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India buries dissent in Kashmir

...and its pretensions to democracy

Published: Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Updated: Thursday, January 14, 2010 14:01

kashmir graves

International Tribunal for Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir

Mass graves found in Kashmir in 2008. 2,600 fresh graves were discovered last year.

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Nearly 2,600 bodies have been discovered in single, unmarked graves and in mass graves throughout mountainous Indian-controlled Kashmir. The International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice (IPTHJ), an Indian Kashmir-based human rights organization, claimed that they found the graves in 55 villages during a three-year survey that concluded in November. Out of the 2,600 graves discovered by IPTHJ, they claim that 177 graves held more than one body. This report is one of the most damning pieces of evidence of the ‘crime against humanity’ perpetrated by the Indian armed forces in their occupation of the disputed territory of Kashmir.

The Muslim-dominated region of Kashmir has been a disputed territory right from the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947 and has been the source of conflict for more than half a century. While both countries claim the region, it is the civilian population of Kashmir that has paid the price of the conflict. In contested claims, more than 68,000 people have lost their lives in Indian-occupied Kashmir in the past two decades alone and have witnessed three conventional wars.

The latest report, if accurate, only goes to prove the brutalities encountered by the Kashmiris at the hands of the Indian armed forces. The Indian occupation of Kashmir casts a dark shadow over India’s shining image as the largest democracy in the world. Indian democracy prides itself on freedom of speech and expression and the right of its people to dissent. But the manner in which the dissent of the Kashmiri population has been crushed illustrates that India still has a long way to go to be a real functional democracy. Over the past couple of decades, it has been alleged by various human rights groups that the Indian military has killed a large number of Kashmiri youth in "fake encounters", dubbing them "Pakistani terrorists". In April, 2008, Amnesty International appealed to the Indian government to investigate hundreds of unidentified graves — believed to contain victims of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other abuses — to no avail.

The starkest feature of these recent findings is that there was no coverage of the report by the Indian media. Having stumbled upon this shocking report in the New York Times when sitting in the U.S., I sought the perspective of the Indian media. To my disbelief and horror, there was not even a single mention about this report in all the leading Indian dailies and news channels, while all of the major international media groups had covered the story.

So what does this tell about Indian democracy? The truth of brutalities in Kashmir have always been kept a secret to the nation. The Indian state has, for decades, been suppressing the largely non-violent dissent of Kashmiri people against the militarization of Kashmir. The Indian state has used the divisive propaganda of militancy and religion as tools to suppress any kind of dissent against its forced occupation of the region. The Indian state has tried to keep not only the international community in the dark about its hostilities toward Kashmiris but also the local Indian population, by controlling media reports of the real situation on the ground in Indian occupied Kashmir.

A democracy which suppresses dissent by means of violence is the most vulgar form of democracy, if at all it can be called ‘democracy’. The successful attempt by the Indian state to keep the Indian populace in the dark about such damning reports questions the validity of its claim to be the largest functional, pluralistic democracy.

Kashmir is not the only place where the Indian government has responded with violence in the wake of dissent. The rising tide of the left-wing Indian Maoists group (termed "Naxalites"), predominant in East India, have constantly faced violent retaliations for their dissent against the capitalist regime of the Indian state. The people of neglected regions of northeastern India have been the subject of torture by the Indian military forces for decades for their demand of more autonomy for the region.

Unfortunately, the resort to violence against any kind of dissent is not a new phenomenon for the Indian state, either. The princely states of Junagadh and Hyderabad were annexed by the Indian state by use of force when these states declined to be part of the newly formed independent Indian state.

But India's use of violence to vitiate dissent has long been kept under the wraps of propagandist theories of a functional pluralistic democracy. India has projected itself, not only to the international community, but also to its citizens, as being a soft, liberal state. But events, past and present, prove otherwise.

Anil Choudhary is an LL.M. student from India.

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17 comments

Anonymous
Thu Mar 18 2010 11:29
The global game against a great democracy India is long over, as India is now a superpower and tiny Pakistan a part of the U.S.A. Moreover, China can not take on India militarily and if any country provokes a conflict in that region it has surely the makings of a global conflict. Do not forget that India and Russia (the Russian military machine is formidable) are brothers as well.

Time has shown that no power however great can fragment the great democracy India. Total peace is on its way in Kashmir, any attempt by any country to disturb this will surely bear no fruit. One would be stupid to take on 1.2 billion Indians.

Anonymous
Wed Feb 10 2010 12:42
The Indian State in KashmirWe now come to the crucial point with which this chapter is concerned: India's underlying reasons for occupying Jammu and Kashmir, its reasons for staying in the face of continued revolt, and the behaviour of the Indian state towards Kashmir. First, it must be noted that there is no clear data on Kashmiri opinions regarding India at the time of Partition. Today, after years of brutal Indian attempts to quell the uprising which began in 1989, it is possible to say, with some degree of certainty, the people are still very resolute and determined in one conviction: that Indian rule over them is illegitimate and unacceptable. Most Kashmiri [Muslims], however, want a sovereign state; they do not want to join Pakistan. During the early years of the conflict it was much more difficult to predict the opinions of the Kashmiris. For one thing, they were a largely uneducated rural people. Indian leaders, and other observers, assumed that they would blindly follow a few major figures, of whom Sheikh Abdullah was the strongest. Because of this assumption, the British and Indians were able to convince themselves that the state's Muslim inhabitants would choose accession to India, despite the geographic, economic, cultural, and Islamic draw of Pakistan, if Sheikh Abdullah told them to do so. No one ever asked the people themselves. In point of fact, as the historical description above implies, the opinions of individual people were unimportant as far as state leaders in the conflict were concerned. The Kashmir dispute, in other words, started life as a contest over rights to a territory, not the struggle to establish the wishes of a people (emphasis in original).So why this conflict over territory in the first place? Pakistan's interest in Kashmir is obvious: the population is majority Muslim. M.A. Jinnah and the leadership of Pakistan believed that Muslims could never be full citizens in Hindu majority India. Thus, by the very logic which created Pakistan, Kashmir should have been an integral part of the Islamic country. When questions arose as to whether this would occur, it became the duty of Pakistan's leaders to defend the rights of Kashmiris. To have allowed the Maharaja to accede to India unopposed would have been the ultimate betrayal of the cause for which Jinnah and the Muslim League had fought. The choice Kashmiris might make in a plebiscite was, basically, unimportant to Pakistani leaders. They believed, regardless of any false consciousness of Kashmiris, that accession to India would eventually lead to oppression.I have identified four main reasons for the Indian involvement in Kashmir. Perhaps the most important, and the most insidious, is that, in the words of historian Paul Brass. At the top of [Indian leaders'] goals, the sine qua non for everything else was an abiding faith in and determination to preserve the national unity and integrity of the country against all potential internal and external threats to it. The very fact that this first priority, the centre of the dreams of the Congress nationalists, had to be sacrificed at Independence itself, with the partition of the country, reinforced the determination of the leaders never to make such a sacrifice again.Thus, the very existence of Pakistan was, for Indian leaders, an affront to their struggle. To allow any more territory to fall to Pakistan than was absolutely necessary would be a betrayal of the ideals of the independence struggle. Accordingly, it was the policy of Nehru and the other Indian leaders to use force, if necessary, to crush any secessionist movement which showed signs of strength and not to make any concessions to regional, cultural, religious, or ethnic autonomy. They believed that to act otherwise would invite the rapid disintegration of the Indian Union and a resultant bloodbath. Allowing Kashmir, therefore, to join Pakistan after the Maharaja had signed the Instrument of Accession, would have been, in Nehru's eyes, to begin the destruction of India. In fact, when the Indian constitution was drafted, the inclusion of Article 370 was a major embarrassment for New Delhi. Successive governments tried hard to eat away at Kashmir's autonomy as it was enshrined in the constitution.Nehru also had something to prove ideologically in Kashmir. By ruling over a state with a population 80% Muslim, India would be able to prove to the world that it was a secular nation-and disprove the Muslim League's theory that there are two nations on the subcontinent that can not live together in peace. It turns out that India has, in fact, taken steps towards proving the Muslim League right instead. Perhaps if real democracy had been brought to Jammu and Kashmir early in the conflict, the Muslims might have been persuaded that they had a place within India. Instead, New Delhi supported Sheikh Abdullah's autocratic practices, as well as acting autocratically itself. It is little wonder, therefore, that Kashmiris have been...
Anonymous
Wed Feb 10 2010 12:41
Kashmir in Turmoil - 1971 - the Present

In 1975, Indira Gandhi made a deal with Sheikh Abdullah to return him to power in exchange, she hoped, for his cooperation in permanently integrating Jammu and Kashmir into the Union (with the reservations inherent in Article 370). The plan backfired, however, when Abdullah held elections in 1977 and won by a landslide. Following the election, Sheikh Abdullah began a policy of exceptionally dictatorial measures. He instituted press censorship, gave the police powers of detention for up to two years without appeal, ordered his Cabinet members to swear an oath of loyalty to him personally, and generally moved towards one-party rule in the State. In 1981, Sheikh Abdullah passed on the mantle of leadership to his son Dr. Farooq Abdullah.

Farooq Abdullah's time in office did not last long. After winning the 1983 elections amidst widespread violence and hints of rigging, he was ousted by a carefully planned coup which effectively brought the end of Article 370's implementation. On 31 July, 1984, Malhotra Jagmohan, the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, swore in a true puppet government under G.M. Shah. By 1986, however, the Shah administration had shown its inability to curb the rising violence in the State. Jagmohan announced the imposition of direct Governor's rule and suspension of the Legislative Assembly on 7 March, 1986. In September, direct rule from New Delhi was imposed. Rajiv Gandhi attempted to salvage a semblance of democracy in Jammu and Kashmir by convincing Farooq Abdullah to run in the 1987 elections. Farooq Abdullah has admitted that the 1987 elections were as unfair as any others held in the history of the state. By January 1990 the violence was still rising. Jagmohan again declared Governor's rule in the face of continuing violence and the outbreak of real revolt in the Vale. Since then, chaos and terror have reigned in Kashmir. 400,000 Indian Army troops and paramilitary forces now occupy the State fighting guerilla groups which demand independence or accession to Pakistan.

The number of militant groups in Jammu and Kashmir has climbed to over a dozen under the Indian crackdown. The oldest and largest of the groups is the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which was founded in 1964. The JKLF is the most secular and nationalist of the Kashmiri groups. Besides rejecting fundamentalist Islam as inimical to Kashmiri tradition, they call for independence because they fear that accession to Pakistan would mean trading one oppression for another. The young and radical wing of the JKLF has broken off into the Student Liberation Front. Also strong in the state, having gained training and experience in the Afghanistan jihad, are a number of Islamist or fundamentalist groups, most of which call for union with Pakistan. The largest Islamic group, and the most militant in its Islam, is the Hizb-ul Mujahidin, the armed wing of the outlawed Jamaat-i-Islami political party. Indian leaders believe that the majority of the Pakistani assistance to militants is directed towards the Hizb-ul Mujahidin. Militant leaders, however, claim that they receive little help from Pakistan. Besides these main groups, there are dozens of smaller groups which can survive on help from villagers. Kashmiri opinion is strongly in favour of the struggle for independence.

While insurgent groups have not been blameless,-they have kidnapped tourists and bombed public buildings-the Indian army has engaged in repeated atrocities on a massive scale in the process of its crackdown. The level of military misdeeds is so high that we can only conclude that it is government policy to terrorize the Kashmiris into accepting Indian rule. As a result, the possible paths towards peace in Kashmir seem, at this juncture, to point only in the direction of secession from India. It is for this reason that the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, a coalition of all the guerilla groups which was formed in 1993, manages to hold together. The groups have deep ideological differences, but they all can agree on secession from India.

Anonymous
Wed Feb 10 2010 12:38
History and Geography of Kashmir

The State of Jammu and Kashmir is, as its name implies, made up of more than one territorial unit. The Vale, or Valley, of Kashmir and the region of Jammu are joined with Ladakh, Poonch, Gilgit, and Baltistan to form what was, before 1947, a single governmental unit under the rule of the Dogra Dynasty. Each of these regions is distinct from the others in many aspects, and this heterogeneity is important to bear in mind during study of the Kashmir question. However, Kashmiris have a strong culture of their own as well as a distinct language. In many ways, Kashmir's regions are more like each other than anyone is like the rest of India.

Srinagar, the summer capital of the State, is located in the centre of the Vale. This is the most populous region and the most significant agricultural centre, though it constitutes only 10% of the total land area of the state. The population of the Vale of Kashmir is overwhelmingly Muslim. In 1941, Muslims accounted for over 93% of the Vale's population. Also living in the Vale, though highly outnumbered, is a population of Kashmiri Brahmin Hindus known as the Pandits. Many leaders of the Indian independence movement came from this community, among them Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

The next most important region is the province of Jammu where the winter capital is located. This region is the ancestral homeland of the Dogra dynasty. Jammu is predominantly Hindu and Sikh, though there are Muslims living there also. The tiny province of Poonch, in the southwest of the state, is a Muslim region which was added to the Dogras' possessions in the middle of the 1930s. Ladakh is sparsely populated by Tibetan Buddhists. Finally, there are the mountainous northern provinces of Baltistan and Gilgit. The Baltis are primarily Shia Muslims as are the inhabitants of Gilgit; their cultural links with Kashmir are few.

The State of Jammu and Kashmir has a distinct culture all its own. Though there are strong regional cultural differences - Poonch, for example, is culturally closer to parts of Pakistan than to the Vale of Kashmir - it has been argued that Kashmiri Hindus have more in common with Kashmiri Muslims than with Hindus in the rest of India. And it is significant that Jammu and Kashmir has a history of relative freedom from communal riots compared to the rest of India. During times of strife, such as the disappearance of a hair - believed to be of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) - from the Hazratbal Shrine, Hindu-Muslim violence could flare to dangerous levels; however, such violence has generally been low in Kashmir. In fact, riots over the missing relic were more acute in some cities outside of Kashmir than in the Vale itself.

The State of Jammu and Kashmir is extremely mountainous. In Baltistan, K2, the world's second tallest mountain, rises out of the Karakoram range to a height of over 28,000 feet. Ladakh includes part of the Tibetan high plateau. And the Pir Panjal range separates Poonch and Jammu from the Vale. Between these enormous ranges run the valleys which are the life-blood of the state. Until air travel, they were also the only routes of travel and communication. At the time of the Partition of British India, Kashmir's only means of contact with the outside world lay on roads that ran through territory which would become Pakistan. As well, the rivers which originate in Jammu and Kashmir are essential for Pakistani agriculture.

Under the British Indian Empire, large portions of the subcontinent were not included in the area of direct British control. These Princely States, as they came to be known, were ruled by Indian Princes, many of whom were known as Maharajas. Technically independent of the British Raj, the Maharajas had agreed (under pressure, of course) to accept the Paramountcy of the British Crown. The State of Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by the Dogras, a Hindu dynasty, who were widely considered oppressive and corrupt. Sir Hari Singh was the Maharaja in 1947. His regime was oppressive enough to warrant intervention by the British at times, though they never went so far as to annex the territory. The British took interest in Singh's rule because they considered Jammu and Kashmir to be a geopolitically significant territory. The Gilgit areas, which the British had leased to the Dogras, were considered to be a sensitive listening post from which to keep track of Russian and Chinese ambitions in Central Asia as well as an important frontier region in the event of Russian or Chinese attack.

Anonymous
Wed Feb 10 2010 12:37
Pakistan Zindabad
SA Gilkar
Fri Jan 29 2010 00:34
Mr Atul, You are pleased with India, i personally have no problem, but fact is that what picture you portrayed about India here is totally different in Kashmir. India causes us pain, India Murders our Brothers and Sisters, Raped our Mothers and sisters, Tortured our young talented brothers and forced many to take the amino in their hands. Brother Atul believe me Indian state is sowing the seeds to create millions of Kashmiris as Armed Mujahideens. Because somesort it is Money making machine for some section of India. (Military, Police, Bureaucrats, Ministers etc ). India will create conditions to prolongue this war, and therefore massacre millions of innocent Kashmiris only to satisfy his selfish needs.

Long Live Independent Republic of Kashmir

SA Gilkar
Fri Jan 29 2010 00:11
Thank you very much Atul for your good comments, But for Million words i wanna say one word that we Kashmiris wanna Complete Freedom from Both India and Pakistan. we Wanna live as a citizens of Republic of Kashmir which shall have brotherly relation with both India and Pakistan. There is no discrimination in our hearts and is no deficiency of love.

Long Live Independent Republic of Kashmir

sol
Fri Jan 22 2010 08:19
I am of Kashmiri origin if you ask a Kashmiri do you want to be part of Indian majority will say no. Do you want to be part of Pakistan or Independent State majority will say Yes. Give us our referendum promised to us 60 years ago. India and its army can commit as may human rights abuses against our people but you will fail to sillence OUR CALL FOR FREEDOM.

LONG LIVE KASHMIR

Atul Varma
Mon Jan 18 2010 16:59
Dear Yasin, Hari Singh was the legal ruler of Kashmir, and his signing the instrument of accession made (all of the undivided princely state of) Kashmir part of the secular Democratic Republic of India.

What special justification do you have over, say, people of Bihar, UP or Madhya Pradesh to secede from India and form your own separate country? Countries are not made to be broken up just like that, willy nilly, or else we would have ten million countries out there duking it out and killing each other.

If you say it's because you are a Muslim (then, first, your ancestors are probably Hindus, and your genetic makeup is probably not that different from today's Pandit/Hindu Kashmiri Indians. Islam entered and spread in Kashmir only over the last 800 years or so, meaning that you have at least some 2700-4200 years of Hindu ancestry and heritage before your forefathers converted to Islam, and they may even have been forced to convert by the Islamic rulers, for all you know. I think one should identify with their entire heritage, not some selected part thereof), then how exactly does that give you legitimacy to secede from India than say Christian Indians, Buddhist Indians, Jain Indians or anyone else?

Also, India was already broken up to create a separate Muslim country, and its called Pakistan (and Bangladesh). If you really feel that a secular pluralistic democracy like India isn't your cup of tea and that you must live in an Islamic country at all costs, then why not consider moving to Pakistan or any of the other 56 Islam-majority countries? I don't want you to, but if you think that being a Muslim implies being anti-India, then I say that's deeply flawed thinking, a result of falling pray to divide-and-conquer tactics of Pakistan/China and other playes, which I feel you should not entertain.

What we have witnessed over the last 20 years in J&K is terrorist warfare waged by Pakistan against India and the Kashmiri Indian population (one and all Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, everyone) via its insertion of 20 thousand terrorists into J&K. India then had the duty, as a sovereign country, to defend its territory and its people (all Kashmiri Indians) and it has thus been engaged in a defensive struggle against the infiltrator terrorists. Casualties do result from armed conflicts, but when one considers the duration of the war (20 years and counting) and the number of terrorists that infiltrated (about 20K), the number of casualties has not been as high as in other similar situations, i.e. India is apparently doing the best it can to keep unintended casualties as low as possible. Further, there are probably many Hindus among those civilian casualties.

However, one must not forget that the blame for all of the causalities belongs with Pakistan and the infiltrators, not India which was only doing its job to defend the country as it is supposed to.

Further, what makes you think that Pakistan and China would leave an independent Kashmir alone? Pakistan from the west and China from the east will keep chipping Kashmir away (as both of them ALREADY have been since 1947) and both are unscrupulous actors (the regimes, not the people of those countries, who are fine), meaning that Kashmir could end up getting turned into another Afghanistan in that turf game by Pak and China. How would that be a better route for you (and your children and grand children) than, for example, getting a top-notch engineering degree from the IIT India is building and then proceeding to build and do great things in life?

Finally, Kashmiri Pandits who have been persecuted and ethnic cleansed out of the Kashmir valley would also like to have their own country called "Panun Kashmir" in the event that Kashmir is separated from India. And they definitely have a solid case because of the ethnic cleansing they have suffered from over the last 20 years at the hands of the infiltrator terrorists, where half a million of them have been driven out of their ancient homeland into horrible refugee camps. Do you support an independent and sovereign (Hindu) Republic of Panun Kashmir? If you want to secede from India and create a separate (Muslim) Kashmir, then, by way of reason and logic, you would also have to support a separate and independent nation of (Hindu) Panun Kashmir for the Kashmiri Pandits.
-- Atul

Yasir
Sat Jan 16 2010 11:28
my dear friends i am a ksahmiri muslim i would like to know from all of you people who the hell was hari singh to decide for the kashmiris ? and regarding indian military atrocities in kashmir i have seen all of that with my eyes for the last 20 years ? i care a damn of what happened in the past what really matters is that we kashmiris want a free , independent kashmir ... we cannot live with india or pakistan both the leaderships have shown no care for kashmir whatsoever .... so stop arguing about pak or india and do some constructive work in resolving the kashmir issue
Ni
Fri Jan 15 2010 01:41
India is a civilization dating back 5000 years. Pakistan is a fictitious state that was created by the British as a gambit against India 60 years ago. There would be no Kashmir problem between India and Pakistan if the partition of India itself had not happened.
Kashmir itself consists of Hindus (Jammu), Buddhists (Ladakh) and a few Kashmiris (Muslim).
Religion is not a good basis for creation of a state or keeping people together. Witness the ethnic rivalries among Punjabis and everyone else in Pakistan, and among Pashtuns and Tajiks in Afghanistan.
Atul Varma
Wed Jan 13 2010 17:24
The "Azadi" poster below is frothing at the mouth with lies, indicating that he is one of the Pakistani demagogues that wants to tear India (most of the Indian subcontinent was a single nation under Ashoka the Great; the Maratha and Sikh empires also covered most of India under their belt) apart, instead of building up Pakistan. What such idiotic, destructive abd divisive elements we see from Pakistan don't realize is that their approach HAS NOT and WILL NOT serve the interests of the Pakistani people (i.e. Pakistani Indians) either, as we can witness from how the last 62 years turned out.

The world should sternly demand that the Pakistani regime dismantle the terrorist camps its ISI runs, or else impose severe sanctions against the regime and then work with India to dismantle them by force. That the 9/11 attack was plotted from Pakistan is alone a good enough reason for cracking down on the terrorism-sponsoring regime that has been running Pakistan for the last 6 decades.

Atul Varma
Wed Jan 13 2010 17:16
Second part of my response to S.A. Girkar (contd from comment #3 below)

====
Finally, the partition of India was itself unnecessary. An undivided India would have made progress lot more rapidly than have the separate parts (badly hampered by Pakistani regime's bad behavior) have been able to manage. Pakistani regime's bad behavior since the partition includes 4 useless (and bloody, expensive, draining) wars against India, thousands of terrorist attacks, and its killing of 3 million Bengalis in 1971 in East Bengal, its creation of the Taliban leading to the utter destruction of Afghanistan, it's oppression of Balochi people in Balochistan, all adds up to a barbaric regime that has run Pakistan for 62 years, and created mayhem and destroyed the lives of Pakistanis (i.e. Pakistani Indians) along with its all other victims, including Kashmiri Indians. Kashmir is an integral part of India as it has been for 5000 years. If separated from India, Kashmir will become a victim of political football between the unscrupulous and undemocratic regimes of China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other selfish geopolitical players. Remaining as part of the secular democracy of India and making both Kashmir along with the rest of India better and stronger is what will work out best for Kashmiri Indians. If you are a Kashmiri Indian as you imply in your comment, you know you could well rise to become the Prime Minister of India someday, if you have the talent, determination and are patriotic to help all of India shine along with Kashmir, no one will stop you from getting there. India is building a new IIT campus (of the famed Indian Institutes of Technology) and taking other developmental measures to help Kashmir (already, due to help from Indian government, poverty rates in Kashmir are the lowest of any state in India) Kashmir, which Kashmiri Indians should avail fully and advance your state and the nation.

That Pakistani regime (and their ISI) should simply not be trusted (by Kashmiri as well as other Muslim Indians) also becomes clear from how they massacred millions of Benaglis (Muslims included) and how they continue to persecute the Ahmadiyaa Muslim community in Pakistan. Links for these follow:

1. Bangladesh Liberation War: GENOCIDE AND ATROCITIES (by Pakistani army and their Razakar terrorist allies): Between March 25 and December 16, estimated 3 million Bengalees were killed, 200000 women raped and 10 million were displaced. This was the worst genocide after Second World War. This was mass killing of innocent civilian, men, women and children too part of the country was spared. Killing field can be found in every town and village. Killing was particularly targeted towards youth, religious minorities and democratic forces. In the final days of liberation war, local fundamentalist collaborators of Pakistan Army named Al-badar and Al-shams took leading intellectuals including writers, journalists, doctors, lawyers and engineers blindfolded, killed them and dumped them in Dhaka city outskirts. http://www.liberationwarmuseum.org/liberation-war/51-genocide-and-atrocities

2. Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Pakistan were denied voting rights, Wed, 2008-02-20. Colombo, 20 February, (Asian Tribune.com): Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Pakistan were denied voting rights in the Parliamentary elections held on 18 February. Since 1985 Ahmadiyya Community is continuously are deprived of exercising their democratic rights due to their religious believes...There is a general, wholly incorrect, impression that President Pervez Musharraf abolished this system upon assuming the Presidency. In fact by virtue of ‘The Chief Executive’s Order No.15 of 2002’ a ‘Supplementary’ list of voters was created in which members of the Ahmadiyya Community were classed as ‘non-Muslims’. This Order remains in force. http://www.thepersecution.org/news/08/at0220.html

After all, in the end, we are all members of the great human family whose collective destiny will be better if unity prevails over the games played by divisive elements that create strife. Pakistan-created terrorist war in the Kashmir valley over the last two decades gives us ample evidence of the destructive power of divisive tactics.

Peace.

-- Atul

Azadi
Wed Jan 13 2010 16:01
India is NOT a democracy.

India is a made up patchwork of South Asian regions. The British created "India" in 1947. There was no entity or country called "India" or that was consolidated all the regions that "India" does today.

Bengal, homeland to 450 million Bengalis, has been divided. First, into Bangladesh. Then in "India", the rest of Bengal was divided and subdivided into West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Naga, and other smaller regions to distort the true land mass and identity of the Bengali people.

When, the British arrived in South Asia in the mid 1800s - Bengal was the largest and most powerful nation - Bengal was NEVER part of anything called "India".

Next the Tamils, the Indian Govt actively supported the terrorist group, LTTE (Tamil Tigers), against Sri Lanka to prevent the Tamils from demanding freedom in their true homeland of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu was NEVER part of "India".

Punjab was split between Pakistan and India. Then in India it was futher split. The Punjab was NEVER part of India.

India illegally invaded, conquered and annexed Hydrebad. It also annexed Sikkim.

Then, Kashmir. There is no "Letter of Accension". It is a falsehood.

It is a shame that Obama, a Harvard Law Editior, would refuse to allow the Kashmiri people the "Right to Self Determination" and the ability to vote for FREEDOM.

It is a shame that the USA will NOT enforce UN Resolutions against India regarding Kashmir. India should face a full financial, economic and military sanctions.

Instead, the US Govt has REWARDED India with a nuclear deal despite India's failure to sign the NPT and other nuclear agreements.

India is WRONG in continuing to occupy Kashmir. Freedom for Kashmir.

AZADI.

Atul Varma
Wed Jan 13 2010 14:15
Dear Mr. Gilkar, my long response to your comment follows. I don't know if there is a word limit for comments in the posting system here, and so I'll first try posting it as a single long comment and if that fails, then I'll try posting it in several parts."Indian Intelligence financed the then Mujahideens to wag war on Kashmir, so that there is enough reasons to send Indian Military to Kashmir"The then Pakistani general himself acknowledged in a book that the fledgling Pakistani military organized and sent in the militias to steal Kashmir from King Hari Singh. As did Viceroy Lord Mountbatten. See also the following: 'Kashmiri groups condemn Pakistan's 1947 invasion. TNN, 22 October 2009: For the first time in 62 years, 13 Kashmiri political groups in the UK, under the umbrella of the Kashmiri National Party, passed a resolution against Pakistan's tribal invasion into India in October 1947.' http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Kashmiri-groups-condemn-Pakistans-1947-invasion/articleshow/5150057.cms"these are the same tribal guerillas which are wagging war on Pakistan"The current situation in Pakistan is a blow-back from Pakistan's coddling of radical extremism (in the form of the Taliban); Pakistan (under Benazir Bhutto) created the Taliban as a force to try and control Afghanistan. After 9/11, Bush gave Musharraf an ultimatum to either side with the US or the Taliban/Al-Queda nexus that was ruling Afghanistan at the time. Musharraf allowed the US/NATO forces to come in and expunge the Taliban from Afghanistan, but Pakistan also tried to retain the so-called Pakistani Talibani elements as a terror strike force against India, but that tactic backfired as the Taliban recognized Pakistan's selfish double game."on the instructions of Indian Intelligence about which hardcore evidences are with Pakistani Govt."That's the usual humbug hackery and propaganda from Pakistan. Pakistanis have no credibility and so, rightly, no one believes them.-------"biased media of India"Actually, the Indian media rarely gives coverage to the horrible plight of the Pandits of Kashmir. Basically, the terrorist infiltrators in Kashmir are outsiders with no local residence. And the Pandits were being driven out of their homeland. Sine the civilian Muslim Kashmiri Indians stayed put, casualties from that group would have been identified and claimed by their relatives from the local vicinity, making it easy to get a count of the missing from among them, while the killed militants form outside are hard to account for. Since the Pundits were on the run escaping their ethnic cleansing, it is harder in their case also to get a good count for the number of Pundits killed during their escape.I am glad that the remaining Pandits in the valley are trying to work with their Muslim cousins there, but let's not forget that there are only 4000 of them left, whereas there used to be about half a million (500,000) before their ethnic cleansing out of the valley (into horrible refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi) began in 1989.I recommend the readers to go over the following: "Islamic Terrorism and Genocide of Kashmiri Pandits" http://www.kashmiri-pandit.org/sundry/genocide.html95% Kashmir militants are outsiders: Ghulam Nabi Azad. PTI, 15 December 2009 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/95-Kashmir-militants-are-outsiders-Azad/articleshow/5340618.cms-------"It was the then Governor of Kashmir Jagmohan who preached them to migrate"That's a revisionist distortion (I expect better from you than to repeat it!). The Governor himself gave a lengthy rebuttal to the lie here: http://www.hvk.org/articles/0497/0192.html'They want the nation to believe that it was not the fearsome environment - the ruthless Kalashnikov, the 350 bomb explosions in the second half of 1989, the hysterical exhortations for 'Jihad' from hundreds of loudspeakers fitted on the mosques, the 'Tirana-e-Kashmir' of having Quran in one hand and a rifle in the other, the sinister design of 'killing one and frightening one thousand' but some unspelt inducements that had impelled the Kashmiris to abandon their homes and hearths in the Valley and move to the inhospitable camps of Jammu.'He quotes journalist P. Bhatt: 'Jagmohan, on the other hand, tried very hard to persuade us not to leave. At great personal risk, he visited the police stations in thickly populated areas where the police machinery had totally broken down. To instil confidence in the highly demoralized Kashmiri Pandit community, he even went to the house of young Satish Tikka in Habbakadal, a congested and highly terrorist-infested locality.'-------"which they caused to the Sikhs during Indhera Gandhi."Sorry, the separatist movement in Punjab was ALSO the creation of Pakistan's ISI, and it has severely harmed India, Punjab, Sikhs and other Indians. Congress party goons Tytler and Sajjan Kumar engaged thugs and mobsters in the riots following Indira's assassination, and Sajjan has just been charge-sheeted, as should Tytler...
SA Gilkar
Wed Jan 13 2010 01:48
Mr Atul, It seems that your are using same practice which you indians always keep near to their hearts i.e denying tactics. By the way you are projecting other side of the Mujahideen war which came from Pakistan. It is believed that India was always having territorial intensions of Kashmir and Indian Intelligence financed the then Mujahideens to wag war on Kashmir, so that there is enough reasons to send Indian Military to Kashmir. To coup it and rule. Let me also inform you that, these are the same tribal guerillas which are wagging war on Pakistan and causing lot of casualties and murder, only on the instructions of Indian Intelligence about which hardcore evidences are with Pakistani Govt.

Now regarding the mass graves, i wonder that you have claimed that there may be Kashmiri Pandits within these grave yards. You might be joking or cover up case. If that would be the case then biased media of India may have created so much hola bola of this news. They might have raised this issue in UN as well, but what they did is shameful enough.

Regarding the migrant Hindus, It was the then Governor of Kashmir Jagmohan who preached them to migrate. Currently there are lots of Pandit brothers who live with us and they even demonstrate with us when ever we do. The leader of Kashmir Sangarash Samiti (Pandit Organisation who works for the welfare of Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir and Jammu) also bestowed their trust on the leadership of Syed Ali Shah Gheelani during full media glare in Srinagar. JagMohan was having the intension to cause same destruction (Mass exodus) which they caused to the Sikhs during Indhera Gandhi.

Today the Sikh and the Pandit brothers who live with us, feel same pain which we Muslims brothers feel and we are togetherly united to make our Land as Independent and live brotherly with not only with rest of the world but with India as well. we don't have any cruel intensions about India as India did. We want India should shine but not with the souls, Murders, Blood etc of Kashmiris.

Live Long and let us live!

Atul Varma
Tue Jan 12 2010 07:05
You are looking at it from a mistaken perspective, Anil. Pakistan waged a 20-year long Jihad war against India since 1989. What it did was to divert about 20,000 or so Mujahideen fighters-turned-terrorists from then-concluded Afghan-Soviet war into J&K, and recreated what was cast as an "insurgency" using propaganda, but which in reality was a terrorist war waged by Pakistan against India.

Most of the bodies found in those unmarked graves are likely those of KIA Mujahideen terrorists or those of Kashmiri Pundits on the run. Did you know that 400K to 500K of Kashmir Pandits were ethnic-cleansed out of the Kashmir valley, their homeland of 5000+ years, by the Pakistan-inserted terrorists?

With regards to the Kashmir situation itself, from the beginning, it was purely raw territorial ambition and aggression by Pakistan, and nothing else. In 1947 when India was partitioned, the rulers of all princely states, including King Hari Singh of Kashmir, were given three choices: either to join India or to join Pakistan, or to, instead, become an independent nation. When Hari Singh was mulling his options, Pakistan broke the standstill agreement it signed with him, cutoff supplies to Kashmir and sent in paramilitary forces with the goal of stealing Kashmir from King Hari Singh by force. That prompted the King to seek India's help and he got the same after signing the instrument of accession, thus joining his princely state with India.

Therefore, legally, all of Hari Singh's princely state of Kashmir became an integral part of India. Pakistan waged a war in 1948 and grabbed a piece of land (when Nehru pulled out of the war that India was winning) that is now Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). In 1962, China attacked India and grabbed Aksai Chin (Aksai Chin, along with a piece of land from PoK that Pakistan ceded to China in 1963, makes up China-occupied Kashmir (CoK)), all of which belonged to Hari Singh's Kashmir.

Pakistan thus has no legal case whatsoever for continuing its occupation of any part of Kashmir, and hence it should return the PoK area of Kashmir it currently occupies back to Indian control, shut down the 60 odd terrorist camps it operates against India, and allow India, a secular democracy, to develop the thus united Kashmir in peace, along with other Indian states.

Please see the following:
-- maps, documents and a host of other details about the Pakistan's terrorist war in Kashmir: http://kashmir101.blogspot.com/
-- Pakistan opens new terror camps after Mumbai assault, by Bill Roggio, September 26, 2009 http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/09/pakistan_opens_new_t.php







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