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Posted by admin in CURRENT EVENTS on July 31st, 2023
ASIA–PACIFIC, 24 Aug 2020
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
17 Aug 2020 – British imperialism was not accidental but a planned scheme of things to perpetuate its cultural and political dominance over the weak and most vulnerable people of the globe. Its aims were no different in the Sub-Continent of India-Pakistan. The immediate focal aim was to destroy the existing culture of the established Mughal Empire and divide and rule the whole of India. Remember, imperialism was an unadulterated civilization on its own with massive possibilities and material possessions to control the masses.
The 1857 belligerent war on Mughal India and its occupation is referred to as “Mutiny” in imperial history. Bahdur Shah Zafar, the last emperor was arrested, his son’s head chopped off and exiled to be imprisoned in a garage in Rangoon, Burma. It is estimated that two millions Indians, mostly Muslims were killed by the invading British armies. It was the beginning of rethinking as how to expel the British and freedom to be restored to the Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs and other minorities in India. You should know that truth explained in full clarity becomes indisputable. British imperialism took India from the Mughals and robbed their wealth, moral and spiritual cultural development of eight centuries.
Not much has changed of the legacy of British rule. For over 73 years, Indian and Pakistani people try to celebrate Independence Day, not in peace but with the missing objectivity of the national freedom movement. Both nations somehow lost the sense of political reality and are overburdened with a sickening mental microscope of unreality. Both are in desperate need of political change and reformation, not revolution to imagine the historic freedom from British imperialism. Plato made it clear that “thinking is man’s natural instrument for problem solving, and any problem could be solved by thought…”
Kashmir map-Plus Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir
Towards Thinking of Reasoned Political Change and Unthinking of Extremism and Occupation of Kashmir
Indian and Pakistani politicians remained buried in the past. For change and future-making, they urgently need people of new ideas, new vision and proactive intellect. At the outset, nobody appears to be rethinking – how to restore normal relationships between people and nations who lived together for centuries in the same sub-continent. Revolution is not the answer as it is a configuration of mostly passion and national emotions subject to transitory feelings, time and place. A reasoned thinking is often the sparking guideline for sustainable human relationships. Anarchy of absolutism or nationalism is as dangerous today as it was centuries earlier – causing the Two WW and killings and dehumanization of millions and millions across the globe. What is the way out to reason and rationality to deal with problem-solving and return to peace and tranquility between the warring societies? Kashmir is at the heart of conflicts between India and Pakistan which was left unresolved by the departing British colonialism.
The political leaders in India and Pakistan have no rational sense of their strengths and weaknesses. India is overwhelmingly claiming to be a Hindu nationalist regime under PM Narinder Modi. Its constitution and national freedom movement had the philosophical and political soul of secularism. Pakistan had the vision of an Islamic State. None of the two are connected to their originality of the freedom movement. None would show a sense of guilt for the disconnection and trivial policies and practices in their own affairs. The spirit of democracy, secularism and respect for equal rights is tormented by the leaders of the two nations. Both are nuclear nations and often remind the people of the world – what could go wrong when the nuclear option is miscalculated for one-sided peace as it happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Could men of knowledge and genius rise up against the obvious political odds and ignorance that wars could resolve the problem without catastrophic human destruction?
India and Pakistan are not ruled by the wisest or brightest politicians. The masses suffer by neglect and anarchy. Their public institutions lack human care, services and efficiency. Those who grab political power by extreme ideologies and hateful manipulation are men of political intrigue assuming power through exploitation of fellow human beings and impose their absurdity on human consciousness striving for survival.
Truth is One and the same unchanging as it was many centuries earlier. Contrary to historic India under the Mughal Empire, we are seeing in India, denial of human rights and freedom and prolonged captivity of the people of Jammu and Kashmir – a framework of extreme Hinduism ideology. The masses of Kashmir seek their rights to freedom, not forced captivity. What if they had the freedom to express their will, if they want freedom from India or want to join Pakistan? Historically, Kashmir was never a part of the British Raj but a separate entity and its geography and socio-economic lifelines run through Pakistan, not India. India after military confrontation with China will look for escape from reality to confront Pakistan. Kashmir is not a domestic issue of India or Pakistan. Conscientious Indian thinkers and people of conscience oppose the RSS Hinduism strategy and are adamant to these violations of human dignity and freedom.
Arundhati Roy, an international peace activist and author of the novels The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and My Seditious Heart, makes this candid observation (“The Silence is the Loudest Sound”, New York Times, 15 Aug 2019):
“Amid these vulgar celebrations the loudest sound, however, is the deathly silence from Kashmir’s patrolled, barricaded streets and its approximately seven million caged, humiliated people, stitched down by razor wire, spied on by drones, living under a complete communications blackout…. Today Kashmir is one of the most or perhaps the most densely militarized zone in the world. More than a half-million soldiers have been deployed to counter what the army itself admits is now just a handful of “terrorists.” If there were any doubt earlier it should be abundantly clear by now that their real enemy is the Kashmiri people. What India has done in Kashmir over the last 30 years is unforgivable. An estimated 70,000 people, civilians, militants and security forces have been killed in the conflict. Thousands have been “disappeared,” and tens of thousands have passed through torture chambers that dot the valley like a network of small-scale Abu Ghraibs….. The danger will come from many directions. The most powerful organization in India, the far-right Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the R.S.S., with more than 600,000 members including Narendra Modi and many of his ministers, has a trained “volunteer” militia, inspired by Mussolini’s Black Shirts. With each passing day, the R.S.S. tightens its grip on every institution of the Indian state. In truth, it has reached a point when it more or less is the state.”
Pakistan’s Masses Hope for Political Change and Future-Making
Since 1947, Pakistan for the first time fair public elections allowed new generation leadership under Imran Khan- a cricketer and outspoken supporter of rights of freedom for the ten millions people of Kashmir. He claims to be an ambassador for the besieged people of Jammu and Kashmir under Indian administration since 1947. Lack of dialogue between India and Pakistan on Kashmir and normalization of people to people relationship are multiplying temptations and increased frustration on both sides demanding new thinking for a reasoned and conscientious soul-searching. One wonders why Pakistani leaders could never think to hold an international conference on Kashmir. Does Pakistan have competent diplomats to argue for the rights of Kashmiri people in global forums? If Pakistani leaders could evolve a capacity of moral and intellectual values and educated and honest people of new generation could hold offices of political responsibility, it could make the difference in dealing with some of the compelling socio-economic and political issues.
For over 50 years, Pakistan had a junk history of Bhuttos, Zardari, Sharif and Musharaf- all thugs, wicked and indicted criminals to rule a moral sensitive nation of values and spiritual history. PM Imran Khan, the first elected leader after a long time, should focus on institutional development and recruit educated and intelligent people of new generation – people of ideas and vision rather than thumb lickers and “yes men” in his governing circle. So far, he does not seem to have any educated person of international integrity and strategic planning to uplift Pakistan from a non-productive political economy and governance to a status that could advance its originality of the freedom movement and a stronger and politically viable Pakistan. He needs to address the issues of missing public service, political accountability, law and order and justice. Pakistanis are waiting what they do not see a focused Plan for political reformation. If Pakistanis are intelligent enough they should start thinking – what is after Imran Khan?
The former political monsters are still free and one wonders when Zardari, Bhutoos and Sharif and Musharaf would face the firing squads for their crimes of stolen wealth and killings of people. They looted banks, time and opportunities for change, yet, they claim to have done nothing wrong. If he could enlist morally and intellectually able people to his governance, the issue of Kashmir could ably be presented in global settings and perhaps an exercise of referendum- plebiscite be practiced to ensure the encompassing reality for the deprived masses of Kashmir. Stupid clichés of freedom and casual allusion of political change and resolution of Kashmir will not make any difference on the ground. If Pakistani leaders have individual conscience and reality of the history to organize a Strategic Action PLAN, the issue of Kashmir could be amicably resolved. The essence of political change lies in being strong, not weak or divided in policies and practices.
Challenge – How to Become Effective Leaders?
Leaders create new leaders with vision and integrity to imagine the universal phenomenon of change and futuristic developments. Human happiness and progress move horizontally in peace-time, not in continuing warmongering and irrational threats to other people and nations. In situation of crises, responsible leaders provide assurances and comforts to the masses – would leaders of India and Pakistan come out of the psychologically neurosis box and see the enlightenment of the 21st century of informed humanity and honor the rights of self-determination of the people of Kashmir and let them decide their own future and freedom and once for all rewrite a history of peaceful co-existence and friendship?
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Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international relations-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest book: Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution: Approaches to Understand the Current Issues and Future-Making, Lambert Academic Publications, Germany, 2017.
Tags: Conflict, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Solutions, Violent conflict
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 24 Aug 2020.
Posted by admin in CURRENT EVENTS on April 30th, 2023
Kashmir kept in Cold Freezer
Asif Haroon Raja
When it comes to the question of honour and dignity, then the tangible superiority, or diplomatic and economic superiority doesn’t matter. For the defence of the motherland and to protect the dignity and honour of the nation, all materialist ambitions and internal feuds should be set aside, and everything in hand sacrificed to push out the offenders and to eliminate the conspirators.
The Afghan Mujahideen did it in the 1980s and the Afghan Taliban repeated it in 2021. On both occasions, the Lilliputians defeated the Goliaths because of their cohesion, unity and abiding faith in Allah. The leaders and the led fought hand in hand and they braved the difficulties equally. The TTA achieved the miracle on their own and without external support.
During Napoleon’s campaign in Russia, when the Corps of Marshal Michael Ney was encircled while withdrawing from Leningrad to Moscow and was asked to surrender, he replied, “Marshal’s do not surrender”, and he fought his way out of the encirclement after a savage fight.
When ten times superior Indian forces invaded the encircled and isolated EP, although the heavily outnumbered troops fought with extraordinary grit and determination despite the extremely heavy odds, the senior leadership buckled down and drowned their sacrifices in the sea of humiliation. The defenders of Hilli who had blunted repeated attacks of Indian 20 Mountain Division from 21 Nov till 4 FF was ordered to withdraw on 11 Dec, had to bear the shame of surrender. Lt Gen AAK Niazi in command of 45000 regular and irregular forces could have made history had he opted to die fighting like a tiger instead of surrendering. Defiance might have opened an honorable avenue of exit and possibly a political resolution of ‘confederation’.
India, supported by the USSR, annexed East Pakistan in Dec 1971 through treachery and subversion. No Pakistani leader pledged to avenge the defeat and wash off the humiliation. All aspired for friendship with India and went an extra mile to keep India appeased.
Pakistan didn’t untie the knot with the duplicitous USA despite its betrayal in the 1965 war and in the 1971 war. A policy of one-sided appeasement was adopted.
With this mindset, Kashmir which had emerged as the unfinished agenda of the Partition and the chief bone of contention between the two neighbours was never taken seriously and was put in the cold freezer. No long-term Kashmir policy was framed and India was given a free hand to consolidate its hold over the disputed territory. Only a reactive policy was adopted. Even on the diplomatic front, no meaningful effort was made to counter the Indian narratives and the disinformation campaign.
Without Kashmir, Pakistan is incomplete and without the free flow of water in our rivers, Pakistan’s survival is impossible. India was allowed to build over 60 small, medium and large dams over the three eastern rivers and to indulge in water terrorism.
It is dismaying to know that all our civil and military leaders did politics with Kashmir. Many in the army earned promotions by posing as peacetime Napoleons while some made profits.
The game started when Liaqat Ali Khan accepted Jawahar Lal Nehru’s request for a ceasefire at a time when our brave hearts had turned the tide of the 1948 war. Maj Gen Akbar who wanted the war to continue and had made plans to interdict the vulnerable lines of communication was court martialled and imprisoned.
Nehru duped our leaders by making a false pledge that he would resolve the issue by granting the right of self-determination to the Kashmiris. Thereon he kept buying time and absorbing Kashmir into the Indian Union through fake elections, buying the loyalties of puppets in Kashmir and affecting changes in the Indian Constitution. The UN and other world powers remained tilted towards India.
Field Marshal Ayub Khan was the only leader who made an earnest effort to liberate Kashmir through use of force, but luck didn’t favour him and Op Gibraltar and Op Grand Slam couldn’t meet its planned objectives. Yet he had made Pakistan armed forces a robust fighting machine which was able to defeat the nefarious designs of six times superior Indian armed forces that had vowed to destroy the Pak military in the battle of Chawinda in the 1965 War. He has several other feathers in his cap for which the nation should remain grateful, but the chronic army haters paint him in black.
Tashkent Accord was not a sell off of Kashmir as falsely alleged by ZA Bhutto, but Simla Accord in 1972 was the first sell off. Bhutto agreed to convert the ceasefire line in Kashmir into Line of Control (LOC), and both mutually consented to convince their respective people to accept the LOC as a permanent border between the two Kashmirs’. Third party involvement was replaced with bilateralism which favored India since it could buy time and parry the UN intervention.
Gen Ziaul Haq was the only leader who had a vision of liberating Kashmir. While he mandated the ISI to carry out biggest proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980s without the involvement of any other agency, he triggered the Khalistan movement and fixed his periscope on Kashmir. After the defeat of the Soviet forces in 1988 and their readiness to quit in Feb 1989, it was very easy to take on Kashmir. India was internally at its weakest in the late 1980s and Pakistan had acquired weaponized nuclear capability. Gen Zia had planned to link Khalistan movement with the Kashmiri freedom movement. After the ten-year experience in covert war, the ISI was in sound position to push out the Indian occupying forces from IOK; Gulbadin Hikmatyar had pledged to send one lac Mujahideen to the aid of Kashmiris who had taken part in the Afghan Jihad.
Gen Zia had gained tremendous influence and popularity in the Pashtun belt of Afghanistan, and was all set to introduce Islamic system. This was not to the liking of the western powers and it became obligatory to bump him off. He along with many generals were killed in an air crash in Aug 1988. His departure was rejoiced by Russia, India, and his detractors at home which included the PPP and the liberals.
After his death, all the plans made for the liberation of Kashmir were shelved. Benazir, Nawaz Sharif (NS), Gen Musharraf and Zardari favored friendly ties with India and played politics to damage Kashmiri freedom movement. None exploited the armed uprising in IOK which had nailed down 7 lacs of Indian forces in the narrow Kashmir Valley. All favoured converting LOC into a permanent border, not realising that it would not quench the thirst of expansionist India. None took the Kashmiris in the loop while engaging in peace talks with India.
NS claimed that Kashmir resolution was round the corner when Vajpayee visited Lahore in Jan 1999, but lamented that his hand-picked Gen Musharraf stabbed him in the back by launching Operation Dras-Kargil on his own. In his second tenure, he cultivated personal friendship with Indian PM Gujral, and in his third term he established business ties with Modi and business tycoon Jindal. Gen Musharraf took the steam out of Kashmiri freedom struggle after signing peace deal with India in 2004, allowing India to fence LOC, floated the out of box solution and divided APHC. Zardari declared the Kashmiri freedom fighters as terrorists. To restart the suspended composite dialogue that were snapped after the Mumbai attacks in Nov 2008, NS agreed with Modi at the Uffa meeting in 2015 to accord higher priority to terrorism over Kashmir. Imran Khan (IK) desired friendship with Modi soon after he took over in 2018, but the latter declined to meet him. Reportedly, both IK and Gen Qamar Bajwa tried to arrange Modi’s visit to Pakistan in April 2021.
When India illegally annexed the disputed territory of IOK on Aug 5, 2019, that was the time when Pakistan should have gone all out to free Kashmir from the cruel clutches of fascist and racist India. Nothing else should have mattered after the jugular vein was severed. At least covert operations should have been stepped up in Kashmir and some other disturbed regions of India.
But like the former leaders, IK and Gen Bajwa favoured a similar outcome of the Kashmir dispute as envisaged by the predecessors and they continued with the old apologetic and defensive policy in spite of India’s intense firings across the LOC and Working Boundary, surgical strikes and other offensive acts.
A tacit understanding was given to Trump and Pentagon during the visit of the two to Washington in July 2019. Trump’s mediation offer was meant to guarantee the safety of AJK and GB. Both were informed about Modi’s plan of changing the special status of IOK and they were told to control the people. 21-gun salute to Gen Bajwa by Pentagon, who was retiring in Nov that year, was a clear indication that he had consented, and it was decided that he will be given a three years extension.
It is most distressing that Pakistan’s policy makers allowed India to usurp IOK without a whimper. The Indian brutes were permitted to carry out genocide and rapes of locked down Kashmiris in the biggest military garrison and open prison. Encouraged by pacifist response from Pakistan, Modi went ahead with his plan to change the demography and culture of Kashmir by settling non-Muslims and letting them buy lands and marrying Muslim Kashmiri girls. He is now welcoming foreign business tycoons as well as G-20 to invest and build business empires and resorts in the Kashmir Valley.
The abject plight of the Indian Muslims, rendered stateless and treated as 2nd rated citizens of India and brutally oppressed, doesn’t bother the insensitive elite class in Pakistan, which is smug in their money-making ventures, and in infighting for power. They are least concerned about the dangerous designs of India wanting to fragment Pakistan into four parts.
The writer is a retired Brig Gen, war veteran, defence, security & political analyst, international columnist, author of five books, Chairman Thinkers Forum Pakistan & director Measac Research Centre. asifharoonraja@gmail.com
Posted by admin in Asia, CURRENT EVENTS, Mahboob Khawaja, OPINION, OPINION LEADER on July 30th, 2019
Reflections on Today’s World of Politics
President Trump and young-looking Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan met this week at the White House. Trump is master to transform rhetoric into reality as he did to North Korean leader. Both were trying to overcome the historic indifference and prejudice to bridge the ever-widening gaps between the reality and perceptions of the relationship. If the nation’s relationships are based on the simplicity of truth, wisdom, national interest and integrity, one could foresee political compromises as a virtue to foster friendship. Trump’s body language signalled some positive overtures as America looks for foes and friends to end its occupation of Afghanistan. Pakistan is central to this strategy to facilitate a peaceful and face-saving outcome for America militarism in Afghanistan. Truth is unchanging as it was in 2001 that George W. Bush – an emotionally disturbed and intellectually imbalanced president embarked on military intervention to invade Afghanistan to strengthen his standing before the American masses after the 9/11 events. Truth is the same today as it was almost two decades earlier that America and its NATO allies displaced and killed millions for no other reason except a preposterous and distorted version of warmongering against the poor and helpless people of Afghanistan who had nothing to do with the 9/11 tragedies. When false assumptions go unchallenged, it breeds more reactionary forces to entrench in violence and destruction.
Bertrand Russell and Alfred Einstein Manifest (1955) called “a war with H bomb might possibly put an end to the human race.” In 2017, America tested the Mother of Bombs in Afghanistan as if it was an American state. This is how America and NATO destroyed the ancient and peaceful culture of Afghanistan. All wars are dreadful and end up in calamities with ripple effects for centuries to come. It is evidence of tragic human abnormality that American, Afghan and Pakistani could not unfold humanitarian approaches to resolve the enlarged conflict in Afghanistan. Now, Trump and Imran Khan have come to understand its reality and wisdom of reciprocal forbearance that could usher a just a viable settlement in Afghanistan. But no one should underestimate the prevalent optimistic scepticism linking Pakistan and Afghanistan to a new American policy and practice for change in southwest Asia.
If America has the political, moral and intellectual capacity to honour its commitments, it could resolve the Afghan problems via a peaceful agreement with the people of Afghan and ensuring a legitimately elected system of governance for Afghanistan. It is not the question of whether Taliban or President Ashraf Ghani’s party should govern Afghanistan, but the people of Afghanistan must have a participatory and final say in making the peace deal. Rights of the people and political fairness must be the guiding principles to conclude a peace pact between the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Military interventions never deliver peace and social harmony but destroy all substance that should support societal progress and future-making.
Imran Khan should be careful to assess Pakistan’s own weaknesses and strength and learn from the past as to what mistakes were made in military collaboration with the US scheme of things in the region. The USAID gimmick or the loans from the IMF are not viable strategies for national progress and development. Pakistan must strengthen its domestic socio-economic and political productivity, advancements and integration. Its progress is key to international cohesion and services to the neglected masses. Khan does not appear to have expertise in political change, economic productivity and nation-building. Political corruption is cancer in society. He should encourage and engage the new generation of educated and intelligent and honest people to participate in building new public institutions, new systems of participatory governance and political accountability in all domains of affairs. Imran Khan will be wise to enlarge his circle of governance by enlisting educated and proactive visionary men of ideas and strategic experts to deliver services to the people and ensure a progressive Pakistan.
Trump to Mediate Kashmir between India and Pakistan – Will He?
As a friendly overture to softening relationship with Pakistan, Trump offered to mediate the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. Immediately, Indian PM’ spokesperson denied Trump’s assertion of PM Modi ever asking him to discuss Kashmir with Pakistan. In politics, argument and rebuttals could be pondered with varied logical scales. There is a contrast between what India claims to be and what Pakistan stands for and what the people of Kashmir valley aspire for. If we imply canons of rationality, it could clarify the core of fault lines between tense relationships of India and Pakistan. If India and Pakistan are sincere to find a cure to the overwhelming cruelty, military tyranny and violations of the basic rights of the people of Kashmir, the global community will view them as leaders of peaceful future-making
For a change, Trump has sensed the rationality of restoring normal ties between the two nuclear rivals. It could help him to gain some numbers in political popularity as he did on North Korea – an unthinkable probability making it a thinkable reality for normalization of mutual relationship. Both India and Pakistan and given their competing claims cannot deny the fact that Kashmir is the focal issue to a normal future for the masses in both countries. War is madness if there are people of reason to think about the societal future and wellbeing of the people. Kashmir was never part of India even under the British Raj. In 1947 and 1949 at the UN Security Council Resolutions, the people of Kashmir were promised a referendum (plebiscite) to decide about their future whether to join India or Pakistan. It is not the domestic territory of India or Pakistan to undo the truth about Kashmir. There is no sense to shed human blood on a precarious experiment whether India administers Kashmir or Pakistanis do. The conflict must be resolved by addressing the humanitarian problems and sufferings of the people of Kashmir. If Trump along with Russia and China could persuade both India and Pakistan to resolve the problem, it could open up a new threshold of peace and harmony in Southwest Asia.
America Needs a Safe Exit from Afghanistan
In a changing world of global thinking and friendly relationships with others, American foreign policy experts should think critically how best they could communicate to a friend in Southwest Asia and enlist urgently needed moral and practical support to pave the ways for a peaceful settlement of the Afghanistan crisis. America is a military power but its legend of invincibility has been torn apart by small groups of fighters in Afghanistan. Much of this land of ancient tribal herdsmen is in ruins, it’s the economy, political and civic infrastructures and productivity devastated by the insanity of war and civilian lives float between obsessed insecurity, daily bombings and extended graveyards. America cannot undo the history of its own ruthless engagement and strategic failure. This consequence is of its own failed strategy or no strategy at all, and not of the role of Pakistan or others. If American rational impulses are intact, its policy should focus on a multilateral approach including Pakistan, Iran, India, China and Russia to pool intellectual resources and work out negotiated settlements in Afghanistan and Kashmir. America needs to be rational and see the mirror of its prolonged involvement in a war that has consumed more than 4,000 lives of US soldiers and almost 15,000 wounded veterans. This is no excuse to reinforce aggression against the people of Afghanistan. America needs a safe exit from the prolonged self-engineered crisis.
Russia, China, India and Pakistan Could Help America to Negotiate Peace in Asia
While individualism is a political trait, authoritarian absolutism is a political sickness and contrary to the principles of liberty and justice. America enjoins a moral and intellectual history of the making of the nation. “These are the times that try men’s soul”, wrote Thomas Paine in Common Sense (1776), the political vision and reference for the independence of America from Britain as a nation. If global common sense is the hub of rational thoughts, America under Trump has open lines of communication with President Putin and Chinese President Xi Ping. It is rational to assume that Pakistan under PM Imran Khan could facilitate an international gathering inviting Russia, China, India and America to open a dialogue for political change and conflict resolution.
This will be a magnanimous forbearance and proactive vision to dispel the notion of war and intransigence and to reshape a turbulent past, be it in Afghanistan or Kashmir and strengthen a legitimate purpose of peace, friendship and sustainable relationships without the tyranny of wars and violations of human rights and dignity. The ferocity of wars and violations of human rights cannot be the intelligent hallmarks of a progressive society striving to harmonize humanity and make sustainable peace as a reality for future generations.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution and international affairs with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution: Approaches to Understand the Current Issues and Future-Making. Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, October 2017.
Posted by Dr. Salman in KASHMIR IS BURNING on October 28th, 2016
Kashmir Lobby Group @KashmirLobby
kashmir-black-day-conference-speakers-declared-india-responsible-to-resolve-kashmir-conflict …
At the #Kashmir conference today.
#KashmirSOS The enemy of Quaid is a man who betrays the Kashmir cause
We’ll remind the world at every forum the injustices prevalant in Jannat nazeer valley of Kashmir :
Although 27th of October is celebrated every year as the “Black Day” by the Pakistanis and the Kashmiris all over the world as a protest against Indian illegal occupation of Kashmir on October 27, 1947, yet this time, this very day has come at time when the people of Kashmir have accelerated their legitimate struggle in the aftermath of the martyrdom of the young Kashmir leader Burhan Wani by the Indian security forces in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) in wake of continued sieges and prolonged curfew. Since July 8, 2016, Indian forces have martyred more than 100 innocent persons who have been protesting against the martyrdom of Burhan Wani.
By manipulating the false flag terror attacks at a military base in Uri and Baramulla, the BJP-led Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has intensified war-hysteria against Pakistan. After deployment of heavy arms and weapons at the Line of Control (LoC), Indian forces have increased troops and continue shelling in Pakistani side of Azad Kashmir. New Delhi’s main aim is to deflect the attention of the international community from the new phase of Kashmiri Intifada, while in this regard; pressure has been mounting on the Modi government both domestically and internationally.
However, during the partition of the Sub-continent, the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) which comprised Muslim majority decided to join Pakistan according to the British-led formula. But, Dogra Raja, Sir Hari Singh, a Hindu who was ruling over the J&K, in connivance with the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Governor General Lord Mountbatten joined India.
The design to forcibly wrest Kashmir began to unfold on August 16, 1947, with the announcement of the Radcliffe Boundary Award. It gave the Gurdaspur District—a majority Muslim area to India to provide a land route to the Indian armed forces to move into Kashmir. There was a rebellion in the state forces, which revolted against the Maharaja and were joined by Pathan tribesmen. Lord Mountbatten ordered armed forces to land in Srinagar.
When Pakistan responded militarily against the Indian aggression, on December 31, 1947, India made an appeal to the UN Security Council to intervene and a ceasefire ultimately came into effect on January 01, 1949, following UN resolutions calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to determine whether they wish to join Pakistan or India. On February 5, 1964, India backed out of its promise of holding plebiscite. Instead, in March 1965, the Indian Parliament passed a bill, declaring Kashmir a province of India-an integral part of the Indian union.
The very tragedy of Kashmiris had started after 1947 when they were denied their genuine right of self-determination. They organized themselves against the injustices of India and launched a war of liberation which New Delhi tried to crush through various forms of brutalities.
It is notable that since 1947, in order to maintain its illegal control, India has continued its repressive regime in the Occupied Kashmir through various machinations.
Nevertheless, various forms of state terrorism have been part of a deliberate campaign by the Indian army and paramilitary forces against Muslim Kashmiris, especially since 1989. It has been manifested in brutal tactics like crackdowns, curfews, illegal detentions, massacre, targeted killings, sieges, burning the houses, torture, disappearances, rape, breaking the legs, molestation of Muslim women and killing of persons through fake encounter.
According to a report on human rights violations in the Indian Occupied Kashmir, since 1989, there have been deaths of 1,00000 innocent Kashmiris, 7,023 custodial killings, 1,22,771 arrests, 1,05,996 destruction of houses or buildings, 22,776 women widowed, 1,07,466 children orphaned and 10,086 women gang-raped/molested. Indian brutal securities forces have continue these atrocities.
In fact, Indian forces have employed various draconian laws like the Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, and the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act and Public Safety Act in killing the Kashmiri people, and for the arbitrarily arrest of any individual for an indefinite period.
Besides Human Rights Watch, in its various reports, Amnesty International has also pointed out grave human rights violations in the Indian controlled Kashmir, indicating, “The Muslim majority population in the Kashmir Valley suffers from the repressive tactics of the security forces.
In its report on July 2, 2015, the Amnesty International has highlighted extrajudicial killings of the innocent persons at the hands of Indian security forces in the Indian Held Kashmir. The report points out, “Tens of thousands of security forces are deployed in Indian-administered Kashmir…the Armed Forces Special Powers Act allows troops to shoot to kill suspected militants or arrest them without a warrant…not a single member of the armed forces has been tried in a civilian court for violating human rights in Kashmir…this lack of accountability has in turn facilitated other serious abuses…India has martyred one 100,000 people. More than 8,000 disappeared (while) in the custody of army and state police.”
In this respect, European Union has passed a resolution about human rights abuses committed by Indian forces in the Indian held Kashmir.
It is of particular attention that in 2008, a rights group reported unmarked graves in 55 villages across the northern regions of the Indian-held Kashmir. Then researchers and other groups reported finding thousands of mass graves without markers. In this respect, in August, 2011, Indian Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission officially acknowledged in its report that innocent civilians killed in the two-decade conflict have been buried in unmarked graves.
Notably, foreign sources and human rights organisations have revealed that unnamed graves include those innocent persons, killed by the Indian military and paramilitary troops in the fake encounters including those who were tortured to death by the Indian secret agency RAW.
Indian authorities are not willing to talk with Kashmiri people on political grounds. New Delhi reached to a conclusion that only bullet is the right way of dealing with Kashmiris, demanding their right of self-determination. Surprisingly, Indian successive governments are trying to ignore the dynamics of the freedom movement of Kashmiris for the sake of their alien rule.
But, New Delhi is still showing its intransigence in order to resolve Kashmir dispute with Pakistan by neglecting the fact that Kashmir remains a nuclear flashpoint between both the neighbouring countries.
In this context, Egbert Jahn in his book, “Kashmir: Flashpoint for a Nuclear War or Even a Third World War?” has pointed out, “The Kashmir conflict is embedded in the wider conflict over the incomplete creation of nations and states on the Indian subcontinent, which during the east-west conflict even threatened at times to escalate into a nuclear world war between Pakistan and the USA on the one side and India and the USSR on the other. Until now, there have been three wars between India and Pakistan over the Jammu and Kashmir: in 1947–49, 1965 and 1999… finally, the Indo-Chinese border war of 1962…after these wars…and could unexpectedly again lead to a regional and under certain circumstances…even a major nuclear war or a Third World War.”
Meanwhile, like the previous year, Pakistan’s recent serious and sincere effort at the annual session of the United Nations—the recent speech of Pakistan’s prime minister, highlighting Indian atrocities, the Kashmir dispute and demanding its solution has infused a new spirit among the Kashmiri people.
Nonetheless, Kashmiris, living both sides of the LoC observe “Black Day” on October 27 to protest against the Indian illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir. On this very day, Pakistanis and Kashmiris across the globe express solidarity with the freedom fighters of Kashmir, demanding their legitimate right of self-determination from India which continues various forms of state terrorism in order to suppress their popular movement.
Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations
Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com
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