What others said about latest uprising
By Latheef FarookIn the latest political uprising in Kashmir, erupted following the killing of 22 year old Hisbul Mujahideen Commander Burhan Wani on 8 July 2016, 48 people were killed and more than 3000 were injured.
According to New Delhi based NDTV the Indian armed forces shot at protestors using pellet guns aimed at faces blinding for life even children as young as five. Two weeks later Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited the state on 23 July 2016 with an appeal to armed forces to exercise maximum restraint.
Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told Minister Rajnath that“Jammu and Kashmir needs a political solution and unless some long term measures are taken, the Kashmir issue will continue to burn. The central government should accept the reality of the Kashmir issue”.
Severely criticising the forces former Minister and Democratic Nationalist Party (DNP) Chairman, Ghulam Hassan Mir said the” forces have committed ‘atrocities on people leading to alienation among them.The situation is turning from bad to worse and there is a need for working out an out of box solution”.
Realizing the seriousness of the situation Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Saif-ud-Din Soz asked all the political parties to pay heed to suggestions made by former Union Minister P Chidambaram who has favoured greater autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir.
Chidambaram advocates restoring the "grand bargain" under which Kashmir was acceded to India by granting a large degree of autonomy, warning that otherwise the country would have to pay a "heavy price."
"We have ignored the grand bargain. I think we broke faith, we broke promises and as a result we have paid a heavy price. The best solution was that New Delhi should give an assurance to the people of Kashmir that the "grand bargain" promised during the time of Kashmir's accession "will be honoured fully."
WHAT does India think it is doing in Kashmir? It seems to have become fatal to be below 25 there. According to figures released by the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition for Civil Society, 99% of those killed and injured in the Valley by the security forces, in the week since July 8, are below the age of 25. And huge numbers of them have been blinded or are with serious chest or abdominal injuries due to reckless splaying from pellet guns by our brave paramilitaries and policemen.
Burhan’s story
The kind of hysterical political and media celebration in India over the killing of Burhan Wani, was not just vulgar; it should be construed as incitement to war against unarmed civilians.
The forces went trigger-happy and turned Burhan Wani into a martyr. And then they they were caught totally unprepared for the furious gathering of over a 100,000 people who, despite strict curfew, turned out for the funeral.
This is when the Indian state sent for its pellet guns, categorised in charmingly euphemistic double-speak, as ‘non-lethal’. You only maim for life. You take away eyes. You perforate the lungs and liver and kidneys. You let the toxic lead pellets infect the blood stream. Oh no; not lethal at all.
One hears of doctors in Kashmir going into utter depression at the sight of hundreds of youngsters with their face and torsos peppered with pellets – injuries that are likely to take a lifetime of treatment and convert the victims into permanent invalids.
So these are the people you call part of your nation.
The issue here is no longer of what the Indian state is doing in Kashmir. It’s clear that it has no clue. Bludgeon them into submission, is the prevailing wisdom.India possesses Kashmir by stationing 600,000 troops there.
I doubt if there is any educated Indian who is unaware of what the Indian state and its security forces are doing in Kashmir. So many years of dead silence. Can we degrade ourselves any further by ignoring what our politics and our soldiers are doing in Kashmir?Thus concluded Sadanand Menon
Kashmiri people’s sufferings began whenthe British sold Kashmir to Raja Gulab Singh, a Hindu warlord of the Dogra family in Jammu for 7.5 million rupees (750,000 pounds) under the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar. It was an illegal deal undertaken without the knowledge of the Kashmiri people .
During the partition of the Subcontinent, the Maharajah acceded Kashmir, against the will of the people, to India in October 1947 and ordered Muslims to voluntarily surrender their weapons. The Muslims resisted and the Maharajah responded by killing around 200,000 Muslims while more than 300,000 fled to the Pakistani side of the border.
The doyen of Indian politics, Rajagopalachari, said in 1964, “the accession of Kashmir took place under great peril and for the purpose of getting immediate military assistance to serve a hapless people from an unforeseen immoral external attack. It was not an intention to claim it as an irrevocable affiliation”.
But things started to change in the 1930s when Kashmiri Muslims began asserting themselves for better human rights. Their campaign comprised a wave of non-violent protests. However their frustration erupted into revolt after the Maharajah permitted political parties for non-Muslims such as pundits, Hindu Saba and Sikhs and deprived the same to Muslims who constituted the majority.
Plebiscite
Later India agreed to hold a plebiscite and respect the views of Kashmiris. Time and again Indian Prime Minister Nehru declared that “the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people....in a referendum under international auspices like the United Nations. We want it to be a just and fair reference to the people, and we shall accept their verdict”.
However all these promises were ignored? Political manoeuvrings of the Central Government in Delhi, the rigging of elections in 1987, (and later in 1996), years of political frustrations, economic problems and poverty, combined with many other factors, led to the 1989 uprising which became a crucial turning point in the Kashmiris freedom struggle.
Indian forces committed atrocities to silence the people.Weekend Guardian, London, reported on4 August 1991 that “after a visit to Kashmir in 1991, the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi said at a press conference in New Delhi that ‘the brutalities of the Indian army and the Central Reserve Police meant that India may have lost Kashmir’”.
Then Jammu And Kashmir State Governor K. V. Krishna Rao admitted that Indian forces have been responsible for the massacre of the Kashmir people on several occasions and that he felt deeply for the victims.
Summing up the situation one writer said “hell has been let loose on Kashmiris and what happens in Kashmir is not made known to the Indian people by national dailies and government owned media which distort events”. Besides the common feeling of being betrayed by India of its promises to hold a plebiscite, the arbitrary arrests, regular and systematic use of torture in interrogation camps, indiscriminate and extra judicial killings, brutal search operations, ransacking of homes and even raping women in the presence of family members and children added fuel to their anger.
The people of Kashmir have made it clear that their grievances must be heard and their wishes ascertained through their legitimate representatives.
Kashmiri Muslims feel that a plebiscite is the only and time honoured way out. Unless Kashmiris are given the opportunity to decide their fate, the state is bound to burn for generations to come. As one Kashmiri said “if the present generation is silenced through oppressive measures, then the next will learn not only about the plebiscite, but also the oppression of their fathers and seek, perhaps, through more sophisticated armed struggle to regain their freedom what their forefathers too fought for”.
The world renowned philosopher Bertrand Russell, once said, “When one observes that the high idealism of the Indian government in international matters breaking down completely with the question of Kashmir, it is difficult to avoid a feeling of despair”.
The Then Defence Minister George Fernandez once remarked in 1990 “I do not believe that any foreign hand engineered the Kashmir problem. The problem was created by us”.
Comparing the conditions in Kashmir to that of Palestine Prof. Noam Chomsky described the current development in Kashmir as "shocking" and termed the discussion between Kashmir and the rest of the India as "hysterical".
However Kashmir is likely to bleed as it is unlikely that the BJP, one of the RSS fronts with its extremely anti Muslim agenda, in power in the centre, will ever think of a solution to this decades old burning issue. Ends
(Latheef Farook is a Colombo based Senior Journalist and Author. He could be contacted at E-mail: almfarook19@yahoo.com)
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