World Agenda: Kashmir - the elephant in the room

[arihant]

INdia , plz give kashimir back to pakistan.

INdia is a shameless invader.

Kashmir was invaded by Pakistan similar to tibet as invaded by China.

 

[Moorkh]

arihant dont drag tibet into this.

GoI considers Tibet to be part of China so no point fighting over that.

 

[arihant]

arihant dont drag tibet into this.

GoI considers Tibet to be part of China so no point fighting over that.

I didn't said Tibet not a part of China. I just quoted the history.

 

[BATMAN]

Turning right into might

Almost every day unarmed teenagers defy curfews to protest against Indian rule even if the rest of the world chooses to ignore this extraordinary mobilisation across the valley of Kashmir. Unprecedented international media coverage of the upheaval has been met by studied silence in Western capitals despite the recent expression of concern by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Yet the protests carry on. Youthful demonstrators remain undeterred by the ferocity of the crackdown. For decades India has deployed more troops in Kashmir than the western coalition has in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, yet this military might has failed to vanquish the Kashmiri yearning for freedom. If anything, the demand for self-determination is more vocal today than ever before with the resistance-movement having entered a new phase of civil disobedience. This is much harder for Delhi to demonize and de-legitimise as the handiwork of an external force or militants.

The third consecutive summer of protest has seen unrest sweeping the valley with a new generation of Kashmiris seeking to turn right into might by peacefully pressing their call for an end to Indian occupation. In the past three months alone more than sixty people have been killed in clashes. This does not include even a single member of the security forces which shows that unprovoked and excessive force has been used against protestors armed with only stones.

The current round of protests was triggered by the killing on June 11 of a seventeen-year-old student by a tear-gas shell during a demonstration in Srinagar. Since then the agitation has gathered momentum. Every death at the hands of security personnel has catalysed more angry demonstrations.

Even the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to acknowledge that this heavy-handed approach had backfired when he called last month for “non-lethal” means to control crowds to avert more deaths. Within hours of this declaration the authorities ordered a shake-up of senior police officials in Indian-held Kashmir in a bid to staunch the growing turmoil. But the new ‘restraint’ orders did not prevent the killing of more protestors by security forces. And Kashmiri leaders vowed to step up the protests after Eid.

Although western nations continue to ignore this escalating situation, there are three recent developments that are significant to note and which can impact the Kashmir issue down the road.

One, in a rare move last month, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon voiced concern about the deteriorating situation in Kashmir - on which the UN in any case has unfulfilled obligations - and called on “all concerned to exercise utmost restraint and address problems peacefully.” Even this mildly-worded statement evoked a furious Indian response. A statement issued by India’s ministry of external affairs criticised the UN’s call for calm as “gratuitous” and then claimed that he made no such remarks. However a spokesman for Mr. Ban Ki-moon made it clear that his office stood by the earlier comments. This was duly reported by the Financial Times on 27 August.

A second development last month that is noteworthy for its implications for the Kashmir dispute, is Beijing’s refusal to grant a visa to a top general responsible for army operations in Kashmir. When Lt-General B S Jaswal, chief of the Indian army’s northern command was refused permission to travel to China as part of a scheduled visit by a military delegation, Delhi announced the suspension of defence exchanges with Beijing.

This row came against the backdrop of China’s reported refusal over the past year to issue visas to Indian passport-holders from Indian-administered Kashmir. Instead visitors have apparently been given stapled paper-visas, a practice that too has evoked Indian protests. Meanwhile, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson recently described the Jammu and Kashmir state as Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Whether or not all of this reflects Beijing’s ire over Delhi’s support for the Dalai Lama - Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader - signaled most recently by meetings between him and top Indian officials, these Chinese actions have an impact on the Kashmir issue as they challenge India’s claim to sovereignty over the state.

The third significant development is the continuing, unparalleled coverage the Kashmiri uprising has been getting in the west, especially the American press. Rarely in the past has the Kashmiri movement received such a sustained media attention. Since June, numerous reports and analyses have appeared, mostly sympathetic towards young Kashmiri protestors and critical of India. A recent report in the New York Times (24 August) for example, described Kashmir as “one blood-soaked exception” to India’s claim to accommodate diversity within its much disputed borders. Another article in the same paper (13 August) said that the Kashmiri protests for a third consecutive year “signal the failure of Indian efforts to win the assent of Kashmiris using just about any tool available: money, elections and overwhelming force.”

Other western correspondents have reported from the Indian capital that official talk of offering an economic package to unemployed Kashmiri youth misses the point: what is needed is a political package, a political settlement that reflects the wishes of the Kashmiri people. Nowhere in this coverage is there an endorsement of the view expressed by some Indian officials that the upheaval has been engineered from outside or by militant groups. Instead the unrest has been widely depicted as indigenous and spontaneous.

None of this can provide Delhi comfort as it struggles to deal with the turmoil in the valley. The silence of western governments offers reassurance but does not - and cannot - alter the grim situation on the ground. Stuck in the characteristic mode of having no strategy other than the use of force to deal with the mass protests, Delhi has been floundering and blowing hot and cold, promising a firm and “focused” response against the agitators and in the same breath offering to open talks with them.

Its calls for dialogue have been so hesitant and conditional - protests have to end first - and projected in that wearingly familiar Kashmir-is-an-integral-part-of-India construct that they have been flatly rejected by even those leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) who are not opposed to talks in principle. For his part, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has re-stated his four longstanding conditions for any dialogue: start of the withdrawal of Indian troops, repeal of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that gives immunity to security personnel, dismantlement of bunkers and camps, and release of all political prisoners.

Moreover, declarations like those from the Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram of wanting to reach out to the protestors have rung hollow for Kashmiri leaders and the public, who have seen last year’s promises by Delhi to amend the AFSPA come to nothing. The same applies to plans to draw down Indian forces from the valley announced amid great fanfare last year. With conciliatory noises from Delhi yet to translate into any initiative for political engagement, most Kashmiris see these pronouncements as little more than a ruse to dampen the protests without conceding anything.

Meanwhile Prime Minister Singh’s assertions - of finding more ‘humane’ ways of dealing with protests - foreshadows, at best, an effort to improve the appearance of occupation rather than to deal with its substance or consequences. These efforts to improve the optics - without resolving the issue - may well assume some urgency in the context of President Barack Obama’s visit to India this November.

In October 2008 candidate Obama had spoken of the need to resolve the Kashmir-dispute during his election campaign. This had rattled Delhi even though once in office the US President never repeated these comments. Nevertheless Indian officials will be anxious to calm the situation in Kashmir before this much-vaunted visit.

Whatever this high-level diplomacy may yield in the months to come, the people of Indian-held Kashmir seem to have concluded that the real game-changer that can transform their destiny is to tenaciously press their demands and turn right into might by their unrelenting peaceful protests.

 

[Pk_Thunder]

Kashmir in turmoil again​

By Tariq Fatemi
Thursday, 23 Sep, 2010

ONLY a couple of months ago, when the issue of Kashmir was mentioned at an international seminar, most of the participants tended to dismiss it as of little relevance to peace in South Asia.

Nothing could have better demonstrated the fallacy of this thinking than the harried look on the Indian prime minister’s face at the All Parties Conference in New Delhi on September 15 and his admission that he “was shocked and distressed to see young men and women — even children — joining the protest on the streets”. He later expressed “readiness for dialogue with anybody or any group that does not espouse or practice violence”.

The problem with such offers is not only a case of ‘too little, too late’ but of the differing objectives that have created a wall of deep distrust between the two sides. The bitter truth is that the current protest movement has caught not only New Delhi by surprise; even the Pakistani establishment has been taken unawares. After all, not too long ago, Pakistan’s military dictator was merrily abandoning Pakistan’s historic stand on the issue, convinced that he could do any ‘deal’ with India.

Of his many ‘crimes’ — and there is a whole laundry list — his willingness to give to India what was not ours may possibly be the most egregious. True, Pakistan is a party to the dispute but only in ensuring that the Kashmiris are permitted to exercise their right to self-determination.

Those who have followed recent developments in Kashmir would know that though the current round of protests gained momentum with the killing of a 17-year-old student by security forces in June, this is the third consecutive summer of protests to sweep the Valley. Since then, hundreds have been killed but each death has further cemented the resolve of the Kashmiris to intensify their demand for an end to foreign rule.

What is even more remarkable is that the current protests have neither been planned nor led by established political parties. It is a genuinely indigenous movement, born out of decades of frustration and anger at the corrupt, inefficient and oppressive rule imposed by New Delhi. Neither increased troop deployment nor intensified brutality has succeeded in cowing down the youthful demonstrators, who though leaderless, have virtually paralysed the entire Valley, thanks to the widespread use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Many of India’s admirers and well-wishers, especially in the West, have yet to show moral courage and use their influence on India to urge it to seek a peaceful settlement of the issue. Is it that they do not know that there are more Indian troops in Kashmir than America ever had in both Iraq and Afghanistan? Or is it India’s tremendous economic advantages that make them ignore the well-documented human rights violations? And, of course our Muslim brothers are totally oblivious to these transgressions, since they themselves have little regard for these considerations.

However, a few small developments point to recognition by the international community of the crisis in Kashmir. In August, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon voiced concern about the deteriorating situation and called on “all concerned to exercise utmost [restraint] and address problems peacefully”. India’s strong reaction to this innocuous statement (calling it “gratuitous”) betrayed its fears that it could encourage others to react in similar fashion.

News of current protests have also started finding their way into the American media, which has become critical of India, with The New York Times describing it as “an intifada-style 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”. Imagine the Jerusalem Post lamenting that while New Delhi’s actions in Kashmir were “far more savage and brutal than anything authorized in Jerusalem …. the deafening silence over Kashmir, speaks volumes about the double standards” practised by major powers.

The All Parties Conference held last week in New Delhi ended in a deadlock, failing to even consider cosmetic changes to current laws that give unaccountable and unbridled powers to the Indian security forces in Kashmir. Syed Ali Geelani, the Kashmiri leader, was constrained to observe that Manmohan Singh has, once again, “failed to touch on the core issue of Kashmir, which is the root cause of the problem.” This is likely to exacerbate the situation and intensify anti-Indian sentiments, which will pose a major test for India but no less a challenge for Pakistan as well.

For a start, the Pakistani establishment should not see in it an opportunity to influence, far less to manipulate the protests to its own advantage. The Kargil fiasco that weakened the Kashmir cause and deeply damaged Pakistan’s standing abroad continues to haunt us. Later, in the aftermath of 9/11, we suffered from Indian efforts to bracket the Kashmiri freedom movement with terrorism.

In such a situation, Pakistan’s primary role should be one of highlighting well-documented human rights violations and getting international human rights organisations interested in the issue. In any case, we must not permit the so-called jihadi groups to re-enter the Kashmir imbroglio, as even a shred of evidence of our involvement would not only discredit the movement but also permit India to galvanise international opinion against us.

It would also be advisable for Pakistan to resist the temptation of manipulating the Kashmiri political leadership, learning from earlier efforts which created fissures in the APHC and prevented the emergence of a genuinely united Kashmiri leadership that could engage with New Delhi. Instead, Pakistan should formulate a policy that should encourage unity amongst the Kashmiris.

Incidentally, the Pakistan constitution provides for the Kashmiris the right to determine their relationship with Pakistan. This should be honoured in letter and spirit, as it would not only encourage closer bonds between Pakistan and the Kashmiris but could also be a model for any future settlement of the Kashmir issue. In any case, Pakistan should abandon its proclivity to seek a solution in ‘haste’, even if the current correlation of forces may not look favourable.

Finally, how about reminding the US about President Obama’s public acknowledgement that while Kashmir was “a potential tar pit diplomatically”, he would “devote serious diplomatic resources” to resolving this issue. President Eisenhower had warned, as far back as 1956, that in the absence of a Kashmir settlement, “the peaceful progressive development which each nation desires cannot be achieved”.

As far as India is concerned, it has to start by acknowledging that continued occupation of Kashmir is no longer tenable. What the shape of a future relationship between India and Kashmir should be and how it has to be brought about are matters of complex and agonising negotiations. But a beginning can be found only in an acceptance of the fundamental rights of the Kashmiris and in involving Pakistan in the process.

 

[KILLA]

you should also read the comments by Mr.. Krishna.