Muhammad
Raza Malik
Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of
Control and across the globe observe October 27 as Black Day and consider it as
the darkest day in the history of Jammu and Kashmir. This is the day when India
landed its army in Srinagar, against the will of the Kashmiri people and in
total disregard to the Indian Independence Act and Partition Plan in 1947.
As per the Partition Plan the Indian
British Colony was to be divided into two sovereign states, India and Pakistan.
Hindu-majority areas were to form India while Muslim-majority areas of Western
provinces and East Bengal were to constitute Pakistan. The Plan had given the
then princely states the choice to join either of the two countries keeping in
view their geographical situation and communal demography but India forcibly
occupied Hyderabad, Junagarh and Jammu and Kashmir. Hyderabad and Junagarh were
Hindu-majority states with Muslims rulers. Jammu and Kashmir was a
Muslim-majority state and had a natural tendency to accede to Pakistan, but its
Hindu ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, announced accession of the state to India
under a controversial document (Instrument of Accession) thus laying the
foundation of the Kashmir Dispute. Many neutral observers reject the existence
of any such document on ground because, had it been there Indian government
would have made it public either officially or at some international fora.
In a bid to punish the Kashmiris for
their aspiration to join Pakistan and with the intention to change the
demographic composition of the territory to turn the results in favour of India
in any referendum in future, Indian troops, the forces of Dogra Maharaja, and
Hindu extremists massacred over three hundred thousand Kashmiri Muslims within
a period of two months in Jammu division.
It is a historical fact that if the
partition had been done on the principles of justice then India had no land
route to enter into Jammu and Kashmir. But the so-called Boundary Commission,
headed by British Barrister, Cyril Radcliff, that demarcated partition line,
under a conspiracy split Gurdaspur, a Muslim majority area, and handed it over
to India, providing it terrestrial access to the territory.
The people of Kashmir rejected India’s
illegal occupation right from the day one and started an armed struggle with
total public support in 1947. They were able to free a vast area now known as
Azad Jammu and Kashmir on the world map. On seeing its forces at the verge of a
humiliating defeat, India approached the UN Security Council on January 1,
1948, seeking its help to settle the Kashmir dispute. Successive resolutions
passed by the Security Council nullified Indian invasion and occupation of
Kashmir. Through the resolutions passed on August 13, 1948, and January 5,
1949, the UN 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 World Body. Although one part of these
resolutions (ceasefire and demarcation of ceasefire line) was implemented,
however, demilitarization of Jammu and Kashmir and holding of a plebiscite
still remain unimplemented.
Indian rulers, surrendering before the
Kashmiris’ determination and international pressure, promised before the world
community to resolve the dispute and to give the people of Kashmir an
opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination, but later
backtracked from their commitments. The continued callous attitude of India
towards permanently settling the conflict over Kashmir had been a constant
threat to the peace, security and stability of the entire South Asian region
for the last more than six decades. After the consistent denial of their right
to self-determination, the people of occupied Kashmir started a massive
uprising in 1989. It gathered velocity with the passage of time and forced New
Delhi rulers to negotiate with Pakistan to hammer out a resolution of the
conflict over Kashmir. The talks process between Pakistan and India started in January
2004 and continued till the occurrence of Mumbai attacks on November 26, 2008.
After the incident India wasted no time in putting the responsibility of these
attacks on Pakistan and its intelligence agencies without any substantive
evidence. An officer of Indian home ministry later revealed that India itself
had orchestrated the Parliament and Mumbai attacks to strengthen its
anti-terror laws. The dialogue process resumed after a meeting between Prime
Ministers of the two countries, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and Manmohan Singh, at
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in July 2009. It continued with hiccups and was once
again suspended after India called off the Foreign Secretary-level talks
scheduled in Islamabad on August 25, this year, on the pretext of meetings between
Pakistan High Commissioner, Abdul Basit, and Kashmiri Hurriyet leaders in New
Delhi, a few days before the scheduled talks. Indian state terrorism and the
unbridled powers given to the occupation troops under draconian laws like Armed
Forces Special Powers Act had not been able to suppress the Kashmiris’ resolve
to secure their right to self-determination for the past nearly seven decades.
During the last 21 years only, the troops have martyred over ninety-three
thousand Kashmiris, widowed more than twenty-two thousand women, orphaned not
less than one hundred thousand children and molested or gang-raped around ten
thousand Kashmiri women. Thousands of innocent youth have been subjected to
disappearance in custody and their whereabouts remain untraced. The shocking
discovery of unmarked and unnamed graves in the territory puts serious question
mark over the safety of the disappeared youth. Even the European Union
Parliament unanimously passed a resolution in its session in Strasbourg on July
10, 2008, asking India to conduct an independent and impartial investigation to
ascertain the identity of the people buried in these graves. This demand is yet
to be fulfilled. The Kashmiris’ struggle to get rid of Indian bondage took a
new turn in 2008. They started taking to the streets in large numbers and
expressing their anti-India and pro-liberation sentiments in a peaceful manner.
This mass uprising continued for three consecutive years - at times the number
of peaceful protesters thronging the streets of Srinagar exceeding one-million
mark. But most of the time these peaceful demonstrators were dealt with
excessive use of brute force by Indian troops and police personnel. The
occupation forces killed over 125 peaceful protesters within a period of just
few months in 2010 alone for challenging Indian rule on their motherland and
demanding freedom from it. Unfortunately, instead of taking these massive
demonstrations as a referendum against its illegal hold on Kashmir, New Delhi
once again resorted to dilly-dallying tactics like interlocution and sending
different delegations to Kashmir to buy time and pacify tempers in the occupied
territory. History stands testimony to the fact that Pakistani leadership and
people have always supported the Kashmiris’ just liberation struggle and the
incumbent Prime Minister, Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, and the Army Chief, General
Raheel Sharif, just like the father of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali
Jinnah, have termed Jammu and Kashmir as the jugular vein of Pakistan. Islamabad
has always been advocating peaceful settlement of the Kashmir dispute in
accordance with the Kashmiris’ aspirations. It is evident from the recent
speech of Mohammad Nawaz Sharif in the UN General Assembly wherein he appealed
to the world community to play an effective role in settling the lingering
dispute. The Pakistan Prime Minister, with the hope that the relations between
the two countries would improve and pave way for resolving their all
outstanding issues including the conflict over Kashmir, had even responded
positively to the invitation extended to him by the Indian Prime Minister,
Narendra Modi, to attend his oath-taking ceremony in May this year. However,
Narendra Modi-led government’s some recent actions like initiating debate for
abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that grants special status
to Jammu and Kashmir, settling of Kashmiri Pandits in high security separate
cities in the Kashmir Valley, ordering of the United Nations Military Observer
Group in India and Pakistan to vacate its office in New Delhi and cancellation
of Foreign Secretary-level talks show its non-seriousness towards resolution of
the dispute.
These are the reasons for observance
of October 27 as Black Day by the Kashmiris all across the globe. The
observance is intended to draw world’s attention towards the miseries and
plight of the Kashmiri people and appeal to the international community to come
forward and help resolve the lingering dispute in accordance with their
aspirations and as per the relevant UN resolutions. It is also aimed at sending
a loud and clear message to New Delhi that the Kashmiris reject its illegal
occupation of their motherland and that they would continue their struggle till
they achieved their inalienable right to self-determination.
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
(The
writer is a Senior News Editor at Kashmir Media Service and can be reached at
razamalik849@yahoo.com)
المشاركات
0 التعليقات:
إرسال تعليق