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India Finds A Hero
Shame On It
Sach Kanwal
Singh
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If you
think examples like Sant Singh Chatwal were not blatant enough, meet
the new hero that the Indian Government has presented to the world
for being ostensibly worthy of an award given by the President of
the Republic of India: Muma Kaana. After New Delhi declared his
name, it was so difficult to find the man himself. Nobody knew this
outstanding Kashmiri and Deputy Commissioners of various districts
were working overtime to locate the man. Who is Muma Kaana? And why
does India want to honor him? |
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 Maninderjit
Singh Bitta, a two-penny street smart boot-licker of the powerful is
propped up by the Indian ruling establishment as a patriot of sorts.
Governments of all hues, and that includes the Akali Dal government
in Punjab,
pay deference to him. He gets huge bungalows to live in in
Chandigarh and
in Delhi. The man is singularly incapable of learning anything
except make a rabble rousing speech about himself in which he calls
himself a "Zinda Shaheed" and has never uttered a single insightful
comment. Not even on his favourite subject of Desh-Bhakti.
But he is a hero
of the Indian Government.
Bhai Daljit
Singh Bittu, a man who has spent his youth trying to be part of a
revolution which he then thought was the best way to fight injustice
and discrimination, educated himself, engaged with the democratic
norms, participated in genuine political activity and is determined
to give his life and time to the larger cause of fighting for his
community and his land.
But he is a
villian of the Indian Government.
No wonder, the
Indian Government had selected someone like Sant Singh Chatwal as a
hero it wanted to honor. Sant Singh Chatwal holds no ideology, takes
no position, makes sure he says nothing that can construed as
speaking up for his community, and did not even take up the cause of
the Sikhs killed in Chattisingpora which even Clinton took up, and
about which the then Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, then
wrote also.
But in case you
think such examples are not blatant enough, meet the new hero that
the Indian Government has presented to the world for being
ostensibly worthy of an award given by the President of the
Republic
of India.
Muma Kaana, aka
Ghulam Mohamamd Mir. Muma Kaana made it to the top of the list for
his "public service". Clearly, it was expected that the Government
of Jammu and Kashmir will be well aware of the "service" rendered by
such a man, particularly when he is being selected for highest
honors that Indian establishment bestows upon anyone on this planet.
But somehow, and in a most peculiar sort of revelation, it came to
light that the state government led by Omar Abdullah was least aware
about who this Muma Kaana, aka Ghulam Mohamamd Mir, was.
Nobody knew this
outstanding Kashmiri. Journalists were running helter-skelter trying
to find the man so that they can interview him. Magazines were
asking for his photographs. And Deputy Commissioners of various
districts were trying to find if he hailed from their part of the
state. Some attention went to former Congress Minister Ghulam Ahmad
Mir, but it was rather improbable that the President of India would
like to honor him. Besides he was not free. He is under arrest for
involvement in the Srinagar sex scandal.
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Unlike
the Jammu and Kashmir Government, where the Chief Minister is
displaying a far more saner approach and is keeping his ear to the
ground, the Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal preferred to
chose a man as Chief Secretary who was specially brought in by the
Indian Government as the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar when
Operation Bluestar was to be carried out. Also, it preferred to make
Sumedh Saini the chief of Vigilance Bureau. |
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All the sleuths
of the state government were working overtime to find this Ghulam
Mohamamd Mir. And it took days before it emerged that the man was
none other than Muma Kaana.
Hence were we
able to learn the real man behind the name. The man is known for
even in his native Magam village, has been his feared but derogatory
nickname Muma Kanna — a name that had become synonymous with
extortion, torture and extra-judicial murders across Kashmir during
the initial years of militancy.
And then he
entered the area that makes young people especially beloved of the
Indian intelligence agencies and police forces -- Counter
Insurgency.
As sections of
the Indian media has brought out, Muma was someone who took upon the
role of an informer when the government suddenly encountered a total
lack of ground support for counter-insurgency, and announced hefty
awards in lieu of information. Kaana joined, promising to be an
informant.
Soon his
ambition transcended that role, and he set up a private militia
ostensibly to fight militants. While Kaana did help security forces,
he simultaneously brought together a group of notorious criminals
who started a wide ring of extortion, torture and even murder. The
police still talks of Kaana's wrath across central Kashmir and how
his torture chambers forced dozens of local boys to join the ranks
of militants. The story of a local militant, Mustafa, is revealing.
Mustafa was a Class 8 student when Kaana and his gang started
harassing his family for money. They got no help from the police, as
Kaana ruled central
Kashmir
then.
Villagers still
recall when Mustafa ran away from home to pick up arms with the aim
of taking revenge, soon after they misbehaved with his mother in
front of him. Mustafa was finally killed in a fierce encounter a few
years ago.
So when a Padma
award was conferred on Kaana, it came as a rude shock in Kashmir,
especially at a time when the state is struggling with a poor record
of human rights and has been incapable of making much progress
despite lack of major violence for a long time.
Muzamil Jaleel
of the Indian Express minced no words when he said the “award has
two major connotations — it is seen as the Centre's open endorsement
to the Valley's brutal past where private militias had become
notorious for extra-judicial killings, torture and extortion in the
name of counter-insurgency. It also exposes a fundamental disconnect
between
Kashmir
and New
Delhi.
Awarded for public service, Kaana is only viewed as a public
tormentor in Kashmir.”
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Export shawls
for honor
Last year, the
Government of India had tried to pass off an exporter of shawls in J
and K as a national craftsman while conferring the prestigious Padma
Shri award in the field of art and culture. Senior government
officials even at that time had said they never recommended Hashmat
Ullah Khan's name in the first place. Even at that time when his
name was announced, the hunt for who this man was started. It was
found that no craftsman by that name existed in Jammu and Kashmir.
Poor Khan
himself was surprised: “I had no idea that I could have got such an
award.”
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But Jaleel may
like to think that the Centre has goofed up, he should know better
that the Centre and its agencies have a very consistent record on
such an approach. The police officers known to have killed hundreds
of Sikh youth in fake encounters in Punjab were rewarded and awarded
by the Centre.
So much so that,
unlike the Jammu and Kashmir Government, where the Chief Minister is
displaying a far more saner approach and is keeping his ear to the
ground, the Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal preferred to
chose a man as Chief Secretary who was specially brought in by the
Indian Government as the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar when
Operation Bluestar was to be carried out. Also, it preferred to make
Sumedh Saini the chief of Vigilance Bureau. A large number of police
officers who at one time were arraigned by the much welcomed
People’s Commission later rose to great heights in their career even
as the Badal government banned the People’s Commission that wanted
to highlight the highhandedness of the police in Punjab during the
years of militancy.
As for Muma
Kaana, there is no end to the informers turning into CATS in
Punjab
and then hailed by the police and the government for their services
to the nation. Those who were behind the abduction and death of
human rights activists like Jaswant Singh Khalra have little to fear
from men like Parkash or Sukhbir Singh Badal.
It is men like
Bhai Daljit Singh Bittu who are languishing in jails. The Indian
civil society has learnt to live with the likes of KPS Gill and even
considers him a part of the larger civilian debate.
It is to be
welcomed that the Omar Abdullah government has openly distanced
itself from Kaana's award. He may have done a yeoman's service for
the North Block in New Delhi in the company of Kuka Parrey, Usman
Majid and Sonah Ullah Lone and other counter insurgents to contain
the tidal wave of rebellion against the centre but his name has come
to evoke much rankle and disgust in the valley.
But at the same
time, the Badal government has never dissociated itself from the
names that have troubled the Sikh community. Sukhbir and his family
is on great friendly terms with Kamal Nath, the man whose name
figures on the list of the Sikh community of those who played a
shady role in 1984 massacre of the Sikhs. Ramesh Inder Singh’s love
affair with the Badal family is an unending one. The Punjab police
has never been purged of the black sheep.
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Give Awards to Killers, Tell
Us Where Our Children Are
 Kashmiri
civil society has been least surprised by
New Delhi’s
decision to confer Padma Shri civilian honour to the notorious
renegade Ghulam Mohammad Mir and has termed it a reflection of
New Delhi’s outlook on Kashmir.
“This is New
Delhi’s CBM to Kashmiris. They are talking of dialogue, on one
hand, and awarding murderers on the other side,” noted Human
Rights activist and programme coordinator of Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society Khurram Parvez, has said.
He described
the interview of Mir, aka, Muma Kanna to TV channels as
confession of a murder by the renegade who is nominee for Padma
Shri this year for “social services.”
“Muma Kaana’s
interview to the media channels is an ample proof that he has
killed and facilitated the killing of Kashmiris. Legally it is a
confession of murder. He is not a policeman or any other
security personnel,” he says.
“In what
capacity has he killed Kashmiris, taken law into his hands? It
shows that government of India is giving awards to the killers
of Kashmiris,” Khurram added.
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“I
want to convey it to Omar Abdullah, who is himself young
blood, that we need neither money and nor jobs that are
being given to murderers. We demand only the whereabouts of
our relatives. They have been subjected to involuntary
disappearance? Where are our ten thousand children?” |
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Criticizing his
recommendation for the award by the mainstream politicians,
Khurram asked them to explain contribution by Mir to society.
Surprisingly,
there is now some talk that his name was recommended by Farooq
Abdullah, Hassan Mir and Sarfaraz Khan. Clearly, they need to
explain to people why they recommended his name. Also, some
civil society leaders have questioned the silence of Wajahat
Habibulah, who boasts of feeling pain for Kashmiris and there is
talk that he too has backed that name.
Dr Sheikh
Showkat Hussein, Professor of international law and Human Rights
in Kashmir University’s department of Law and a well known name
in intellectual circles in
Kashmir, asserted that award to Muma Kaana was no surprise.
“New Delhi has
been giving these awards to those people who have been its
collaborators in Kashmir in one way or the other. Whether these
awards were given to pen wielders, gun wielders or poets, they
have been only collaborators,” he says.
Prof Noor Ahmad
Baba, Prof of political science in
Kashmir
University articulates this aptly defines the relation of
Indian
State
with Kashmir.
“Basically, it
is the reflective of how Indian state has been dealing with
Kashmir. Those who are considered criminals in Kashmir are
heroes for New Delhi. This exactly defines Kashmir's relation
with India,” says Baba.
Stating that
India was shielding the killers of Kashmiris by awarding prizes
and jobs, Parveena Ahanger, president of Association of Parents
of Disappeared Persons (APDP) says instead of patronizing the
criminals, the government should reveal the whereabouts of their
kin.
“New Delhi will
give awards to informers and killers. There is no surprise in
it. The killer of Human Rights activist Jaleel Indrabi, Major
Avatar Singh was sent to Canada. Rashid Billa, who is accused of
killing three civilians in Soura, is enjoying official patronage
at Jammu. They always shield the killers of Kashmiris,” says
Parveena.
“I want to
convey it to Omar Abdullah, who is himself young blood, that we
need neither money and nor jobs that are being given to
murderers. We demand only the whereabouts of our relatives. They
have been subjected to involuntary disappearance? Where are our
ten thousand children?”
She said that
instead of encouraging killers, the state government should
provide whereabouts of the missing. “Mukhbirs are given awards
but no one pays heed to our woes,” adds Parveena, whose son
Javid Ahanger was picked in august 1990 from batamaloo and
subjected to custodial disappearance.
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The Many Muma Kaanas of
Kashmir
 Kashmir
valley has a long tradition of throwing up such characters in
its history of shifting sands. Youngster may not have heard of
Jumma Jangi, Qadir Natta and Hasan Paccha the predecessors of
Mumma Kanna.
Qaidr Natta was
to Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed the then Prime Minister what Mumma
Kanna has been to Mufti's and Abdullah's. Right from 1953 to end
of 1964, Qadir Natta held sway and carried the odds for Bakshi
Brother's Corporation. Of course the gun totting was not the
wont those days and human life was still precious. The very look
of blood would evoke heart-rending cries and the dirty tricks
involved only Dhakka-Mukki, some noisy disruption in the public
gatherings of any opposition to Bakshi's. Or at best, a
kidnapping given the colour of an elopement. Poor Ashok Mehta
the legendry socialist stalwart of India had a taste of Qadir
Natta's prowess and sweep when his large public gathering in
Srinagar in the ground which now houses the High Court of the
state was thrown helter-skelter in a jiffy and poor Ashok Mehta
with his other socialist colleagues had to run for their lives.
Hasan Pacha,
though groomed by the very elements who propped up Muma Kaana in
the 1990's became the fact totem goon of Ghulam Mohd Shah who in
a coup of shifting loyalties of the National Conference acquired
the chair of Chief Ministership of the state and ruled from July
1984. Hasan Pacha's services had been used to browbeat and bring
around the elected members of the legislatures to betray and
back stab Farooq Abdullah who had been elected the Chief
Minister with the thumping majority against the wishes of the
rulers at
New Delhi
Hasan Pacha
ruled the roost during the rule of Ghulam Mohd Shah and every
corner of the valley had a taste of his wile and guile. Padma
awards of those days carried a halo of their own. Late Sonam
Narboo, Ram Nath Shastri and Hamidi Kashmiri evoke a different
aroma when referred to as Padma Shri's. Now these legendary
personalities have to share the dais with Muma Kaana.
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10
February 2010
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