August 5: Youm-e-Istehsal Kashmir Revisited

By Sajjad Shaukat

This year, 5th of August is the fifth anniversary of India’s revocation of the special status of the disputed territory of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

On this very day, Kashmiris living on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) and their brethren in Pakistan, including their sympathisers, living in rest of the world celebrate this day as the black day. Especially, Pakistan will observe this very day as ‘Youm-e-Istehsal-e-Kashmir’ (Day of Exploitation).

As regards the historical background, taking cognizance of the discriminatory treatment of Hindus with Muslims, the Kashmiri leadership realized the need to form a political party, Muslim Conference (MC) with a view to waging struggle for their freedom. Afterwards, on July 19, 1947, MC passed a resolution to merge Kashmir with Pakistan, considering the geographical proximity—majority of Muslim population (77%), language and cultural relations of Jammu and Kashmir. 

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. But, Dogra Raja, Sir Hari Singh, a Hindu who was ruling over the J&K in collusion with the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Governor General Lord Mountbatten joined India.

The Radcliffe Boundary Award gave the Gurdaspur District—a majority Muslim area to India to provide a land route to the Indian forces to move into the J&K. 

Indian forces invaded Srinagar on October, 27 1947 and forcibly occupied the J&K in utter violation of the partition plan.

When Pakistan responded militarily, 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.

On February 5, 1964, India backed out of its commitment of holding plebiscite. Instead, Indian Parliament declared Kashmir-an integral part of the Indian union.

Since 1989, various forms of state terrorism have been part of a deliberate campaign by the Indian army and paramilitary forces against Muslim Kashmiris. 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 encounters.

On August 5, 2019, Indian prejudiced Prime Minister and leader of the BJP-led extremist government Narendar Modi abrogated articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution, which gave a special status to the disputed territory of IIOJK. Indian government bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to be ruled by the federal government. On the same day, strict military lockdown was imposed in the IIOJK which continues unabated.

New Delhi also issued an infamous map on October 31, 2019, which displayed this split and identified Pakistani side of Azad Kashmir as well as certain areas of Gilgit-Baltistan as an Indian territory. 

Besides Pakistan, China also rejected the Indian malicious acts as “unlawful and void”, saying that India’s decision to “include” some of China’s territory into its administrative jurisdiction “challenged” Beijing’s sovereignty. While border dispute between India and China, which remains unsettled, has increased tension between the two countries.

However, after imposing the military lockdown, the deployment of more than 900,000 military troops in the IIOJK, who have martyred tens of thousands of the Kashmiris, including women and children through brutal tactics-fake encounters, while closure of mosques, shortage of foods, medicines for the patients have further increased the plight of the Kashmiris. 

In order to hide human rights violations, communication services have been cut off from the world and foreign journalists are not allowed to enter the Kashmir region.

While, under a well-planned hidden agenda, Modi-led regime has intensified, bringing ethno- demographic changes in the IIOJK on Israeli model. In this context, Indian various moves such as introduction of new laws, amendment of the laws to facilitate non-Kashmiris and outsiders in order to usurp the rights of the Muslim Kashmiris—issuance of domicile certificates to more than 900000 non-Kashmiris, registration of almost 2.5 million new non-local voters in the IIOJK—failure of fake drama to host G-20 summit on May 22-24, this year in the IIOJK might be cited as instance. 

Modi-regime has also sent gangs of RSS-BJP volunteers permanently stationed in the occupied Kashmir.

And Indian forces have been also availing various draconian laws such as Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the Public Safety Act (PSA) etc. in martyring the Kashmiri people, and for arbitrarily arrest of any individual for an indefinite period. 

Despite the use of chemical weapons—the pellet guns and phosphorus bombs by Indian military, Kashmiris have accelerated the war for liberation.

It is mentionable that Western media, human rights groups and leaders of various countries and UNO have repeatedly condemned Indian illegal measures and human rights abuses which keep on going in the IIOJK. 

In this regard, a year after India abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, UN human rights experts on August 4, 2020 called on India and the international community to take urgent action to address the “alarming” human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir—“to investigate all cases of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and arbitrary detentions.” 

Amnesty International also said on September 29, 2020 that it is “stopping its work in India because the government has frozen its bank accounts” on September 10 for highlighting rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir” and “the government had sought to punish it for that”.

In the recent past, the UN Security Council in its meetings has thrice reiterated that the Kashmir issue requires to be settled in accordance with the principles of the UN charter and the related Security Council resolutions, as the world has refused to believe in the Indian story that its actions regarding IIOJK are its internal matter. 

Notably, martyrs of Syed Ali Gilan, Burhan Muzaffar Wani, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai and some other leaders have given a greater impetus to the struggle of Kashmiris. 

It is worth-mentioning that there are similarities found what the Nazi Party of Hitler had done with Jews/non-Aryan race in Germany and elsewhere in Europe and what Indian-led fundamentalist RSS party has been doing against minority populations like Sikhs, Muslims and Christians.

There is organized pattern of genocide in the process. Holocaust did not start with gas chambers. It started after a sustained campaign of hate which included fear mongering and dehumanization of Jews, while Hitler called the Germans as superior race-Aryan race.

Particularly, Muslims in India are suffering the same type of ‘otherness’ and demonization Jewish population faced under Nazi regime. Hindutva ideology of India’s ruling party draws its inspiration from Nazi supremacist ideology. India’s equivalent of Nazi party RSS applies this derived ideology in its teachings and actions. Modi’s ruling BJP which is political arm of RSS, operating as a paramilitary organization. RSS chief receives government’s VVIP security.

Slogan ‘Never Again,’ raised after Holocaust still echoes throughout the world, but that promise rings hollow as international community remains largely silent on Modi government’s Hindu supremacists—growing marginalization and persecution of Muslims, and other minorities. 

So, it is crucial that the international community must act to ensure that history does not repeat itself.

Nevertheless, state of the Jammu and Kashmir has become the world’s largest prison, and the most militarized zone on earth. In this respect, Pakistanis and Kashmiris, living abroad also raised Indian atrocities and continued struggle for the Kashmiris’ legitimate right of self-determination on various international forums, emphasizing that Kashmir issue should be resolved in accordance with the related resolutions of the UNO.

In this context, US House of Representatives Terry Meza participated in a recent event organized by Kashmir Global Council (KGC) and South Asia Democracy Watch in Frisco Texas—Ms. Terry Meeza was the chief guest and the symposium was attended by well-known social activist Ms. Beverly Hill, and various political leaders, academics, US media, including young students.

Endorsing her voices for freedom of Kashmir, Terry Meza said that she is against any form of oppression and stressed the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute in keeping with the legitimate aspirations of the people of Kashmir.

After a full day discussion, discourse and deliberation during the symposium, a resolution was passed which stressed for upholding the human rights of Kashmiri people and appealed to allow the UN Human Rights Commission to verify the report compiled by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2018-19.

Now, at the global level there is growing noticeable awareness regarding India’s brutal acts and atrocities in IIOJK.

While New Delhi has repeatedly accused Pakistan and its primary intelligence agency ISI of supporting Kashmiri freedom fighters with arms, ignoring the fact that Kashmiris’ struggle is indigenous as Islamabad clarified several time that it gives diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris. 

Meanwhile, Indian war-mongering policy with Islamabad and its Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s recent threat to cross the LoC, Indian cross-border terrorism in Pakistan and backing the militant outfits to destabilize this country show Indian unfinished agenda of partition which still continues.

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