Kashmir Can Initiate Third World War – OpEd

By Shabbir H. Kazmi/

Since 1990 Kashmir Solidarity Day is being celebrated on 5 February every year as a day of protest against Indian occupation of Kashmir. Pakistan maintains that Kashmir is a disputed territory and its final status must be determined by the people of Kashmir. Certain Kashmiri groups believe that Kashmir should be independent of both India and Pakistan. But the resolution seems difficult because both India and Pakistan consider Kashmir their lifeline and are not ready to abandon it at all.

One of the apprehensions is that the third world war will be fought on water and this time it will not be in any other continent but Asia, and most probably in Kashmir. Since independence India and Pakistan have fought three wars and all of these were ignited because of Kashmir, a thorn British Raj had left when it decided to quit the subcontinent.

Some say the Raj couldn’t decide the fate of Kashmir but the growing perception is that it was not on the agenda. The Raj wanted to leave a permanent point of conflict for the newly independent states so that at no stage these two countries even think about cooperating with each other. In fact the Raj was right that this permanent conflict will neither allow these countries to become an economic power. In fact these would become the biggest buyers of armament and the history has proved the Raj was right.

Over the years India has been saying that Kashmir is its integral part and the latest stance it ‘we will not allow another division of Hindustan on the basis of religion’. They even go to the extent of saying that division of India on the basis of religion in 1947 was wrong. In fact the followers of extremist Hindus believed that Pakistan would not survive beyond a few months and also made efforts to weaken Pakistan on one or the other pretext.

The Kashmir issue has not only resulted in three wars but the countries have been spending billions of dollars annually on procurement of conventional and non-conventional arsenal. Since the two countries have attained the status of atomic powers world leaders have been stressing the need to resolve the Kashmir dispute to avoid an eventuality that may cause a catastrophe in the region. Kashmir is the nuclear flash point of Asia, surrounded by three nuclear powers.

India has been saying that Kashmir is its integral part, though the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, stated after the 2010 Kashmir Unrest that his government is willing to grant autonomy within the purview of Indian constitution to Kashmir if there is consensus on this issue. Pakistan maintains that Kashmir is the disputed territory and its final status must be determined by the people of Kashmir. China states that Aksai Chin is a part of China and does not recognize the addition of Aksai Chin to the Kashmir region. Certain Kashmiri independence groups believe that Kashmir should neither be a part of India nor of Pakistan but should be given an independent state.

In 1989, a widespread popular and armed insurgency started in Kashmir. This resulted in the formation of militant wings and beginning of the Mujahadeen insurgency, which continues to this day. India contends that the insurgency was largely started by Afghan Mujahadeen who entered the Kashmir valley following the end of the Soviet-Afghan War. Yasin Malik, a leader of one faction of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, was one of the Kashmiris to organize militancy in Kashmir. Since 1995, Malik has renounced the use of violence and calls for strictly peaceful methods to resolve the dispute. He developed differences for shunning the demand for an independent Kashmir.

India claims these insurgents groups get support from Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Afghanistan. They claim Pakistan is supplying munitions to the terrorists and training them in Pakistan. India states that the terrorists have been killing many citizens in Kashmir and committing human rights violations but don’ accept that their own armed forces are responsible for extra judicial murder of thousands of Kashmires and worst abuse of human rights.

Kashmir, as disputed territory between India and Pakistan, is one of the most militarized places in the world. Decades of violence and brutality have divided Hindu and Muslim communities, forcing over nearly half a million people to flee their homes. Military convoys and soldiers armed with AK-47 rifles on the streets are a common scene.

India holds that the Instrument of Accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to the Union of India, signed by Maharaja Hari Singh (erstwhile ruler of the State) on 25 October 1947 and executed on 27 October 1947 between the ruler of Kashmir and the Governor General of India was a legal act. It says that The Constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir had unanimously ratified the Maharaja’s Instrument of Accession to India. India does not accept the two-nation theory that forms the basis of Pakistan and considers that Kashmir, despite being a Muslim-majority state, is an integral part of India. The common accusation is that insurgency and terrorism in Kashmir is being fueled by Pakistan. The Government of India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of waging a proxy war in Kashmir by providing weapons and financial assistance to terrorist groups in the region.

Pakistan accuses India of hypocrisy, as it refused to recognize the accession of Junagadh to Pakistan and Hyderabad’s independence, on the grounds that those two states had Hindu majorities. In fact, India had occupied and forcibly integrated those two territories. Pakistan asserts that the Maharaja held no authority in determining Kashmir’s future. Pakistan argues that even if the Maharaja had any authority in determining the plight of Kashmir, he signed the Instrument of Accession under duress, thus invalidating the legitimacy of his actions.

Pakistan says: 1) the popular Kashmiri insurgency demonstrates that the Kashmiri people no longer wish to remain within India. Pakistan suggests that this means that Kashmir either wants to be with Pakistan or independent. 2) According to the two-nation theory, which is one of the theories that is cited for the partition that created India and Pakistan, Kashmir should have been with Pakistan, because it has a Muslim majority. 3) India has shown disregard to the resolutions of the UN Security Council and failed in holding a plebiscite to determine the future allegiance of the state.

Experts say that the real reason for the dispute over Kashmir is water. Kashmir is the origin point for many rivers and tributaries. The river basin is divided between Pakistan, which has about 60 per cent of the catchment area, India with about 20 per cent, Afghanistan with 5 per cent and around 15 per cent in China. The river tributaries are the Jhelum and Chenab rivers, which primarily flow into Pakistan while other branches—the Ravi, Beas, and the Sutlej—irrigates northern India. The Kashmir dispute and the dispute over the water control are somehow related and the fight over the water remains as one of the main problems when establishing good relationships between the two countries.
Source: Eurasia Review

India Makes another Kashmiri Hero

By Mazhar Iqbal/

By exterminating Guru India has facilitated the making of another Kashmiri freedom hero. He was not a heroic figure like Maqbool Bhat when he entered into Tihar Jail on allegations of facilitating an attack on Indian Parliament, but became a hero when he was buried inside the jail premises.Nobody including his fellow party members was willing to give him a status equal to the founder of armed freedom struggle in Kashmir but India herself did this job.

While Guru’s standing is not parallel to that of Bhat, he can be another Maqbool Bhat in years to come. When Bhat was hanged to death in 1984, nobody in Indian government could envisage a strong reaction and violent protests by people of Kashmir, especially his own party , the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).

Guru was neither the founder of the JKLF nor the top leader of his party; he was a just an activist who had attempted to renounce militancy more than once.  Still, he can be a catalyst for another spell of violent struggle against India’s brutal and tyrannical rule in Jammu & Kashmir. There are suggestions that his figure will raise high not because of a staunch and forceful expression of anger over his death but by the pull factor of the state defensive policies vis-à-vis Jammu & Kashmir.

Guru was a true embodiment of a person who lived all his life struggling hard to reconcile with the nature of conflict that has shaped since the revival of insurgency in Kashmir. The insurgency which Guru lived all through his life was not available to Bhat, rather later himself became a founder of violent struggle against oppressing rule. Bhat is revered not only for his patriotism and heroic stature but also for his unfettered allegiance to a cause. There is a clear deviation in characters of Guru and Bhat, but they truly represent the nature of freedom struggle in their own times.

The political struggle in Guru’s time is not confined within the charter and framework of a single revolutionary political party; it has been more vigorously expressed by other segments of Kashmiri society than freedom fighters themselves. It is not just one freedom fighter who with his revolutionary mental approach does not want to blindly follow the authoritarian rule but it is a whole generation that has gone through a first-hand experience of militant struggle and counter-insurgency tactics of a strong government.  They are all passengers of a same boat and they have personal experiences of the whole journey.

India took more than a decade to hang ‘the mastermind of an attack on Indian Parliament’. There is a speculation that ‘the new hero’ of Kashmiri’s freedom movement can attract more people toward militancy than Maqbool Bhat. So, one can imagine where India will be in next two decades, especially in a context of time taken to punish a ‘traitor’.

According to Indian government’s version Guru had provided the major logistical support to the militants who had besieged Indian parliament. Thus, he met his logical end, but, what India will do with another horde of masterminds of future attacks. India did not hand over Guru’s body to his relatives to avoid a possible anger in the region. This decision might have been taken carefully after weighing the possible options. However, Indian security establishment would be proved mistaken if the protest against the execution prolongs.

When Bhat was hanged in 1984, nobody in India had been able to predict that it would be an ignition for a scorching fire of militancy as the decade of 90’s witnessed India burning in that fire.

Noted human rights activist and author Arundhati Roy and many other critics have already described in detail how there were too many loopholes in the Guru’s trial. It will be matter of shame for India’s secular stature when historian will prove that by hanging one person India not only jumped back into decades of anarchy but also pushed its own people toward rebellion and hatred against the centre.

Apparently, the Indian security apparatus believes that Guru’s execution will not have that kind of mass appeal as it was witnessed after Bhat’s hanging. However, major political parties including Congress are worried over this development.  India is not in a position to take it for granted that Guru’s hanging would not give a fresh lease of life to the extremist groups operating in the valley and it will not have negative impact on overall security situation in the northeast of the country.

In fact, the impact has started making its way. When Guru was being hanged in Tihar Jail, Sonia Gandhi’s election campaign in northern states was at full swing. In a blow to the campaign of opposition Congress for the February 14 assembly polls in Tripura, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi have cancelled their trips. The prime minister has also postponed his election campaign tour to Nagaland.

The government decision to bury Guru inside the Tihar Jail is a beginning of a state defensive policy which India will be bound to follow in coming months. Yet, the policy of avoiding a situation of mass outburst on the streets of Srinagar and Sopore can be exercised for a short span of time but not for ever.

(The writer is a peace and human rights activist and member of Press for Peace.)

Kashmir's Exiled Bhattyein

Varad Sharma :

Kashmiri Pandit women are commonly known as ‘Bhattyein’. The word is a distortion of Sanskrit word “Bhattini” which means lady belonging to a noble family.The over two-decade old Kashmir conflict has adversely affected the people of valley; be it men, women or children. Kashmiri women have faced the brunt of conflict since the beginning. While the Kashmiri women living in the valley are considered a part of debate/discussions regarding the impact of Kashmir conflict, there are women living on the other side of the tunnel who are ignored. Having witnessed the killing of their community members and then subjected to forced displacement from the Kashmir valley, the psyche of exiled ‘Bhattyein’ have got affected. Such a generation of women have seen the turmoil/insurgency in the valley and have been at the receiving end of terrorism. During the rise of insurgency in Kashmir valley, the Pandit women were raped, brutalized and killed. In 1990, a nurse named Sarla Bhat, resident of Anantnag, working in Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (Soura) was gang-raped and then murdered by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) militants. In the same year, a woman named Girja Tickoo, resident of Bandipora, was gang-raped and then chopped into pieces on mechanical saw by the terrorists.

In Custody: Kashmiri Journalists Behind Bars

Sahil Maqbool winces through his tender smile with the kind of vulnerability typically seen in people who have endured either great public humiliation or private tragedy. In his case it’s been a heavy dosage of both. The 44-year-old Kashmiri journalist and poet says he was deceived by men he trusted, thrown in jail, and, according to him, brutally tortured after his arrest on Sept. 16, 2004. Mr. Maqbool had been making his living as an investigative journalist in India’s troubled region of Kashmir. “I lost everything,” Mr. Maqbool says from the lobby of a houseboat in Srinagar, the morning sun beating down on Dal Lake behind him. “I lost my sources, my contacts. You can appreciate the importance of such things. I even lost my family home that I had been maintaining for years. My camera. Laptop. Passport. Everything. Gone.”

When Water in The Spring Turned Black

The exodus of Pandits from the Valley is an aspect of the Kashmir conflict that has received scant attention. In a book just released, Rahul Pandita, who was 14 at the time he and his family left their home in Srinagar forever, gives a searing account of the displacement, struggle and survival of the community.

Kashmir Valley, 1989-90

It was from a neighbour that we heard the first rumours. He had gone to the ration shop to get sugar when he overheard a man exclaiming — ‘Inshallah, next ration we will buy in Islamabad!’ It was around this time that bus conductors in Lal Chowk could be heard shouting — Sopore, Hand’wor, Upore. Sopore and Handwara were border towns while Upore means across. Across the Line of Control. It was meant as an enticement for the youth to cross over the border for arms training, to launch a jihad against India.

Militancy or Kashmiri Salted Tea

By SWETHA KANNAN:

It was a chance meeting. My husband and I had been strolling around Srinagar on a cold morning, and were looking for a cup of tea.

When we couldn’t spot a tea stall anywhere, we enquired at a grocery store. “Jao andar,” (‘go inside’) the lady who ran the shop said briskly, pointing to her own house ahead. She just wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. We felt partly awkward, but we also wanted to go in, so we stepped into her home.