How many ‘ifs & buts’ on Kashmir?
Furzana Shaheen

ON 5th February Kashmiris observe the ‘Solidarity Day’ to renew their all out support to the valiant Kashmiris who are struggling for the liberation of their motherland from the Indian shackles and the realization of their inalienable right to self-determination. The observance of the Day is a clear manifestation of the bonafide verity that India can in no way delude the world opinion and the New Delhi rulers shall have to bow before the explicit will of the gallant people of the Jammu and Kashmir.
February 5 is not only a unique milestone, manifesting the rock-hard fortitude of Kashmiris to seek their right of self-determination at all costs, but also a cursor for India to quit the grabbed part of Jammu and Kashmir. The UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir remain unimplemented and the Indian Government has been dragging its feet on the question of reference to the people under one excuse or the other. India’s reluctance to honor international law and its own commitments about right of self-determination to Kashmiris has turned the dispute into a global flashpoint.
From October 1989, the crises in Indian-Occupied Kashmir hit a downward spiral. There are two reasons for that: first, demand for a UN supervised plebiscite gained widespread support among a vast majority of Kashmiris; second, Indian military presence has increased substantially. By deploying 700,000 troops to control the population and to ‘silence’ every individual’s voice of protest, New Delhi has resorted to the most extreme tactics. Success of the Kashmiris’ struggle for freedom is being halted by Indian Army. India is showing disinclination in obeying international laws. India, on Kashmir, has always been untrustworthy and dishonest in her attitude. Neither she tried to bring detente herself nor been a party to Pakistan’s efforts to settle this dispute.
There were several plans to solve the Kashmir issue such as through the UN resolutions of 1948 and 1949, the Simla agreement in July 1972 and President Pervez Musharraf October 2004 suggestion of “food for thought on Kashmir” but none of these plans materialized due to Indian tenacity to solve. The demands of the people of Kashmir are simple. They want freedom from Indian military occupation and the right to decide their own future by a democratic and impartially supervised vote. The UN Security Council has already defined the mechanism for the exercise of this right but India is not showing any flexibility for the durable solution of Kashmir imbroglio.
The people of Jammu and Kashmir have been cheated and oppressed by the traditional Indian deceit and her repressive policies. The Indians continue to renege their solemn commitments for the plebiscite, refuse to honor the UN resolutions and maintain a highly threatening size of military forces. Indian Army’s continued intransigence and application of worst form of repression and atrocities against innocent and unarmed Kashmiris provide the cause and strong motivation for the Kashmiri freedom struggle. India has declared these freedom fighters as ‘terrorists’ but the ongoing freedom struggle of Kashmiri people has nothing to do with terrorism as it is an indigenous resistance movement of valiant Kashmiris against the illegal Indian rule.
In its efforts to crush the freedom movement, Indian Government has pursued a policy of repression in Kashmir which has resulted in massive human rights violations by the Indian Army and paramilitary forces. About 700,000 soldiers have been poured into the densely populated civilian areas of Kashmir. Indian forces have acted without regard for international human rights law and have violated the laws of war protecting civilians in situations of armed conflict.
The US State Department, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have recorded varying categories of human rights violations in Kashmir. These include political and extrajudicial killings; disappearances; rape, torture and custodial abuse; arbitrary arrest and detention; willful destruction of property; denial of fair trial; arbitrary interference into privacy /family/home / correspondence; use of excessive force and violations of humanitarian law; suppression of freedom of speech and press; and suppression of religious freedom.
Indian army soldiers, federal paramilitary troops of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Border Security Force (BSF) have used lethal force against peaceful demonstrators, shooting hundreds of unarmed civilians. Indian forces have also engaged in the summary executions of suspected militants and reprisal killings of civilians. They have frequently opened fire in crowded markets and residential areas, killing innocent civilians. More than 90,000 innocent Kashmiris have been killed in the brutalities of Indian forces, 38,450 people have been pushed to crippledom, and 30,000 women have been raped.
According to the United Nations, “About ten to twelve innocent people are killed every week by Indian Paramilitary forces and approximately eight thousand Kashmiris are martyred every year”. India is trying to silence the voice of Kashmiris by employing the black laws such as: POTA (Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act), TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act), and AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) but the fact is that India can not crush the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle. The people of Kashmir are becoming more and more indomitable to liberate their land from India’s illicit and forceful occupation.
Observance of ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’ every year is reaffirmation of the fact that Kashmiris will continue to fight against the brutal Indian occupation and Pakistan will continue to support them morally because she is well aware of the plights of Kashmiri brethren. Pakistan wants a peaceful solution of Kashmir dispute through the implementation of UN resolutions, which is according to the bonafide will of Kashmiri people.
Despite painting the Kashmir freedom movement as terrorism and creating instability in the region, India should come to the negotiation table and resolve the long standing Kashmir issue peacefully. The international community should intervene and pressurize India to resolve the issue once and for all. With a realization of ground realities, the Indian Government should eschew all types of ambiguities and usage of typical rhetoric, based on ‘ifs and buts’ to get the longed dispute on Kashmir solved. It is now a high time for India to adopt a forward looking approach in evolving workable strategies to deal with the Kashmir dispute to end it.


Supporting Kashmiris’ valiant struggle
Momin Iftikhar


5th February, marked as the Kashmir Solidarity Day, coming in the wake of Indian Republic Day on 26th January is an appropriate occasion to reflect on the various facets of the Kashmiri Movement for Freedom, which began to evolve almost simultaneously with the birth of Pakistan. But what stands to be admired most on this day is the fortitude with which the Kashmiri population has withstood the tyranny of the Indian military machine which has barely spared any household in the IRK. India has failed to break the will of the Kashmiri population despite unleashing worst possible atrocities and it speaks of the moral ascendance of the freedom fighters that it is the personnel of the Indian military that are loosing their sanity in this clash of will while the number of Kashmiris ready to die for their cause has never diminished. On this day when we are expressing solidarity with the Kashmiris and their cause to throwaway the yoke of Indian occupation, the point to remember is that if the Kashmir Issue is alive today it is only through the defiant struggle of the Kashmiris. For given the Indian penchant to shift stances Kashmir would have long since been absorbed in the Indian Union. The Kashmir day therefore should most appropriately be dedicated to those valiant men who have ensured through price in their blood that Kashmir issue remains alive. On the occasion of the Kashmir Solidarity Day, few aspects related to the Kashmiri freedom struggle merit underscoring.
First that Kashmir Issue is indigenous. Like any other freedom struggle it is not evolving in a vacuum. The Line of Control (the erstwhile Cease Fire Line) is a line which essentially came into being as a result of the UN brokered ceasefire upon cessation of hostilities between armies of India and Pakistan in 1949. Its linkages to the UN are inviolable since it was delineated when India referred the question of Kashmir to the UN Security Council and accepted a UN brokered ceasefire. It essentially divides the Kashmiri people along an unnatural line; running through like a knife across the communities and bradaris, villages and hamlets. It is not sealable or otherwise the Indian Army after having constructed one of the most formidable barbed wire fences erected any where in the world along its entire length, lining it with mines and patrolling it extensively with troops under orders to shoot to kill, should surely would have succeeded in stopping the trickle of volunteers who are attracted by the lure and romance of a call to arms. But the brunt of the liberation struggle is borne by the local fighters or how does one account for the grave yards of local villages which are expanding with the untimely arrival of the local youth buried by the locals with their own hands and prayed for unceasingly. More than a hundred thousand of young Kashmiris have embraced Shahadat in defiance of the Indian occupation and their resolve has not wavered. Such defiance deserves to be acknowledged and saluted by us all.
Second, the Kashmiri armed struggle, is not a terrorist movement with al Qaeda linkages, as the Indians are wont to make the world believe. Nor is it a source of instability which is exporting terrorists into the Indian hinterland. Indians resorted to the subterfuge of the terror linkage rather late in the Kashmir situation. It is worth recollecting that as late as the Lahore Declaration there was no mention of terrorism in the Kashmir context in the joint declaration marking the visit of Vajpaee to Lahore. It was the post 9/11 scenario in which, in their desire to jump on the US led terror bandwagon, ‘the Indian spin doctors went the whole hog in painting the Kashmiri movement red with the ignominy of a terrorist movement. In pursuit of this hypothesis the Indian leaders were brazen enough to use the pretext of attack on the Indian Parliament in Dec 200 I to order full mobilization of their forces to arm-twist Pakistan in making major concessions. After having completed the entire cycle of the judicial proceedings, extended over five years, there is not a shred of evidence that Pakistan was involved in the episode. Only Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri stands out as the ultimate fall guy who has been ordered to be hanged for abetting unknown “terrorists”. Kashmiris’ struggle is limited to their desire to see them exercising their right of self determination as enshrined in the UN Resolutions. They are not responsible for the mounting wave of communal terrorism in India which is an outcome of the maltreatment and targeted prejudice against the Muslim minority which is pushed to the wall and generating a backlash.
Third, the Kashmir Issue is not a bilateral issue to the exclusion of the third party dimension, as India claims it to be, but has distinct UN linkages which are operative on this very day. There are the UN Resolutions which are active and if that is not so then what are the UN observers of the UNMOGIP doing in India and Pakistan if they are not mandated to supervise the UN brokered Cease Fire Line in Kashmir.




Kashmir - India’s reign of terror
Jawayria Malik

KASHMIR issue is a legacy of the unfinished agenda of the partition plan and a result of misappropriation of the so-called boundary commission. Since the invasion of Jammu and Kashmir, India continued to install its puppet regimes in successive intervals to cement its stranglehold on Kashmiris. Indian occupation forces snatched the Kashmiris’ right of speech and assembly, their religious places were attacked so often and they were barred to perform their religious duties. The world was kept oblivious of all the mess in occupied Kashmir, where election dramas were staged to hoodwink the international community’s opinion towards the genuine cause of people of Kashmir. India has used all inhuman tactics to curb the Kashmir freedom struggle but has miserably failed on all accounts to put the Kashmiris’ resolve on backburner. Kashmir freedom struggle intensified in 1989, prompting Indian troops to pace up their killing spree. February 5, is observed as the day to pay homage to all those Kashmiris martyrs who laid their lives in freedom struggle against Indian brutal forces and express solidarity with the people of Kashmir who are still victim of Indian repression.
At present, the concentration of Indian army in Jammu and Kashmir is as massive as four soldiers stands for one Kashmiri, a ratio to be found nowhere in the world. From January 1989 to December 2007, nearly 100,000 Kashmiris have been killed by Indian troops in Kashmir and as many disappeared during Indian forces’ custody in various interrogation centers and torture cells. About 113,882 civilians have been arrested without any reason, 22,591 women widowed” ~1756 gang-raped and the children orphaned estimate to 107,051 People rendered homeless are beyond calculation as vaguely 105,536 buildings/homes have been destroyed brutally. There is hardly any household in occupied Kashmir, which has not sacrificed one or two or more of its members for the cause of liberation.
To further enhance the power of its army, India enforced black laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which allows Indian troops to arrest and kill and to occupy or destroy property in counter insurgency operations in Kashmir. To top it, AFSPA shields the Indian troops for being held accountable for human rights violations. Senior Researcher at Human Rights Watch, Meenakshi Ganguly says,” the fact that the government has chosen to ignore recommendations from its own experts suggest that it is not interested in providing accountability and justice. The government must realize that its failure to repeal this law would only lead to further popular distrust and cynicism”. This is why, India failed. This is why; Kashmiris have been fighting war of liberation with a much larger and bigger aggressor with all the zeal and firmness.
The purpose of observing solidarity day is to keep alive the cause for which thousands of Kashmiris had sacrificed their lives and continues to do so till the end. Kashmir struggle movement is aimed at achieving the right of self determination and emancipation of Indian forces. The “Quit Kashmir” movement started against Hindu Maharaja in 1946 is still continuing now against 700,009 oppressive Indian forces deployed in Kashmir. Yet, it is claimed that Indian Occupied Kashmir is freer than all of Pakistan.
In the presence of large chunk of Indian armed forces in IHK, it has become impossible for Kashmiri brethren to move and breathe freely in their own land. There is a constant fear in the minds of innocent Kashmiris that if they go out either they will never return or when they, their home and hearth will be under rubbles. Mostly streets and roads are found deserted as if the valley is devoid of children. No child is found playing or squeaking around. The extent of bloodshed, torture, subjugation and repression under which Kashmiris are living is too much to tolerate. Despite all the brutalities and atrocities committed against Kashmiris India has failed to break the will and determination of these brave people. The gallant people of Kashmir have proved that Indian occupant forces can drain blood from their bodies but not the determination to the cause. Their continuous sacrifices and struggle is a brave message to India and its oppressed forces that they will not surrender and fight for freedom from Indian shackles.
Pakistan has always supported its Kashmiris brethren and will stand by them shoulder to shoulder till the end. India must realize this fact that Kashmiris are struggling for the right which was promised to them by Mr. Nehru and passed under the aegis of the United Nations. It is time that meaningful tripartite talks be end on a workable solution to the problem. A policy that aims at merely defusing the situation, and buying time whatever that may mean and not encouraging a credible settlement has not paid off in the past and is less likely to do in the future. Pakistan, State of Jammu and Kashmir and especially India in its entirety must expand trust and apathy. If India is really sincere, honest and pro-people, the biggest confidence building measure would be withdrawal of Indian forces along with the repeal of draconian laws like AFSPA so that Kashmiris could heave a sigh of relief. Dialogue process will not bear any fruit if steps are not taken on ground to improve the situation. It is precisely what is needed if we are to end the uncertainty that has plagued the politics of South Asia, a population of almost a billion and a half, for over half a century.