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Book Review

Anuradha Bhasin, A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir after Article 370, Gurugram: HarperCollins, ISBN 978-93-629-608-4, pp. 386, Rs. 699/-.

Anuradha Bhasin hit the national headlines with her challenge in the Supreme Court on the government disconnecting Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) from India and those living there from each other by turning off the internet as part of its massive crackdown to usher in Naya Kashmir with the evacuation of Article 370 of all meaning. It was a courageous standing up to authoritarianism by Bhasin, a senior editor distressed by her inability to pursue her professional calling as a consequence of all communication conduits lapsing between her and her team in Kashmir. The government won that round, only reluctantly and in ‘due course’ allowing light back into and on Kashmir, and that too only in fits and starts.

Bhasin does the Indian nation another favour in writing up this book, a body blow to the government’s narrative on Kashmir. Even though one and half crore tourists visited the region last year and the statistics of those meeting a violent deaths in the insurgency there are comparatively negligible, no one is under the illusion that the situation in Kashmir has stabilized. No wonder the government advisedly keeps the security forces in places that it had pumped in prior to its move on Article 370.

It has rightly been said, ‘there are lies, damned lies and statistics.’ Bhasin unsparingly exposes the grand lies on Kashmir. How bad the situation is can best be put in her own words:

The Indian government can use all its power to subjugate and suppress the local peoples in J&K and their multiple and complex aspirations for now, but it cannot sustain this till eternity (p. 295)…. Breathing beneath the behemoth of silence is a deceptive volcano, which could erupt in a chaos of different forms and varied voices. What would be its dominant articulation – frightening, violent rage or a kaleidoscope of ideas and vision? That moment is yet to come.

Assuming that the landslide victory in the national elections on the back of the Pulwama-Balakot episode had given the government the backing for widespread change, Narendra Modi used the moment to hammer home the long standing pledge of the right wing: to ‘integrate’ Kashmir into India. This to the Hindu nationalist government meant ending the special relationship signified by Article 370 that J&K maintained with the rest of India. While Article 370 allowed J&K relative autonomy and Article 35A permitted protection of its land and livelihood of its people, the two were nullified through a parliamentary procedure that has yet to face judicial accountability.

While the Supreme Court dallies on when to take up the raft of challenges to the neutralisation of Article 370 on both procedural and substantive grounds, the government has gone on to walk the talk on integration. Knowing that is would be unpopular, it has maintained its dragnet, toting up statistics on Kashmiri youth killed for futilely taking to the gun in despair. Bhasin’s is a blow by blow account of how the State is going about its scheme and the implications of the changes being taken by fiat and absolutely no reference to the people. This holding of democracy in abeyance is lamented, as are the consequences of political arrogance and bureaucratic vandalism on the Rule of Law and the very laws themselves.

Bhasin’s critique covers the whole gamut: political, security, legal, social and economic. With three decades of experience in journalism behind her, Bhasin is able to tap not only the strategies of political leaders but also the sentiment in common folk. She spices up a narrative that could otherwise get dull - it traverses legal details - with the human element, using the voice of the marginalized to tell of the impositions and hardships Hindutva’s liberation of Kashmir has wrought them. The hopes and fears of Gujars and Bakarwals, of lower caste Hindus, of those living along the Line of Control, of shikara paddlers and forgotten Kashmiris come alive through her pen.

Though as a strategy the government has momentarily shifted Kashmiri demands away from meaningful autonomy to statehood, that it continues to dither on conceding the latter shows that its intent is not problem solving or conflict resolution inspired, but merely to pile on humiliation. In a post Article 370 scenario, restoration of statehood by inclusion of another subclause to Article 371 is the way to go. However, with the government denying Sixth Schedule status even to Ladakh, it is unlikely to oblige. The impetus for such strategy-defying logic is in an ideological animus that makes Kashmiris doubly-damned, their being Muslim too.

Bhasin engages also with the development aspect, since it is the legitimizing plank of the government. She cites data to reveal how land laws are being tweaked to acquire land and evict those settled on it. As a native of Jammu, she worries how the developmental model of the plains – based on road building and widening and siting of industrial centers – will impact the fragile environment. Joshimath had not happened by when she wrote the chapter. It’s a pity that the juggernaut will role on since that’s the model in the rest of India, into which Kashmir is being integrated.

The book has copious end notes, doing credit to her current status as a fellow at Stanford University. The only glitch spotted is where she dates the Mumbai terror attack to 2007 (p. 222). Its chapterisation is logical, allowing for a comprehensive coverage of the past three years in Kashmir. A quote from this reviewer also finds mention (p. 114), making it only fair to disclose that Bhasin as editor of Kashmir Times oversaw some 100 opinion pieces by this reviewer over the years. Her book informs that the archives of her newspaper have since gone missing in the cyber world, no doubt part of information operations executed by the State.

The book is a recommended read, particularly for non-Kashmiris. What is happening in Kashmir is a negation of the democracy. It is already visibly and painfully getting clear that jackboots on democracy anywhere endanger democracy everywhere. The book must also be prescribed reading for those in the counter insurgent State apparatus on how not to do counter insurgency. It is true that they are hampered by the preceding political prong Their self-congratulations shall prove rather premature when trends identified by Bhasin in her book eventuate in their logical conclusion.

We can only thank her parents, to whom the book is dedicated, who taught Bhasin to write and to speak the truth fearlessly. She has done them proud, and, in the bargain, done India a national service in bringing to light the ‘untold story of Kashmir’ in face of an authoritarian State’s massive propaganda effort to efface reality. That with such truth telling she opens up herself to paying a personal price is to her credit.