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Whose hypocrisy blocking Kashmir solution?
Zafar Alam Sarwar
A 22-year-old Japanese student tried to commit suicide in the strife-torn occupied Kashmir because it did not match with what he had seen in travel brochures. “This is not the Kashmir I’ve known and read about. I was hurt,” were the words of the youth who said he was depressed by the ominous presence of gun-totting Indian army personnel and the absence of happy people.
Koichiro Takata, an ophthalmology student, went crazy as he walked for nine kilometres from Srinagar city airport, and was anxious thinking about all the police guards around him. He stabbed himself several times with a pair of scissors. “I was afraid and went crazy after seeing so many gun-totting men in the city. I thought my safety is in question and the gunmen will kill me instantaneously,” Takata told newsmen.
This incident, which took place in March 2003, explains turning of a heaven into hell and the height of tyranny to its people who had been refrained by India from exercising their right to self-determination. The situation has not changed in any way over the years. The strength of the armed force, around half a million across the occupied Kashmir in 1990, has increased 50 per cent in 2009 to terrorise and torture men, women and children who struggle for freedom.
The Muslim majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, contagious to Pakistan, should have formed an integral part of Pakistan, as envisaged in the Partition plan of June 3, 1947, and that of the Indian Independence Act of July 18, 1947. In his address to the Chamber of Princes on July 25, 1947, the last British Governor-General and Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, in his capacity as the Crown Representative, had impressed upon the rulers of the states that “you cannot run away from the Dominion Government which is your neighbour any more than you can run away from the subjects for whose welfare you are responsible.”
But, India — under a Congress-Mountbatten-J&K ruler Maharaja Hari Singh conspiracy, on the pretext of the so-called Instrument of Accession secured through fraud and violence — entered its forces in the state on October 27, 1947, committing naked armed aggression against its people who had already risen against the despotic Hindu-Dogra rule and established Azad J&K Government on October 24, 1947. While accepting the Instrument of Accession on October 26, 1947, executed by the fugitive ruler Hari Singh but not validated by the United Nations Security Council, Lord Mountbatten had clarified that “consistently with the policy that, in case of any state where the accession has been the subject of dispute, the question of accession should be divided in accordance with the wishes of the people of the state, it is my government’s wish that as soon as law and order have been restored in Kashmir...the question of state’s accession should be settled by a reference to the people.”
There’s no denying the fact that Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, as Governor-General, had ordered the then commander-in-chief to take prompt measures to repulse the aggressive advance of the Indian army to what is now occupied Kashmir. But the Quaid’s directive was held in abeyance and a wrong picture presented to him.
In short, it was denial of the right to self-determination by India, despite its repeated acceptance and guaranteed by the UN that the people of J&K forcibly occupied by India rose in revolt and are still fighting to bring an end to its brutal domination in Kashmir. India has committed atrocities and breached human rights on a scale unprecedented in the history of the world. So far, close to 100,000 men and women have sacrificed their lives, thousands of schoolchildren have been burnt alive and more than 80,000 Kashmiris, especially the youth, have been martyred. This is besides 89,000 killings, destruction of 104,751 houses and shops, and molestation of 9,532 women. Arrest of youths in Indian-occupied J&K in an atmosphere of terror continues.
There’s need to realise that time is now running short for so-called world democrats and peace advocates to avert a flashpoint turning into an Iraq or Afghanistan-like inferno in a foreseeable future. All hopes will sink, sooner or later, if something tangible is not done assertively and transparently according to the resolutions of the United Nations.
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon is morally bound to heed the demand of the people of held Kashmir to help resolve the matter in accordance with the resolutions of the Security Council. They are being oppressed since occupation by India. Most of her troops remain on the prowl to plunder the booty of the Kashmiris who are tortured, lynched and maimed because they raise voice for right to self-determination. A 19-year youth was tortured to death by a group of bayonet-brandishing soldiers at Shopian on July 2. Similarly, four young boys of political organisations were eliminated in Baramula, according to a report.
Being passive and indolence doesn’t behove the world body when the situation deteriorates fast in the occupied Kashmir where mayhem, carnage, homicide, desecration of the symbols of chastity and honour are order of the day. Shopian is not the only restive town groaning under illegal Indian occupation, it’s the entire besieged valley.
Why the active members of the world body dominated by Western wrestlers, especially the US and the UK, shut their eyes to the plight of hundreds of thousands long prevented by India from exercising their universally recognised right to self-determination? What an inhuman behaviour of an India never shy of claim to one of world’s most secular and democrat state! The US encouraged her by saying “she (India) is our natural ally.” This is how legal and democratic rights of smaller peoples are sacrificed. Pakistan’s politicians would do better if they unite selflessly for the cause of the Indian-occupied Kashmir and expose the hypocrisy of the West over Kashmir question.
zasarwar@hotmail.com
The News: Monday, July 13, 2009
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