CAD
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- May 9, 2017
- Messages
- 608
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
- Location
On a sultry afternoon earlier this week, a group of men and women walked into a small room at the Working Peoples Trade Union Council's (WPTUC) office at Kilpauk to talk about strife-torn Kashmir. The meeting was organised by the All India People's Federation (AIPF) and WPTUC to discuss the citizen report on 'why people are protesting in Kashmir'. "It was an attempt to sensitise democratic organisations here about what is happening in Kashmir, who can then take these stories to the public," says R Vidyasagar, convener of AIPF's Tamil Nadu unit.
Driven by the belief that news about the war-torn valley is mostly met with silence or indifference in other parts of the nation, Khurram Parvez, a well-known human rights defender from Kashmir, was invited to the event to offer a perspective. He was joined by Gautam Mody, general secretary of New Trade Union Initiative, who was part of the civil society group that visited Kashmir in 2016 and formulated the report.
Sharing stories of Army atrocities on Kashmiris, Parvez said, they bore resemblance to what happened in Sri Lanka during the Civil War. "There was an enquiry by the UN, probing allegations of genocidal violence against Sri Lankan Tamils, despite opposition from the Lankan government. A lot of what happened in Sri Lanka is still being scrutinised at the international level, even when the LTTE is no more. Several resolutions to restore peace and order in Kashmir have been passed by the UN since 1947, but the approach of the Indian government to them has been that of denial," he added.
Although disputing that there is any commonality between the Kashmir struggle and the Sri Lankan war, political analyst Badri Seshadri says that in many ways, this meeting could be a significant step in creating awareness in Tamil Nadu about Kashmir and possibly even mobilising locals towards the problems in the valley.
"There had been demands for a separate Dravida country in Tamil Nadu, well before independence. There was a strong feeling that we are a separate race and people, and not part of the so-called Aryan India. And therefore, if you get a Kashmiri separatist to talk about their problem, you will find resonance here," says Seshadri.
Parvez ended his speech on a more cautious note. "Whatever they (government) learn in the laboratory of violence in Indian Occupied Kashmir will be implemented in other places as well. We recently saw how the Kudankulam protests were dealt with by the Centre. Hundreds of people were jailed and sedition cases filed against them. This is how dissent will be dealt with in the future too. And they (government) will become increasingly violent and intolerant like it has happened in Kashmir," he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ashmir-on-tamil-soil/articleshow/59025558.cms
Driven by the belief that news about the war-torn valley is mostly met with silence or indifference in other parts of the nation, Khurram Parvez, a well-known human rights defender from Kashmir, was invited to the event to offer a perspective. He was joined by Gautam Mody, general secretary of New Trade Union Initiative, who was part of the civil society group that visited Kashmir in 2016 and formulated the report.
Sharing stories of Army atrocities on Kashmiris, Parvez said, they bore resemblance to what happened in Sri Lanka during the Civil War. "There was an enquiry by the UN, probing allegations of genocidal violence against Sri Lankan Tamils, despite opposition from the Lankan government. A lot of what happened in Sri Lanka is still being scrutinised at the international level, even when the LTTE is no more. Several resolutions to restore peace and order in Kashmir have been passed by the UN since 1947, but the approach of the Indian government to them has been that of denial," he added.
Although disputing that there is any commonality between the Kashmir struggle and the Sri Lankan war, political analyst Badri Seshadri says that in many ways, this meeting could be a significant step in creating awareness in Tamil Nadu about Kashmir and possibly even mobilising locals towards the problems in the valley.
"There had been demands for a separate Dravida country in Tamil Nadu, well before independence. There was a strong feeling that we are a separate race and people, and not part of the so-called Aryan India. And therefore, if you get a Kashmiri separatist to talk about their problem, you will find resonance here," says Seshadri.
Parvez ended his speech on a more cautious note. "Whatever they (government) learn in the laboratory of violence in Indian Occupied Kashmir will be implemented in other places as well. We recently saw how the Kudankulam protests were dealt with by the Centre. Hundreds of people were jailed and sedition cases filed against them. This is how dissent will be dealt with in the future too. And they (government) will become increasingly violent and intolerant like it has happened in Kashmir," he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ashmir-on-tamil-soil/articleshow/59025558.cms
