Dr Aman Hingorani tells us how the Kashmir issue is an end product of British colonial politics at the launch of his book. By Sharang Bhaskaran
Much has been written on and discussed about Kashmir among the political class, journalists and the intelligentsia. Needless to say, it has been a hot topic in India and the world for several decades. There have been several books that dissect the Kashmir issue in terms of the social and political construct of the state and we are all more or less familiar with the issue and its origin since the independence of India. Aman Hingorani’s book, Unravelling the Kashmir Knot may appear to be just another book on Kashmir but he says that it is not just another book on Kashmir. Hingorani, a lawyer at the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Delhi said he saw that there were no books on Kashmir that looked at the issue in terms of legal aspects viz a viz the Indian constitution and the laws pertaining to the issue. Introducing the book, Hingorani said, “It challenges the national and international discourse on the Kashmir issue right from its inception till date and suggests a complete change of approach towards handling the issue. It relies on declassified British archives to show how the Kashmir issue is an end product of a particular brand of British colonial politics. The book also narrates the utter failure of the political leadership in undivided India, and later in the divided sub-continent, to rise to the challenge.”
“I believed I could write on the subject objectively being far removed from the issue, and look at it from an outsider’s perspective with no vested interests,” said Hingorani at the launch of his book at the India International Centre that saw eminent members of the legal community and journalists and activists. “To unravel the Kashmir knot, it is imperative to first depoliticise the issue and then take recourse in legal analysis. This is what I have tried to do in this book with the help of a comprehensive analysis of court rulings, UN papers, political observer reports and international law,” he explained. The book was released by the Chief Justice of India, TS Thakur, who shared his insights on the book and Kashmir, his home state. Speaking on how the law can be used to tackle the problems in Kashmir he said, “There seems to be no immediate solution that we have right now to solving this issue. We believe that if any solution can be reached, it will be only through dialogues and discussions and certainly not through the use of force.” Thakur says that one of the major issues in Kashmir right not is that inspite of the many opportunities being provided for the Kashmiri youth in the state, not many choose to stay in the state for education or employment. “When they are doing well elsewhere in the country and around the world, why would they want to go back to Kashmir,” he pointed out. The environment of violence and unrest in the state has turned it into a battleground and the youth are the ones who are among the most affected by this.
Justice Dalveer Bhandari of the International Court of Justice at The Hague highlighted how the well researched book laid bare facts which the post-partition generation must know, and said that the book made compelling reading. MK Raina, the renowned director and actor who has worked in Kashmir for the last 16 years as a cultural activist, termed the book to be an “epic” and a must read not only for each parliamentarian, journalist and political leader but also for the separatists and people in Pakistan to understand how they have been used as pawns for geo-political reasons.
Justice Thakur, in his concluding remarks, said that a purely legal solution will not by itself resolve the Kashmir issue and that it is by love that India can hold Kashmir. Justice Thakur recalled the peaceful times in Kashmir and said that we must treat Kashmiris in the same manner in which we treat other citizens of India.