I saw a resemblance

What binds Red Square and Lal Chowk
By Sarwar Kashani

Moscow, Dec 15 (IANS) Snow-covered roads in winters, bustling crowds of shoppers wrapped in heavy woollens, beautifully decked shops, and a sense of insecurity -- there are plenty of commonalities between Moscow's Red Square and its namesake Lal Chowk in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar city.

Few people remember today that Lal Chowk, a bustling business hub in Kashmir's summer capital, is named after the central marketplace in Moscow -- Lal means Red, Chowk is Square.

It was a group of enthusiastic Communists in Srinagar who thought of the name Lal Chowk after Lenin seized power in Moscow in 1917.

Located in Moscow's old market place, Red Square is a sprawling meeting place for people -- a la Lal Chowk. Both, neither red nor square, resemble each other a lot although there are some stark dissimilarities.

Red Square is surrounded by the Kremlin, a department store, a museum and St. Basil's Cathedral - centres of government, business, history and religion. It also houses Lenin's tomb, a granite mausoleum of the founder of the world's first socialist state.

Socialism is what Jammu and Kashmir's former chief minister, the late Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, a legend in the state, was attracted to.

He more than readily gave Srinagar city's main centre the name of Lal Chowk.

Russian historians argue that the commonly-held assumption that the 'red' in Red Square refers to Communism is misplaced. The marketplace was established in the 15th century and was originally called Trinity Square after the Trinity Cathedral, the same site where stands St. Basil's now.

'Krasnaya', Russian for red, was attached to St. Basil's Cathedral and later transferred to the nearby square. It thus became the 60,000 sq metre shopping centre Red Square, one of the most famous places in the world.

Srinagar's Lal Chowk is not as sprawling as its Russian namesake. Amid hundreds of lined shops and street vendors, its narrow lanes and by-lanes, converging at Ghanta Ghar (Clock Tower) are like a labyrinth for an unknowing visitor to get lost.

But there is a brighter side to these byzantine lanes. The moment there is an act of violence, courtesy a 20-year-old separatist war, one can easily get into these lanes for a possible safer place.

At both places one feels like in a fishbowl environment. In Moscow, a common atmosphere of hushed conversations and hand symbols reinforces that belief.

While Moscow was only some 20 years ago freed from Communist rule, the sense of insecurity among the people has not totally vanished.

"There used to be extensive surveillance, particularly of foreigners, before the Communists ended," a Russian interpretor told a visiting IANS correspondent.

Unlike the Red Square, Srinagar's Lal Chowk, where paramilitary forces abound, is a place considered not too safe because of uncertainty due to the unending guerrilla war.

Night life also differentiates Lal Chowk from Red Square. In any case, Srinagar is not as enticing as Moscow.

In Moscow, life comes alive every night and there is something for everyone: a jazz aficionado, a hardcore clubber or a liquor lover.

One cannot imagine any of these in Srinagar.

Hospitality is another virtue that strikes a similarity between Moscow and Srinagar.

A common belief is that hospitality is rooted in Russian culture. And Kashmiris believe they are no less hospitable.

(Sarwar Kashani can be contacted at s.kashani@ians.in)

A stroll through brief history of Lal Chowk!!!

Lal Chowk - from 1947 to AK-47
By Sarwar Kashani
Srinagar, Jan 7 (IANS) Labyrinthine lanes, a clock tower, hundreds of shops, thousands of people and burnt buildings in the backdrop - this is Srinagar's Lal Chowk that Thursday faced more terror violence, just as it repeatedly has in Jammu and Kashmir's 20-year insurgency.

As the clock tower, which never shows the correct time, ticks at the centre, Lal Chowk seems to be in a time warp with the past continually intruding into the present. It may be the bustling business hub, but things have changed little over the decades. Violence continues to be a leitmotif -- particularly after AK-47 rifles started roaring in the otherwise serene Kashmir Valley.

Always at the centre of political activities and terror turmoil, the biggest commercial centre of the valley has been witness to many moments in Jammu and Kashmir's troubled history.

Four years after the insurgency erupted in 1989, a part of Lal Chowk was gutted in a fire that erupted after a paramilitary group came under a militant attack April 10, 1993. Many civilians were killed in exchange of the bullets as people were fleeing their homes.

At least 60 houses, over 200 business stores and five huge commercial buildings were destroyed in the blaze. The half burnt Palladium theatre, which houses a paramilitary camp, still carries the burnt scars of the 1993 arson even though surrounding shops and complexes have been reconstructed.

It has also been a centre for political rallies, dating right back to 1947.

"Tu man shudi, man tu shudi - Ta kas na goyad bad azeen, man deegaram tu deegari..." late chief minister Sheikh Abdullah told India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in Persian while addressing a mammoth gathering near the clock tower.

In a plain testimony that Kashmir had acceded to secular India, Abdullah was telling Nehru in his 1947 address: "You become me, and I become you - we have become one."

Many years later, on Republic Day in 1991, two years after the insurgency erupted in 1989, Bharatiya Janata Party's Murli Manohar Joshi dared separatists in curfew bound Lal Chowk as he unfurled the tricolour on the clock tower.

That was a tokenism that has been forgotten in the tumultuous militant struggle.

Since then, the clock has silently watched many flags, even the Pakistani crescent, being hoisted from time to time.

Hind Pak dosti zindabad

Pitching for 'Hind Pak dosti' and peace
By Sarwar Kashani

New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) Predictably, the questions were many when speakers from India and Pakistan got together and talked about whether and how the neighbours could shed decades of distrust and live in harmony. Is peace possible between the two neighbours? If so, then how, when and why? And the answer was one: Why not?

"Hind Pak dosti, Zindabad", they shouted the slogan many times in the brightly lit auditorium, with a huge bright yellow banner in the backdrop with the words 'Peace' between India and Pakistan scribbled in bold.

Peaceniks of the two nuclear armed neighbours came together Sunday for a three-day conference at the India International Centre (IIC) to lay a road map for resuming the stalled India-Pakistan talks.

There were many doubts and confusions, grievances and complaints from the two sides, but all speakers, howsoever divided they appeared in their perspective, seemed united in pitching for peace.

It was a wish of the common people across the border, they said and underlined "some vested interests" were benefiting from keeping the India-Pakistan conflict cauldron burning.

"They are military industries in third countries that are benefiting from our stupid actions," said India's formal chief of naval staff, Admiral L. Ramdas.

Ramdas in his short speech dotted with humorous punches said: "You keep the flame burning.... otherwise a hell of a lot of people will be out of work, out of business." Without naming any nation, he was referring to Western countries from whom India and Pakistan buy their military equipment "in an arms race to outdo each other".

Then came former minister and senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar -- who is known for his witticism and spontaneous sarcasm. Amid bouts of laughter, Aiyar joked a lot but sounded serious about India resuming its peace talks with Pakistan, which stalled in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks.

"We have an excellent relationship with Paraguay but don't know what to do with Pakistan," said Aiyar tongue-in-cheek. He was an Indian consul-general in Karachi before shifting to politics.

Taking a dig at the bureaucratic and political wrangling on both sides, Aiyar strongly pitched for resuming talks. "We talk to Pakistan when it is least needed and we don't talk to Pakistan when it is most needed."

"Dialogue is possible," he said even as he highlighted India's concerns about terror sanctuaries in Pakistan.

"But I don't think that (making dialogue conditional) is the way forward. Do we expect Pakistan to say 'Hi, sorry! Look we sent Mr Kasab to attack India. He should have been killed but got arrested by you."

India and Pakistan need to "talk about talks, at least", he said.

The former diplomat suggested: "Inter governmental dialogue should become uninterrupted and uninterruptible. Let's have our foreign secretaries routinely meeting at a table laid on the Attari-Wagah border, literally. Both sides are in their own countries and nobody has a chance to leave. Let them meet once a week or twice a month even without an agenda. This will keep the communication channels on because meeting each other is critical."

Barrister Aitzan Ahsan, one of the activists who spearheaded the movement for restoration of "independent judiciary" in post-emergency Pakistan, said India should not doubt the "credentials" of his country.

"We in Pakistan love India and Indians," he said.

He mentioned the Mumbai terror attacks, which India blames on terrorist organisations based in Pakistan.

"Bombay (Mumbai) was our grief, it was a South Asian grief. They (terrorists) are a possessed minority. They are also hitting at our men and women. Let the terrorists not tear us apart," he said.

And when you talk about India-Pakistan peace, can we ignore Kashmiris. As separatists Sajjad Lone and Yasin Malik stood among the audiences, their colleague from the other side of the political divide, Mehbooba Mufti shared the dais with the speakers.

Though not as impressive as her co-speakers, Mufti in her written speech raised the issue of solving the Kashmir dispute to allow Kashmiris live in peace. "Without changing borders can we unify the divided Kashmir?" she asked.

The conference by 11 organisations from India and Pakistan will see in the next two days eminent personalities from both countries deliberating on a host of issues concerning them. It was thrown open by veteran journalist and a known peacenik Kuldip Nayar, who has long led the movement for India-Pakistan peace.

Many voices and concerns on Kashmir - any solutions?

By Sarwar Kashani
An India-Pakistan peace conference to lay a road map for resolving disputes, including Kashmir, turned into a vociferous exchange of ideas when many voices from different regions and ethnic groups of the divided state raised their concerns about being "left out".

Emotions and tensions ran high in the track-II diplomatic effort here Monday as participants and people from the audience said the Kashmir issue was not about the Muslim-dominated valley alone. It was a symbolic reference to the complexity of the six-decade-old dispute of the state that is divided between India and Pakistan.

So when two separatist leaders - Yasin Malik of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Sajjad Lone of the Peoples Conference - voiced their ideas on how to resolve the dispute, some people from other regional and ethnic groups of the state in the audience also wanted to make their point.

Peaceniks of the two nuclear armed neighbours who organised the three-day peace conference at the India International Centre (IIC) had a tough time to let all voices be heard, but they did.
A student from Ladakh shouted: "Who has given Malik and Sajjad the contract to speak for the entire state?"

A man from Gilgit-Baltistan said the Shia-dominated region in Pakistani Kashmir was a part of the undivided state till 1947, but "why is there no mention of us when you try to solve the dispute?"

"When you talk about the Kashmir problem you are referring to 11 percent of its geographic area (the Kashmir Valley). What about the other 89 percent? The impasse will linger until you accommodate our view point," he said.

Some members of the migrant Kashmir Pandits said their plight of living like "refugees in our own country" was being overlooked.

The solutions mooted were as many as the voices, making the problem look more complex than it actually may be.

"In Jammu and Kashmir, sentiments vary even as a majority is for independence. The problem is too complex... more than it appears to be," said Lone.

"Pakistan speaks about UN resolutions but only when it comes to Indian Kashmir. What about the other regions under its occupation and the part it has gifted to China," the Peoples Conference leader said, referring to territory, including the northern areas of Gilgit-Baltistan, under Pakistan administration.

"Can we arrive at an affordable position where all these solution converge? There may be a point definitely," he said. Lone said it was not possible for India and Pakistan to give up "even an inch of land".

"But can we still reunite the divided Jammu and Kashmir without sticking to our extreme positions? Yes, we can if we have a political will on all the three sides - India, Pakistan and Kashmir. Let economy do that. Let trade do that," he said.

"Let's have a power sharing evolution. A new set of arrangements which rises above the monotony of sovereignty," said Lone, the only separatist leader who has drafted a resolution "Achievable Nationhood" on the Kashmir issue.

Lone said it was easy to contain violence "but difficult to beat it". "You cannot defeat it without delivering on your promises."

JKLF leader Yasin Malik traced the roots of the problem to broken promises and "deficiency of trust between India and Kashmiris".

"You will have to restore the credibility of the dialogue process in Kashmir if you want to make peace," he said.

"People have lost faith in the institution of dialogue for reasons best known to everybody. Dialogue in Kashmir is a synonym to sell-out," said the former militant commander who gave up arms in 1994 for a political struggle.

Referring to thousands of people killed in the Kashmir armed conflict, Malik stressed that the issue should be resolved "before it consumes another generation".

The conference organised by 11 organisations from India and Pakistan ends Tuesday. It has eminent personalities from both countries deliberating on a host of issues that unite rather than divide them.
--Indo-Asian News Service