Qammer Abbass Anka
“Let us never cease to feel compassion for those in want. Let us never tire of helping victims of injustice and oppression. He who puts his faith in the restoration of human dignity cannot be wrong”.
(Poul Hartling)
Kashmir, the most picturesque area on the globe, known for its beauty, gardens and gentle people has been reduced to a region of ghosts because of the tyrant means adopted by India to suppress the just voices of Kashmiris for their legitimate right of plebiscite. Let me take my dear readers back in space and time when an altar of perpetual bloodshed and grave human rights violations was erected in Sub-continent. The place was none but Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) and time was 27 October 1947, merely two months after the division of sub continent. On this date while brazenly violating ‘Partition Plan of the Indian Sub-continent’ and totally putting aside every law and legislation, India forcibly landed its troops in princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Main black hats of this gory drama were Maharaja Hari Singh, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir and Cyril Radcliff, head of the Boundary Commission. Jammu and Kashmir was a Muslim majority State and had a natural tendency and public aspiration to accede to Pakistan owing to its geography, culture and religion. It was also in line with formula of Partition Plan agreed among the Britain, Hindu and the Muslim leaders. In blatant violation of Partition Plan and against the popular will of Kashmiri Muslim, India announced the accession of Jammu and Kashmir under a controversial Instrument of Accession.
Right from the onset, the people of IOK did not accept India’s illegal occupation. According to Che Guevara, “When forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken”. As a natural reaction to Indian injustice, people of IOK organized themselves and launched a freedom movement which India tried to crush through coercion and tyranny. The armed men from tribal areas entered into Jammu and Kashmir to support peoples’ movement. Frustrated from a genuine and legitimate freedom movement, India on January 1, 1948, approached UN Security Council (UNSC) to address the matter. The UNSC through its successive resolutions declared Indian occupation as illegal, declared it null and void and accorded IOK the status of ‘a disputed territory’. UNSC approved a ceasefire, demarcation of the ceasefire line, demilitarization of the state and a free and impartial plebiscite to be conducted under the supervision of the International Body. Although the ceasefire and demarcation of the ceasefire line were implemented but demilitarization of the occupied territory and a free and impartial plebiscite under the UN supervision remain unimplemented till date putting Kashmir dispute in limbo. As a result of the demarcation, about 139,000 square kilometers area of Jammu and Kashmir remained with India while 83,807 square kilometers constituted the territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Till 1957, Indian rulers announced that they would provide the Kashmiris the right to decide their future themselves. The first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had announced on many occasions that Kashmir was a dispute and the Kashmiris would be given an opportunity to choose their political destiny. Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru who in his speech in 1948 aired on All India Radio, reaffirmed Indian Government’s commitment to the right of Kashmiri people to determine their own future through a plebiscite. He said, “We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. The pledge we have given, and the Moharaja has supported it, not only to people of J&K, but also to the World. We will not and cannot back out of it. We are prepared when peace and law have been established to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations. We want it to be a fair and just reference to the people and we shall accept their verdict”. The pledge still remains unfulfilled and the struggle for Kashmiris’ inalienable right to self-determination continues.
Seeing the futility of all peaceful means to settle the Kashmir dispute, the Kashmiris rejuvenated their freedom struggle in late 80s to end the status quo and secure their right to self-determination. Later, frustrated over the progress of freedom movement, in 1988, India positioned very large contingent of Armed Forces to suppress Kashmir struggle through coercion and intimidation. Since then, Indian Occupied Kashmir has become a fountain head of gross human rights violations. With advent of Indian occupational forces, the ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kashmiri people has intensified manifolds. Now the word ‘Genocide’ seems very small and shallow to depict Indian loathing and vendetta against Muslims of IOK. Long tenures of curfew, looting of houses, forced disappearances, gang rapes, arrests,mutilated bodies of innocent people and hundreds of youth blinded through pallet guns is what IOK is all about today. So far, more than 100,000 killings have been done by Indian occupational forces besides thousands of rapes. The death count is growing with every passing day. Unfortunately, to hoodwink the World, these State sponsored human rights violations are legitimized under the cover of draconian laws like AFSPA.
Unfortunately in today’s era of peace and human respect, the terrible and heinous massacre of Muslim populace of IOK is continuing since seven decades without any break. Today in this global village where you can access any place, anyone at any time, how the international community can be oblivious of a region where people are being massacred in every town and village, where people are being picked up and thrown into dark jails in unknown parts, where there are dungeons in the city where hundreds of young men are kept in heavy chains and from where many never emerge alive, where there are thousands who disappear leaving behind women with photographs and perennial waiting, where there are multitudes of dead bodies on the roads, in hospital beds, in fresh martyrs’ graveyards and scattered casually on the snow of mindless borders. The catastrophe is big enough to move any conscious human being. Unfortunately, the callous insensitivity of international community is encouraging India to cross all limits of gross human rights violations.
In order to awaken the conscious of international community, every year, the people of Kashmir all over the World, observe 27 October as ‘Black Day’. The Black Day is aimed at drawing the world attention towards the miseries of Kashmiri people. The Black Day urges the international community to realize their global, moral and social responsibility to feel the agony and sufferings of people of IOK. It reminds that their voices together can awake UN, the highest body for restoration of peace from deep slumber of indolence and urge it to implement their own resolutions indiscriminately. The Black Day is also a warning to the super powers that they must abandon policies of hypocrisy and appeasement and while staying above vested interests should stand united with innocent people of IOK in their legitimate struggle for freedom.
The Government and people of Pakistan are totally committed to the liberation of their Kashmiri brethren. We are certain that they will not tire; neither will they falter in the long and bitter struggle until the right of self determination, as pledged to them in the resolutions of the Security Council and the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan. It is our firm belief that in providing moral support to people of IOK in their peaceful struggle, we are striving to uphold the high purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations – to avert the danger to international peace in Asia and the World and to promote respect for human rights. At this moment, both stand in peril. History is witness that the freedom can be delayed by oppression, but it cannot be ultimately denied. The people of Kashmir will one day be free.
Elie Wiesel rightly said, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentors, not the tormented. Wherever anyone is persecuted for their race or political views, that place must become the center of the universe”.
