SYED Ali Shah Geelani was an iconic personality in the Kashmiris struggle for their right of self-determination. Kashmiris from all across the globe pay tribute to this great Kashmir freedom fighter who spent his life for the freedom of Kashmiris from Indian rule. He died while being under the house arrest by cruel Indian Military. His death was a great loss to Kashmiris and all those civilized communities who desired for peace and stability in South Asia which could only be achieved by resolving the Kashmir dispute. For this noble struggle for the right of self-determination, Syed Ali Shah Geelani had to undergo tyranny and suppressions of Indian Government which included; years of imprisonment, torture, allegations, alienation, exploitation, life threats and finally house arrest for over a decade. Even at the critical age of over 90 years while he was under house arrest of Indian security forces, he was mistreated, depriving him of basic medical facilities. Upon his death on September 1, 2021, his body was snatched from his family members and buried by Indian Army against the wishes of this great personality. His family was threatened and tortured for resisting to handover the body to Indian Army. It was a shame to Indian secularism and Indian democracy.
Indian has been alienating and targeting all prominent Kashmir leaders who have been struggling for the right of self-determination of Kashmiris. A senior Kashmiri leader Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai, who challenged India’s rule in IIOJK, was killed by Indian Army in May 2021 at the age of seventy-eight years. He was under the custody of Indian Army for months. Yasin Malik, another hero of Kashmiri’s right of self-determination is in jail for years now and facing the fake charges labelled by Indian Government and Indian occupation Army in IIOJK. Indeed, there is a history of martyring Kashmiri leadership since the start of their struggle against Indian occupation in IIOJK in 1990. Apart from killing key Kashmir leaders, India has killed over 100,000 Kashmiris, raped over 12000 Kashmiri women and tortured and arrested thousands of Kashmiris in last thirty-three years. Nevertheless, there is no change in the struggle and spirit of Kashmiris for attainment of their right of self-determination.
During last seven decades India has kept over 70% area of the state of Jammu and Kashmir under its illegal occupation. Besides occupying the state, India has perpetrated unparalleled atrocities over the peaceful people of IIOJK. Despite presence of dozens of UN resolutions and international commitments India refused to conduct plebiscite in IIOJK. On August 5, 2019, India violated its own Constitution and Constitution of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir while illegally annexing the state with Indian Union as Union Territories. The US based human rights organization; Genocide Watch had revealed and alerted the world about the planned genocide process in IIOJK. This organization has mandated its-self “to build an international movement to predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder.” According to this organization, India took extreme steps of revoking Article 370 and 35 A in August 2019 to further consolidate its illegal hold over Kashmir and change the demography of the occupied state. Thereafter, India is constantly carrying out genocide of Kashmiri youth through various cruel strategies.
In November 2016, ‘The Guardian’ a prestigious British Newspaper, exposed Indian campaign of blinding the Kashmiris in an article, entitled, “India’s crackdown in Kashmir: is this the world’s first mass blinding?” The article recorded some of the incidents from July 2016 to November 2016. These four months have been described by the newspaper as the bloodiest in the recent history of Kashmir. Wide-spread use of pellet guns to blind and paralyze Kashmiris blinded and paralyzed million in IIOJK. In those few months, the peaceful Kashmiri protestors were responded with ruthless atrocities and brutalities from Indian security forces, who fired millions of metal pellets into crowds of civilians, leaving hundreds as blinded or paralysed.’
The inspiring factor for the Indian Army to continue this genocide in occupied Kashmir is that, it has total impunity under discriminatory laws like; Armed Forces Special Power Act and Public Safety Act. Besides, Indian state and society is overwhelmed by the Hindutva ideology, imposed all over the India under the patronage of RSS and BJP Government. Since the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir were resisting imposition of this ideology in their state, therefore India took the extreme step of annexing the state as Indian Union territories. On August 16, 2019, Kapil Komireddi wrote a very insightful article about the real motives behind abrogation of Article 370 by Indian Government. Entitled as, “The Kashmir crisis isn’t about territory. It’s about a Hindu victory over Islam”. With the slogan of democracy dies in the darkness, the prestigious American daily, ‘The Washington Post’ published this article with many insightful revelations. However, the reality is that, Kashmir dispute was created both for the territory of the state as well as Hindu domination over Muslims since despite Indian occupation of the state for seven decade the state was maintaining its Muslim character. ‘The Washington Post’ in its op-ed (March 4, 2020) has published a survey of the Kashmiri youth, carried out in the Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The survey report reveals that, 91% youth of IIOJK demands that all Indian security forces must leave their state immediately. They feel that, Indian security forces in IIOJK are the real problem. This is a post August 5, 2019 survey published in this authentic American newspaper. Taking a lead from the struggle of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Kashmiri youth are determined to continuing his mission until attainment of their right of self-determination. Indeed, today, IIOJK is described as “a place on the universe where the mothers often receive the dead body of their sons, fathers announce the venue and time for their funeral prayers, and sisters throw candies and flowers on their funeral procession.
— The writer is Professor of Politics and IR at International Islamic University, Islamabad.
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