THE KASHMIR SOLIDARITY DAY
By M
Raza Malik
Pakistanis, here and across the
globe, have been observing 5th February every year since 1991, as Kashmir
Solidarity Day to convey the message that at this time of trial they are with
the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who have been rendering matchless sacrifices,
for the last 63 years, to secure their inalienable right to self-determination,
promised to them by the international community.
The people of Pakistan are bound to
express solidarity with their Kashmiri brethren, as they share common cultural,
ideological, geographical and emotional ties, which have fastened them into one
unity for centuries. There is no denying of this historic fact that the Kashmir
dispute is the unfinished part of the partition of the Indian subcontinent and
peace in the South Asian region can not be established without resolving it in
accordance with the Kashmiris’ aspirations.
In order to realize the importance of
the Kashmir Solidarity Day one needs to understand the history of India’s
occupation on Kashmir, which dates back to the partition of the Indian Subcontinent.
According to Partition Plan in 1947, the Indian British Colony was to be
divided into two sovereign states: India comprising Hindu-majority areas, and
Pakistan constituted by the Muslim-majority areas of Western provinces and East
Bengal.
The partition plan had given the
princely states the choice to accede either to Pakistan or to India,
considering their geography and demography. As Jammu and Kashmir was a
Muslim-majority state, with 87% Muslim population, it had a natural tendency to
accede to Pakistan. But the then Hindu ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh and the
Indian National Congress by announcing Kashmir’s accession with India under a
well thought out conspiracy sowed the seeds of destruction of the future of the
Kashmiri people. India landed its paramilitary forces in the territory by
totally violating the partition plan and against the wishes and aspirations of
the Kashmiris.
Right from October 27, 1947, the day
when Indian forces landed in the occupied territory, the people of Jammu and
Kashmir never accepted India’s illegal occupation of their motherland and they
have been struggling to liberate it from Indian subjugation. Their liberation
struggle forced India to seek the help of the international community to settle
the Kashmir dispute. On January 1, 1948, sensing the defeat to its forces, it
approached the United Nations Security Council, which in its successive
resolutions, accepted by both Pakistan and India, promised that a free and
impartial plebiscite would be conducted by the UN and the people of Kashmir
would be given the opportunity to decide their future themselves.
On October 27, 1947, the first head of the
Indian state, Lord Mountbatten, is on record having said that since the
“question of accession [of Kashmir] should be decided 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 the state’s
accession should be settled by a reference to the people.” The first Prime
Minister of India, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, whose government took the Kashmir
dispute to the United Nations, on June 26, 1952, told Indian parliament, “If …
the people of Kashmir do not wish to remain with us, let them go by all means;
we will not keep them against their will, however painful it may [be] for us.”
Despite these pledges and commitments
by the Indian rulers, the people of Kashmir keep on suffering atrocities at the
hands of the occupation troops and their miseries continue unabated. One of the
most awful aspects of the Kashmir dispute is the fact that India had taken the
dispute to the United Nations itself but later backed away from the promises,
it had made before the international community, to resolve the dispute over
Kashmir and to let the Kashmiri people chose their destiny by themselves.
It is very lamenting that India
claims itself to be the biggest democracy of the world but it continues to
suppress the democratic rights of the Kashmiri people with military might. It
also describes the Jammu and Kashmir as its integral part in total contrast to
the UN resolutions, which describe Jammu and Kashmir as disputed territory.
Furthermore, the most deplorable aspect of the picture is that while Pakistan
demonstrates considerable flexibility in the dialogue process, Indian
intransigent approach remains the biggest hurdle in the resolution of the
Kashmir dispute.
History stands testimony to the
reality that despite exhausting all its resources, India has failed to deter
the Kashmiris from continuing their struggle for securing the right to
self-determination. Its forces have broken all the records of human rights
violations in the occupied territory. Indian troops have martyred over
ninety-two thousand civilians in occupied Kashmir, killing thousands in
custody. These killings rendered more than twenty five thousand women widowed
and over one-lac children orphaned. The troops have molested around ten
thousand Kashmiri women during the past 20 years and have constantly been using
the molestation of women as a tool to suppress the Kashmiris’ spirit of
freedom. The whereabouts of thousands of innocent Kashmiris, disappeared in
troops’ custody, are yet to be revealed. But all these cruelties could not
refrain the Kashmiris raising their voice for freedom from Indian bondage.
Thousands of people in occupied
Kashmir poured into streets during the second half of 2008 against the transfer
of Kashmiris’ land to non-Kashmiris and in 2009 following the rape and
subsequent murder of two Kashmiri women in Shopian in May. They conveyed a
strong message to India and the international community that the human rights
violations would continue to occur in the occupied territory as long as Indian
troops were present there.
To reaffirm their political, moral
and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir like always, this year too,
Pakistanis will hold conferences, seminars, demonstrations and various
functions. These activities will be aimed at highlighting various dimensions of
the Kashmir dispute besides the state terrorism unleashed by India in the
occupied territory would be projected in a factual manner. The observance of
the day is also intended to remind the international community that it has a
moral obligation to play its role in resolving the dispute over Kashmir in
accordance with the Kashmiris’ aspirations.
The fact is that the hearts of the
Pakistanis throb in unison with their Kashmiri brethren. They feel not only the
pain of Indian state terrorism against the Kashmiris but also their sufferings
due to natural disasters, the glaring example of which was witnessed after the
devastating earthquake of October 2005. The world observed how massively the
Pakistani people transported relief goods and provided aid for the
rehabilitation to the people in the calamity-hit areas of Azad Jammu and
Kashmir.
In the nutshell the 5th of February
is a day to pay tribute to the unique sacrifices of the Kashmiri people, who
have been carrying on their struggle of freedom with devotion. The observance
is also intended to convey India that it cannot hold on Kashmir against the
will of the people for long and that it will have to give the Kashmiris the
right to live freely.
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The writer is a Senior News Editor at
Kashmir Media Service and can be reached at razamalik849@yahoo.com
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