Indian Empire (and the Case of Kashmir) Author(s): SUVIR KAUL Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 46, No. 13 (MARCH 26-APRIL 1, 2011), pp. 66- 75 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41152287 Accessed: 11-01-2020 21:56 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic and Political Weekly This content downloaded from 134.114.107.39 on Sat, 11 Jan 2020 21:56:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Indian Empire (and the Case of Kashmir) SUVIR KAUL This essay asks what the history of modern empire Jammu and and Kashmir, 15 August 2010: Writing an of state formation within it can teach us about the formsSrinagar, of governance essay in post-colonial on the India persistence while living in a of colonial modes of thought and formation and functioning of the state in decolonised, city under constant curfew, where 57 demonstrators have been independent nations like India. It also considers killed and many morethe injured in police firing in the last two converse of this question - can an analysis months, of brings the to the crisis many of the certainties that usually centrality of a particular kind of state formation inform post-colonial to analyses the of an independent nation like India.1 There is first the startling realisation that the key terms of making of empire help us understand some of the anti-colonialism articulated by Indian nationalists (and 20th deeply undemocratic imperatives and neocolonial century movements for decolonisation generally) provide the in- ambitions of the postcolonial nation state tellectualtoday? and political frameworkIt of activists for the Kashmiri argues that crucial modes of governance, particularly cause - India is the colonial power; thethe Indian army and para- military an occupation force; members of the elected state relation between the militarised state and its subject government are collaborators and stooges of the central govern- populations that characterised colonial empires, ment; and senior bureaucrats,extend who are members of all-India civil to the present moment. In addition, it examines services, are administrators the whose job it is to deny any avenues situation of Jammu and Kashmir to show forhow Kashmiri self-determination. the Further, Kashmiri nationalists make it clear that their move- government of independent India has renewed both ment is not simply concerned with economic betterment. In colonial legislation and colonial attitudes to response deal to both thewith prime minister's and the chief minister's challenges to its authority, particularly from promises ofpopulations more jobs in the government and in the private sec- at its peripheries who wish to choose their tor,own they argue thatform their goal is political of self-determination and that they do not mobilise, and sacrifice lives, for bread alone. national political formation. Their movement is for azadi (freedom), a word once so dear to Indian anti-colonialism, except that it is now the Indian state that thwarts freedom. Kashmiri newspapers sympathetic to the desire for azadi are happy to reprint the work of Indian (and Pakistani) revolutionary poets - where once Sahir Ludhianvi and Faiz Ahmed Faiz spoke out against imperialists, their poems now pro- vide sustenance for the Kashmiri movement as it struggles against Indian domination. Conversely, the response of the Indian state - the central and state governments and the army and paramilitary forces whose highly intrusive presence warps civilian life in the Kashmir Valley - has been to treat the sustained protests as a law and order prob- lem and to respond with military might. Even when the prime minister and the home minister have spoken of Kashmir's "unique" status within the Indian union and of the need for an equally unique resolution, their promises lack purpose and con- viction, and in any case are treated by Kashmiris as only the latest attempts to mollify widespread political protests and thus enable This essay has benefited from discussion by the Race anda fraudulent, Empire Groupuneasy peace, as has happened repeatedly in recent at the University of Pennsylvania as well as from comments years. "Mainstream"by Tariq politicians, that is, elected officials who Thachil, Ania Loomba, Rohit Chopra and Sanjay Как. believeIt also in draws Jammu on and Kashmir's accession to India, lack credibility conversations with Parvaiz Bukhari and Aijaz Hussain. and are absent from public life. The only political figures who Suvir Kaul ([email protected]) is at the University matter today are members of the separatist Hurriyat alliance, of Pennsylvania. and Syed AH Shah Geelani is the most conspicuous among them. 66 march 26, 2011 vol XLVi no 13 GEX53 Economic & Political weekly This content downloaded from 134.114.107.39 on Sat, 11 Jan 2020 21:56:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms = REFLECTIONS ON EMPIRE Further, ideologues of Kashmiri independence formation (or in eventhe independent those nation has been the development who favour achieving the autonomy guaranteed of a bymassive Article security 370 apparatus of ostensibly to guard international the Indian Constitution) have developed denseborders, historicalbut in effect to ac- act internally against restive populations counts of the long Kashmiri struggle against contained,colonisers by thethat force goes of historical circumstance, within those back to the 16th century (first the Mughal conquest, borders. Indeed, then oneAfghan might argue that this security apparatus, rule, then Sikh, then Dogra, and now Indian). developed In sum, under themany cover ofof an aggressive, celebratory nationa- the political and ideological features of classic lism, is an20th important century element of the post-colonial state's claims anti-colonial movements are in place in the Kashmiri to legitimacy. struggle for self-determination. This essay will ask what the history of modern empire and of This reversal of India's post-colonial credentials state formation is why within other- it can teach us about the formation and wise progressive Indian intellectuals and politicians functioning ofhave the statefound in decolonised, independent nations like it so difficult to respond to the challenge posed India. by It willKashmir also consider (and the converse of this question - can an have been so slow to condemn the near-daily analysiskillings of theof centrality unarmed, of a particular kind of state formation to stone-throwing protestors by the Central Reserve the making Police of empireForce, help or us understand some of the deeply CRPF, and the state police). We have long undemocraticassumed theimperatives ethical and neocolonial ambitions of the post- gravitas of being inheritors of a proud anti-colonial colonial nation nationalism, state today? It will argue that crucial modes of and even though we have developed critiques governance, of the state particularly and ofthe relation between the militarised the functioning of democracy in India, we assume state and that its subjectthe state, populations that characterised colonial warts and all, is fundamentally post-colonial empires, in its extend self-concep- to the present moment. European imperial tion and functioning. That is, we are convinced nations that established the coloniesactions via battle and conquest, as the British of politicians, bureaucrats, and police and (East military India Company) officers did after 1757 in India, and held and vis-à-vis particular communities, no matter expanded how polarised,their territorial are holdings by building large armies using comprehensible within an analysis of the problems revenues and of taxes a fledge-raised from the subjects they ruled over. This ling democracy. Thus we document the travails territorial of andsignificant military legacy was inherited, in a "transfer of sectors of our democracy very well - our newspapers power", by the and government maga- of a newly independent India, which zines are not only full of exposés of corruption renewed and both official colonial mal- legislation and colonial attitudes to deal feasance, but also of substantive debates on with the challenges misappropria- to its authority, particularly from populations at tion of natural resources, tax revenues and its the peripheries developmental who wished to choose their own form of national capacities of the state. (or even sub-national) political formation. Further, as India However, in other areas of governance, the achievesself-righteous global economic and heft, the policing functions of the state, aggressive nationalism bred by our anti-colonial far from beinghistory whittled has down, are being rapidly enhanced to blunted our critiques of state functioning. dealPrecisely not only becausewith problems we at the borders, but also with any struggled against and dethroned an empire, we form believe of resistance that inde- mounted by mobilised citizens within, pendence inaugurated a fundamentally different whether form these of be sover-communities protesting large-scale industri- eign, constitutional rule that safeguards the statealisation from that displacesassuming them and alienates them from their any of the attributes of the colonial state. No livelihood, longer ordo people viceroys who wish to call attention to the age-old rule subjects; now elected officials rule in the socio-economic name, and withstructures the that are responsible for their electoral consent, of citizens. In key areas, historicalhowever, dispossession. the Indian state has confirmed and enhanced the doctrines and methods it India's Neocolonial Ambitions inherited from British colonial law and policy.