Can Nobel Peace Prizes Bring Peace To South Asia?

By Jean-Pierre Lehmann

The winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize are Malala Yousafzai, the admirable young (17) Pakistani Muslim girl who has most courageously defended the right of girls to education, and Kailash Satyarthi, the Indian Hindu who has led a movement for some 35 years campaigning against child slavery in India.

This brings to four the number of Nobel Peace Prize winners emanating from South Asia. The other two are Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma/Myanmar, 1991) and Muhammad Yunus, founder and philosopher of the micro-finance Grameen Bank (Bangladesh, 2006). Kailash Satyarthi becomes the first Indian Nobel Peace Laureate; the Nobel Committee never saw fit to award the prize to Mahatma Gandhi!

Leaving aside the debate about whether the Nobel Peace Foundation makes judicious choices, one critical question could be whether the Peace Prizes can have any positive impact on what is one of the world’s most turbulent regions with lots of sectarian hate, violence and historical grievances?

Indeed as the awards were announced, the Indo-Pakistani conflict continues unabatedly in Kashmir. As pointed out by ISA (International Strategic Alliance) in Kashmir Flashpoint:

“As the world focuses on conflicts elsewhere in places such as Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, it is easy to forget that the disputed region of Kashmir is the only place in the world where two nuclear-armed countries are engaged in periodic clashes along a much-disputed border. However, the fighting that has broken out between Indian and Pakistani soldiers along the dispute Line of Control in Kashmir this week is a reminder of just how tense the situation there is. Furthermore, domestic factors inside India and Pakistan could lead to a serious escalation in tensions between the two long-time rivals that could spiral out of control and implicate a number of other world powers.”

The conflict in the region is not just between two nuclear-armed states, India and Pakistan, but also between two religions, Hinduism and Islam. The 2002 massacres in Gujarat, under then Chief Minister (now Prime Minister) Narendra Modi’s watch, in which over one thousand people were killed, are a painful illustrative reminder. Will the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Kailash and Malala succeed in bringing peace between Pakistani and Indian and Muslims and Hindus? Although there are hardly any Hindus left in Pakistan’s population of some 200 million (97% of whom are Muslims), Muslims represent 13.5% of India’s population of 1.2 billion.

Recently in Burma there has been the persecution by Buddhists against the Muslim Rohingyas minority. Major violence broke out in 2012, leading to a high proportion of displaced Rohingyas having to live in refugee camps. Rohingyas are an ethnic/linguistic group, originating from what is today Bangladesh, estimated to number some 1.8 million worldwide, roughly half of whom live in Burma and have done so for several generations. I go to Bangladesh quite often; when I was there in 2013, at a time when the anti-Rohingyas purges were especially violent, a Bangladeshi friend pointed out that while both Burma (in the person of Aung San Suu Kyi) and Bangladesh (in the person of Muhammad Yunus) have Nobel Peace Prize laureates, they were not even talking to each other, let alone trying to build peace.

[This raises the ancillary question: might it not be better if the Nobel Peace Prize were lent rather than given? In other words, you are awarded the Peace Prize so long as you continue to militate for peace; otherwise you should be asked to give it back!]

Though it is East Asia that is generally presented as the world’s most dangerous geopolitical region, especially with the prospect of a Sino-Japanese war perilously looming, but also in light of acute territorial disputes, in fact since the end of the Vietnam war and the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, there has been relatively little actual fighting. In the course of recent decades Southeast Asia has been transformed from a battlefield to a marketplace.

In South Asia, comprising mainly countries formally part – of the British Empire, the situation is very different. For one important thing there has been a considerable contrast between the two regions’ economic growth and poverty reduction. Among the thirteen economies identified by the 2008 report of the Growth and Development Commission that were successful in generating an average annual growth rate of 7% over a 25 year period between 1950 and 2005, nine are from East Asia [China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand], in contrast to not a single one from South Asia. Whereas trade and other forms of exchange (investment, transport, tourism, etc) in East Asia have been booming, South Asia has the world’s lowest rate of intra-regional trade. Crossing borders is difficult.

I do not recommend, as I had to on one occasion, trying to fly between Dhaka and Lahore! Though I do strongly recommend crossing the Wagah border, the only road border crossing between Pakistan and India, as it is quite a memorable experience.

South Asia remains a poverty-stricken, conflict-ridden region that harbours, among other things, great violence against women and children. There are more illiterate females in India than in the rest of the planet put together.

Of course the British deserve much of the blame for this state of affairs. The 1947 partition – against which Gandhi and other thought leaders pleaded – was an unmitigated disaster, arguably one of history’s most brutal acts, even if that was not intended. (Salman Rushdie’s novel 1981 novel Midnight’s Childrenforcefully conveys the bitter flavour of the traumas that ensued. In a very different was the Google advertisement “Reunion” is very moving.) Not only was there and continues to be enmity and violence between Pakistan and India, but also the splitting of Pakistan into two – West and East Pakistan – was a phenomenal blunder that resulted in an atrocious war in 1971, including genocide and mass rape (very movingly evoked in the magnificent novel by Tahmima Anam A Golden Age).


It is impossible to undo what the British did. New foundations are needed to create not only a new regional edifice of peace but also the right spirit. The quatuor of South Asian Nobel Peace Laureates should be encouraged (instructed?) to provide guidance and inspiration.

(On a technical geographic note, it is the case that Burma straddles the two sub-Asian regions, East and South, as it is, for example, a member of ASEAN, but historically it has strong connections to the South and was attached by Britain to its empire in India.)

Courtesy: Forbes.com

India Makes another Kashmiri Hero

By Mazhar Iqbal/

By exterminating Guru India has facilitated the making of another Kashmiri freedom hero. He was not a heroic figure like Maqbool Bhat when he entered into Tihar Jail on allegations of facilitating an attack on Indian Parliament, but became a hero when he was buried inside the jail premises.Nobody including his fellow party members was willing to give him a status equal to the founder of armed freedom struggle in Kashmir but India herself did this job.

While Guru’s standing is not parallel to that of Bhat, he can be another Maqbool Bhat in years to come. When Bhat was hanged to death in 1984, nobody in Indian government could envisage a strong reaction and violent protests by people of Kashmir, especially his own party , the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).

Guru was neither the founder of the JKLF nor the top leader of his party; he was a just an activist who had attempted to renounce militancy more than once.  Still, he can be a catalyst for another spell of violent struggle against India’s brutal and tyrannical rule in Jammu & Kashmir. There are suggestions that his figure will raise high not because of a staunch and forceful expression of anger over his death but by the pull factor of the state defensive policies vis-à-vis Jammu & Kashmir.

Guru was a true embodiment of a person who lived all his life struggling hard to reconcile with the nature of conflict that has shaped since the revival of insurgency in Kashmir. The insurgency which Guru lived all through his life was not available to Bhat, rather later himself became a founder of violent struggle against oppressing rule. Bhat is revered not only for his patriotism and heroic stature but also for his unfettered allegiance to a cause. There is a clear deviation in characters of Guru and Bhat, but they truly represent the nature of freedom struggle in their own times.

The political struggle in Guru’s time is not confined within the charter and framework of a single revolutionary political party; it has been more vigorously expressed by other segments of Kashmiri society than freedom fighters themselves. It is not just one freedom fighter who with his revolutionary mental approach does not want to blindly follow the authoritarian rule but it is a whole generation that has gone through a first-hand experience of militant struggle and counter-insurgency tactics of a strong government.  They are all passengers of a same boat and they have personal experiences of the whole journey.

India took more than a decade to hang ‘the mastermind of an attack on Indian Parliament’. There is a speculation that ‘the new hero’ of Kashmiri’s freedom movement can attract more people toward militancy than Maqbool Bhat. So, one can imagine where India will be in next two decades, especially in a context of time taken to punish a ‘traitor’.

According to Indian government’s version Guru had provided the major logistical support to the militants who had besieged Indian parliament. Thus, he met his logical end, but, what India will do with another horde of masterminds of future attacks. India did not hand over Guru’s body to his relatives to avoid a possible anger in the region. This decision might have been taken carefully after weighing the possible options. However, Indian security establishment would be proved mistaken if the protest against the execution prolongs.

When Bhat was hanged in 1984, nobody in India had been able to predict that it would be an ignition for a scorching fire of militancy as the decade of 90’s witnessed India burning in that fire.

Noted human rights activist and author Arundhati Roy and many other critics have already described in detail how there were too many loopholes in the Guru’s trial. It will be matter of shame for India’s secular stature when historian will prove that by hanging one person India not only jumped back into decades of anarchy but also pushed its own people toward rebellion and hatred against the centre.

Apparently, the Indian security apparatus believes that Guru’s execution will not have that kind of mass appeal as it was witnessed after Bhat’s hanging. However, major political parties including Congress are worried over this development.  India is not in a position to take it for granted that Guru’s hanging would not give a fresh lease of life to the extremist groups operating in the valley and it will not have negative impact on overall security situation in the northeast of the country.

In fact, the impact has started making its way. When Guru was being hanged in Tihar Jail, Sonia Gandhi’s election campaign in northern states was at full swing. In a blow to the campaign of opposition Congress for the February 14 assembly polls in Tripura, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi have cancelled their trips. The prime minister has also postponed his election campaign tour to Nagaland.

The government decision to bury Guru inside the Tihar Jail is a beginning of a state defensive policy which India will be bound to follow in coming months. Yet, the policy of avoiding a situation of mass outburst on the streets of Srinagar and Sopore can be exercised for a short span of time but not for ever.

(The writer is a peace and human rights activist and member of Press for Peace.)

Kashmir's Exiled Bhattyein

Varad Sharma :

Kashmiri Pandit women are commonly known as ‘Bhattyein’. The word is a distortion of Sanskrit word “Bhattini” which means lady belonging to a noble family.The over two-decade old Kashmir conflict has adversely affected the people of valley; be it men, women or children. Kashmiri women have faced the brunt of conflict since the beginning. While the Kashmiri women living in the valley are considered a part of debate/discussions regarding the impact of Kashmir conflict, there are women living on the other side of the tunnel who are ignored. Having witnessed the killing of their community members and then subjected to forced displacement from the Kashmir valley, the psyche of exiled ‘Bhattyein’ have got affected. Such a generation of women have seen the turmoil/insurgency in the valley and have been at the receiving end of terrorism. During the rise of insurgency in Kashmir valley, the Pandit women were raped, brutalized and killed. In 1990, a nurse named Sarla Bhat, resident of Anantnag, working in Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (Soura) was gang-raped and then murdered by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) militants. In the same year, a woman named Girja Tickoo, resident of Bandipora, was gang-raped and then chopped into pieces on mechanical saw by the terrorists.

When Water in The Spring Turned Black

The exodus of Pandits from the Valley is an aspect of the Kashmir conflict that has received scant attention. In a book just released, Rahul Pandita, who was 14 at the time he and his family left their home in Srinagar forever, gives a searing account of the displacement, struggle and survival of the community.

Kashmir Valley, 1989-90

It was from a neighbour that we heard the first rumours. He had gone to the ration shop to get sugar when he overheard a man exclaiming — ‘Inshallah, next ration we will buy in Islamabad!’ It was around this time that bus conductors in Lal Chowk could be heard shouting — Sopore, Hand’wor, Upore. Sopore and Handwara were border towns while Upore means across. Across the Line of Control. It was meant as an enticement for the youth to cross over the border for arms training, to launch a jihad against India.

AIDS spreads tentacles in Kashmir

The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is gradually spreading its tentacles in Indian Held Jammu and Kashmir with the official data putting the number of total cases with HIV in the state to 3300 against 200 in the year 2001. The officials in Jammu and Kashmir State AIDS Control Society (JKSACS)  have so far been able to detect 3300 HIV cases against an estimate of 5000 cases projected by the society.

Militancy or Kashmiri Salted Tea

By SWETHA KANNAN:

It was a chance meeting. My husband and I had been strolling around Srinagar on a cold morning, and were looking for a cup of tea.

When we couldn’t spot a tea stall anywhere, we enquired at a grocery store. “Jao andar,” (‘go inside’) the lady who ran the shop said briskly, pointing to her own house ahead. She just wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. We felt partly awkward, but we also wanted to go in, so we stepped into her home.