From ‘terrorism’ to freedom struggle

By Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri

In his message to the Congress on August 8, 1950, Harry Truman warned that
“once a government is committed to silencing the voice of dissent it has only one
way to go. To employ increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source
of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
Nothing illustrates the Indian policy vis-a-vis occupied Kashmir better than the
above quoted remark of the American leader. Since its forcible occupation of
Valley of Jammu & Kashmir, the successive Indian governments have employed
disproportionate state power to suppress the Kashmiris’ demand for right to self-
determination, thereby turning their back on the pledges of Prime Minister Nehru
about ascertaining the wishes of the Kashmiri people through a ‘plebiscite.’ The
first Indian Prime Minister went to the extent of saying (June 26, 1952) that ‘India
would be prepared to change her constitution if Kashmiris do not want to be with
India.’

While held Kashmir’s summer of discontent and oppression enters its third season,
the figures of those martyred and injured by the Indian security forces call the
Indian bluff of portraying the Kashmir issue as a ‘domestic problem.’ As reported
by the Kashmir Media Service, the total number of killings of the Kashmiris in the
Indian custody are 72 including 37 men, 4 women and 31 children only in the
month of August, thereby taking the death toll to well over 100 since the second
Intifada began this June. More than 1505 people got seriously injured and 20
women were raped by the Indian soldiers. Going by the Indian standards, even
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “was shocked and distressed to see young men
and women—even children—joining the protest on the streets.” He asked the
Indian authorities to employ ‘non-lethal’ methods and deal with the protest
demonstrations ‘humanely’. This underscores the magnitude of brutality
demonstrated by the Indian security forces to muzzle the voice of the Kashmiris
who are up against stat might armed only with pebbles and stones.

Two cabinet meetings and an All Parties Conferences on Kashmir organized by

the Indian government on September 15, 2010 failed to produce any political
roadmap for resolution to the raging problem. The only thing All Parties
Conference agreed on was sending the fact-finding delegation composed of
members from all political parties to occupied Kashmir with a view to getting first
hand information as to what caused unrest and turmoil at such a massive scale.
The subsequent incentive package offered by the Indian authorities as bait to
people of Kashmir has also failed to get any favourable response. Kashmiri leader
Syed Ali Geelani was bang on target when he said that the Indian leadership failed
to touch the core problem of the unrest. The issue is not economic but political i.e.
question of right to self-determination, a point the successive Indian
administrations are clueless about.

The civilian uprising of the Kashmiris has caused alarm bells in the Indian
establishment besides catching the world community and the Pakistani
establishment unawares. While the resilience, courage and fortitude of the people
of Kashmir would be chronicled in golden letters to the annals of history, the
recent protests are accompanied by unmistakable aspects of the age-old Kashmiri
struggle for political right to determine their future. Some points are instructive in
this regard:

One, the most lethal aftermath of 9/11 was that lines differentiating between
freedom struggle and terrorism got blurred. Consequently, freedom struggles
being fought in Kashmir and Palestine came to be seen as terrorist campaigns in
the western world. What these demonstrations have served to remind the world of
is the need for finding solutions to the political questions that involve future of
those peoples. The Kashmiris have rewritten the history and washed with their
blood the allegations of terrorism raised against their freedom struggle. The world
cannot shrug its responsibility anymore by simply portraying these endeavours as
reflections and manifestations of terrorism. If the cause of global peace is to be
promoted, then addressing the root causes that spawn extremist tendencies is a
sine qua non.

Two, the way protesters have carried on their demonstrations and braved the might
of the Indian security forces show that Kashmir is not the ‘domestic issue’ of
India. The shifting of global media spotlight back on atrocities and gross
violations of human rights by the Indian security forces has internationalised the
Kashmir problem, forcing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to urge all sides
“to show utmost restraint and address problems peacefully.” So unnerved has been
the Indian establishment over this mild-worded concern of the UN Secretary
General that it dubbed his call for calm as “gratuitous”. India has been at pains to
point to the international community that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between New
Delhi and Islamabad and from this point, it has moved on to describe it as
‘domestic issue’, thereby forestalling any possibility of international intervention
of account of Kashmir being a disputed issue. It is a different matter that pending
resolutions of UN Security Council on Kashmir are enough to characterise it as a
global issue much to chagrin of New Delhi. The Chinese refusal to grant visa to
Lt-General B S Jaswal, chief of the Indian army’s northern command, is also
pregnant with implications for the Kashmir dispute.

Third and most significant aspect of these protests is their indigenous character.
For long India has been trying to implicate Pakistan holding it responsible for the
militancy in Kashmir. Pakistani Foreign Minister accurately said that “can
Pakistan orchestrate thousands of people? Can Pakistan plan, sitting in Islamabad,
a shutdown all over Kashmir?” New York Times has described these protests as
“an intifada-like popular revolt”, which signalled “the failure of Indian effort to
win the assent of Kashmiris, using just about any tool available; money, elections,
and overwhelming force.” What is even more remarkable is that these protests
were neither planned nor led by established political parties. It is a youth-led
indigenous movement born out of decade-old frustration over subjugation of their
rights.

So far the response from the international community to the violations of human
rights in Kashmir has been lukewarm. But the world can demonstrate this
indifference only to its own peril. Sooner or later, it would come to realize the
urgency of making a serious effort for resolution of the Kashmir dispute through a
tripartite dialogue under the UN auspices. Nations cannot be kept in shackles of
slavery for long when the old and the young take to street for getting their rights.
This is the lesson history has imparted time and again.