Monday, September 29, 2008, Ramazan 28, 1429    

India’s options in Kashmir

Dr Abdul Ruff

First, the good news for Kashmiris. To the credit of the freedom leaders it must be stated that for the first time in Independent India, a few mainstream newspapers, academicians, public figures and even political parties have expressed their solidarity with freedom struggling Kashmiris and they support an independent Kashmir. That is the biggest asset the poplar uprising has earned since 1947 when conservative India quite tactfully annexed Kashmir and will help in ushering in a free Kashmir at the earliest.

Oppression, suppression, torture, genocide are the hallmark of the Indian occupation in Jammu Kashmir. It appears the strategists in New Delhi are trying to split Jammu Kashmir to carve out a separate state for Hindus in Jammu as Kashmir becomes an independent nation. Kashmir Muslim leaders have seen through the Indian tricks and are determined to pursue their legitimate struggle to achieve freedom form occupying India. True, India is scared of the peaceful but massive demonstrations for freedom. The recent trouble started when the state government said it would illegally grant 99 acres plus (40 hectares plus) of forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board.

The allocation of land was aimed at altering the demographic balance in the area. The government said the board needed the land to erect huts and toilets for visiting pilgrims. But following days of protests, the government rescinded the order, prompting Hindu groups to mount violent protests of their own and creating havoc for the Kashmir Muslims.

India continues to cause deaths to Kashmiris. Recent Mehraj’s death caused by Indian terrorist strategy highlights how youth are being treated in Kashmir. Mehraj’s death highlights how youth are being treated in Kashmir. On arrest of protesters, authorities have got no justification in arresting the peaceful and unarmed protestors. As it is known, India has zero tolerance for any opposition Indian occupation of Jammu Kashmir. Just as the Britishers used to do, the Indian forces have employed brute force against the peaceful demonstrators. But in fact the past few years of relative calm represent a major missed opportunity for India to engage all communities and factions in Kashmir in a genuine and credible - as distinct from an illusory and vacuous - peace process. Kashmiris had been looking forward to getting back their sovereignty from India, however, India always takes a peaceful atmosphere to push further its hegemonic and colonial and imperialistic rule in Jammu Kashmir. Any notion that the Kashmir conflict has been successfully put in cold-storage has been exposed as a delusion during the summer of 2008. Hated and contained by the Hindus at all levels, Muslims in India feel neglected since 1947 and now they are treated as undesired “terrorists: and suspected ones in the country. There is a perception among Hindus in Jammu that they wielded little power in the state of Jammu and Kashmir as the minority population - and what leadership they did have was remote and inaccessible. India follow not just “first Hindus” policy, but more atrociously, “Benefits only for Hindus”.

Hindus in Jammu are very particular that similar things don’t happen to Hindus in Jammu Kashmir and a second capital was made out of Jammu where government functions one half of year. The predominately pro-India media managed by Hindus do the talking and guiding part of the Hindu agenda for JK. Congress party chose a leader form Jammu region, Gulam Nabi Azad, who is known to be feeling comfortable more with Hindus than Kashmiris and never even visited his partly office dung his tenure as JK chief-minister, to head the collation ministry so that Hindu interests are held supreme and effectively taken care of as governments in India effectively do by cheating the Muslim voters.

With an imperialistic view to retaining Jammu Kashmir under its custody, since 1947 New Delhi engineered techniques to split the Kashmiris and Kashmir along regional and religious lines. The current turmoil in Kashmir has exposed that Indian strategy beyond doubts. Religious and regional conflicts have surfaced quite openly and Kashmiri Hindus encouraged by India seek the intervention of India in some measures. Also, pro-and anti-Kashmir groups have been engineered among Muslims and Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh are, albeit in different ways, hostages to the frozen-yet-simmering disputes.

Ever growing Indian frustrations over Kashmiri resolve for independence could well be gauged form the military operations in Kashmir recently. Jammu region created economic terrorism for Kashmir Muslims, along with human terrorism unleashed from Indian terror forces, but authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have imposed an indefinite curfew throughout the Kashmir Valley. It comes amid continuing protests by the Muslim majority population - with a major rally planned for the region’s main city, Srinagar. The valley is already paralyzed by strikes called by freedom groups who want an end to Indian rule. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims took part in a protest rally called by freedom leaders in Srinagar. Reports suggested police had carried out raids on freedom leaders’ homes overnight.

The strike comes amid continuing freedom movement in the region. Fifteen people died in a gun battle between militants and the authorities near the Line of Control - the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Obviously, Indian Government wants to create a rift between the regions and stop Jammu Hindus from joining a new free Kashmir state.

Observers are almost unanimous that the land row is an effect rather than a cause of antagonism between the two regions, Kashmir and Jammu. They say the simmering discontent dates back to the ending of the monarchy in Kashmir in 1947. The monarch, Maharaja Hari Singh, was a Hindu who belonged to the main ethnic Dogra community of Jammu. When the monarchy ended, handed over Kashmir to India under secret agreements and a popular government were installed under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah. Since then India systematically created a pro-India contingent of Kashmiris, killing many regularly.

India supports separatism of Hindus in Jammu. Encouraged by Hindutva forces in New Delhi, the Hindu groups in India and Jammu have always demanded abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution which gives special status to the valley. The Hindu groups twice vetoed offers of autonomy for Jammu - first by Sheikh Abdullah in the 1950s and again in 1996 by Farooq Abdullah - because they have opposed the special status of the valley. The Jammu agitation is reminiscent of 1952-53, when the same areas in the Jammu region’s Hindu-majority south were convulsed by a Hindu movement calling for full integration of Indian-administered Kashmir with the Indian Union, meaning the cancellation of Indian-administered Kashmir’s autonomous status, recognized in India’s constitution and re-affirmed in 1952 in talks between India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Kashmiri Muslim leader Sheikh Abdullah.