Kashmir Conflict –Through esthe eyes of Indian Muslims

This article was published in Rising Kashmir based on mine and Khalid's interview on 24 August 2010.

Nasrun-Min-Ullah-Mir
New Delhi, August24: He is smart, he is sparkling, he is youthful, and loves to wear clothes from United Colors of Benetton – Khalid Mussana in many ways is the face of young educated Muslims living in urban India. But this 'cool' image could be disguising: sometimes sipping tea with his beloved friends from Aligarh Muslim University in posh New Friends Colony in South Delhi, Khalid discusses the plight of Indian Muslims.

His anguish makes me sob as he remembers what happened to his friends from Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh in 2008 who, like him, came to the national capital for a better future, but destiny made them the victim of alleged fake encounters of Delhi Police.
Kashmir may not be at top of his agenda, but Khalid does share an understanding about the issue. “I fully believe it’s more an identity struggle rather than religious; if not, I would not have felt the race issue with some of my friends.”
Khalid is a product of AMU, where he befriended many Kashmiris during his varsity years and, after coming to Delhi, he shared the housing with few. This regular exposure developed a perception that Kashmiris consider themselves ‘a finer race’ over Muslims from the rest of India. For Khalid, there is a profound cultural divide between Kashmiri and Indian Muslims, which to him goes deep into the history.
Islam came to the sub-continent, including Kashmir, on same cord of Sufism.
However, Khalid got a fresh look to his reservation when he visited Kashmir a few months back in the backdrop of attending the wedding of a friend and felt very generous with Kashmiri hospitality. This visit made him understand the Kashmir Conflict in a new light.
“I have realized one thing after seeing the CRPF at every nook and corner of Kashmir valley: if any government fails to bring a free and peaceful space for its citizens, it has no right to claim that the people belong to it. Problem is with political chessboard that engulfs the lives of hundreds of youth – police and army are just puppets.”
Reciting the couplet of Sir Mohammad Iqbal, in which the great Islamic poet refers the whole World as one nation for Muslim brotherhood, Khalid’s friend Yasir Taiyab, who works in Dubai and is married to a Kashmiri girl, relates Kashmir struggle purely to identity which, according to him, has nothing to do with religion.
“Islam does not promote the concept of nationalism. In Islam there are only two nations, Muslims and Non-Muslims. Thus to associate Jihad and Islam with Kashmir is baseless,” Taiyab said.
This nuptial bond has exposed Taiyab to Kashmir more directly than most of the Indian Muslims, but still as an Indian citizen, Taiyab does not support the cause of autonomy or complete independence of Kashmir. Taiyab articulates his views actively over social networking site Facebook, where he discourses and puts forth his observations. Sometimes the debate stretches for days as fumed arguments buzz the walls of social networking web portal. However, he supports the demilitarization and wants an immediate end to human rights violation in the region.
For Taiyab, Muslim society has suffered a lot during the Partition, in which thousands of people died in riots, majority of them Muslims. For Taiyab, the event in history has put his community on the backfoot but he sees a better future in guys like himself and Khalid and somewhere down the line believes that Kashmir’s aspiration for independence will hurt Muslims in India.
“At this juncture, when the Muslim community is expecting a ray of hope, we cannot support a lingual minority (incidentally Muslim) to push the entire community into the vain,” Taiyab said.