This is the voice of one of a hundred and twenty million Indians, literally from the wilderness, from the Indroda Natural Wildlife Park on the banks of the Sabarmati near Gandhinagar, where it is being thought through. In an open democracy, for all you know, there is an outside chance that it may even get a hearing. All large multi-ethnic democratic countries are as contentious as we are. South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil and (at least my friends in) oligarchic Russia are all frantically debating, but there is on some fundamentals a minimalist national consensus.

This is more so in more unitary countries and was perhaps somewhat overdone in the early years of independence and the republic when the unitary aspects of our federal republic were more in evidence, but all that seems a part of the distant past. Even the closest held national ideals are now taken as given as the last few weeks show. In the global bazaar everything is up for grabs. 

As I travelled across the country, I could see that Kashmir is deeply disturbing many. More than two-thirds of Indians see Kashmir as something close to their heart and will probably fight for it, as many large surveys show. It is not just the sentimental value of the battles the Sheikh fought with freedom fighters before Independence.

Those, it seems, are passé to the present generation. Groups, unfortunately no longer just rabble-rousers, now play games for narrow gains; the prize for a few more votes is the nation’s ideals. This is not the way a national elite consisting of those who govern and those who contest them should function. I remember being invited in 1989 to give the Shere-e-Kashmir lecture at the then new convention centre at the Dal Lake. It started as a low-key affair with Begum Abdullah chairing it; but since I discussed the logic of India’s democratic federalism in an open manner, it soon became a slanging match. Somebody must have told the chief minister that things were warming up and Farooq made an unscheduled appearance and was severe with me in spite of our old friendship from his college days at Jaipur. I got hammered, but it was a very Kashmiri and Indian fracas. Later, I was jogging alone on the banks of the Jhelum and realised India was not doing its bit for apple orchards, high-value saffron farming and hydel power. But the new government in 1990 dismissed Farooq for being a crony of Rajiv’s and the Valley was up in flames, taking a long time to settle down. The same faces I had seen at the debate were now on Doordarshan screaming at “Indian dogs”. I know we feel strongly on some issues, but can any responsible elite take the burden of cutting off the Valley from the rest of India? It is almost as bad as ignoring the right to life and freedom. 

... contd.