DISCRIMNATION, IN RETROSPECT.

(Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed
Every morning a lion wakes up
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running).

The discrimination against Kashmiris in the state government jobs is discussed in the conferences, seminars and newspapers by a wide spectrum of wizards. The tub thumping reports and the revealing statistics build up euphoria amongst the hapless masses about the machinations that have reportedly been engineered by the Hindu chauvinists to dislodge the Kashmiri Muslim from the bureaucracy and the power centers of the state. The glaring fact, no doubt, is that the Kashmiri Muslim has since been deplumed and dethroned from the key positions in the state government. In a few years or so the poor fella will grow extinct as dinosaurs in the power corridors of the state. While he is already sent packing from the elite services like IAS, IPS and IFS, in the near future, the state Kashmir Administrative Service(KAS) will be manned some one who is not at all Kashmiri. ‘Ghareeb’ Kashmiri Muslim shall have to be content with the post of driver, cleaner, chowkidar, and orderly or as clerk or an S.O. at the most, as he was during the Maharaja’s time.

Historically the state government jobs were mostly occupied by the Kashmiri pundits. The presence of the Kashmiri Muslims was negligible. As the Kashmiri Pundits lost their edge, they were replaced primarily by Kashmiri Muslims. Their exodus from the state government jobs nevertheless turned out to be a boon for the Kashmiri pundits to explore green pastures. It was not however many years before the Hindu of Jammu was going great guns to replace the archrival Kashmiri right under his (politician as well as bureaucrat) nose. The decade’s long disturbed conditions in the valley in the meanwhile drove a section of the 2nd generation talented ‘creamy layer’ of Kashmiri Muslims out to the USA, Europe and Gulf countries and even to some cosmopolitan Indian cities. The migration had exposed him to the whole lot of economic prosperity and better career opportunities.

The void created by the militancy had dispatched the Kashmir valley to the Jurassic age. The youth of Jammu on the other hand found himself favourabally placed to reap the benefits of the newly invented liberalization of Indian economy. Connectivity with the major Indian cities and the availability of the hassle free quality education next door (for 24*7) consigned him ahead of his Kashmiri counterpart by several light years. With all the comparative advantages at his credit the former had a clear ground to make forays into the state services. To top it of, the youth from Jammu being an Indian to the core of his heart, had the whole Indian nation at his back in his mission.

The first generation Kashmiri Muslims tried their best to follow the key to thrive in the government (and to protect their turf) and not to rock the boat. Those that made peace with them (selves) and agreed to tackle a position of careful cowardice as members of the system might have had their worldly success. For success, status, advancement and money were too valuable to be risked before those who make judgments, rather than placing all of these symbols in jeopardy these men would not mind making compromises which they thought were required to hang on. The tongue tied individuals, with a classic defense carved out, pretended that the threat to their collective self respect and lack of integrity did not exist. They would shrug off their aversion towards the intolerable conduct of government system as they might a heat wave or spell of unseasonal rain, which offends no one's values, and rush back to their private fortresses of family life or intellectual hobby.

World over surveys conducted however reveal that the parents want their children to grow into contended, highly functioning, no-limit adults (with high self esteem) with the ability to handle all of life’s difficulties without allowing themselves to be so overwhelmed by them. Like any other parent in the world the Kashmiri Muslim parents tried best to steer their siblings away from the dangerously corrupt system they had all along been a part of. They did not want their children to sacrify and bear humiliation of sinking through the floors, and licking and throwing themselves at the feet of their masters like ‘doormat’ (placed near doors for wiping dirt from shoes) to achieve the so called success. While there was a time when the most natural thing for parents was to expect children to fulfill their own unachieved desires or to even follow in their footsteps, the gen-ex (Kashmiri Muslims) are totally different from us in terms of shifting goalposts and better idea of what they want from their life. It is foolish to assume that we could impose our dreams and desires/goals on to these ‘star-in-my-eyes’ little fellows.

Kashmiri Muslims, like other Muslims, voice their alarm at the Ibn Khaldun’s famously suggested notion of pan Islamic asabiyya (the group loyalty, social cohesion or solidarity). The lingering concern is (the perception) that as the majority community in the J&K state, they are losing the key positions in the power hierarchy. With the inherited colonial structure of administration, politics and education disintegrating and new ones yet to supplant and consolidate them, the massive urbanization, dramatic demographic changes, migration to the west, the gap between rich and poor, the widespread corruption and mismanagement of rulers, the rampant materialism coupled with the low premium on education, the crisis of identity (and perhaps most significantly new and often alien ideas and images, at once seductive and repellant, and instantly communicated from the west, ideas and images which challenge traditional values and customs) all make the Kashmiri Muslim worried of asabiyya being in danger. As a large percentage of Kashmiri Muslims is young, illiterate, mostly jobless (and therefore easily mobilized for radical change) the net result is the difficulty of creating a society based on justice, knowledge, and compassion as also denying their society honor and dignity.

India, the 2nd buyer (in the banking parlance) getting benefited, for example, from the over capacity in fiber optics would mine brains of its own people to churn out some of the most gifted engineering, computer science and software whiz kids on the globe to be of the great use to America, the 2nd buyer of the Indian brain power. The 21st century being talent based, today your first management job out of business school could be melding specialties of a knowledge team (it is 1/3 rd in India than in Boston). That takes a very special kind of skill (much in demand in the world) which in India is available at the IITs, IIMs, NALSAR (and the like), IIFT, IISc, AIIMS, NID, NITs, BITS, VIT, DCE(DTU now), ISI, IIITs, XLRIs, NITIE, NIFTs, FMS, ISB and others similar premier schools. In India it is only 50-60000 students from these institutions which matter when compared to the total of more than 12 million enrolled in higher education that people talk about. As they are the whiz kids who are responsible for the Indian economic miracle, the need of the hour is that our kids are the part of this creamy layer.

A story that keeps growing in the telling is that the Indian Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group. They constitute the richest and best educated ethnic group, wielding disproportionate to their numbers. As the exodus of the educated Indians has been a safety value for them for not finding enough jobs in India, so must we Kashmiris understand that like Indian Diaspora, our exodus (brain drain) builds up a Diaspora that catalyzes changes in social, political and economic attitudes to pave way for our economic miracle as well? Besides if India with a unique combination of its skills, its labour advantages, capital flows and pool of ambitious, outward looking companies is giving it a second massive triple play advantage across sectors, we Kashmiris with out becoming euphorically mad about the loss of petty government jobs (luxuriant with opportunities to rot) have to understand that in the seismic shift of Indian role playing in the world economy, where its economic success matters today, we shall have to simply carve our niche.

Isolationism about a welsian frog is that it lives its whole life within a well, knowing nothing else except that it is suspicious of everything outside it. It talks to none and argues with no one about anything. It merely harbors the deepest suspicion of the outside world. Feasibility of effective global participation is closely linked with the development of human resources and capabilities. If we have not yet been able to seize economic opportunities for the manufacture of simple products in a way that has happened in Japan, Korea, China and other countries in east Asia our remarkable neglect of basic (and quality) education has a decisive role in this handicap.

With out making customary to blame others for all manner of ills, let us understand that the competition revolves around the questions like who can make the best products? Who expands their standards of living most rapidly? Who has the world’s best educated and best skilled work force? Who is the world’s leader in investment? Who organizes best? Whose institutions are the world’s best in efficiency? To be forced to do all these things by the competitors is good and no bad. Resources need be effectively used for human welfare and not lamenting others for ones ills.

As in chess, the economic player that is thinking five moves ahead loses to the player that is thinking six moves ahead we must have to find the best position for a piece, to fight for the open line, to have a strong centre to attack the opponent’s king. Material must have to be compared against time. Material and time must have to be evaluated against quality. It takes imagination. At the highest level chess is a talent to control unrelated things. It is like controlling chaos.