Iqbal Khan
MONTH of July has special significance in the history of struggle for the right of self-determination by the people of Jammu and Kashmir. July 19, denotes “Accession to Pakistan Day”. This day is observed every year in renewal of the historical resolution of Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan passed by the people of the state in1947. As per the Partition Plan of the British India, the princely states were free to accede to either of the two newly established countries. Kashmiris’ decision of 19th July 1947 was a testimony to the fact that the people of Kashmir had linked their future with Pakistan. And the Kashmir Martyrs’ Day is observed on 13 July every year to pay homage to 22 Kashmiris who were killed in 1931 during a popular revolt .The people rose against British rule and gathered for a peaceful protest against the prosecution of a sympathizer of Kashmir struggle, Abdul Qadeer Khan Ghazi. On that day 22 martyrs fell one after the other, while reciting the traditional Muslim Call for prayer—Azan.
Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, Raja Farooq Haider, said Pakistan is the centre of hope for the people of Kashmir, and “The day is not far off when occupied Kashmir will be liberated from Indian yoke, and the dream of entire state accession to Pakistan will be realized. Fascist Modi government is trying to impose an illegal annexation of IOJ&K and seeks to change the demography of the occupied territory against all international law, including Fourth Geneva Convention. On Accession Day, thousands of refugees from India-occupied Kashmir took out a rally in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, pledging to continue their struggle for the right to self-determination in accordance with the UN resolutions.
The All Jammu & Kashmir Muslim Conference on 19 July 1947, in Srinagar, had demanded the then Dogra rulers to materialise the accession of the Jammu & Kashmir State to Pakistan, honouring the decision and point of view of the majority population of the Muslim majority in the state. Genuine representatives of the Kashmiris unanimously passed the resolution of Kashmir’s Accession to Pakistan during a meeting of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference. The historic resolution called for the Accession of the State to Pakistan in view of its existing religious, geographical, cultural and economic proximity to Pakistan. Now, over 800,000 troops have besieged eight million people of Kashmir—one soldier for every ten citizen. The most militarized conflict zone of the World— Kashmir— is an open prison.
President Dr Arif Alvi said that India has belligerently occupied Kashmir and it is committing atrocities on the people of Kashmir. He also said that the time is not far away when the sacrifices of the people of the occupied Kashmir will come to fruition and Kashmir will become part of Pakistan. The President said voices are being raised at the international level on grave human rights violations in occupied valley. Ever since, Jammu and Kashmir has been a key bone of contention between the two nuclear rivals that have fought three full-scale wars and a number of skirmishes of varying scales. Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K) enjoyed “special status” under the Indian Constitution until 5 August 2019. Special status allowed IOJ&K to enact its own laws. These provisions of law, inter alia, protected the region’s citizenship law, which barred outsiders from settling in and owning land in the territory.
Prime Minster Imran Khan has reiterated support to Kashmiris’ just struggle for self-determination. “We will continue to fight for justice for Kashmiris as they struggle against the brutal & illegal actions of the Hindutva Supremacist Indian government in IOJK,” he said. “We reaffirm our commitment to the Kashmiri people and stand with them in their struggle for self-determination.” In a tweet on Martyrs Day, the Premier referred to the 22 Kashmiris who were martyred 89 years ago during a protest against the autocratic rule of a Hindu Maharaja in the Muslim majority state as the “forefathers of today’s Kashmiri resistance”. “Their descendants have, generation after generation, laid down their lives for freedom and today they continue to valiantly fight and defy a Hindutva Supremacist regime bent on demographic engineering to wipe out the Kashmiri people and their identity,” Khan tweeted. Martyrs’ Day used to be one of the official holidays in the State till 2019; now this has been deleted from the list.
Support for the Kashmir cause has always been bipartisan PML-N chief and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif said that the world “must know that no other people have suffered as much as Kashmiris for demanding their UN-sanctioned right to self-determination”. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that July 19 marked the day when “true representatives of Jammu and Kashmir adopted a historic resolution for accession to Pakistan”. “Despite decades of Indian occupation, resolve of Kashmiris & immutable bonds to [Pakistan] stand strong,” he said, adding that the country “reaffirms unwavering support to Kashmiris in their just struggle for freedom”.
In October 1947, Governor General of India had handed over the control of the Himalayan valley to India under the garb of a counterfeit instrument of accession, triggering a never ending acrimony between the two rivals. Credible evidence suggests beyond reasonable doubt that Kashmir’s Hindu ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh’s signatures were forged on the letter purported to be written by him to the Governor General requesting military assistance to maintain order. Resultantly, there was a public revolt against this atrocity and the freedom fighters got a portion of the princely state liberated from Indian rule, now known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
In April, Indian government notified new domicile laws for occupied Kashmir, making an unspecified number of outsiders eligible for residency and jobs. As many as 25,000 non-locals have been granted domicile certificates. An APHC leader, Advocate Devinder Singh Behl, in a statement issued in Jammu expressed grave concern over the new construction policy approved by the Indian authorities for Jammu and Kashmir. He said the policy has paved the way for Indian forces to occupy Kashmiris’ lands and carry out construction and other activities. Periodically, India brought in new laws and used every type of tactics. India even tried to buy out the Kashmiris, but failed miserably. There have been ups and downs in the Kashmiris’ exemplary struggle from 1931 to 2020, but Indian atrocities have not succeeded in dampening their spirits. However, Indian occupation could not subjugate the brave spirit of Kashmiri people.
—The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
