'Omar behaving with great maturity', says Dr. Karan Singh in conversation with GKTV

GKTV: We are living in the times which are very dangerous and we are precariously placed, one doesn’t know where this crisis in the Middle East is going to lead us; some people use this word annihilation or obliteration that really scares. When you began your political journey, that was a moment of transition. A transition from feudal, colonial, monarchical period into a democratic system of nation-states. How do you feel at this moment? What is this transition going to look like?

KS: Well, history and life is full of transitions. In fact, when I started my political career, in this very house where you are, way back in 1949, 20th of June, I remember the date, my father appointed me regent of Jammu and Kashmir. He had to live abroad for a few years. So I was regent from 1949 to 1952. Then came the Constituent Assembly and the new democratic set up; a post of Sadarya Riyasat was created for the first time.

So, I was head of state as a regent, then I was head of state as Sadare Riyasat for 13 years, and then I was head of state as governor. So, I had all these three nomenclatures, although the job was the same. So, that was, as you said, a moment of great transition. The feudal structure was disappearing and a new structure was beginning to emerge. And it was  a very exciting time for me as a young man to be participating in the process of transition. I mean, you could read about a transition, you can see it on film, but to be part of it itself, I think is important.

That is what excites us when we talk to you, that you have been part of that transition and here in this room in your presence, we can feel history doesn’t look like it’s something remote. It looks so intense.

KS: Yes, very much so. My role has been to spearhead the transition from feudalism to democracy. I started off as a Yuvraj, regent, then Sadre Riyasat, then I joined Mrs. Gandhi’s cabinet. So this is a clear cut progression from a feudal system to a fully democratic system.

GKTV: How do you make sense of that now? Because in that transition, we had nation states emerging from colonial background. And then we had transnational institutions like UN also coming up, drawing those rules for human rights, global governance. But now, all of it seems to be falling apart; If it comes to such a pass that global leaders tell each other that you evacuate such and such city......

KS: It’s absolutely astounding. I lived through the Second World War. I was at school but I lived through it. I remember it well. And after that we thought that with the creation of nation states everybody would be peaceful. Not so at all. Throughout the world there have been transitions and turmoil. But this time it is more dramatic than ever before. I mean, you have the Ukraine-Russia war going on, which is quite an extraordinary thing because they are the same religion, the same race, more or less the same language, and yet they are fighting. And thousands of Russians, thousands of Ukrainians have been killed.

Ukrainian cities have been blown up one by one. So, it’s been a terrible attrition and it is still going on. West Asia, what they used to call the Middle East. First of all, the Hamas massacre. I mean, the Hamas people did a very foolish act by attacking Israelis. But the response has been much more than commensurate. As many as 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, men, women, and children. So, that is a terrible thing that is happening. And now Israel has attacked Iran and Iran is hitting back. Both are saying evacuate Tel Aviv or evacuate Tehran and the war is continuing. It is absolutely astounding even for me who has lived through a lot of changes.

I remember the breakup of Yugoslavia. General Tito was a friend of mine. That balkanization of that was a very violent thing. But that was limited to a certain part of Europe.

GKTV: You invoked this breakup of the Yugoslavia. You were in the company of great leaders, your own mentor, your own role model, as you say, is Nehru; who brought you into this democracy. Do you think, right now, there is an absence of global leaders of such stature who could manage the weight of the situation?

Well, I think so. Because you know, I remember when the Non-Aligned Movement was there. I remember meeting Jawaharlal, the main person, meeting President Nasser of Egypt, President Sukarno of Indonesia, Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus. I mean, these and all the people who were there. Each one was a giant in his own field. Now we have leaders, but I’m not sure whether they have that intellectual capacity that the earlier leaders had. They are much more political in the sense that, you know, they’re not interested in ideology and history, they’re just looking at their own thing. So we are in a very dangerous situation.

GKTV: You are a scholar in your own right, who has read faiths, who has read history, politics, everything. What do you attribute it to? This absence of standards now, absence of values, absence of great political...

I think what has happened is that, as you stressed, at one stage we thought we were moving towards the global society. I remember at the end of the last century, I was going around the world preaching the benefits of globalization. I thought that, look, the European Union was a unique phenomenon. I mean, different religions, different currencies, different languages, they all gelled into one. I said if that could be the model, then SAARC could be a model, ASEAN could be a model. You could first of all move on to regional groupings and then come together. Unfortunately, that has not happened. In the 21st century, there’s been a violent backlash against globalization. I mean, Trump quite clearly says I don’t accept globalization. I want America first. So what has happened? The militant nationalism has caused this turmoil.

GKTV: Do you attribute this to the failure of the liberal secular leadership more than the rise of the conservative right? 

Well, yes, liberalization, I’m afraid, has now taken a backseat. There was a very strong period when everything was being liberalized. You know, old taboos were being shed, whether they were sexual taboos or whether they were behavioral taboos. Everything was being shed. We were moving into a much more open society. That is now closing in again, which I think is a great tragedy.

GKTV: You have a background in philosophy and mysticism, I just want to understand your own opinion on this. Because in this entire crisis, which is happening for decades now, one term is again and again being invoked, that is Islamophobia. What is your understanding of Islam as a faith?

One of the areas I’ve been active in is the Interfaith Movement, which is an international movement which strives to bring together people of different religious faiths in a creative dialogue. Not to decide which one is better, but to try and understand. As far as I’ve been able to understand, every religion ultimately preaches brotherhood.

If you interpret religion in liberal terms, you get one answer. But if you interpret religion in fundamentalist terms, you get a different answer. I think the thing with Islam is that Islam is losing that Sufi touch, which I think was the greatest achievement of Islam. I think perhaps after the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi would be the person I would really respect because they brought the best out of love and understanding and peace. And the fundamentalist structures of Islam are being put up and they have led to a number of violent incidents around the world which has fed into this Islamophobia.

GKTV: As you put it, all faiths actually teach brotherhood and harmony and it depends on how do you understand and how do you apply religion in your lives. Islam besides being a religion is a lived experience. Do you think that somewhere the construct of Islamophobia, whatever it is, became a handy tool for military-industrial complex and those who are actually interested in war, to make it as a dominant image of the Muslim society?

Quite possible. You see, but remember that India was also partitioned on the basis of religion. Don’t forget that. Whether we like it or not, religion was the basis of the partition of India. So that was a traumatic event, the partition. As you know, lakhs of people died and it was a terrible thing. But that came through a certain commitment to a Muslim homeland which left more Muslims in India than in Pakistan, by the way. So that has also gone into our psyche. We cannot forget that, because one of the arguments is that as a result of Islam, our country was partitioned. So that is at the back of everybody’s mind. Even so, we’ve got to move towards better relations between the various religions, otherwise it will destroy our society again.

GKTV: Do you need to say that psychologically people have not reconciled with what actually happened during the partition and if it happened in the name of the religion, so it still rings in their minds.

You see, what also has happened at the same time is, don’t forget that India was ruled for 700 years by the Muslims. Now, there were great achievements, for example, the Mughals, the great forts, the great buildings that they have done. It is a marvel, the gardens in Kashmir, Shalimar, the great beautiful pond in Verinag. But, there were also unhappy incidents, there were also killings, there were also forcible conversions. So, 700 years of Muslim history is now being reinterpreted. There is a narrative now that it doesn’t start from 1947, it starts from Babur and the people who, the freebooters and all, Ghazni and Ghori and all, who were looters and they were freebooters, not like the Mughals who settled. So, that is all now being brought out. I am trying to explain the Hindu psyche. The Hindu psyche when they learn about all these earlier events, that is why it is being manipulated in this way.

GKTV: There is a way of understanding history in a very scholarly way and making a sense of the nuance underlined in any historical phenomenon. But, do you think that nowadays, for some political ends, we have turned history into hysteria? 

Unfortunately, that is happening. Because, you know, history is there whether you like it or not. Certain events have taken place. You can interpret them one way or the other. But, we have got to move on. I mean, if you get stuck in history, then that paralyzes our faculties, our compassion, our understanding and bogs us down in a very negative psychology. So, what we have to do now - say okay; this is what happened, fair enough. Because, partition ho gaya, so ho gaya, ab aage chalo.

GKTV: What would you suggest as someone who has been a part of politics right through that if India or the subcontinent or the world at large, have to heal these wounds, what should be that stroke of leadership and what should be the narrative, so that we have a beautiful world?

I think the sort of narrative that Jawaharlal Nehru had laid down. It has to be a liberal narrative. But, as I said, unfortunately, that liberal narrative is being overtaken now by a right-wing narrative, which rejects all possibilities of rapprochement, of understanding. So, those of us who are still involved in the interfaith movement should become more active, that’s all I can say.

GKTV: With this I come to  your association or the impact of this personality called Nehru on you. He is getting shuffled out of the Indian frame. One, what sense at an intellectual level you make, second, how do you feel personally when this thing happens?

I feel very pained because he was my mentor, my guru in a way, for 13 years, from 49 to 64. For 15 years he was guiding me and quite apart from my own personal thing, Nehru played a major role in the freedom movement, after freedom. You can’t cut him out now. It’s very unfortunate and very unfair that an attempt is being made to denigrate Nehru. Sardar Patel and Nehru were the two people who held this nation together after partition.

Not just Nehru, even Gandhi is being now questioned; something we could not have imagined some years back.

I think it’s very unfortunate.

GKTV: You have the memories of Nehru. Are there any memories of any interaction with Sardar Patel?

Yes, yes, very much so.

GKTV: Can you share that with us?

Sardar Patel, I knew very well. He happened to come. I had this trouble with my hip. I was in a wheelchair. When Gandhi ji came, I was also in the wheelchair when I met him. So, Sardar came home to Jammu. And he said, why is this boy on a wheelchair? My father said, we have been doing this for six months. He said, Maharaja sahib, arrange for him to be sent to America right now. Otherwise, he will be on a wheelchair all his life. So, thanks to him, I was sent to America, where I was there in hospital for one year. But after my operation was over, I was able to walk again. I was able to play some tennis, I was able to play some golf. So, I owe a great debt to Sardar Patel. And then, in the end, when I became regent, he invited me to stay as his guest in the Dehradun. He was also very kind to me.

GKTV: How do you describe the two – Nehru and Patel?

Well, let’s put it this way. One was the left wing of the Congress, the other was the right wing of the Congress. They were both in the Congress. They were within the parameters of the Congress and Gandhiji. But within that, as you know, in every great party, there is one wing or the other wing. So, Jawaharlal ji was leader of the more liberal wing. And Sardar was a great organization man. He had full control over the organization. So, their roles were different.

But it’s no use projecting one and getting down the other. With Jawaharlal Nehru, India became a global power. He was known throughout the world. He was respected.

GKTV: How would you compare Nehru and Modi?

Very interesting comparison. Very interesting comparison. Both of them won three elections. Both of them - very, very popular figures. Both overshadow their parties.  Nobody knows, nobody bothers who is the President of the BJP because he ( Modi) is the boss. Same thing with Jawaharlal Nehru. So, they had a lot in common. The difference, of course, is in ideology. One, again, was left wing, the other was right wing.

GKTV: Do you have any memories of Gandhi meeting your father?

Well, I was sitting through the conversation. I must admit, I wasn’t able to follow it. He spoke in a low, low voice and Gujarati accent. I didn’t understand. But what I understand is that what he said to my father was - talk to your people. Find out what they want. More or less, I think that’s what Gandhi said.

GKTV: You father arrested Nehru, how do you feel about it now?

Very upset. Even at the time, I was very upset. Although Ramchandra Kak came in and proudly announced to my father, hum nai bandh kar diya ji usko. Maine kaha, gaye. The moment I said, that is the end of this state and of this administration.

GKTV: And what was the response of your father to it?

Nothing. He didn’t say anything. But the point is that it shows how out of touch we were with the vast historic trends that were emerging. You see, the difficulty or tragedy of my father was. he was a very intelligent man, he was a very progressive ruler for the first 25 years. He was, you know, he ended begar, he started women’s education. The only thing is, he was not really aware of the historical trend. What were the rising forces? Congress. What dis we do? We put the leader in jail. Then British, who were the only ones who could have done something, he disliked them because he was a patriot. And Sheikh Abdullah, the unparalleled leader at that time of the Kashmiri people, was in jail.

GKTV: Coming to now, the current times. Congress was a force, Congress was an ecosystem. But now it has been reduced to some seats. It was only in last elections, parliament elections, that they got a significant number of seats. What would you suggest to the present Congress leadership, if this party has to be revived, if all those values have to be reclaimed?

Well, I don’t know whether I should suggest anything to them because they don’t seem to want my opinion. After my parliament term finished in 2018, In 2019 they dropped me from the Working Committee. I don’t want to say anything about Karra. He’s okay, fine, as a local leader. But you know, after that, I’ve also withdrawn, they’ve also not bothered about it. So why should I give them any advice?

GKTV: But the liberal democratic space...

That is very important. You must keep that alive. You know, we must prevent it from totally disappearing.

GKTV: Hand on your heart, what was your intuitive response when August 5, 2019 happened? What was you first response to that announcement?

It was a very interesting response. Of course, there was some regret. In any case my father’s state had disappeared. It wasn’t there any longer. However, there were some positive elements; for example lacs of disenfranchised people who came from Sialkot, they were not allowed to vote. They could vote for me ( if I contested for) parliament. But they couldn’t vote for assembly. They couldn’t get a job. Because they were not State Subjects. So they got enfranchised. The thing about women, that if you marry a non-Kashmiri you lose your property; that was also unfair.

So there were some good elements, and then there is some nostalgia, that there was once such a big state... But what has not been appreciated is the demotion to a UT. First they would say it is the crown of India, and now we are even junior to Haryana and Himachal.

GKTV: Your personal dream should be that you should see the restoration of the statehood.

I would like to see it, but I’m not overly sentimental about it. The old state is no longer there, and there is no use pretending that the old state is there.

GKTV: What can be the political journey onwards. it might be a political nostalgia that once upon a time it used to be a great state, but in terms of political rights, human dignity and economic chances..

....those ( things) we must get  back

GKTV: What can be the contours of a political struggle for that, for a party like National Conference or for the people of Jammu. Can the two – Kashmir and Jammu – come together to fight for it?

I don’t think we need to fight. the govt of India has committed that it is going to give back statehood. They committed it to the supreme court. They committed it to the people. I don’t think we need any agitation, we simply need to keep pressing politically.

GKTV: May be fight in that sense, through political instruments, insisting on this.

I don’t think it is a conflictual struggle, it is a quiet, political struggle.

GKTV: As in the last election, and also before that, Jammu voted for one political party and Kashmir for another. Do you think there is any possibility in future that we can have a political party that can reconcile the two aspirations?

For that matter Mufti Sahab tried, but it didn’t work. You see, Jammu, and Kashmir, psychologically and in many other ways are very different. So they will have different political parties. I am afraid, we cannot avoid that. But this time the polirisation was very clear. But as far as statehood is concerned, they are very common.

GKTV: What would you suggest to a person like Omar Abdullah, how he should take the case of statehood to the relevant spaces and create an argument in favour of it.

I think Omar is behaving with great maturity.  I have not met him, he has not come to see me. But from his speeches and all, he is being very moderate and sensible.

GKTV: But some people would argue that it is too much of moderation, because he is not asserting himself. Do you buy that argument?

He is in a very difficult position. The power in the state is bifurcated between the governor and the chief minister (the division of power in the UT of J&K between LG and CM). The result of it is that the administration tends to get paralysed.

GKTV: You worked in a space where Sheikh Sahab worked. He was an adversary when you take it back to pre 1947. How was it like working with him, personally.

Well, he was an adversary to my father. Personally I had no problems working with him. Personally, he was alright with me.  But it was difficult because he was representing certain thought process and I was put in there, in a way, as the last representative of the Dogras. But I had to be very very cautious; it was a very tightrope walk.

GKTV: Yards away we have the residence of  Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah. Do you some times feel like meeting them?

Farooq sai to merai badai acchai taulluqat rahain hain. ( I have had good relations with Farooq). He got me back to Parliament, I owe a debt to him. Bohat Mast Aadmi Hain.

GKTV: Before we wrap up, one man remains – Mufti Muhammed Syed. How do you assess him as a politicians?

He was a shrewd politicians.  India ka Home Minister Rehna Koi Choti Baat Nahi Hai ..( Being the Home Minister of India, is not a small matter.)

GKTV: Thanks Dr Karan Singh for this long and revealing conversation.

I have enjoyed talking with you.