like Alam and Afzal, nor will they in bringing us round to their view. That is not the point of negotiation. The more germane goal would be to expose them as "unreasonable" to a larger public - if our cause is just. Delhi must reveal itself as "reasonable" to the people of Kashmir. That is the litmus test, failing which stones will be thrown in Srinagar while detention "advisories" are drafted in Delhi.
The three-person Interlocutors group, led by Dileep Padganokar and comprising Radha Kumar and MM Ansari, opened the gates to dialogue. Delhi has since refused to walk through the gate, giving the excuse to the separatists to do likewise. It is out of the question that the Hurriyat will simple go away, or that Alam will lose his young stone-pelters, or that the dead Afzal will lose his sheen. They have to be shackled with words, not fetters.
However, progress will not happen in a political vacuum. Unfortunately, what we have today in the State is a political vacuum with two incompatibles embracing each other opportunistically to come to power together - only to exercise power against each other. Optimists see in this unprincipled coalition the hope that the gulf between Jammu and Kashmir will be bridged. Realists would argue that a bridge cannot be jointly built if one party is building the bridge even as the other is bringing it down. There has to be engagement across the spectrum from RS Pura to Kargil, but we do not have engagement even between the two halves of the State government. That is why the first few weeks of the government have been so fragile. Differences are papered over only to burst wide open at the first move by either half.
The longer such a government lasts the more harm it will do before it finally bows out - which, as in the case of the similarly constituted Janata government of 1977-79, will happen sooner than later. Another election has to be held - perhaps before the year ends. One can only hope that would throw up a House united, not divided, as this one is, against itself.
Obviously the same cannot be said of a militant as wedded to violence as Masarat Alam, but there is no gainsaying that far from reducing his following, every jailing weds his circle of followers, The paradox is that very attempt to cut him to size merely make shim grow higher. He is a more formidable opponent in jail than is outside.
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