181 thoughts on “Jingoism in the blogosphere”

1. best.

2. Abhi, I think you should have expected some kind of a reaction when you brought up such a controversial topic by someone who seems to have an agenda (no, that is not my imagination), specifically a communist agenda. I read an article in The Guardian (may have been linked in these comments) where extolled the economic progress made by China under Mao. And then he goes on to compare the food security situation under Mao and subsequent regimes. Does this person have ANY credibility?

   Btw, it’s unfortunate that you should be called names for simply paraphrasing Mishra, but I think calling Pankaj Mishra an arch traitor is not too far off the mark.

   Amardeep, pray why must every positive article about India be necessarily be “balanced” by an article about how selfish the Indian rich and the noveau rich are, and how the benefits of globalisation are not reaching the poorest? Even if India’s upper classes constitute even 400 or 300 million, that’s a lot of selfish people. I’m sure you have read Das’ India Unbound, and it has a definite optimist tone, but it is by no means a book that paints an overly rosy picture. The spectacular growth and desperate poverty are both facts, but idiotic socialist policies are what perpetuated much of the poverty in the first place.

3. Abhi,

   I’m writing this comment after reading only about 30 of the comments in the interesting discussion, so I hope you and other SM readers forgive me if I’m repeating something. I’m writing this comment because my posts on Chittisinghpora have been cited and also because I recently wrote a piece fisking Pankaj Mishra.

   Even after the hundreds of positive articles about India that have been published this past year, a jingo cannot let such a few critical comments pass without stringing Mishra up. How dare his criticisms reach impressionable readers in a place like the NY Times op-ed page? This is an insult to India!

   Since your post is about jingoistic responses to such articles, perhaps my account of why I debunked Mishra’s claims and conclusions will help this discussion.

   The reason I thought Mishra’s claims needed addressing is not because it is an obligation arising from a (misplaced) sense of patriotism. Rather, because it either misunderstood or misrepresented many facts to lend support to its conclusion. There are several articles critical of India, for example in the survey of Indian business in The Economist a few weeks ago, but these are notable for the proper use of facts to arrive at their conclusions. Far from condemning them as anti-India, I would welcome such analysis regardless of who actually makes those arguments.

4. It has been interesting to read the debate so far and to see that no Kashmiri has voiced an opinion. So here goes: I was in Kashmir when the Sikhs were massacred and I don’t recall meeting anyone in the valley who believed the government story about it–these suspicions were confirmed when the five ‘terrorists’ turned out to be innocent villagers kidnapped, killed and mutilated in cold blood by the army. Do you expect us to give a clean chit to the army on the basis of this brutality and countless other brutalities? My request to fellow participants is: it is all very well to express opinions and examine each other’s writings sitting in America and India but please try to understand how the Kashmiris see such events as the massacre of the Sikhs after so many killings of innocent people. Kumar: Are you the same Kumar who wrote to New York Review of Books? Here is your letter and Mishra’s response in case people missed it.

   ‘Death in Kashmir’: An Exchange By Soma Kumar, Vivek Gumaste, Reply by Pankaj Mishra

   In response to Death in Kashmir (September 21, 2000)

   To the Editors:

   Pankaj Mishra’s articles on Kashmir [“Death in Kashmir,” NYR, September 21, 2000; and “The Birth of a Nation,” NYR, October 5, 2000] tend to overlook one of the greatest tragedies that has befallen independent India. While his efforts to highlight the plight of the Muslim majority of Kashmir are to be appreciated, he conveniently ignores an important aspect of this issue: the Kashmiri Hindus. The selective killing of Hindus by the Muslim militants prompted, according to his own estimate, more than 130,000 Hindus (who are in a minority in the state of Kashmir) to flee the valley. Never before in independent India have such a large number of its citizens been driven from their homes permanently because they belonged to a different religion and yet the plight of nearly a quarter-million refugees merits but a footnote in the writings of Pankaj Mishra. When the Pakistani army let loose a reign of terror in Bangladesh in 1971, nearly ten million Bangladeshis crossed over to India. The number of refugees is directly proportional to the degree of victimization. If the atrocities perpetrated by the Indian army on the Kashmiri Muslims are so widespread and gruesome as Pankaj Mishra claims, then why are the Muslims not fleeing the valley? Why are not refugees pouring into Pakistan?

   Truth, honesty, and objectivity are the essential ingredients of good writing, not style alone.

   Vivek Gumaste

   Cresskill, New Jersey

   To the Editors:

   There is compelling justification for sending the following critique of the three-part article by Pankaj Mishra on Kashmir [NYR, September 21, October 5, and October 19, 2000]. It comprises a mélange of human interest stories about unfortunate civilians caught in the zone of paramilitary operations and of the loathsome behavior of those charged with maintaining law and order. The use of armed force to control civilian unrests invariably results in repulsive situations; one has only to recall the televised images of the dozens of such confrontations that occur all over the world, including the extrication of eleven-year-old Elián Gonzalez from the arms of his self-appointed guardians in Miami, Florida, in May 2000 and the storming of Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, in 1993.

   Unquestionably, the handling by the government of India of the crises that continuously arose in the region were, at times, inept and lacking in sensitivity. Mishra, unfortunately, projects the impression that the blame for the current sordid situation should be borne exclusively by the successive administrations of India. He provides only anecdotal evidence, rumors, and conjectures to accuse the Indian security forces of heinous crimes. Two examples should suffice. The detailed account (Article 1, September 21) of the massacre of thirty-five Sikhs in a village which occurred while President Clinton was visiting India, last March, is followed by the suggestion that this monstrous act was perpetrated by the Indian forces themselves. They are then reported to have forged evidence to implicate the terrorists from across the border. As the basis for this astounding allegation Mishra recounts the shoddy handling of potentially important evidence. Is the latter, realistically, so unusual in places where disasters of such magnitude occur repeatedly? He adds that local people do not “believe” that a proper investigation will ever be conducted by the government. Is it not then the responsibility of a reputable journalist to explore further and to unearth better bases for making such a serious charge than quote the incompetence of those in control and the beliefs of unnamed people? The second example (Article 3, October 19), equally odious, is the exodus of 140,000 Kashmiri Hindus from the Srinagar Valley in 1990 and most of whom still live in refugee camps in Jammu and New Delhi. Mishra writes that many Kashmiris believe (sic) that the then governor of Kashmir arranged to have the Hindus out of the way while he “dealt” with the Muslim guerrillas. He did not care to address any of the numerous legitimate questions such a claim raises, including the most important one of what would persuade such a large number of people to leave their ancestral homes forever, if they felt safe there.

   Stripped of the consequences of all the actions over decades by the various individuals and parties concerned, the basic events and facts that are indisputable are: (1) Kashmir acceded to India according to the rules agreed upon by both India and Pakistan at the time for the partition of the subcontinent. (2) The intelligentsia of Kashmir did not subscribe to the two-nation theory propounded by the founder of Pakistan. This is clearly stated in his autobiography, Flames of the Chinar, by Sheikh Abdullah, Kashmir’s first prime minister. The Lion of Kashmir was more attracted to the declared Indian model of economic and social changes than by the feudal and theocratic system that Pakistan was expected to adopt. (3) The only basis for Pakistan’s claim to Kashmir is the religious identity of the majority of its population. The acquisition of Kashmir is perceived as being necessary for the vindication of the two-nation theory, more so after the secession of East Pakistan, now Bangla- desh. (4) The emergence of the present-day India, secular and democratic, followed the rough course that was foreseen. Forging a single nation out of such a large, economically and culturally dis- parate, multireligious, multiethnic, and multilingual population was a formidable undertaking. Often the political leaders, many undoubtedly corrupt, were not equal to the daunting challenges that had to be faced. (5) Finally, it is significant that none of the more than two dozen states of India has been free of disaffection or strife. These were eventually contained in all but the few states that shared a border with another country, both in the northwest and the northeast. In these states the dissidents obtained, or were proffered, aid from across the border which enabled them to keep the insurgency active.

   Mishra did not see fit to include any of the above aspects in his discourse. The style he employed, long descriptions of a few selected incidents, interspersed with remotely relevant histories and ethnic origins of the population, is more suited for a semi-fictional narrative. It is inappropriate for a chronicle of serious political developments. Passionate focus on specific incidents has distorted the portrait of the grave tragedy in Kashmir beyond measure.

   Soma Kumar

   Professor Emeritus

   Georgetown University

   Washington, D.C.

   Pankaj Mishra replies:

   I can’t find the footnote to which Vivek Gumaste accuses me of reducing the plight of Kashmiri Hindus who fled Kashmir in the early days of the anti-India insurgency. But if he looks up the concluding part of my article [“Kashmir: The Unending War,” NYR, October 19, 2000] he will find a long account of a visit to the refugee camps in Jammu where many of the poorer Hindus live in conditions of extreme wretchedness, ignored by the same Hindu nationalist organizations that had once used their plight to incite anti-Muslim hysteria in India.

   Unlike Gumaste, Professor Soma Kumar appears to have read all three parts of my article. In fact, the evidence suggests that, if anything, he has read them so many times that he has trouble distinguishing between his own conclusions and mine. For instance, he faults me for omitting to note that the “the Lion of Kashmir [Sheikh Abdullah] was more attracted to the declared Indian model of economic and social changes than by the feudal and theocratic system that Pakistan was expected to adopt.” In my own remarkably similar assessment of Abdullah’s situation, I wrote that he shared Nehru’s “conviction that the old social and economic order of India…had to be destroyed through land reforms and centralized economic planning…. [He] also feared that the poor Muslims of Kashmir would get a bad deal in the feudal setup of Pakistan.” I discussed at length and actually broadly agree with Professor Kumar on all but one of the five “indisputable facts” listed by him. I am quite baffled by his ambitiously redundant list of my omissions, and can only suppose that he got a bit carried away by his eagerness to discredit me as a peddler of “semifictional narrative.”

   Let’s now look at the central theme of what might be Professor Kumar’s chronicle of “serious political developments.” Kashmir, he claims, “acceded to India according to the rules agreed upon by both India and Pakistan at the time for (sic) the partition of the subcontinent.”

   This has been the official Indian position right from the time of the accession of the princely state of Kashmir to India in 1947. It suppresses all the ambiguities surrounding, and compromising, the accession— some of which I explored in the second part of my article—in an attempt to assert that Kashmir is an integral part of India. To make it a point of departure in a discussion of Kashmir is to go nowhere; it is to merely indulge in a bit of patriotic tub-thumping. It is also to ignore the fact it was Pandit Nehru who as prime minister of India in 1948 publicly acknowledged Kashmir as disputed territory by referring the issue to the United Nations and promising to hold a plebiscite, in which Kashmiris would be offered a choice between India and Pakistan.

   Professor Kumar credits me with the “astounding allegation” that Indian security forces organized the mysterious event that inaugurated and overshadowed Bill Clinton’s visit to India in March 2000: the massacre of thirty-five Sikhs in a Kashmiri village called Chitisinghpura. I made no such allegation. I did, however, raise several questions about the brutal manner in which Indian security forces sought to blame Pakistan-based Muslim guerrillas for the massacre.

   Professor Kumar seems not to know that the official Indian version, always very shaky, has unraveled fast in the last few months. In October 2000, a courageous Indian judge, named Pandian, indicted seven Indian security men for firing upon and killing nine Kashmiri Muslims in a crowd of demonstrators. The demonstration was in protest against the murders of five innocent Kashmiris, whose corpses were defaced and presented to the national and international press by Indian security forces as Pakistan-backed terrorists responsible for killing the Sikhs in Chitisinghpura. The judge was naturally suspicious about the whole chain of unexplained events, beginning with the massacre of the Sikhs, and recommended an inquiry into it. Farooq Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, risked the disapproval of the central government in Delhi by announcing a judicial inquiry in late October 2000, a full six months after the massacre. It was welcomed by several Delhi-based newspapers and magazines that had gone along with the central government’s version in March; Chitisinghpura was visited again by journalists from Delhi.[1] A senior Kashmiri policeman now admits that Wagay, the Muslim peasant who, according to the Indian version, escorted the guerrillas to the Sikh village, was framed.[2] At this time I don’t think we’ll ever know who killed the Sikhs. To be a journalist in a battlefield is to see for the most part what you are allowed to see by the men with guns—it is a survivor, not a journalist, living in distant France who has dared to ask blunt questions about the role of the Algerian army in the much-reported massacres in Algeria in the late 1990s that were then routinely blamed upon Islamic fundamentalists.[3]

   As I write, the judicial inquiry into the massacre still hasn’t got off the ground; newspaper reports from Kashmir say that it has been quietly buried. In any case, I doubt if there would be an honest investigation into the Sikh massacre, since it can only produce results very damaging for the present Indian government in Delhi: quite apart from the conclusions it reaches about the killers of the Sikhs, it would inevitably end up exposing the brutalities and lies of the many Indian intelligence and security agencies operating in Kashmir.

   Professor Kumar accuses me of spinning out “human interest stories” about what he thinks are no more than a few “unfortunate civilians caught in the zone of paramilitary operations.” But the “zone” he refers to happens to be the home of four million Kashmiris, to which nearly half a million Indian soldiers have been sent out in order to fight no more than a few thousand guerrillas. Even the Indian government appears to be reconsidering its militarization of Kashmir as it declares a cease-fire and calls for peace talks. But no doubts exist for Professor Kumar. Maintaining law and order, he suggests, can be a dirty business—and so what of it? Consider this sentence in his very first paragraph: “The use of armed force to control civilian unrests invariably results in repulsive situations.” After all, “dozens of such confrontations…occur all over the world”—and here Professor Kumar attempts to justify state-inflicted violence in India by offering us the peculiarly American examples of Elián Gonzalez and Waco, as if the kidnapping of a six-year-old boy and an ill-judged assault on a cult headquarters can be compared to the death, torture, and maiming of tens of thousands of people in the course of a systematic decade-long suppression of a popular insurgency.

   Professor Kumar points, quite correctly, to the uniqueness of India’s nation-building experiment. But he makes the crucial mistake of assuming that the “emergence of the present-day India, secular and democratic,” is an irrevocable triumph, instead of the ongoing, deeply fraught process that it is. His repeated deployment of the past tense is revealing in this regard: “forging [India]…was a formidable undertaking”; “daunting challenges…had to be faced”; “disaffection and strife” were “eventually contained” (except of course in border states where, according to Professor Kumar, hostile neighbors are always ready to undermine India).

   My argument—that repeatedly frustrated Indian aspirations to secularism and democracy led to the insurgency in Kashmir—is bound to outrage Professor Kumar, who would rather blame it all on the viciousness of Pakistan instead of exploring the various ways in which the founding ideals of India have fared for the country’s diverse communities. Like many well-placed but powerless intellectuals, Professor Kumar has let himself be awed and infatuated with the apparent power and unity of big, heavily armed nation-states. Nationalist passions about India on a green campus in Washington may be more self-indulgent than harmful; but they are always likely to keep Professor Kumar from acknowledging the awkward and painful facts of what for India’s much less privileged millions is by no means a complete or successful transition to democracy and secularism. Notes

   [1] See The Times of India, The Indian Express, and The Hindustan Times, November 2, 2000; and Outlook, November 20, 2000.

   [2] See The Independent, London, December 5, 2000.

   [3] See The Economist, November 11, 2000; also see “A Kashmiri Mystery,” The New York Times Magazine, December 31, 2000.

5. though the logic of Krrish’s and Kush Tandon’s comments might require me to assert that you are.

   AK, I am afraid YOU are misreading Kush’s comment. Kush gave examples and proved that Mr. Mishra peddled incorrect information and claims in his articles. One has to make a claim or make a statement in order to be truthful or not. I never made any statements. All I did (in my comment #78) was try to explain Jing’s comment which I did not agree with. I never presented any claims.

6. Abhi

   My family was ethnically cleansed from the kashmir valley. Over a period of 10+ years (approx starting in 1985) they were repeatedly told to leave or else. Fortunately no one was physically harmed and while the state goverment did not protect my family members or secure their rights, it did help by relocating their (modest) jobs to the Jammu region. A couple of relatives have been jobless since the move and living with others for 10 years. Some property was also lost as the relatives made distress sales at low prices.

   Your arrogance in deciding what to believe or not believe is quite astounding. You really think that just by showing up and listening to bazaar rumors you can make an assessment of the situation? Do you speak Kashmiri? Do you also believe that the jews were behind 9/11? Your naivete makes me wonder about the rest of your beliefs.

   If you really want to comment definitively on this matter, please, AT A MINIMUM, read folks like Praveen Swami (Hindu – left of center journalist), B. Raman (institute of topical studies – right of center analyst). Taking the outputs of ideologues like Panjak Mishra who based their judgements on their feelings of dissapointment with the indian goverment is a really a bad way to go.

7. Do you speak Kashmiri?

   Note to self: from now on, may only post on France, Spain, England (or their quondam colonies) OR Kerala, since I don’t speak anything else…

8. Anna

   hah, hah, that is sooooo hilarious.

   How seriously would you take a writer who offered all kinds of assessments of the most serious problems of the US but had no knowledge of English????

9. Thank you, I did stand-up in college.

   To answer your question, I’d take them somewhat seriously if they were somewhere where they had access to a news source in their vernacular. What, American current events when translated in to a different language are suddenly different?

10. Al beruni,

    Your argument that one needs to be efficient in the language of the region he reports on makes a very weak argument.. otherwise you have a valid perspective of a person belonging to a group which is ethnically cleansed. I think it is better you stick with that perspective..

11. I am moved to read al Beruni’s story. The absence of Kashmiri pandits is a wound in the heart for every Kashmiri Muslim who remembers the time we lived together in the valley. But I often don’t find that feeling reciprocated. It is distressing when Kashmiri Pandits identify themselves with the Indian security forces and condone the oppression in the valley. I think we need to open our hearts and see our relationship with power. If some Kashmiri Muslims made a mistake in identifying with terrorists and killers from Pakistan, some Pandits have erred likewise in identifying with brute state power. There is no point in becoming an apologist for this state power as Kumar seems to do. The fact of state oppression in Kashmir is felt daily by Kashmiris. If you can’t see that or empathise with them, all your highminded belief in the Indian nation feels empty. Mishra’s articles became popular in Kashmir and were widely reprinted and quoted in Kashmiri newspapers because he was the first Indian writer to pay detailed attention to how Kashmiris saw the situation, what everyday life was for them, how they saw the army and the terrorists. I remember reading them and the articles in Outlook as a young man and regaining my hope in India. As long as the Indian press could publish articles like Mishra’s there was hope for us. I still feel hope–the recent CBI probe into the murder of innocent villagers by the army is very welcome. But I feel reading Jing’s insightful post and the hatred expressed by some of the posts that we have crossed a line and too many of us have let our minds and souls become poisoned by nationalism and power.

12. If Biden would have said … “You cant go into a high tech firm or a Hospital without meeting an Indian” it would not have been a story. period. Now you will deny that and say how we dont like positive stereotype and how we are so blah blah …. Everyone likes a comment that is perceived positive and no one likes a negative comment. Thats the crux of the issue.

    RC, you do make an interesting point.

    IMO a Desi raised in India would be offended by a comment of ‘All 7-11’s are owned by Indian Americans’ and might actually be pleased by a comment of ‘All Cardiologists are Indian Americans’. However IMO a Desi raised in America will be offended by both of the above statements. Now the first statement might not be as offensive as the second one, but most Desis raised in America would not be pleased by either statement. Desis raised in America, unlike the Desis raised in India, do not like being the ‘other’, so they would be offended by any stereotype, whether positive or negative. The desi raised in India is already the ‘other’ so doesnt really care about being the ‘other’ as long as its a positive ‘other’.

13. AMD, you make sweeping generalizations below, can you back any of your assertion with facts?

    IMO a Desi raised in India would be offended by a comment of ‘All 7-11’s are owned by Indian Americans’ and might actually be pleased by a comment of ‘All Cardiologists are Indian Americans’. However IMO a Desi raised in America will be offended by both of the above statements. Now the first statement might not be as offensive as the second one, but most Desis raised in America would not be pleased by either statement. Desis raised in America, unlike the Desis raised in India, do not like being the ‘other’, so they would be offended by any stereotype, whether positive or negative. The desi raised in India is already the ‘other’ so doesnt really care about being the ‘other’ as long as its a positive ‘other’.

14. AMfD, I have yet to see this big outrage over a supposedly positive stereotypical comment about Indians. Bill Clinton made them all the time. When I see a similar outrage over being called “too rich and too smart” I will accept your explanation.

    I do agree that American borns would be more sensitive towards being portrayed as “other”. I think thats why when Time magazine showed the exoticized woman as a call center worker, people didnt like it. I get that. But when it comes to positive stereotypes its easy to forget that one is being treated as “other” and being “stereotyped” .. reason because Everyone loves flattery (Comes from a saying that is translated as “Even God likes flattery” )

15. AMD, you make sweeping generalizations below, can you back any of your assertion with facts?

    I qualified all my generalizations with an IMO. Let me re-post with the IMO highlighted:

    IMO a Desi raised in India would be offended by a comment of ‘All 7-11’s are owned by Indian Americans’ and might actually be pleased by a comment of ‘All Cardiologists are Indian Americans’. However IMO a Desi raised in America will be offended by both of the above statements. Now the first statement might not be as offensive as the second one, but most Desis raised in America would not be pleased by either statement. Desis raised in America, unlike the Desis raised in India, do not like being the ‘other’, so they would be offended by any stereotype, whether positive or negative. The desi raised in India is already the ‘other’ so doesnt really care about being the ‘other’ as long as its a positive ‘other’.

16. Ponniyin Selvan

    Fair enough, my comments about the Kashmiri language were made in a very specific context regarding knowledge of what kashmiris were speaking and talking about with each other.

    Abhi

    None of my relatives wants to pay back hatred and violence with the same. This even though they were (close to) physically pushed out of the valley. The way out is very difficult and involves a lot than just indians living upto their democratic ideals. I am glad you are focussing on the responsibility of the indian state/press/institutions but the solution involves other factors as well.

    How do you bring things back to normal when millions of dollars are (still) being raised for the kashmir jihad? What are the other examples of insurgencies where reasonable solutions were ultimately found?

17. IMO = In My Opinion

    FYI= For Your Information

18. But when it comes to positive stereotypes its easy to forget that one is being treated as “other” and being “stereotyped”

    I dont disagree with what you are saying. You can also bring up the fact that Jews dont usually get all outraged over Jewish stereotypes of doctors/lawyers. All I am suggesting is that the Desis raised in India will have a different perspective from Desis raised in the US.

19. I stand corrected. I do see the IMO in your comment but am still not sure of the basis of your opinion, I am an Indian raised in India, came to the US for grad school in 2001 and am most definitely outraged as the next person over such callous comments, but then again we are talking about country where immigrants are called Aliens nothing surprises me anymore.

20. ethnic,

    I am an Indian raised in India, came to the US for grad school in 2001 and am most definitely outraged as the next person over such callous comments, but then again we are talking about country where immigrants are called Aliens nothing surprises me anymore.

    Again I think you are speaking for yourself as I am going to speak for myself.. I am an Indian raised in India, came to the US for grad school, perfectly happy and welcome any such generalisations about Indians being good in maths/science and being smart etc.. etc.. I proudly accept such generalisations.. 🙂 and definitely know that majority of Indians raised in India I went to school with would agree on that..

21. Ponniyin Selvan,

    I donÂ’t assert that I am speaking for anyone but myself. That being said I am glad to note that you and your schoolmates welcome such generalizations I have a different opinion.

22. But when it comes to positive stereotypes its easy to forget that one is being treated as “other” and being “stereotyped”

    When I was growing up in India, one of the earliest exposures to stereotyping was in college in matters of who’s-got-the-hots-for-whom issues.

    For eg: It was stereotyped that Christian girls usually had the hots for Brahmin boys who did not practice their religion. It was also true that Christian girls themselves had stereotypes about Brahmins: That they were more fair skinned (hence the increased chance of fair-skinned offspring), they were more intelligent and assertive, etc etc. But due to matters of faith, they preferred only Brahmin boys who made statements like:”Remind me to wear my sacred thread someday” or “My religion means nothing to me“.

    Remarkably, the stereotype was close to the mark. Looking back, I see that all non-arranged marriages of Christian girl classmates happened with Brahmin boys. (Of course, now most of them are divorced or separated because of various reasons, but that’s immaterial.)

    M. Nam

23. RC, there are sweeping factual assertions and misinterpretations of what other people have said and what they believe embedded in the following statement by you: “Anyone who claims that India’s achievement doesnt help their social and political standing in the west is being dis-honest. We have blog posts on being “offended” about called “Dunkin Donuts worker”” You have now also made the following sweeping factual claim: “Everyone likes a comment that is perceived positive and no one likes a negative comment.” If you reframed the statement as one in which you were speaking for yourself, I might have reacted differently, but as written you make demonstrably false assertions. False — as in “not true.”

    However, I don’t think that makes you a “liar” or necessarily question your motivations in doing so — although your rhetoric seems a bit unnecessarily overheated, defensive, and hostile. I do once again invite you to re-read what people have to say on this issue a bit more carefully, and perhaps to engage in dialogue with those comments more directly.

24. Brilliant post.

    Dude, you don’t have to make an apology for ‘censorship’. It is [your team’s] blog and all should run it as all of you see fit. There are plenty of sources on the internet and no one is supressing anyone’s voice if a certain agenda/issue needs more publicity or attention.

    People, this is the information age. As such, how, where, when, we communicate is changing. Sepiamutiny, to me atleast, IS NOT A SUBSITUTE FOR NEWS. If one wants the truth in the information age, you have to be diligent in searching for it and looking through the sources yourself. We’ve been spoon fed what we should and shouldn’t hear for eons. Local traditional MSM is a only but a small keyhole through which the world can be viewed. Op-eds are not a subsitute for factual/empirical information. Calling someone a traitor is also pretty bad. Most countries have pretty harsh sentences for those convicted of being a traitor.

    To those arguing what Abhi/you/anyone else for that matter SHOULD or SHOULD not believe: We all make certain analysis based on information presented to us. You may, or may not agree with the conclusion. But for lords sake, can we just agree to disagree without calling each other traitors?

    I’ve been accused on this blog of being jingonistic at times. A few rants come to mind where I probably did come off as such, but then again I was drunk while posting, too. There needs to be a breathalyzer that locks keyboards away just like cars. Definitely not an excuse and something I guess I need to work on.

    Anyway, I’d like to make it clear that I AM defensive about military personnel, but not necessarily the American government’s strategies that employs them as they see fit. This reaction tends to come from the viewpoint that very few actually seem to understand the military (or be well informed even to discuss it) and it’s attitude, regardless of the politicians in power or the decisions they make. I’m only scratching the surface here since I work with them, but I am not a uniformed member. I can only wonder/read as to how they feel at times.

    I’ve got into heated arguments with former classmates in India, who always saw me as the traitor American in class for a good eight years. I was proud to be an American, but never realized how it rubbed folks the wrong way. Some of it came from genuine pride, misunderstanding pride for another as looking down another, jealousy, some it from an inferiority complex, some of it from insecurity, etc. They rarely understood how someone who is brown skinned, speaks the language, reads it, looks like every other person out there could have a different loyalty. I have fond memories of India and look upon it’s development with pride, but that does not mean it, or any instituion in this world is infalliable.

    Maturity in one’s analysis, honesty, and introspection is something that will come with time. The redundant discussions may be tiresome, but the debates will never stop.

    This phenomenon of America and being American is still very alien to most of the world. A friend of mine always got corrected by Europeans when asked where he was from.

    “Chicago” “No, where are you REALLY from?” “Skokie ?” “No, NO, Where are YOU from, you’re not American” “Oh, my parents are from India” “Ahh, you’re Indian! Great country!” Groan Not again.

    It’s only more painful, though far few in between (for me), when incidents such as the above happens with fellow American.

    This is only the beginning, but it is most definitely a battleground where individual citizens of nations are interacting DIRECTLY with each other.

    Question: Why don’t you hide the popularity of the news links. As in, allow people to vote on what they would like to read, but hide how popular it is from the masses. It won’t stop people from voting, but it may curtail the opposite spin and the battle each side seeks in validating their [x]interested. Again, this is merely a suggestion. Your house, your rules.

    i agree with floridian. everyone has their biases, and i certainly don’t agree with abhi & co. on many issues, but a blog as popular as SM is in danger of devolving into usenet without quality control. and that control needs to come from up top because at the end of the day it is up top where the posts get written, the bandwidth gets paid and technical details get hashed out. the rest of us should shut the fuck up until we are willing to put in our free time to keep this blog going and just accept orders as the price we pay for a free service & passtime.

    Ditto.

25. You have now also made the following sweeping factual claim: “Everyone likes a comment that is perceived positive and no one likes a negative comment.“

    If you like insults, slurs and other negative comments more than comments that are generally perceived to be positive, than thats your choice. Good luck to you.

26. RC and others — for some background on the “model minority” stereotype and concerns about it, have a look here and here, for starters. (There may be other and better materials out there, but this is what I could pull up quickly.) Cheers — AK

27. Calm down, RC:

    If you like insults, slurs and other negative comments more than comments that are generally perceived to be positive, than thats your choice. Good luck to you.

    This is of course not remotely what I said.

    If you’re interested in dialogue, then act like it. If not, then perhaps you should go find an echo chamber full of people who share all of your perspectives and experiences, and with whom you can rant and rave about how stupid everyone else is.

28. al beruni: Thanks for your moving response. I think we have to learn to live together in Kashmir, without involving such external forces as security forces and Pakistan-trained terrorists. But we have to acknowledge first that there is a problem in Kashmir that is not just due to Pakistan and jihadis. I hope you are willing to do that.

    Amardeep: Regading your earlier response to Kumar, I think Mishra reporting on what Kashmiris felt and said about the massacre (see my previous post) is not irresponsible journalism. It may seem to take the form of unfounded rumours or suspicions but it is presenting a profound and widely felt feeling among the powerless, and as such it is a kind of truth. It may be easy to insist on objectivity and responsibility sitting in America or India but if the other powerless side is not being represented fairly at all and has no way of getting its truth out to a wider public then reports like Mishra have a value greater than mere journalism. This is what I felt when his reports appeared without having the words to express the feeling. I can never say with certainty who killed the Sikhs but Mishra at least raised the questions that we had kept hidden in our hearts during years of unrestrained killings of civilians by security forces.

29. Mishra’s articles became popular in Kashmir and were widely reprinted and quoted in Kashmiri newspapers because he was the first Indian writer to pay detailed attention to how Kashmiris saw the situation, what everyday life was for them, how they saw the army and the terrorists.

    Abir,

    Please accept my (our) apologies for the wounds inflicted on Kashmir for 60 years.

    There is a time to heal.

    I have been reading Pankaj Mishra for last 4-5 days. He gets credit for highlighting the feelings of Kashmiris but that is all – after that he falls of the cliff.. However, this is the same guy in his novel Romantics in artcle Holy Lies painted US as an ally seeked by Hindutva***, and later in last week in NYT, tried to warn USA of India’s dubiousness “economically and politically”. Will Pankaj Mishra stand up and tell is US an Hindutva ally or India that US/ world needs warned to be of. It cannot be both. Is it? Is he expedient extraordnaire?

    However, he is not the only one about raising Kashmir awareness. There are others too, Indians and non-Indians who sincerely fight communal forces in India but not with rumor, slander, and carnard. Even Barry Bearak from NYT who interviewd one of the “supposed killer” has been sympathetic of common Kashmiri caught in cross-fire. I read his 200o NYT article from Times archives. India has own Carl Bernstiens and Bob Woodwards – Arun Shourie is one of them. They have been many others.

    I sincerely wish Pankaj Mishra would have concentrated on tragic “extra judical” killing of 5 Kashmiris post 2000 massacare. That would been a great service. Those five Kashmiris did not deserve to die. But he had a bigger fish to fry……..that is where he erred. To this day, nobody is a witness to his accounts and even in his own Outlook article (when hounded by Prakash Jha), he himself back-peddaled and confessed that valley is full of conspiracy theories.

    Has anyone read his article in Gaurdian on Mao (as someone commented earlier). Interesting someone made on observation – He can easily go to deep end.

    ***Here are the quotes in Pankaj Mishra’s own words: This powerful Hindu minority supports the insidious campaign against madrasas, and the more brutal assertion of state power in Kashmir. It demands a nuclear attack on Pakistan; aspires to superpower status, and fervently courts the US as a political, economic and military ally.

30. India has own Carl Bernstiens and Bob Woodwards – Arun Shourie is one of them

    I would put Arun Shourie more in the category of Daniel Pipes than Woodward.

31. Shri Tandon I am no one to accept your apologies for the wounds inflicted on Kashmir. But it is big of you to offer them. Perhaps you will join me in exploring how Kashmiris see the role of the security forces in Kashmir. Why do you wish that Mishra had confined to the killings of those five villagers? Does the fact that those people were murdered and presented as Pakistani killers of the Siks not make you curious about the killings of the Sikhs? Who killed them, after all? Is there something fishy here or not?
    I have read that Barry Bearak’s article you mention. You are ready to believe what a lone terrorist who was kept in prison by Indian security forces and has still not been allowed to meet any journalist apart from Bearak says about his role although you are ready to discount everything else terrorists say. Some contradiction here.. By the way, it is Prem Shankar Jha, not Prakash, The Guardian, not Gaurdian, there are other misspellings and odd references in your post. I point this out in a spirit of friendliness. If we are criticizing someone for inaccurate journalism the least we can do is get our own facts right.

32. I have been reading Pankaj Mishra for last 4-5 days. He gets credit for highlighting the feelings of Kashmiris but that is all – after that he falls of the cliff.. However, this is the same guy in his novel Romantics in artcle Holy Lies painted US as an ally seeked by Hindutva***, and later in last week in NYT, tried to warn USA of India’s dubiousness “economically and politically”. Will Pankaj Mishra stand up and tell is US an Hindutva ally or India that US/ world needs warned to be of. It cannot be both. Is it? Is he expedient extraordnaire?

    I agree Kush, I think Amir’s comments are a partial vindication of Mishra’s aims, but to claim he has no agenda is entirely misinformed. In his new book he writes “A decade of progobalization policies has created a new agressive middle class, whose concerns dominate public life in India. …There are also millions of rich Indians living outside India. In America, they are considered the richest minority. It is these affluent, upper caste Indians in India and abroad who largely bankrolled the rise to power of Hindu Nationalists… In the global context, middle-class Hindus are no less ambitious than those who in the Roman Empire embraced Christianity and made it an effective mechanism with which to secure worldly power.

    Untempered by any sort of qualification about the true nature of a disparate, polyglot community, not all of whom are rich or ascribe to Hindutva, I consider these types of statements a sort of demonization of Indian-Americans.

    In Mishra’s blinkered view, globalization and the neo-liberal order have produced an agressive Hindu middle class that will presumably subvert India’s secular traditions. Its actually quite brilliant if you are anti-globalization – his analysis renders an open market immoral because it produces janissaries of an intolerant fundamentalism.

33. his analysis renders an open market immoral because it produces janissaries of an intolerant fundamentalism.

    This is probably why NYTimes invites him to write – birds of a feather…

    WSJ probably would not let Pankaj clean their toilets.

    M. Nam

34. Desitude: Do you realise your own post and several others embody what Mishra means by an ‘aggressive minority’ that is in love with power?

35. bankrolled the rise to power of Hindu Nationalists…

    Which one, the ones who were thrown out of power and are leaderless party, without a vision?? If thats what is meant then these RICH people from abroad suck at political activism. I dont agree what is wrong with Dynastical power?? Some people are just born to lead (Oops … I think thats called monarchy … but hell why get lost in semantics 🙂 )

36. Abir, you wrote:

    Mishra’s articles became popular in Kashmir and were widely reprinted and quoted in Kashmiri newspapers because he was the first Indian writer to pay detailed attention to how Kashmiris saw the situation, what everyday life was for them, how they saw the army and the terrorists.

    This is not exactly true; there were others who did pay attention to how Kashmiris viewed their situation. See, for instance, the set of articles by Madhu Kishwar in Manushi. You will have to scroll down the page a little till you get to the section titled “Towards Solution of the Kashmir Problem.” The articles titled “Voices from Kashmir: A Report” (1994) and “We need a Surgeon’s knife, not a Butcher’s” (1997) are specially relevant since they predate Mishra’s articles; the former, unusually for an Indian magazine, even includes a photograph of a person tortured by the security forces.

    I would not doubt, though, that Mishra’s article reached a much broader audience—particularly in Kashmir—because Outlook has a much bigger circulation.

    Thanks for bringing a badly-needed Kashmiri Muslim perspective to the discussion.

37. Desitude: Do you realise your own post and several others embody what Mishra means by an ‘aggressive minority’ that is in love with power?

    Sure, Abir, Indian-Americans will take over the world with our allies, the Bush administration. And we’ll make everyone do arati to Bharat Mata before starting their workday as a tribute to Vedic culture. In Mishra, I see the disease called finding your enemies everywhere you look.

38. Desitude: Your remark, if serious, only further proves Mishra’s vision of rich and megalomanical Indian-Americans. Suresh: I am grateful to you for letting me know about Madhu Kishwar’s piece. I wish I had read it when I was growing up in Kashmir.

39. Questions must be asked. About Kashmir, about Iraq, about Palestine. And about the US and India. Asking doesn’t make a traitor out of the interlocutor. Just as it doesn’t out of one who focuses on the 2/3 of the glass that is empty instead of only cheerleading for the 1/3 that is full.

    I know/ knew very little about Pankaj Mishra until I read this post and the ensuing comments. I however know quite a lot about another Indian journalist who wrote this recent column in Hindustan Times. Manoj Joshi is an editor of H.T. and a hawk on most things Indian, including defense matters. His book on Kashmir bears sufficient testimony to his pro-Indian credentials. The H.T. story “sank like a rock” (his words) in the Indian MSM. The supporters of the tactics wouldn’t touch it because it is true and the opponents don’t have a viable answer. On the whole, Joshi appears to have grudging sympathy for the extra-judicial killings by the police in this case. Yet, he was called a traitor and eligible for firing from his editorial post at H.T. on at least one Indian blog for just reporting the practice.

40. Perhaps you will join me in exploring how Kashmiris see the role of the security forces in Kashmir.

    Yes, I will and that is why in last few days, I have tried to do some readings on period around 2000 and Kashmir. I would not apologized to you and all Kashmiris, if security forces did not make mistakes.

    In fact, even before you commented on this post, I with many others here (for example Amardeep, Kumar) asked for transparency from Indian Government and security forces (please see comments #. 5, 35, 37).

41. Just wanted to point out that Al Beruni seems to be confusing ‘Abir’ with ‘Abhi’ in his responses.

42. angriest comment section ever….(in simpsons comic book guy voice)

43. Abir ,

    I am glad that your trust in India was rekindled after reading Mishra’s, an “Indian” writer, articles on the Kashmiri plight.

    I wonder when, I a Kashmiri Pandit, who was forced by Islamo Fascists from the land of my ancestors, while the entire Kashmiri Muslim majority watched silently, will get to read articles in the mainstream Indian/Kashmiri press, penned by Kashmiri Muslims such as yourself. Articles, which will unambigoulsy apologize for the ethnic cleansing carried out in the name of Islam??

    [Rest of comment deleted by Admin]

44. Hukku: Believe me, our heads are still hung in shame over what happenned to the Pandits. I remember going with my family to persuade our Pandit neighbours not to leave and both families crying together. They were really like our closest relatives, I don’t remember ever thinking that they were Hindus. But we couldn’t stop them. I do not speak on belahf of Islamo-fascists of any kind but if apology is what you ask for I am more than apologetic–I am deeply ashamed. I still think reconciliation is only possible when we both recognize each other’s suffering and the causes for it. As I keep saying we can blame Pakistani terrorists for some but not all the problems in Kashmir. We have to ask why Kashmiri Muslims became so angry with Indian rule in the late 80s.

45. Folks, I am with Ruchira. It’s really OK to ask questions and to try and understand the terribly complicated realities on the ground. Why do people get so upset if someone suspects the Indian army? Does it mean you are siding with terrorists? Of course not. Should India be complacent about its economic progress? Of course not. What’s the problem here? I consider myself a proud Indian and strong critic of terrorism and religious extremism of any kind. But having lived in the Panjab of the 80’s, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to hear that the Army was repressive. If you talk to those same patriotic and jingoistic Indians in India, most will readily admit that the army has been involved in extrajudicial killings in many places. People were sick of terrorism in Panjab in the 80’s, but they also recognized that innocent people were gunned down by cops in tons of fake encounters. Don’t we need to entertain that possibility from our knowledge of past history? I am not saying that the army were involved in the Chitisinghpura killings, but nobody seems to know for sure, right? I am really surprised to hear that people think Mishra wants to debunk India. Something very bad has happened to our sense of integrity and our ability to express and deal with bitter and unpleasant truths. It’s all about being Hindu or not, being Indian or not, being sold-out, being Marxist etc etc. There aren’t only two sides to a story. There is lots of complicity, pragmatic interests, realpolitik, and the ugly realities of power all rolled together. And everyone needs to keep an open mind to consider all possibilities. Let’s stop being so insecure about being Indian.

46. MY observation,

    every time one SM blogger writes something and gets critized (cornered) all other sm bloggers come to his rescue (especially anna). I can understand the team spirit but seriously guys do you all always agree on everything? I mean do u all think the same about all topics? If yes it is amazing or do u not want to publish your real opinion but just help out a fellow sm blogger?

47. MY observation…

    Your observation isn’t based in reality. The two most popular posts in the history of SM (in terms of number of comments) were posts that Anna and I took opposite stances on. Do a search on the Kavvya controversy.

48. Your observation isn’t based in reality. The two most popular posts in the history of SM (in terms of number of comments) were posts that Anna and I took opposite stances on. Do a search on the Kavvya controversy.

    which post had the most number of comments ever (out of curiosity)

49. every time one SM blogger writes something and gets critized (cornered) all other sm bloggers come to his rescue (especially anna)

    that’s because NOBODY puts baby in a corner. 😉

50. which post had the most number of comments ever (out of curiosity)

    the unpopular position, natch (564!).