Kashmir - Think the Unthinkable

[Contrarian]

Don't be so sure. Kashmir conflict will get expensive for India in the long run. If Afghanistan could break the Soviet Union, Kashmir could quite easily break India if it gets out of hand.

Afghanistan never broke the Soviet Union. You dont know the reasons behind the Soviet withdrawal, and i assure you, it wasnt the Afghan jehadists.

And even after the Soviet withdrawal, the victory of the Taliban was just because they survived.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Hey Ram: Let's give away Kashmir

lol - The article is a compilation of every bankrupt, immoral argument put up on this thread by some Indian posters.

However, there is hope in this:

"But if I was scared when I read all this, I was downright terrified when a reasonably reliable contact in one of our intelligence agencies hinted that this was actually a “trial balloon” being floated at the behest of the UPA government, to gauge the people’s reaction to such a proposal."

I do wonder, if this indeed is an attempt by the GoI to gage opinion, and what the backlash would be, whether the IA is not intent on sabotaging public opinion with the ceasefire incidents.

 

[Flintlock]

Laugh all you want, but those are the arguments of a nation which is not going to give up territory over the whims and fancies of fundamentalist leaders.

We are here for the long haul. We are a civilization.

We are a civilization, a nation, and a democracy, in that order.

 

[Neo]

Mamohan Singh failing to control Kashmir – time for UPA coalition to resign? ​

Arun Mehta
Aug. 26, 2008

Time has come to answer some of the issues in Kashmir. Indian Government in New Delhi has failed to control Kashmir agitation that started with the party’s own ‘political blunder’.

It may be time for Manmohan Singh and his Government to resign. India needs to communicate to Pakistan and Islamic Jihadists – enough is enough. While individual religious rights are the fundamental component of Indian constitution, India should not allow political disruptions, chaos, and terrorism in the name of independence, which is ridiculous in the first place.

India is failing to get tougher in Kashmir. Authorities decided to continue curfew restrictions in all ten district headquarters in Kashmir Valley even as the death toll in Monday's violence rose to seven.

An indefinite curfew was imposed across the Valley since 4 a.m. Sunday to thwart the proposed separatist march and sit-in at city centre Lal Chowk scheduled yesterday.

Three senior separatist leaders, including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, were arrested to prevent their participation in the march. Authorities said they were arrested as they feared they might be targeted by "vested interests" during the march.

It is time for India to convey a simple fact to all in Kashmir and the rest of India, if you want to live in India, you have to live like an Indian under the Indian constitution. Otherwise, you are welcome to leave India.

 

[Flintlock]

Lashkar had warned of Jammu attack

Praveen Swami

The Islamist terror group hopes to capitalise on the ongoing violence in Kashmir

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq thanked Pakistanis for having supported the secessionist movement

Malik had shared a stage with Lashkar leaders in 2005 during a visit to Pakistan

NEW DELHI: Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders had repeatedly warned of their intention to carry out attacks in the days before Wednesday’s terror strike in Jammu.

In an August 25 telephone call to the Srinagar-based Rising Kashmir on Monday, a Lashkar spokesperson, using the alias Abdullah Ghaznavi, warned of retaliation for the ongoing crackdown on separatists in Kashmir as well as attacks on Muslims in Jammu.

He said that if “the atrocities against Kashmiris were not stopped immediately, the situation within India will deteriorate for which the Government of India would be solely responsible.”

Speaking behalf of Qari Abdul Wahid Kashmiri, who was appointed to head the Pakistan occupied Kashmir—based operations of the Lashkar after the terror group was proscribed elsewhere in Pakistan in 2002, ‘Abdullah Ghaznavi’ condemned the arrest of secessionist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik.

“These sacrifices would bear fruit and the day is not so far when the sun of freedom would rise over Kashmir,” ‘Ghaznavi’ quoted Kashmiri as saying.

Lashkar leaders have been making similar threats all through the ongoing shrine-land agitation. At an August 14 ‘Defence of Pakistan’ rally, held to mark that country’s independence day, the head of the Lashkar’s Lahore-based parent political organisation promised action to “bring down [the] ‘Brahmin Wall’ like the Berlin Wall.”

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed claimed—inaccurately—that half a million Kashmiris marched towards Muzaffarabad, thus demonstrating that “the Kashmir issue is not merely a nuisance raised by a few militants, but a heartfelt freedom movement of millions of Kashmiris”. He argued that Kashmiris were being “punished for being Muslims.”

Important Kashmiri secessionists endorsed Saeed’s words while addressing the internationally-proscribed terror group’s rally by satellite-phone hook-up.

All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq thanked Pakistanis for having supported the secessionist movement. His colleague, Shabbir Shah, also said Kashmiris were “indebted to Pakistan for its political and moral support.”

According to a Lashkar press release, Shah said that “the Hindus had cut off their food and essential supplies by blocking the supply routes to Occupied Kashmir.”

Pakistan occupied Kashmir All Parties Hurriyat Conference leader Ghulam Muhammad Safi, according to the Lashkar press release, “lamented the conduct of secular Pakistanis, who, he said, would probably dance and sing with the Indians at the Wagah border tonight, while Indian Muslims are mercilessly being slaughtered in Occupied Kashmir.”

Earlier, after an August 22 telephone discussion, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik and Saeed were reported to have agreed to cooperate on the Kashmir issue, despite their stated ideological differences.

Malik had shared a stage with Lashkar leaders in 2005 during a visit to Pakistan. He later claimed he agreed to meet Saeed in order to seek his support for the dialogue between the Government of India and the Hurriyat Conference that was then underway. Ironically, Malik held a secret meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh just a few weeks later.

Saeed was reported to have said that while Pakistan’s rulers had “their own limitations and constraints,” the Jamaat ud-Dawa had “no constraints whatsoever and would go to the last limits in helping our Muslim brothers.”

Islamists see the shrine board agitation as a war to protect Muslims from an Indian conspiracy to alter the region’s demographic character.

Tehreek-i-Hurriyat patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani—who has long enjoyed the support of the Lashkar—told the audience at an August 19 rally in Srinagar that the situation resembled that of the time of Partition “when five lakh Muslims had been slain in Jammu and ten lakh forced to migrate”. He sought deployment of an international peace-keeping force in the region.

The Hindu : Front Page : Lashkar had warned of Jammu attack

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

We are a civilization, a nation, and a democracy, in that order.

Being a civilization, nation and democracy does not mean you get to illegally occupy a people and their land against their will.

Usually it means that you have evolved beyond irrational, immoral and expansionist behavior - in your case apparently not.

 

[dr.umer]

UN urges Kashmir investigations ​

BBC News
28 Aug 2008

The United Nations has called for an independent investigation into the killing of civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The UN's Human Rights office says the Indian security forces should observe international principles when dealing with demonstrators.

Security forces have killed nearly 40 protesters since June, most of them in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley.

The protests were triggered by the allocation of land to a Hindu trust.

They have developed into the most serious protests in Indian-administered Kashmir in years.

'Proportionate'

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights "calls on the Indian authorities and in particular security forces to respect the right to freedom of assembly and expression, and comply with international human rights principles in controlling the demonstrators", it said in a statement issued in Switzerland late on Wednesday.

"The use of force should be proportionate to the threat posed and firearms must only be used in dispersing a violent assembly to protect individuals against an imminent threat of death or serious injury."

Indian-administered Kashmir has been hit by protests since June, after the government there granted land to a Hindu group that safeguards a sacred Hindu pilgrimage route.

The move unleashed anger among Kashmir Muslims and has seen a re-emergence of mass demonstrations calling for independence from India.

The land transfer was subsequently abandoned, and that resulted in Hindus concentrated in the Jammu region of the state taking to the streets.

The Indian security forces have been heavily criticised for their handling of the protests and local people say many innocent people have been shot dead. Protests were peaceful. Any more comments???

The United Nations has now added its voice to that concern. "The Acting High Commissioner calls for thorough and independent investigations into all killings that have occurred so far," it said in its statement.

It also called on demonstrators "to protest using peaceful means only".

"Leaders of the different protesting groups have a responsibility to ensure that demonstrations are peaceful and that the demonstrators are not carrying sticks, guns or other weapons and refrain from intimidation," the UN said.

Many parts of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir are still under a curfew imposed last weekend. A number of separatist leaders were placed under arrest ahead of a major rally called by separatists in Srinagar last Monday.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

All posts related to UN investigation and 'killings' moved to following thread:

http://www.defence.pk/forums/strate...es/13839-un-urges-kashmir-investigations.html

 

[ejaz007]

US encourages Pakistan, India to resolve Kashmir issue

WASHINGTON: The United States has expressed its concern over the resurgence of tensions in Kashmir, saying that Washington would encourage Pakistan and India to resolve their disputes peacefully. “Obviously, we’re concerned when tensions rise in that region. And, you know, as our general policy, we’ve always encouraged the governments of India and Pakistan to negotiate their differences peacefully,” US State Department Deputy spokesman Robert Wood said. He was asked to comment on the recent tensions in Indian-held Kashmir. Meanwhile, big processions were taken out in Handwara and Maisuma in IHK despite a curfew being in place. The demonstrators demanded immediate release of all Hurriyet leaders and activists. In Srinagar, Indian troops reportedly attacked the office of Muslim League and vandalised the house of a photojournalist, Inamun Nabi. app

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[roadrunner]

Afghanistan never broke the Soviet Union. You dont know the reasons behind the Soviet withdrawal, and i assure you, it wasnt the Afghan jehadists.

And even after the Soviet withdrawal, the victory of the Taliban was just because they survived.

The reasons behind the Soviet withdrawal as you put it, were that Moscow could not sustain the war, and that it simply wasn't worth it.

The same could easily occur in Kashmir. And probably already has.

 

[indopak]

Kashmiri choice
Gurcharan Das
A Kashmiri Muslim student came to see me last week and it was not long before our conversation turned to the current azadi wave in the valley. He did not think that an independent Kashmir was viable, and its only choice was either to be with India or with Pakistan. After a pause he asked guilelessly, why was India a democracy and Pakistan an autocracy? This set me thinking. I told him that Pakistan was more the norm - Third World countries do not generally become stable democracies. India is an exception.
India's democracy and Pakistan's autocracy have deep roots in history. India's nationalist movement was older and more widespread. Millions of ordinary Indians were drawn in by Mahatma Gandhi. Muslim nationalism emerged later and did not become a mass movement - Jinnah was more comfortable in the drawing room rather than the 'dusty road'. While Indians prepared for democracy over three generations, Pakistanis-to-be got the itch only a couple of years before independence. After independence, Pakistan's politicians performed abysmally. The Muslim League Party disintegrated; there were nine governments in 10 years and the army under Ayub Khan seized power in 1958.

Jinnah's great error was to impose Urdu as the national language when only 8% of Pakistanis spoke Urdu and 55% spoke Bengali. Thus, he sowed the seeds of Bangladesh. Sri Lanka made the same tragic mistake. India did not succumb to this anti-democratic temptation by imposing Hindi. This is how India gave space for sub-identities to flourish, allowed the rise of peoples' leaders from linguistic states, and deepened democracy.

Although his slogan in the 1945-46 elections in undivided India was 'Islam is in danger', Jinnah wanted to build a modern nation. Even though General Zia-ul-Haq reinforced theological priority, i do not believe Islam prevents Pakistan from being democratic. The rise of Islamism does tear the ordinary Pakistani's loyalty between the brotherhood and the state, but the maulvi is not Pakistan's natural leader as in Iran. The chief obstacle to democracy is the army. Hence, i am relieved that Musharraf is gone. It does create a vacuum that might be filled by extremists, but in the longer term the best thing for India is to have a democratic Pakistan.

For a brief moment in the mid-1970s the two nations seemed to converge. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto began to steer Pakistan towards genuine democracy while Indira Gandhi took India on the path of dictatorship. The paths diverged after 1977 as Mrs Gandhi called an election and Bhutto was executed by Zia in 1979. India returned to the path of democracy, whose binding glue is the liberal notion that all Indians are equal citizens before the law, owing loyalty to the Constitution. This is a British legacy. Before that we were a collection of communities and kingdoms. Although we still feel loyal to our caste or community, we are different from the tragic Pakistanis whose land has been hijacked by the military. Once there is military rule you get a state within a state. You are powerless to stop your secret service from creating monsters like the Taliban and before you know it your country has become the world's top university for terrorists.

I then turned to my young Kashmiri friend. He wished more Kashmiris could come and see India's vibrant democracy, its confident economy and the rise of the low-born. "There is a simple choice before all Kashmiris," he said. "If you want to be a citizen of a modern democracy with unparalleled opportunities, you will choose self-assured India. If you believe that Islam is in danger and you want the army's protection, you will choose tragic Pakistan."

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/Kashmiri_choice/articleshow/3397892.cms

 

[Contrarian]

Good article!

 

[Abraham]

Being a civilization, nation and democracy does not mean you get to illegally occupy a people and their land against their will.

Usually it means that you have evolved beyond irrational, immoral and expansionist behavior - in your case apparently not.

You are mistaken. The vally was peaceful till 1980...but due to insurgency, we had to deploy huge army in Kashmir.

It's natural consequence of any insurgency that common people are frisked, and lot of restrictions are placed on them.

Due to this people are frustrated, and want freedom from the situation....but they do not realize what has created the situation. People are masses, especially in asian region they are mostly less educated.

Govt of India has respected their feeling about the land transfer and revoked it.

All this even though the cabinet ministers of state who approved the land transfer were all Kashimiris.

The killings happened only when they tried to cross LoC.

The law and Order situation is by far good.

Govt of India will fulfull the demands of kashmiris....We love them as much as any other people of Tamilnadu or Assam.

The separatists minority who do not even have the guts to stand in elections will not get a chance to negotiate, as they do not represent the masses.

Let them stand in election and win, then we will negotiate with them.

But they know they will not win.

 

[Spring Onion]

Kashmiri choice
Gurcharan Das
A Kashmiri Muslim student came to see me last week and it was not long before our conversation turned to the current azadi wave in the valley. He did not think that an independent Kashmir was viable, and its only choice was either to be with India or with Pakistan. After a pause he asked guilelessly, why was India a democracy and Pakistan an autocracy? This set me thinking. I told him that Pakistan was more the norm - Third World countries do not generally become stable democracies. India is an exception.
India's democracy and Pakistan's autocracy have deep roots in history. India's nationalist movement was older and more widespread. Millions of ordinary Indians were drawn in by Mahatma Gandhi. Muslim nationalism emerged later and did not become a mass movement - Jinnah was more comfortable in the drawing room rather than the 'dusty road'. While Indians prepared for democracy over three generations, Pakistanis-to-be got the itch only a couple of years before independence. After independence, Pakistan's politicians performed abysmally. The Muslim League Party disintegrated; there were nine governments in 10 years and the army under Ayub Khan seized power in 1958.

Jinnah's great error was to impose Urdu as the national language when only 8% of Pakistanis spoke Urdu and 55% spoke Bengali. Thus, he sowed the seeds of Bangladesh. Sri Lanka made the same tragic mistake. India did not succumb to this anti-democratic temptation by imposing Hindi. This is how India gave space for sub-identities to flourish, allowed the rise of peoples' leaders from linguistic states, and deepened democracy.

Although his slogan in the 1945-46 elections in undivided India was 'Islam is in danger', Jinnah wanted to build a modern nation. Even though General Zia-ul-Haq reinforced theological priority, i do not believe Islam prevents Pakistan from being democratic. The rise of Islamism does tear the ordinary Pakistani's loyalty between the brotherhood and the state, but the maulvi is not Pakistan's natural leader as in Iran. The chief obstacle to democracy is the army. Hence, i am relieved that Musharraf is gone. It does create a vacuum that might be filled by extremists, but in the longer term the best thing for India is to have a democratic Pakistan.

For a brief moment in the mid-1970s the two nations seemed to converge. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto began to steer Pakistan towards genuine democracy while Indira Gandhi took India on the path of dictatorship. The paths diverged after 1977 as Mrs Gandhi called an election and Bhutto was executed by Zia in 1979. India returned to the path of democracy, whose binding glue is the liberal notion that all Indians are equal citizens before the law, owing loyalty to the Constitution. This is a British legacy. Before that we were a collection of communities and kingdoms. Although we still feel loyal to our caste or community, we are different from the tragic Pakistanis whose land has been hijacked by the military. Once there is military rule you get a state within a state. You are powerless to stop your secret service from creating monsters like the Taliban and before you know it your country has become the world's top university for terrorists.

I then turned to my young Kashmiri friend. He wished more Kashmiris could come and see India's vibrant democracy, its confident economy and the rise of the low-born. "There is a simple choice before all Kashmiris," he said. "If you want to be a citizen of a modern democracy with unparalleled opportunities, you will choose self-assured India. If you believe that Islam is in danger and you want the army's protection, you will choose tragic Pakistan."

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/Kashmiri_choice/articleshow/3397892.cms

Mr Gurcharndas did not have the guts to add in his article the views of the Kashmiri students against the ouccpation of Kashmir.

And wow the entire propaganda piece revolves arround autocracy and fake democracy
hmmm good tactic

Will he have the courage to also tell his readers that these students also told him that they want freedom from Indian occupation.
They are angerd at killing of innocent Kashmiris daily by the brutal Indian Army.

BTW did the writer tell the students that it was Gandhi who had supported all the international wars leading to killing of millions, during his time ????

 

[Logic note]

Mr Gurcharndas did not have the guts to add in his article the views of the Kashmiri students against the ouccpation of Kashmir.

And wow the entire propaganda piece revolves arround autocracy and fake democracy
hmmm good tactic

Will he have the courage to also tell his readers that these students also told him that they want freedom from Indian occupation.
They are angerd at killing of innocent Kashmiris daily by the brutal Indian Army.

BTW did the writer tell the students that it was Gandhi who had supported all the international wars leading to killing of millions, during his time ????

Did you meet that Student ?? No you didnt .. but you put your words with you narrow communal perception ..

autocracy and fake democracy . lol a paranoid soceity struggling to find a way to govern itself .. ruled by Army .. thats not autocracy Mr Das .. thats foolishness ..

and Jana you are the Last person in this universe to even understand a single world of Gandhi ..
So as Einstien Said .. Future generation will fail to belive that such a person ever walked in this world .. How apt for you