Tear gas in Kashmir
By Jeffrey Stern
Friday, February 12, 2010 - 12:46 PM
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When you fire a tear gas shell, you're supposed to aim below the chest. That's basically agreed upon, it's written somewhere: an understanding extracted from a code of conduct housed in an operating manual stuck in someone's desk drawer. "The policemen are trained to fire the tear gas shells in a parabolic way and not directly," the Inspector General of Kashmir's police force told a local paper, describing in a decidedly sterile manner the intended trajectory of a little steel projectile whose intended target is, after all, civilians.
It's also understood that often, this does not happen. Tear gas shells rocket off walls and ricochet and dance and skip across the concrete, so "non-lethal" intentions don't necessarily beget non-lethal results. You don't know where the thing is going to end up really, and sometimes -- in the case of especially zealous protesters -- where it ends up is hurtling back through the air at you. So you fire them where you want the gas to go and hope you don't learn later that it hit a soft part of someone's body, producing the precise inverse of the effect you intended. "Minimum force" weapons can prove plenty forceful, and "crowd control" measures sometimes wind up rousing bigger and angrier crowds.
The wayward tear gas canister is perhaps an apt metaphor for India's problem in its Himalayan northwest, where it administers to a province of people who don't want it there, and where it is trying to control the population with enough force that Indian authority is respected; not so much that it's resented. And it's a wayward tear gas canister that catalyzed violence last week in Kashmir, after an incident that began when a 14-year-old boy headed out to play cricket with his friends on January 31.
By way of explanation, if not necessarily apology, for the events that followed, the director general of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) later said that "stone pelting" is "a new form of gunless terrorism." He lamented bodily injuries of unspecified severity suffered by his men, and cited "close to 400 vehicles damaged in the last one-and-a-half year." He might have gone on to complain about name-calling and rude language. Indeed, for all its tactical prowess, the CRPF falters when it comes to PR. Its concept of a public information campaign is a series of signs at security checkpoints across Kashmir that read enjoy the beauty, we are on duty, an almost satirically blithe appeal coming from hardened counterinsurgency men with big weapons and grim faces.
And yet, one can't fault them for trying to make their name smell a little better in a place where they've come to stand for everything the people hate. To many Kashmiris, the very presence of the paramilitary CRPF constitutes an insidious kind of insult. Not just because the paramilitaries are viewed as a Hindu force in the majority Muslim Kashmir, but because they're perceived to be hard men trained to fight militants, and having them keep the peace on city streets feels a little like calling in Navy SEALS to mediate bar fights. That New Delhi sends paramilitaries to do crowd control in Kashmir suggests to Kashmiris that India regards the people there as indistinct from al Qaeda, Lashkar-e Taiba, or other Pakistan-based militants. In other words, despite New Delhi reducing the paramilitary presence in Kashmir year by year, Kashmiris feel their being there at all is an indication that India thinks of all Kashmiris -- Indian citizens -- as terrorists.
So was the situation in Kashmir on the last Sunday of January sitting at a high simmer, when an assistant sub-inspector with the Jammu and Kashmir police force fired a teargas canister in an apparently un-parabolic manner, hitting a teenage boy named Wamiq Farooq in the head and killing him.
A number of things happened next. Protests erupted in towns and villages all over the valley, people taking to the streets as reports emerged of another boy taking a plastic pellet in the forehead and losing his sight, one getting a canister in the belly and losing his spleen, still others struck through with pellets but preferring to forgo treatment for fear of police waiting at hospitals, ready to arrest those carrying proof of participation in protests on (or in) their bodies. Each story instigated new and more intense protests, as local journalists reported that the government arrested close to 100 people by its own count and many more by everyone else's, and injuries suffered by citizens, police, and paramilitaries numbered in the hundreds.
As news of the violence made its way west, Pakistanis already planning to demonstrate for "Solidarity Day," an annual day of protest against Indian control in Kashmir took to the streets to support their (mostly) Muslim brothers on the Indian side of the Line of Control, forming human chains in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad, holding rallies in Lahore and Peshawar.
Last Friday amidst growing protests, a member of one of the paramilitary forces operating in the valley shot and killed a 17-year-old named Zahid Farooq (no relation to Wamiq), sending the situation over the edge. Cries of "blood for blood" and "we want freedom" sounded out at his funeral a day later, and Srinagar fell under an even tighter grip of government forces. The government restricted the assembly of more than four people, and shut down roads. I reached a journalist friend on the phone, out of breath and frantic, who told me "everything is closed. We are not being allowed to go to places, I tried my best to go to one of the places where they imposed the curfew and are now protesting." As he spoke, he became so exercised that that he began pushing keys on the dial pad accidentally. "Downtown area Srinagar," he said, "I can't get there, nobody is being allowed, the protesters are only getting there through back alleys."
Before hanging up, he told me, "It is totally different this time. The youth are very angry, I see rage in their eyes, more so than ever before."
**
Here is what's strange about the latest boiling-over in Kashmir: the youth in the streets aren't responding to orders, they're giving them. The main Muslim party in Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyat conference, initially declared a one-day strike, but a group of twenty or so young men assembled a conference of their own and announced they wouldn't listen to Hurriyat leaders; they wanted a longer strike, four days instead of one. The people struck for four. And after more violence, they struck some more.
As influence in Kashmir has percolated from state officials down to religious leaders, and finally, to young men, New Delhi will have a harder and harder time finding people to negotiate with. A government minister can't hold two-party talks with teenagers, but increasingly it's the disenfranchised youth who have the pulse of the people, and the inclination to act decisively. Frustrated young men are taking the torch from older separatist leaders who've become more ruminative in their twilight. "After twenty years of violence, the new generation which is now on the street was born on a battlefield," says Inpreet Kaur, another Kashmiri-born journalist. "They are born under the shadow of a gun. For them, these agitations are part of life. The protests are part of life. Violence is a point or normalcy for this generation." So youth make up the new power bloc, a phenomenon that in both origin and implication is not unlike the Taliban ("the students") storming forth from the madrassas in Pakistan in the nineties, or al Shabaab ("the lads") lording over war-torn Somalia.
India does not appear to be addressing disenfranchised youth in Kashmir very well. India has been remarkably proactive in advocating negotiations with Pakistan, and deserves credit for any progress the two countries make. The Byzantium of backroom negotiations that characterize Indian geopolitics is dizzying, and because most negotiations related to Kashmir are necessarily secret, it's impossible to fairly evaluate New Delhi's efforts to mitigate the Kashmir crisis. Two weeks ago, however, India appointed a new national security advisor with a more flexible stance towards Pakistan than his predecessor, and this weekend, India publicly proposed foreign-secretary-level negotiations with its archrival. If Pakistan responds favorably to these steps, India's higher-road statecraft could lead to tangible progress. But it will do little to defuse Kashmir, because even if Pakistan and India were, hypothetically, to agree on Kashmir, Kashmiris likely wouldn't.
While India is closer to bilateral talks, "trilateral" talks -- negotiations which actually include Kashmir -- could never be publicly entertained. Negotiations with Kashmir would suggest that Kashmir is an autonomous region, that it's not is one of India's central contentions. Kashmir does not belong to Pakistan, Kashmir belongs to India, so goes the logic, and that Kashmir might belong to itself is not an option India has political room to consider. They've tried to, even recently. New Delhi held "quiet diplomacy" talks with Kashmir's Hurriyat conference last fall, but when The Hindu reported the story, the project was scuttled, and Kashmiris were left to doing what they've been doing as long as they can remember: watching Pakistan and India volley back and forth over their heads, feeling sometimes ignored, sometimes like puppets between two disputants, children manipulated by two feuding parents.
It is fitting, then, that the region's fate depends on its children. Some of the young Kashmiris have taken to calling themselves the Asian Palestine, and they believe they're fighting the Kashmiri intifada.
The antidote is better development, hospitals, opportunities for work and normalized political engagement. But as it stands, "the only relief the young people are getting is through religion," the Kashmiri journalist Kaur says. "On the ground you don't see job opportunities. So what is happening is that you're starting to hear of local young people getting involved in militancy against the government." The trend is shifting from Pakistani terrorists hopping (or being shoved) across the Line of Control into India to wreak havoc, more now to Indian citizens training to confront India. Official estimates place the number of Kashmiris who've gone into Pakistan for training at 800, but the figure could be significantly more.
Riding the metro in New Delhi as he spoke to me, speaking low and covering the receiver so as not to be overheard, Kaur explained the significance of a recent report that eight teenage boys were arrested on their way to Pakistan, allegedly intending to receive militant training. "According to the police," he said, "all these boys were from South Kashmir, they were young new recruits. What is the true story? We don't know." But when young people get caught or go missing in Kashmir, everyone assumes the worst.
On Tuesday, shops reopened and the government cleared roads they had blocked, returning Kashmir to a tentative kind of normalcy. "But that doesn't mean Kashmir will die off," Kaur says. "The situation is best suited for pan-Islamic militants, and they're growing into a mass movement. They need a political solution. This disease is slowly growing."
Jeffrey Stern is the international engagement manager at the National Constitution Center and a journalist who spent much of the last two years traveling across South Asia.
Utter reflection of lack of history or knowledge of the region
The author has sited just a couple of events,on which he has concocted his whole story. It is either reflection of ignorance or a religiously motivated pro-Hindu or pro-India analysis of the events. In the nearly six-decade-old Kashmir conflict, Indian army has killed about 93,000 Kashmirirs , maimed hundreds and thousands for life, raped women, and even did not spare young Kashmiri kids from barbarity. It is shame, to say the least, to ignore this human aspect of the Kashmir dispute and portray more than 700,000 Indian troops, who routinely humiliate ordinary Kashmiris in their homes and outside on the Kashmir streets, as peace makers. The author did not even feel it necessary to mention how India brutally suppresses peaceful protest demonstrations against Indian rule in Kashmir. From such an ignorant or biased author, it is not expected to know or mention the historical aspects of the Kashmir dispute. Kashmir never acceded to India, even some historian say that accession treaty is a fake document, never signed by the Hindu King, Maharaja. It is the freedom sentiment that is expressed by different generations of Kashmiris, and it is not the fight for employment. The unemployment rate and poverty is far higher in different states of India than in Kashmir; why don't we see thousands of troops deployed in such states of India, killing, torturing and humiliating people at will. Mr. Stern, your antidote to the Kashmir dispute is laughable; thank God it is better to see you as an ignorant author than an ignorant doctor.
"Keep those facts away from me!"
I'm neither a religious Hindu nor a fanatic. But if logic and facts are under the sole ownership of Hindu fanatics, then I guess I am one.
It's amusing how "Andrewcook" uses conspiracy theories for answers. The treaty of accession was fake? I'm sure it was. Just like the Apollo missions were fake. 9/11 was fake. And anything that goes against your argument is fake. I, for one, would love some rebuttals to my argument, rather than a dismissive reply that calls me "emotionally charged" and unaware of "ground realities." I'm sure "Andrew Cook" is on the ground as he writes this; typing even as he dodges bullets fired by those trigger-happy Indian Army soldiers.
And Dr Alistair Lamb? It's Alastair Lamb, for one. Here's what "Dr" Lamb has to say: "The State of Jammu and Kashmir was a Princely State within the British Indian Empire. By the rules of the British transfer of power in Indian subcontinent in 1947 the Ruler of the State, Maharajah Sir Hari Singh, with the departure of the British and the lapsing of Paramountcy (as the relationship between State and British Crown was termed), could opt to join either India or Pakistan or, by doing nothing, become from 15 August 1947 the Ruler of an independent polity. The choice was the Ruler’s and his alone: there was no provision for popular consultation in the Indian Princely States during the final days of the British Raj. On 15th August 1947, by default, the State of Jammu and Kashmir became independent."
Now the only way he could prove that India's case for Kashmir wasn't an open and shut one was to claim that the treaty itself was a forgery. So he "proves" that it's fake because on October 26 the Maharajah was travelling within the state and couldn't have signed anything. Since we all know that people who are travelling don't sign documents. That's your "excellent" research?
On October 22nd, when Pakistan attacked the independent state of Jammu and Kashmir, it violated the "Standstill Agreement" it had signed with the Maharajah in August of 1947. India airlifted its soldiers on October 27th. A day after the "fake" treaty was signed. (It was so fake that the Maharajah didn't utter a word of disapproval when he "found out" that it was faked.) That to me makes Pakistan the culprit, not India. Furthermore, Sheikh Abdullah, the most popular Kashmiri muslim leader at that time (please don't argue about that) recognised and endorsed the Instrument of Accession. He even supported the idea of acceding to India in personal letters. I'm sure all that was fake too.
I'm also sure that "Andrew Cook" will throw the plebiscite argument in his next post. Like I said earlier, plebiscite option wasn't part of the Instrument of Accession. But so what? Well, Pakistan didn't want a plebiscite in Junagadh, which had a Muslim ruler and majority Hindu population. But they wanted it in Kashmir, where it was the opposite. India got the ruler of Junagadh to conduct a plebiscite. Pakistan couldn't get the ruler of Kashmir to do that. I call that statecraft.
And who told you that UN resolutions render bilateral agreements irrelevant? What chapter of international law book states that? If your argument is based on timeline (Instrument of accession came first, UN resolution came second, like that), well then, the Shimla agreement should render the UN resolutions irrelevant. It was, after all, a treaty signed by two democratically elected leaders. Or was that fake too?
So elections in Kashmir were all rigged. Fake? Even the ones won by Sheikh Abdullah. Right? In fact, elections all over India are rigged. That's why Kashmiri Sunnis don't want to live here. They want a country where elections are free; where people get heard; where there's press freedom; where the army doesn't stare you in the face; with peaceful transfer of power; peace; prosperity; respect for minorities. Is there a country that checks all these boxes? Yes: Pakistan.
Pardon me for sarcasm, "Mr Cook". But you got to be kidding with your rant. Yes, India has problems—riots, religious fanaticism, poverty and more. But it's commendable that it keeps moving forward, not back, despite all the pulls and pressures in the opposite direction. It still has a huge muslim minority, muslim celebrities, muslim politicians, muslim presidents, muslim cricketers and yes even muslim soldiers, and muslim generals. It still hasn't banned muslim women from wearing the burqa, unlike more "free" nations of the west. It still grants muslims a separate civil law. It still doesn't prevent mosques with minarets. You know what that proves "Mr Cook?" That India doesn't discriminate against it's muslims. Tell me, how many muslim nations can say that for their non-muslim citizens? Or better still, how many muslim nations can say that for the followers of the non-majority muslim sects? Can the land of pure say that? You're lucky you're not a Shia in Pakistan, or a Sunni in Iran, "Mr Cook."
You say conducting elections isn't all that a democracy is all about. You're right. Democracy is about granting space to people who disagree. Arundhati Roy disagrees and I respect that. She hasn't been attacked by a suicide bomber so far as I know.
It is truth, and the truth is bitter
Out of your all irrelevant and verbose arguments, I found two points that I should answer:
1. No Kashmiri representative is signatory to the Shimla agreement. The Shimla agreement was signed between India and Pakistan, while as the UN resolutions on Kashmir clearly seek to know the will of Kashmiris. So, whatever happens between India and Pakitan, don't try to impose it on Kashmir. Kashmir is not a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan; it involves the future of millions of Kashmiris. What better way than to ask the people of Kashmir to decide their future through a UN- supervised referendum. Isn't that a democratic and civilized way to solve the dispute.
2. If the choice of the rulers of princely states was final to decide the future of the princely states, then I believe Hyderabad should have gone to Pakistan, but India forcibly annexed the state against the will of its ruler.
Just to focus on Kashmir, as I pointed out earlier, the UN resolutions render the controversial accession treaty irrelevant. There is also substantial evidence that no accession treaty was signed by the Hindu King, Maharaja. It is also important to note that India has never allowed anybody to have a look at the controversial accession document and has later claimed that the original document was destroyed in a government office fire. Just to mention here, there is a copy of a fake accession document on the Wikipedia website. See it, you will yourself realize it is a fake document and will pity the intelligence of the person who has uploaded this document on the website, utter absurdity.
By the way, if you are a Kashmiri Pundit, you can be a pro-Indian, but not Indian. You can be Indian only if you you accept Indian nationality by will. I remember how free and safe Kashmiri pundits felt in Kashmir, with their Kashmiri muslim brethren, but having deceived their own land and people and changed their loyalty, Kashmiri pundits will loose their identity with time among the sea of people in India. Many of my Pundit friends told me that they will prefer Kashmir muslim as neighbor than a Dogra form Bengal. There was nothing wrong to fight Indian oppression along with muslim brethren for a free and prosperous Kashmir, but you chose India because India is a Hindu country. Aren't you communal in thinking. It is not too late, you are whole heartedly welcome back to Kashmir. There is nothing wrong in being Hindu and Kashmiri; you can even be pro-Indian, but not an Indian in Kashmir. Please forgive me if you think this is a digression from the topic proper.
"Mr. Cook," someday I hope you have actual rebuttals to my arguments. Name-calling does not constitute a rebuttal. Actual facts do.
1) I hate to be repetitive but you leave me with no choice: the ruler of kashmir signed away the option of being independent with IOA. So Kashmir came to India, and Pakistan disputed that. Fair enough. They were the only two parties left in the dispute. Then after the 71 war, pakistan and India signed an agreement which, at the very least, established guidelines for a mutual detente. Representative from a state do not sign international agreements. Their elected representative, Indira Gandhi, signed it. And yes she was also voted for by Sunnis in Kashmir. (I know, I know, the elections were fake.) Now if Sunni Kashmiris want to go to Pakistan, there are means of transportation available to them. So far as a referendum is concerned, that boat has sailed. And as I established in my previous replies, India has far greater historical and legal claims on Kashmir valley than any other party. Just because the state is muslim majority does not mean it belongs to Pakistan. Remember too, that India, unlike China, did not flood Kashmir with people from other parts of India. The Sunni majority would've been non-existent by now had India decided to do a China.
2) "Mr Cook," India did not forcibly annex the state of Hyderabad. It threatened the nawab of Hyderabad with force. Threatened. That, my dear friend, is called statecraft. Look it up. Getting your enemies do do things for you without the use of force is very, very good statecraft. If Americans knew how to do that, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in.
3) And no, you don't have to sign a document to be a citizen of a country. There are many Indians who've never signed a legal, official document, like a passport. Are they not Indian? If you're born on Indian soil, like in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, you're Indian. If you don't like being called Indian, book a plane ticket out. It's that easy. (BTW, all your awesome leaders of the Hurriyat have Indian passports.)
You made me laugh when you mentioned how safe and at peace Kashmiris Pandits felt in Kashmir. Is that the what your parents have made you believe? They must've skipped on how they didn't miss any chance to humiliate the Pandits, physically and mentally. (For example, in 1981, a bunch of Kashmir Sunni youths, the best and the brightest, dumped buckets full of human feces outside the front door of a Pandit family; someone I happen to know.) Kashmiri Pandits were less than 5% of the population and could not retaliate even if they wanted to. The "Kashmiriat" was decidedly one-sided. Pandits had to shut up and put up and pretend like nothing was wrong. They did that until 1988-89, when it was a choice between losing your life, converting to Islam, running to other parts of India. What happened to Kashmiri Pandits in the late 80s was a pogrom. And then to make it even better, the Sunnis simply took over the properties that Pandits had vacated under duress. Go ask your dad about that if you're too young to remember. I'm sure you have Kashmiri Pandit friends. The same way some racist Whites have Black friends.
You're only fooling yourself—believing your own propaganda—if you continue to repeat that India has no claims on Kashmir. Pakistan has no claims on Kashmir. I'll repeat myself here because you seem to be a slow reader—Kashmir existed before Pakistan and Islam. If Kashmiri Sunnis can't live in a fairly democratic country like the rest of 140 million Indian muslims then they should look at themselves harder. If you want to live in Islamic republic you can look up Samjhauta Express timings.
To add some more information for you, india tried hard to convince UN that so-called elections are a substitute for plebiscite, but UN refused to accept the Indian argument, and emphasized that your (indian) elections are no substitute for plebiscite.
The trouble with describing Kashmiri separatists as "freedom fighters" is that there are many regions of South Asia which have well-demarcated histories as independent kingdoms, with a distinctive language, culture, etc. For better or for worse, they all had to be forced into one or the other nation state that was being formed in 1947. Most discontents since then have either subsided, or occasionally flared up, but the pot still keeps boiling in Kashmir and Baluchistan, and until recently in Sri Lanka.
So there are three intersecting issues in Kashmir : the uneasy fit between nation state borders and pre-existing groups, geopolitics between Pak, China, India, and lastly Islamist radicalism. The last item essentially dates from the early 90's, when Pakistan tried to replicate its success in Afghanistan against the former Soviet Union.
p.s. the intifada term will probably not gain traction, because India is not Jewish, so the casual anti-semitism of the "progressive" press doesn't apply
Kashmir Freedom Movement is the true description
I don't oppose or support various organizations or uprisings in the world or in South Asia as every rebellion or movement (or whatever you may call it) is unique in its character and aims. I am very much familiar with Kashmir and India and would have no hesitation in discussing freedom movement in Kashmir.
As you have pointed out nations are formed and broken by the people; what is called India today wasn't there just a few decades back. We shouldn't therefore sanctify territories. Unfortunately, particular ruling sects or elites, who benefit from the unified territory, project the territory as holy as religion, and shed the blood of poor, innocent people for their own vested interests.
Every Kashmiri is a freedom fighter. It is not necessary that you should yield a gun to fight Indian army and only then you will be called a freedom fighter. An unarmed Kashmiri protestor, a stone-pelting kid, a professor in a university, a doctor in a hospital--almost every one in Kashmir is a freedom fighter. If you are a colonizer, as is India in Kashmir, you may call them separatists, doesn't really matter. A Kashmiri knows that he expects a bullet if he throws a stone on Indian army, but he still bravely faces the army and pelts the stone. Shouldn't it awaken India about how deeply Kashmiris resent its presence in Kashmir and yearn for freedom from India. A colonizer may call these stone-pelting people as "agitational terrorists", or supporters of colonizers may label them as violent youth grown under violence or paid agents to create trouble. I haven't come across a human being, however poor he or she may be, that will risk his life for a few bucks. It really doesn't matter how you call a Kashmiri who yearns for peace and is actively engaged in freedom from India.
When you don't want to solve a dispute and benefit from the status quo, you will always find excuses to prolong the status quo. Pakistan says it controls a part of Kashmir and is willing to settle the dispute with India, keeping in view the wishes of Kashmiris; China says Kashmir is a dispute and would welcome if Pakistan, India and Kashmiris can solve this dispute. It is only India who is not willing to solve this dispute by saying that Kashmir is its "integral part" and won't discuss its sovereignty. The phobia that if Kashmir becomes independent other nuclear neighbors will occupy it is also created by India. If that were true, Bangladesh by now should have been occupied by either China or India, Srilanka would have been non-extant, and Nepal would have lost its identity to India.
All freedom movements have different dimensions but the aim is always the same, and Kashmir freedom movement is no different. There are some Kashmiris who advocate freedom struggle through non-violence, while others say that armed struggle is a better way to free Kashmir. Some use religion, some nationalism, and others other means to achieve the goal of freedom from India. Similar things happened in the freedom movement of India. While Gandhi advocated non-violent means to achieve freedom, Bhagat singh was adamant that India can be freed by armed violent struggle only.
I feel sorry for any Kashmiri who is not an Islamic supremacist, but genuinely believes that he/she can't be happy as part of India. I say this without any intention of being flippant or unsympathetic. Once the virus has entered a person's system, normal life can be difficult.
Just as with many things, a nation state is a generally accepted compromise system, and one of its fetishes is territorial integrity. It is simply not possible for India to just voluntarily shrink itself, even if the territory in question did not have the baggage related to Kashmir. Given all the significance that Kashmir has, as a political issue, as the cause of 3 1/2 wars, and as an Islamist cause, it's not even rational to expect India to handover Kashmir to Pak, or let it become independent, which many Indians will feel is the same thing.
Only two things can change the present stalemate : (i) the costs of keeping Kashmir have to exceed some threshold for India, or (ii) the other baggage has to go : Pak has to become a normal democracy without needing India as an enemy, and Islamists should not be able to claim Kashmir as a victory.
p.s. As for China willing to negotiate about Kashmir, it's a peripheral issue for them, compare their attitude to Taiwan or Tibet.
Solution to the Kashmir dispute
I appreciate your frankness in pointing to some important aspects of the Kashmir conflict.
People make and break nations, depending upon whether the collective unit, called the nation, fulfills the needs and aspirations of individual groups constituting the collective unit. Nation therefore exists in mind and territory becomes irrelevant if the foundations of a nation are laid on the core values of justice and freedom for all. Territory becomes important if only some groups within the unit benefit from the union. In other words, a nation based on values of freedom, justice and equality defines a cohesive, peaceful and progressive union, and a nation based on territory defines anarchy. You kill or be killed to retain the territory, no matter even if it comes at the cost violating rights of others.
Historically, Kashmiris have never accepted India as their nation. Because of the forceful occupation of Kashmir by India, Kashmiris hate Indians. This hatred is not one sided, Indians too hate Kashmiris. Human behavior and psychology at individual, family and community level is also reflected at national level. Like marriages and families, if nations too exist in mind, Kashmir and India are already two separate nations, and only time will tell when Kashmir and India will split by territories as well.
As you mentioned, Kashmir is the cause of 3 ½ wars between Pak and India. It is also the cause of nuclearization and creation of the two largest armies in the subcontinent. As you mentioned, and I agree, that the rise of fundamentalism in the South Asian region is because of the Kashmir dispute. The Taliban was supported by Pakistan to defeat India in Kashmir. Taliban also nourished and sustained Alqida, and this resulted in terrorist attack on US on 9/11. This subsequently lead to two wars, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan. The neglected Kashmir dispute has created so much death and destruction around the world, and I genuinely believe that the world powers should step in to solve this dispute. The solution to this dispute will harbinger peace and prosperity in South Asia, and the religious Islamic extremism and terrorism will fade away by itself. Instead of waiting for India to be weakened economically, or Pakistan becoming less India-centric to change the current stalemate, it is a better option that the world opinion, especially the western civilized world, should be mobilized to hasten the settlement of this dispute. Waiting for India to be economically weakened, will bring misery to all parties to the dispute, including, Indians, Paksitanis and Kashmiris, and India might split further as happened with Soviets and Brits. In the absence of settlement of the Kashmir dispute, waiting for Pakistan to be less India-centric and discouraging religious extremism is also not feasible, because Kashmir is the foundation of these things.
I think you missed my point a little. At a personal and human level, I feel sorry for these young men running around on the streets wasting their lives and getting shot. India is a land of great ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity, literally a nation of nations. Plus, the Indian state is easy-going, like Hinduism itself, and doesn't really demand much. So if some Kashmiris feel they can't be part of the mosaic, they must be hard to please ...
>>>As you mentioned, and I agree, that the rise of fundamentalism in the South Asian region is because of the Kashmir dispute.
No, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Pak is due to structural defects in Pak. The small oligarchy of generals, landowners, and industrialists who rule Pak use religion as a way of holding on to their power by creating an irrational hatred of India and Hindus. The Taliban, over in Afghanistan, had no interest in Kashmir as a political issue; they were purely a Frankenstein's monster created by Zia and the CIA. At a global level, the rise of Islamism is due to many causes, I favor the explanation that it's the stresses of having to reconcile Islam with modernity.
>>>In the absence of settlement of the Kashmir dispute, waiting for Pakistan to be less India-centric
No, this goes back to the structural defects in Pak. Border disputes are common in many parts of the world. For example, China is holding on to some ground that India claims. You don't see India obsessing about it, or Indian terrorists attacking China.
Wahabbi Kashmiris hate India, Kashmiris do not
Kashmiris who hate India are the same Kashmiris who love Pakistan (this is not an accusation, more a statement of fact). These are Kashmiris, Sunnis all, who love everything Pakistan. They don't see the utter hopelessness of the Pakistani state. Pakistan can barely keep track of its own provinces, forget adding on another one like Kashmir. They're ignorant of the conditions the Baluchis find themselves in. Or Pakistan's brutal response there. They don't get that Pakistan government's authority hardly runs outside the boundaries of Punjab, and there too in pockets. They don't see the beheadings, the suicide bombings, the lashings that the TTP inflict upon the citizens of Pakistan. They don't see the torment that Pakistan's purely evil military and "intelligence" has put Afghanistan through for the last 20 years—their fellow muslims. What they see instead is Sunni rule, and they'd love a share of that. What rankles them is being governed by infidels from Delhi. What they seem to forget is the status of their distant cousins from "Azad Kashmir"—a vassal province of the Punjabi dominated Pakistan. Forget rigged, how many elections has "Azad Kashmir" held? How much freedom do "Azad Kashmiris" get?" Do they get the same rights as other citizens of Pakistan?
I doubt anything, any argument, any logic, any fact will get them to change their mind. If that had to help it would've by now. These is not a dispute based on facts. It never was. It's a dispute between a fanatical worldview (the Wahabbi-ism) and progressive one.
They're quick to cite what Nehru said because, in their heads, it seems to bolster their otherwise terribly weak argument. Well, however incompetent, Nehru was a decent man who said decent things. And there's nothing wrong in what he said. India should respect public opinion but it should never bow down before Wahhabi fanatics. That's why until Kashmiri Sunnis are able to articulate an argument favour of separating from India based on facts and reason, Indian should not, and will not, even listen to them.
And what was that about Pakistan birthing Taliban because of Kashmir? That made me laugh, and then made my head explode.
India is a nation of conflicts, not the nation of nations. It is confounded with huge problems in Assam, and to a lesser extent, in southern states; in its eastern half, India is virtually eaten away by Maoist insurgency; and in its northern part Sikhs are now politically active to separate from India. As if this was not sufficient, India has problems with almost all of its neighbors, including rival nuclear powers, China and Pakistan. Couple this with religious and ethnic tensions among various communities, India is fast accelerating towards disintegration.
I disagree with few of the facts that you have presented in your post. The Taliban came into being after Soviets had left Afghanistan, and Zia was not alive at that time. Once Soviets had left, CIA had no motives to create a new organization. The Taliban was created by Pakistan to gain “strategic depth” in favor of proxy war in Kashmir. The Taliban fighters were directly involved in military actions against Indian army in Kashmir and in a well-known hijacking of an Indian airliner for the release of Kashmiri militants from India. Some minister of India, perhaps Mr. Jaswant Singh, negotiated a settlement in this hijacking.
These proxy wars are not unilateral i.e., only from Pakistan. India is actively involved in terrorism in Pakistan. In late sixties and seventies, India created and supported Baihini terrorist movements in Pakistan. It is involved in terrorism in Karachi, Bloachistan and other parts of Pakistan. India admitted its hand in terrorism in Pakistan, when its Prime Minister, Mr. Singh, signed a declaration in Egypt, stating that India will help Pakistan to overcome terrorism in Bloachistan and other parts of Pakistan if Pakistan will help India to overcome terrorism in India. In other words, both countries use terrorism, or proxy war, to try to settle the score over Kashmir. Now, they have taken this fight to a third country, namely, Afghanistan. Currently both India and Pakistan are actively engaged to defeat each other in Afghanistan over Kashmir.
Whatever I said, I tried to present the facts as accurate as possible, and I haven’t taken any sides by blaming exclusively a single country for all the sins of South Asia.
I feel sorry for the people who propagate, or prefer, status quo over the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, given that thousands of lives have been lost so far. Ask a Kashmiri how it feels to have lost a son, a brother, a mother or a father to the dispute. Let us come forward to help humanity, at least by words, to convey the message to the fighting parties to resolve the dispute amicably and without any further bloodshed.
Mr. Sreekanth, I have replied your post with the subject line, "India a nation of conflicts". I am sorry that the post inadvertently appeared somewhere else in the comment section and I have not mentioned your name on the top of the post. Thanks you.
"Sikhs are now politically active to separate from India." Are you writing in the 80s, "Andrewcook." Where are they active? In Canada or New Zealand? Have you travelled to Punjab, ever?
Who on this earth does not, and would not, have problems with China and Pakistan? One's a single-party dictatorship and other the fountainhead of Sunni terrorism. India has problems with Bangladesh when Khaleda Zia takes over. You know why? Because she loves the JI fundamentalists. That's her power base. India had problems with SL in the 80s. You know why the SL army managed to defeat the LTTE last year, "Mr Cook?" Because Indian Navy blocked LTTE's arms smuggling. India has problems with the Maoists in Nepal because they're, well, Maoists. The only people they get along with are fellow Maoists. Nepal's president is in India these days. You should read what he says about India.
India is beset with many conflicts, I give you that. India also has a billion plus people. No two people agree on everything. Imagine a billion people. Do you know that China (I bet you love China) recorded over 30,000 riots in 2008? That's recorded by their mouthpiece media. Imagine what the actual numbers are. And China is plagued with problems in Tibet and Xinjiang, to name two. Just because they can brutally suppress locals there every few years doesn't mean it's peaceful. Why do I mention China? Because it makes sense to compare two nations that are equally big (population-wise).
The beauty of India is how it gets over its problems. And a big reason it gets over problems is that it allows people to have problems. If you were around in the early 80s "Mr Cook", like I was, you wouldn't have placed a wager on India being around for another 20 years. It still is. Not just around, but growing. At the fastest pace of any democracy. Imagine, with all the problems it faces, it still grows at a fast clip. Smaller problems have taken down bigger nations and mightier empires. You may see conflicts when you look at India, I see resilience.
By all means, you are free to wait around for the disintegration of India. But you'll just end up a frustrated old man.
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Part 2:
"The Taliban was created by Pakistan to gain “strategic depth” in favor of proxy war in Kashmir." By Kashmir you meant Afghanistan, right? Taliban was in Afghanistan. They ruled there. That's where they gave Pakistan strategic depth. Taliban didn't fight in Kashmir. To say that is just plain silly. Ridiculous, actually. Some pasthuns may have. Mostly it was Punjabis and tribals from NWFP. The IC814 hijackers took the flight to Afghanistan because that's where the ISI told them to. ISI controlled the Taliban. Taliban provided protection to the hijackers and would've prevented India from storming the plane, and given ISI complete control over the circumstances. Omar sheikh was one of the people released in the hijacking. He was an ISI trained guy, who later killed Daniel Pearl. The other released dude was the Jaish-e-muhammad chief, Azhar mehmood. Another ISI-trained sunni terrorist, who also specializes in killing Shias.
I sincerely hope that India is involved in fomenting trouble in Pakistan. After so many years of simply taking it, high time India did some messing about of its own. It keeps the ISI occupied. Besides, saying we'll help you fix your problem doesn't mean that we have a hand in creating it. It means: I'll see what I can do to help you but don't count on it.
Till date, India has spent $1.2 BILLION in afghanistan on development projects. Let me repeat that. India has spent $1.2 billion on development projects alone. Pakistan has spent billions of US borrowed money on killing Afghans. Are you surprised then that India is the most popular nation in Afghanistan, north or south? And Pakistan is the least?
"Mr Cook", my problem with all your posts is that you've never even attempted to present facts. What you keep repeating are your perceptions, which, as I have repeatedly shown, are NOT based on facts. In fact, you've never even attempted to reply to the facts that I have presented. Every reply of yours adds a new, fictional dimension to the original question. Which I, foolishly, I guess, keep answering. Hoping that you'll realize that you don't yet have an argument. Your posts remind me of someone who reads the headlines in newspapers and forms an opinion on what the article is about without going any further into it.
I'll ask Kashmiri Sunnis about their lost family members the day Pakistanis apologize for their national policy of perpetuating evil. I'll ask Kashmiri Sunnis about their lost family members the day Pakistanis apologize for murdering thousands in India and Afghanistan. I'll ask Kashmiri Sunnis about their lost family members the day they apologize to Kashmiri Pandits for, first, taking over their birthplace, then humiliating them repeatedly, then killing them, then raping their womenfolk, then driving them out of their land and then taking over their properties and shedding crocodile tears over it.
Honestly speaking, for all their sins, status quo is the best thing Kashmiri Sunnis should hope to get out the Kashmir conflict.
>>>The Taliban came into being after Soviets had left Afghanistan, and Zia was not alive at that time
That's correct. Zia & the CIA armed and funded the mujahideen. The Taliban rose out of the post-Soviet chaos and were funded by the ISI.
A google search for Taliban, Kashmir yields a lot of hits from 2009, that is much after the Taliban was driven from power. There is an alphabet soup of jihadist organizations in the region : Punjabi Pakistani, Kashmiri, Afghan, Arab, central Asian : and people and ideologies slosh back and forth.
I have to re-iterate the crux of my argument, which is : the enmity between Pak and India is real. Similarly the hatred that Islamists have for "Jews, Crusaders and Hindus". But these are only loosely related to Kashmir.
An open minded analysis always reveals that disputes are the basis of religious hatred between nations and communities you have mentioned, and not the religions. Palestine and Kashmir are predominantly inhabited by muslims, and there is, I admit, very miniscule population of muslims fundamentalist around the world who want to achieve their objectives of world islamization, using these disputes as a means. Religious fights cannot stand logic but disputes do (mostly the powerful party in the dispute has something to gain materially). So people, especially the weaker, in the dispute, will seek help from any one whether it is USA, UK, or even China or any one else. But unfortunately, it is mostly Islamic fundamentalists from various countries, who render their services free to propagate their own agenda. Religion and religious fights are irrational and would never persist in the absence of disputes.
Having said so, the powerful party in the dispute, through their media and other means, always coats these conflicts, vehemently, as an Islamic terrorism; it is a very clever trick to further their own selfish interests. Unfortunately by doing so and making the world to ignore these disputes, they are doing great disservice to humanity by fueling fundamentalism through perpetuation of the disputes and by making territorial disputes as religious disputes. US and other countries have nothing to gain by labeling Kashmir conflict as a religious dispute, but surely India has. Unfortunately Kashmiris are predominantly muslims, and because of this, India has, to some extent, succeeded to give a religious color to a genuine dispute.
I differ with you in one point:
It is India who played a major role in trying to portray Kashmir dispute as as a Hindu-Muslim conflict. It began some twenty years back, under a conspiracy, then Indian Governor of Kashmir, Jag Mohan, played a pivotal role in the immigration of Kashmiri Hindus to India; he even provided government vehicles to the Hindus moving out of Kashmir. Subsequent to this, the same governor then killed thousands of Kashmiri muslims. This was Indian response to mass uprising against its rule in Kashmir. (One point to note here: before this conspiracy, Kashmiri Muslims and Hindus had been living together for hundreds of years without any communal tensions, even though religious tension were frequent in India and other regions of south Asia.) According to an Indian police official, a Kashmiri Hindu himself, only 209 Kashmiri Pundits have been killed in Kashmir conflict. Compare this number to more than 93,000 Kashmiri muslims killed in the same conflict. India loves to call Kashmir uprising, as an Islamist terrorist uprising. Its police even calls young Kashmiri kids (13-15 of years age) as agitational terrorists.
Yes, one pint is correct. Fundamentalist islamic organizations, like Lashkar, are a consequences of Kashmir dispute. There was no Lashkar, no religious extremist organizations before Kashmir dispute.
For those among the Indians with a blinkered sense of patriotism, and for the other benefit of all other unbiased readers, I reproduce here what India's first Prime Minister, J. L. Nehru, is on record to having said about India's occupation of Kashmir:
On June 26, 1952 Mr Nehru said in the Upper House of The Inndain Parliament- -Lok Sabha: “… it is the people of Kashmir who must decide. And I say with all respect to our Constitution that it just does not matter what your Constitution says; if the people of Kashmir do not want it, it will not go there….The alternative is compulsion and coercion... the decision... ultimately lies with…[the] people in Kashmir, not…with [the Indian] Parliament.”
He continued: “Do not think you are dealing with a part of [ the Indian states of] U.P., Bihar or Gujarat. You are dealing with an area, historically and geographically, and in all manner of things [different]… We have to be men of vision and there has to be broadminded acceptance of facts… [that] real integration comes of the mind and the heart and not of some clause which you may impose on other people.”
As the readers can decipher from Mr Stern's post, India's problem in Kashmie is that is trying to rule a " people who don't want it there, and ... it is trying to control the population with enough force that Indian authority is respected; not so much that it's resented. "
Readers are the best judges.
Thank you and I appreciate for providing the historical aspect of the Kashmir dispute through the eyes of the first Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Nehru
despite the author's vivid imagination, this rubbish is a mispost...Kashmir does not belong in AFPAK.
a bit richly ironical no? an american dunno-who pointing fingers at the CRPF for a tear gun shot, when hundreds, maybe thousands of civilians have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere, of American ordnance. Of couse the Americans, 'apologised'.
Most Indians agree some precipitate action on Kashmir is overdue, despite Pakistani fudging on history, doublespeak and state sponsored terror. For the record, there is an "Azad Kashmir' in Pakistan. Would the venerable Mr. Stern point his laserlike understanding of geopolitics and tell us how Pakistani Kashmir is faring? Is it truly independent? Is it even democratic? Is it an Islamic utopia like the rest of Pakistan? Time for a ride on the Karachi metro no?
And then maybe he can move on China-Tibet? That other utopia.
The prudent thing for India is to ride it out till this set of mad hatter, black mail based 'fix-kashmir-to-fix-afghanistan' theorising fails. Then the next crop of harvard ph.d dunno-who do-gooders will come along with fresh theory and life will go on.
Reply to NONAPPLICABLE on his first Post
Great lecture, wordings, phrases, mingling history ....i appreciate that but what can i do, i find such a things which i can prove u is wrong and i can produce as evidence also.
Letus come to your points u mentioned up:
Maharaja signed the document to accede to india as per you....yes he did but know he was not having any right that time as left kashmir in a hurry to not get killed or imprisoned. He left the kashmir in the name of GOd.
Your first PM whom the whole india is proud, what he say about the.....show me one evidence were he is saying Kashmir is part of India.
You are so worrying about kashmiri youth, that we need to go schools instead to come on roads. let us check first what is education system in bihar, assam, nagaland, madya pardesh, jarkhand and other sataes.....what is the literacy rate of india, neaar to 60 %......so please let educate ur remaining 40 % before saying anything on kashmir.
Even kashmir after so much trouble, so much loss, so much sanctions bu indians......kashmir is still the lowest on BPL (2.24%) against 25 - 30 % India. so please do something for them instead thinking and wasting on kashmir.
And you are talking about leaders....we have so many great leaders, but one of our first martyr whom indian court ordered to hang till death was, is and will be our greatest leader. The indian democracy showsed how democratic it is, when the hanged martyr Maqbool Bhat.....they didnt gave any belongigs back to his family and kashmiri people, nor his cloths, nor his writings and even they refused to give his body also......this is the real face of indian democarcy.
You are saying us terrorists, we killed hindhus, but i am asking why didnt CBI revealed to public the report on mass killings of kashmiri hindhus and sikhs whaich is one of the unfortunate history in kashmir ( 32 hindhus and 34 sikhs were been killed).
your democaracy says, govt is by the people for the people and of the people.....then who was the mharaja to do accession with out taking the consensus of kashmiri people.
And check the history, dont see history of BJP or shivsena or any other political history. Try some neutral history from any european historain.
As a young kashmiri, not having relations with any organisation, i want my kashmir as free as any other country as pakistan and india.
Contries come innto existance time by time, these are not alloted by God.
May/June 2013
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