The Yuppie Brigade and the Koshur Revolution

The Yuppie Brigade and the Koshur Revolution

By Shailendra Aima

Some Yuppies indulging on the FB and brandishing themselves as game changers and moderate Samaritans, have taken upon themselves the Kashmiri cause.  Nothing strange then that their attempts aim to yuppify Kashmir and its society. They create an impression that their wishful imagination and plans about the valley auger well for its future and point to a renaissance that is on the anvil. They draw their conclusions and rationalizations on the following basis of what HAS and what HASN'T changed over the last 20 years in Kashmir:

WHAT HAS CHANGED

1. That the militancy has been quashed and that local people don't support militancy anymore. 
2. That Kashmir has been having successive elected governments since 1996.
3.  That there is a healthy political divide among the Kashmiri Muslims in the valley; this ‘divide’ encapsulates co-existence which is unlike the almost unanimous support that Islamists found 22 years ago.
4. That even the Islamists’ parties are showing interest in reinventing their politics and transforming their mode of engagement, with the separatist leaders making noises about the return of Kashmiri Pandits; and that this is a sea change from not giving a damn about the fate of the Pandits two decades ago.
5. That the exiled Pandits are revisiting the valley more often now; and that 19 years ago no KP would even think of going to the valley.
6. That the Kashmiri Pandits are actually settling down in the valley, and that this return would generate a critical mass once enough paradigms are created.

WHAT HAS NOT CHANGED

1. That some Pandit organizations like Panun Kashmir still sustain the fears of their audience about militancy. Similarly, separatists cherry pick rare incidents involving armed forces and recount such lists to sustain the feeling of being 'occupied'.
2. That the separatists (Azadiwallahs and Panun Kashmitr) want to remain in the state of Emergency. Both do not want Peace to return to the valley, as that would undermine their politics and make them irrelevant.
3. That despite a healthy opposition from their own communities, and lay-separatists (Azadiwallahs / PKites), feeling at cross roads and indulging in introspection; their ideologues will never change.

Therefore, for this Yuppie Brigade what stands in the way of Kashmir and the process of Yuppification are primarily the Panun Kashmir and the Azadiwallahs.  Before we examine the contours of the hurdles being created by Panun Kashmir, let’s examine what I mean by Yuppification of the Kashmir and what is this envisaged glorious Revolution and what it is not. 

1. Most of these Yuppies pride in being agnostics and atheists and hence their claim to secularism.  Secularism for them is not what we construe as “sarva dharma sambhava”or “ekam sada, viprah bahuda vadanti”, as the Indian State, the Supreme Court of India or the Indian seers as well as political leaders across the parties have defined and delineated.  Secularism for this Yuppie Brigade is exclusion of religion and spirituality from the lives of the people and the idiom of the state; perhaps similar to what the Stalinist and Maoist regimes foisted upon their people and states.  They strongly believe that religion is divisive and once it is obliterated from the body politic and minds of individuals, there would be less conflicts and more harmonization.
2. The Yuppie Brigade also finds any references to the civilizational and cultural past of Kashmir an anathema. They see history and civilization of Kashmir as a narrative of conflicts, suppression, discrimination and an ugly reality of “Jati and varna”. For them there is no “Sanskrit” language which can be traced back to a certain linguistic (ethnic) community but a superimposed variety of various Indo-Aryan dialects, deliberately constructed and kept untouched and maintained to be “different”.  The historiographic accounts, literary and philosophical treatises and poetic creations, running into thousands of manuscripts and centuries of prolific creation in Kashmir in Sanskrit, for them are meaningless and redundant in the existential domain of Kashmir and the envisaged Revolution.
3. To this Yuppie Brigade, a Sanskriized Hindi is an artificial, deliberate and a Hindutava intrusion; but a Persianized or Urduized lingo is more natural and coherent with the cultural substratum of Kashmir, and in fact the Hindustan.  All such individuals, specialists and experts who use Sanskritized lingo for expressing and articulating themselves and the issues, are intruders and deliberate hegemonic pedants trying to destroy the sense of brotherhood and bonhomie, that for them existed before 1989 in Kashmir. In fact, these Yuppies don’t question the academic worth of these pedants but question their deplorable repute and compare them to Nazis and Hitler for their destructive potential.
4. For this Yuppie Brigade pre-1989 is an important bench-mark of normalcy in Kashmir.  They yearn to return to 1989 and make that a launch pad for the new Revolution in Kashmir. This Yuppie Revolution envisages to make Kashmir a hub of happiness and prosperity with all modern endowments – a place generating wealth – by exploiting the resources and potentials of this paradise on earth; Kashmir to be brought to a level of a Las Vegas, beginning with Malls and Pubs, Casinos, beautiful surroundings etc.. The entrepreneurs and dynamic yuppie moderators would capitalise on its intrinsic beauty and add to it a dash of materialism and voila. They believe that with money strewn all around, Kashmir is a virtual gold mine that just needs to be drilled at the right place and at right time.
5. Therefore, this Kashmir will not have the Islamists conjuring up their dreams of Islamization, nor would it have the Hindu pedants and scholars clamouring for reviving the spiritual, artistic and literary traditions of the yore.  It shall have an all pervasive yuppification generating wealth, modernization, utilitarianism and a “modern world order”.  It shall bring Kashmir much closer to the western European standards and make it an Abu Dhabi, a Dubai, a la Las Vegas of the Himalayas, in fact of the entire sub-continent.  And English shall be the lingua franca, Roman the calligraphic art.  In deed when recently the issue of Devanagari versus Nastalic had emerged, and some pedants did propose for conserving the traditional Sharda script, the yuppies voiced a strong opinion in favour of Roman as the script for Kashmiri language.
6. In this Kashmir, one would not witness the traditional pilgrims en route the Amarnaths and Baba Reshis; but the surroundings of Dal Lakes, and Pahalgams and Gulmargs would echo and reverberate with the beats of Jazz; the night clubs mixing the aromas of Kashmiri delicacies and free flowing wines; and a blend of cabarets with Koshur Chhakkari; a fusion of Rasool Mir with John Lenon, of Lalded with Shakira. Yes, of course, the ruins of Martand, Awantipur, Pattan should add to their glory the modern vandalism wrecked upon existing temples and shrines, brightly illuminated and attracting tourists like the pyramids in Egypt and the archaic Rome. 

Thus far, for the Yuppie Revolution; and now to what is the hurdle:  “PANUN KASHMIR (PK)” as the Yuppies claim. I can’t speak for the Islamists who too are on the Yuppie list as potential adversaries.

Panun Kashmir has emerged as a strong voice of the displaced Hindus of Kashmir who have been subjected to a genocidal attrition and ethno-religious cleansing by the separatist Islamists in Kashmir.  It articulates their plight and socio-cultural and political voice. It has demanded creation of a Homeland for rehabilitation of the victims of cleansing in Kashmir Valley, and for placing this Homeland under a Union Territory Status to be governed directly by the Indian state.  Panun Kashmir has articulated its doubts regarding the democratic governance in the state of Jammu and Kashmir because of Article 370 that prevents free flow of the enabling provisions of the Indian Constitution in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

Panun Kashmir over the last 20 yrs of its existence has been concerned about the identity of the Kashmiri Hindus and has been articulating the imperatives of saving this identity, which it believes has a rich Sanskrit content.  It also believes that the ancestors of the Hindus of Kashmir were in fact the proponents of the Sanskrit Civilization and immensely contributed to its enrichment and diffusion across the Himalayas, deep into Central Asia, Tibet and China.  The Sanskrit pedants and scholars of Kashmiri origin throng Panun Kashmir and provide it a mystique, besides they also bring with them the larger hues of other enriching influences and scholastic pursuits. Panun Kashmir thus becomes a hamper and a crucible at the same time, churning ideas and redefining arts and aesthetics, poetry and literature, society and economics that have shaped the history and politics of the Vale and its people over millennia.

This entire gamut of activities, concerns, objectives and imperatives of Panun Kashmir are an anathema to the so-called resolution and reinventing the 1989 bench-mark of normalcy in Kashmir and precludes the unleashing of a Yuppie Revolution. The Yuppie Brigade cries foul to a deconstruction of the “All was well before 1989” theory, it affronts calling the Sufi Islam a proselytizing creed and jeers the propensity of the Panun Kashmir to drill holes in the Kashmiriyat quest of a sub-regional nationalist idiom of a Kashmiri identity.  So to them Panun Kashmir is an enemy that is creating insecurity and pontificating with a sense to deepen distress and schisms among the stake-holders and to block the cherished return of the displaced Hindus to the valley.  The Yuppies believe that Islamic terrorism stands defeated in Kashmir, that the Muslims of Kashmir who 22 yrs ago were seen unanimous in unleashing an Islamic Revolution are a changed lot, and that political diversity in the valley is a precursor of an acceptance of  co-existence.  They welcome the separatists’ call for return of Hindus, though doubting it as a tactical ploy.

The Yuppies advise the displaced Pandits to latch on to the Prime Minister’s package on return and rehabilitation, accept the class III and class IV jobs being doled out as a coercive return formula; and forget about the issue of ethnic cleansing and its reversal and stop talking about the guarantees against future refoulment. In fact, the Yuppies seem frantic for a token-return of the exiles and brandish statistics that even the Union Minister of Home found implausible to confirm regarding the return of “Kashmiri Migrants” on the floor of the Indian Parliament. In December 2011, the Union Minister of State for Home, Jitendra Singh told the Lok Sabha that a “package of 1,618 crore rupees was sanctioned for return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants in the valley in 2008. But so far no family has returned.”

Who are these Yuppies?  In fact, you will find these Yuppies across the political and sectarian spectrum of Kashmiris, more among the NRK (non-resident Kashmiri) types; those that have served the multi-national corporates, slogged their worth and earned their own pound of flesh, each with a few million dollars as part of the moolah in their kitty. They are desperate to invest in Kashmir,  replicate their model of growth and be the head honchos, the Koshur knockers and the game changers. Most of them, especially the Yuppie leadership, are in their late-fifties and early sixties, finding every passing day a missed opportunity, desperate on counting days and growing old. And here you have, the Panun Kashmiris – reconstructing the idiom of justice and values, blending spirituality and morality with growth, development and human excellence; archaic and clumsy, complicating the affairs.

“Knock down, knock down!” yell the Yuppies, “Buy the Revolution!”