An Indian view on Kashmir: Do we deserve this valley?

[canadian]

An Indian view on Kashmir: Do we deserve this valley?

Posted by Sanjay Kumar

A stone flies past a group of Kashmiris as they hold a protest in Srinagar. PHOTO: AFP


A visit to Kashmir will remind you of Kabul: a war torn region where the penetrating eyes of hostile security forces watch your every movement.
Over the past half century much has changed in India and Pakistan but not the persistent conflict over the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Kashmiris have continued to gradually lose trust in the Indian governments ability to give them a fair deal. This raises the question of how successful Indian democracy has been in dealing with the wishes of a people who want to be maintain a unique identity.
In the valley political protest is seen as sedition and anti-India activity. The attitude of the Indian government and the major political parties towards the people of Indian Kashmir is also discriminatory.
More than one hundred people lost their lives in protests last year. The local chief minister was clueless about events on the ground and was unable to control the situation or even sympathise with his own people.
An even fight: Tanks versus stone-throwers
The Indian government was busy formulating new military and security strategies to contain the stone throwers rather than providing relief to hapless innocent victims.
With a few exceptions no mainstream political parties came out in support of the agitating masses of the valley. Even civil society remained largely silent against the brutalities of the security forces towards the people of Indian governed Kashmir. Some international journalists who did dare to write objectively about the situation in the valley have been denied an extension of visa.
We have conquered this valley
The march to hoist the Indian flag at Lal Chowk in Sri Nagar by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the right wing main Opposition party shows how one section of society thinks.
The BJP wants to treat Indian governed Kashmir as a land that marks Indias victory and its people as their subjects. Perhaps this is why the party does not condemn killings of citizens in Kashmir even though they claim they are Indians.
The attitude of the Indian leadership and smug middle class society towards Indian governed Kashmir reminds me of the way the British used to see their colony, India. They were as immune and indifferent to the English atrocities on the freedom fighters as we seem to be towards Kashmiris today.
Democracy now (and other legends)
Indias much touted democracy and its economic power has failed to win the hearts and minds of people in Kashmir. There is an elected government in Indian governed Kashmir but it does not enjoy the same legitimacy as elected state governments enjoy in other parts of the country.
Kashmir has become a pawn, a prestige issue for the Indian government.
Recap: Pakistan versus India
This is why the government shows much rigidity in solving the contentious issue with Pakistan, which claims to have equal rights over the area. Pakistan wants the United Nations to intervene and investigate plebiscite in the region to decide. India rejects any outside interference and wants to keep the dispute bilateral.
For the past two years talks between the two countries have been completely stalled due to Indias precondition to punish the perpetrators of the 26/11 attack.
A new and bold approach is needed by both the countries to come to a settlement on the issue. As an established democracy India needs to show insight in dealing with the crisis.
Keeping the issue hanging for ages only complicate the matter and leads to frustration.
Stanley Wolperts latest book India and Pakistan suggests the:

acceptance of the current Line of Control as the northernmost international border of India and Pakistan as the most realistic solution to the Kashmir conflict. Wolpert, an old hand in South Asia and a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, says that Pakistans failure to sustain a freely elected civil polity and its inability to control the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban militants who inhabit its entire Afghan frontier, and to end the nurturing of the Pakistani soil of suicide bombers, its demand for a democratic resolution of Kashmir conflict will have little credibility and win scant support.
​

The South Asian expert argues that India should stop the military occupation and praetorian attacks on Kashmirs Muslim majority.
He says that the people of Kashmir themselves should be permitted to choose their own leaders in free and fair elections and New Delhi should solemnly commit to supporting Kashmirs provincial autonomy and human rights of the people.
Is India ready to be an enlightened democracy and address the genuine grievances of a people who want to maintain a separate identity?
Success of a democracy depends not only on holding regular elections but also upon giving political space to a people who want to write their own destiny.
If the military might cannot hold South Sudan with the North, if enlightened despotism could not stop the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and if thirty years of strong armed tactics cannot curb the democratic aspirations of the people of Egypt can the controlled and manufactured mandate in this valley kill the idea of a free and separate Kashmir?(http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/4248/an-indian-view-on-kashmir-do-we-deserve-this-valley/)

 

[canadian]

Kashmiris protest student's killing by army

By AFP
Published: February 5, 2011

File photo of relatives of missing Kashmiri Muslim youths holding placards during a protest demonstration a day before International Human Rights Day in Srinagar on December 9, 2010. PHOTO: AFP

SRINAGAR: Thousands of protesters poured into the streets in restive Indian held Kashmir on Saturday after a student was shot dead by the army.
The new unrest raised memories of massive anti-India protests that rocked the Muslim-majority region last summer in which at least 114 people were killed, most of them shot by security forces.
Manzoor Ahmad Magray, 21, a student, was killed by Indian troops late Friday in Handwara, 80 kms (50 miles) north of the region’s summer capital Srinagar, police said.
Thousand of people marched in the streets on Saturday to voice their anger, television footage showed. Indian military spokesman JS Brar said in a statement that the army regretted Magray’s death but added that “troops fired after he paid no heed to their signal to stop.”
Handwara-based police superintendent Mohammad Aslam said: “We have registered a murder case against the army in connection with the incident.”
“The situation is tense but under control,” Aslam told AFP.
Relatives of Magray rejected the army’s statement that the young man had refused to stop and charged that he had been killed “in cold blood.”
“Torture marks were visible on the body of Magray. There was only one bullet wound in the lower part of the leg,” said Shabir Ahmad, a relative.
The Himalayan region is held in part by nuclear-armed India and Pakistan but claimed in full by both. Civilian protests against India’s rule have increased in the recent past.

 

[canadian]

Rights abuses in India

From the Newspaper

(15 hours ago) Today

AS a rule, torture and democracy do not go together. In practice, however, there is hardly any democracy, especially among the larger democracies, where security agencies do not routinely use third-degree methods to obtain confessions. Those subjected to abuses and rights violations are common criminals as well as political activists and ‘normal’ citizens suspected of crimes they might not have committed. India, the democracy next door, denies that its law-enforcement agencies use torture, but it would be in New Delhi’s own interest if it were to take note of the latest Human Rights Watch report which not only condemns the widespread use of torture but also warns of its consequences for the state.
Unlike previous reports, which focused on regions like Indian-held Kashmir, the insurgency-scarred northeast and the Naxalite belt, Wednesday’s HRW report covers the whole of India and paints a gloomy picture of the rights situation in the country, saying torture is practised at every stage of the judicial process, and Indian courts and rights activists have become indifferent to atrocities. There was heightened suspicion among the law-enforcement agencies, the report noted, that the Muslim community at large supported militant activity, and this had often led to torture, including electric shocks, harassment and the profiling of Muslims living in what is officially a secular state.
The international rights body based its findings on interviews with family members, lawyers, suspects, police officials and political activists and said whenever there was a blast, the majority of those arrested arbitrarily were Muslim and accused of belonging to the Indian Mujahideen militant group. Even though Hindu suspects too were abused, the HRW report dwelt on the case of nine Muslim suspects who had remained in detention for four years and were tortured after the second Malegaon blast, although later investigations led the trail to Hindu extremists. The use of torture, the report says, causes resentment in the Muslim community and deprives the security agencies of legitimate information that could advance the cause of anti-terrorism. Often detainees’ families were harassed and mistreated in order to get forced confessions. Indian authorities should particularly note the confession of Swami Aseemanand, a Hindu extremist, who admitted to bombing the Samjhota Express, and of Srikant Purohit, a serving Indian colonel, who was later found involved in several acts of terrorism. As in post-9/11 America, this profiling of Muslims could have dangerous consequences for India. Muslims constitute 13 per cent of its 1.2 billion people, and the kind of mindset the police and security agencies have developed could well frighten and alienate the country’s biggest minority.(http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/05/rights-abuses-in-india.html)

 

[saudiking]

I thought Indian government were having meeting with separatist leadership of Kashmir. What happened to it?

 

[canadian]

I thought Indian government were having meeting with separatist leadership of Kashmir. What happened to it?

That's all I would say is " Noora Kushti".

 

[sngilani]

Pakistan and India should take a lead to take the two countries out of the vicious cycle of poverty and violence. Both Pakistan and India need to work jointly to resolve the issues that are behind the poverty and insecurity in the region.

In this regard, the resolution of the Kashmir issue should be the first priority because it is the root cause of all evils confronting the region. This is also the cause of tense relations in the region.

Settling the Kashmir issue according to the UN resolutions and wishes of the people of Kashmir will usher in an era of peace and prosperity in the region. I think there are no differences of opinion in Pakistan in this regard.