Afia Ambreen
March 16 is the darkest day in the history of Kashmir. It was on that day in 1846 when one of the most inhuman treaties of the human history was concluded through which the entire human population of Kashmir was sold by a trading company. The treaty, which is the root cause for most of the sufferings of Kashmiris, is the Treaty of Amritsar. The inhuman Treaty inflicted a deep wound on the Kashmiris mass psyche which refuses to heal, even after the lapse of more than one and a half century time period. After the First Anglo-Sikh War, under the terms of the Treaty of Amritsar signed on March 16, 1846, the British sold Kashmir to Maharaja Gulab Singh for rupees seventy five lac. The area comprised lands in Jammu and Kashmir ceded by the Sikhs through the Treaty of Lahore. Reportedly, it was done for the services rendered to the British by Gulab Singh during the Anglo-Sikh war. According to Article 1 of the treaty, Gulab Singh acquired all the hilly or mountainous country with its dependencies situated to the eastward of the River Indus and the westward of the River Ravi. The British also undertook the responsibility of protecting the princely state from external aggression. Before the partition of the Subcontinent, Raja Hari Singh had announced elections for Rajya Sabha in Kashmir in 1946; even Sheikh Abdullah had boycotted those elections and the boycott had continued up to 1975.
Indeed, the British were responsible for the unending cycle of slavery, violence and death and destruction by the Dogra Raj that followed the Treaty of Amritsar. Once again in August 1947 at the time of partition of the sub-continent in 1947, the British played ignominious role whereby India occupied Jammu and Kashmir through deceit and deception. United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on January 5, 1949 that gave Kashmiris right of self determination. As a result of the apathy shown by international community, the above resolution could not be implemented. No other nation perhaps has gone through such a long ordeal and sufferings in the history, and Kashmiris’ unending nightmare continues. In 1989, Kashmiri youth started armed struggle against atrocities and killings and ruthless exploitation by India’s military, and since then about 90000 Kashmiris have been martyred.
Besides Human Rights Watch, in its various reports, Amnesty International has also pointed out grave human rights violations in the Indian-controlled Kashmir, indicating, “The Muslim majority population in the Kashmir Valley suffers from the repressive tactics of the security forces. Under the Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, and the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act and Public Safety Act, security forces have extraordinary powers to shoot suspected persons.”
Particularly in 2008, a rights group reported unmarked graves in 55 villages across the Indian occupied Kashmir. In this context, in August, 2011, Indian Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) officially acknowledged in its report that innocent civilians killed in the two-decade conflict have been buried in unmarked graves. Notably, foreign sources and human rights organizations including Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) have pointed out that unnamed graves include thousands of innocent persons, killed by the Indian military and paramilitary troops in the fake encounters including those who were tortured to death.
It is notable that leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi has taken various steps to strengthen Indian illegal control on Kashmir. The Modi regime hurriedly decided to forcibly annex disputed territory of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, uncovering its intentions to wrap up the article 370 of the Indian constitution which ensures a special status to J&K. Therefore, United Nations Military Observer Group India and Pakistan in New Delhi was asked to vacate official accommodation. In fact, BJP government’s long term strategy is to affect demographic changes in the Indian occupied Kashmir by composition of the region predominately with Hindu population.
India is using different tactics to mislead the international community about the Kashmir dispute and to prolong its illegal occupation. Ironically, on the one hand, the rulers in New Delhi extend offer of talks to Pakistan and the Kashmiri Hurriyet leadership to find a resolution for the dispute, while on the other, they repeat the mantra of Jammu and Kashmir being an integral part of India. This duplicity has been the basic impediment in the way of resolution of the Kashmir dispute. It is a reality that Pakistan has always advocated resolution of the conflict over Kashmir through giving the Kashmiris their inalienable right to self-determination as promised by India and the world community.
