Kashmiris denied justice through military might

The root cause of Indo-Pak tensions and South Asia peace is the Kashmir dispute that remains unresolved for 74 years. Jammu and Kashmir, which continues to be a vexed issue and a lot has been said about its solution, in fact remains unresolved due to lack of trust between the two countries. The issue stemmed from the Kashmir policies adopted by India. India and Pakistan fought three wars and went ahead with their Kashmir policies. India has shown no flexibility in its rigid, military and communal based stand. India’s traditional stand has kept the people of Jammu and Kashmir hostage and its armed force killed more than five lakh Kashmiri since 1947.
People of Jammu and Kashmir have been struggling to liberate their homeland from the illegal occupation of India while they are as determined to achieve their goal as they were in 1947. However, India has violated international laws when Narendra Modi government revoked the Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution and treacherously abrogated the special status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)that guaranteed special rights to the Muslim-majority state, including the right to its own constitution and autonomy to make laws on all matters except defence, communications and foreign affairs.
In the lead-up to the move, India sent thousands of additional troops to the disputed region, imposed a crippling curfew, shut down telecommunications and internet, and arrested political leaders.
The latter was a clear violation of United Nations resolutions and the International Law. The Articles 370 and 35A were guaranteed by the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in January 1950 and by the virtue of such, IIOJK was allocated four seats in the Indian Lok Sabha. Hence, IIOJK was given pseudo internal autonomy and the New Delhi was to deal only with matters pertaining to “defence, external affairs, and communications.” The Article 370 (originally 306-A), though was the brainchild of Nehru; nonetheless, it was drafted by Gopalaswami Ayyengar along with National Conference’s Sheikh Abdullah. More importantly it gave the disputed territory a sense of hollow autonomy.  The Article 35A was also attributed as “permanent residents’ law.” It allowed the local legislature to identify the “permanent residents” and was aimed at protecting the demography, local economy and political existence of the region. It was to make sure that Kashmir remains exclusively to the Kashmiris including privileges related to employment, scholarship, and private ownership. The law was introduced in 1954 through presidential order and it comes under the premises of article 370.

India after 5 Aug 2019 exhausted its all resources to suppress the righteous demand of right to self-determination or freedom of Kashmiris but could not succeed in its nefarious design. New Delhi have been employing various tactics to defame the Kashmiris’ just struggle for right to self-determination and project it as terrorism but all such plans failed to mislead the international community about the Kashmir dispute.

The annexation of IIOJK through Reorganization Act-2019 by New Delhi on August 5, 2019, could be deemed as a clear violation of international law, particularly United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

It was October 27, 1947, when India landed its army in Jammu and Kashmir, putting aside the Indian Independence Act and Partition Plan, and against the wishes and aspirations of the Kashmiri people. Indian troops, the forces of Dogra Maharaja Hari Singh, and Hindu extremists slaughtered over 300,000 Kashmiri Muslims within a period of two months in a bid to change the demographic composition of the territory.

Right from day one, the people of Kashmir did not accept India’s illegal occupation and have been carrying on their liberation struggle since. They started an armed struggle with the total support of the public in 1948, which forced India to approach the UN Security Council to seek help from the World Body to settle the dispute. The UN Security Council passed several Resolutions, asking the concerned parties to take steps to improve the situation and recommended the establishment of a mediator body to find out a lasting solution of the Kashmir dispute. It also called for holding of plebiscite to ascertain the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

The most shocking aspect of the Kashmir dispute is that India itself had taken the dispute to the United Nations but after that it backed away from the promises it had made in front of the comity of nations, regarding the settlement of the dispute and providing the people of Kashmir with their basic right of self-determination.

United Nations resolutions on Kashmir acknowledge Kashmiris’ voice “The question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite” Document No S/ 1196, Para 15, of UN Resolution dated 5 January 1949. People of Kashmir have not decided their future and India occupied the Valley militarily and is inflicting State terrorism. India should adopt a realistic attitude and fulfil its promises, which it had made to the people of Kashmir and the world that the Kashmiri people have a right to decide their future, which has not yet been fulfilled. “The question of accession is to be decided finally in a free plebiscite, on this there is no dispute. There will be no victimization of any native of the State, whatever his political view may be, and no Kashmiri will be deprived of the right to vote” (White Paper on Kashmir issued by Government of India, 1948).
“ … I confess, however, that I find myself unable to suggest anything beyond what I have offered already, namely, to ask UNO to send impartial observers to advise us regarding the plebiscite.” (Jawahar Lal Nehru’s telegram to Liaqut Ali Khan, December 12, 1947) “…We all agreed that it is the people of Kashmir who must decide for themselves about their future externally or internally. It is an obvious fact that, even without our agreement, no country is going to hold on to Kashmir against the will of the Kashmiris”. (Prime Minister Nehru’s statement at a press conference in London, January 16,1951, reported in The Statesman, New Delhi January 18,1951) “ We had given our pledge to the people of Kashmir, and subsequently to the United Nations; we stood by it and we stand by it today. Let the people of Kashmir decide”.(Prime Minister Nehru’s statement in Indian Parliament, February 12, 1951). Indian leadership has no right, who acknowledged Kashmir a disputed territory in international forum, to occupy the people’s sentiments and political right militarily and undemocratically. “Even at the moment of accession, we went out of our way to make a unilateral declaration that we would abide by the will of the people of Kashmir as declared in a plebiscite or referendum. We insisted further that the Government of Kashmir must immediately become a popular government. We have adhered to that position throughout and we are prepared to have a plebiscite, with every protection for fair voting, and to abide by the decision of the people of Kashmir”.
“…Ultimately there is no doubt in my mind that, in Kashmir as elsewhere, the people of Kashmir will decide finally, and all that we wish is that they should have freedom of decision without any external compulsion”. (Nehru’s statesman in Constituent Assembly of India, March 5,1948) Caught between the guns, the Kashmiris hardly have any say. Nobody is really bothered about the plight of Kashmiris.
Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control and across the world observing Accession to Pakistan Day, on 19th July every year, is of special significance and an important day in the history of Jammu and Kashmir when the Kashmiri people had attached their future with Pakistan in 1947.

It was on this day in 1947 that the Kashmiris adopted a historic resolution from the platform of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference at the residence of Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan in Aabi Guzar area of Srinagar, calling for accession of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan.

The historic resolution called for the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan in view of its existing religious, geographical, cultural and economic proximity to Pakistan and aspirations of millions of the Kashmiri Muslims.

The development had come almost a month before the creation of two sovereign states of Pakistan and India under the Partition Plan of the British Indian colony on August 14 and 15 respectively, the same year.

As per the understanding behind the Partition Plan, the Princely States were free to accede to either of the two newly established countries. The decision of 19th July 1947 was a testimony to the fact that the people of Kashmir had linked their future with Pakistan. They took the decision of joining Pakistan to protect their political, religious, social, cultural and economic rights, as they were well aware of their fate under Hindus who had deep-seated animosity for Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir.

Over 500,000 Kashmiris have laid down their lives for Jammu and Kashmir’s right to self-determination demand and from Indian illegal occupation during the last over seven decades. It said the worst kind of Indian military might police and brutalities have failed to wipe out the Kashmiris’ stand.

A report said Indian troops in their continued acts of state terrorism have martyred over 96,213Kashmiris including 7297 in custody since January 1989. It said the troops have subjected at least 8,000 Kashmiri youth to custodial disappearance, molested over 11,259 women and destroyed and damaged as many as 110,500 houses/shops/structures during the period while over four thousand Kashmiris still remain lodged in different jails of occupied Kashmir and India. However, the report added, these atrocities have not been able to force the Kashmiri people to give up their just cause and they are determined to continue their struggle to achieve their cherished goal

The traditional rigidity and stubbornness of India has also frustrated numerous efforts made by the world community to resolve the issue during the last more than seven decades, putting the security and peace of the entire South Asia constantly at stake.
It is duty of the world community to pay its role for the resolution of Kashmir, implement the resolution that “the question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India and Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite” and convince India to shun military and communal policy on Jammu and Kashmir, to stop human rights violations and create congenial atmosphere and conducive conditions for the resolution of Kashmir.