Comment by Riaz Haq on December 18, 2018 at 7:52am

Gone are days when sight of an armored vehicle was enough to send entire villages into hiding. Now, #Kashmiri civilians rush in front of heavily armed #Indian military trucks. Of 250 known militants today, #Kashmir police say only 50 are from #Pakistan. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/world/asia/kashmir-civilians-tee...

In 2016, the nature of civilian protests took a turn when Burhan Muzaffar Wani, a charismatic militant leader with a vast following on social media, was fatally shot in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir.

Kashmiris poured into homegrown militant groups like Hizbul Mujahideen. A network of locals who fed information to Indian intelligence officers temporarily broke down, allowing the number of militants to swell.

Pakistan’s role in supplying arms and recruits also receded, according to Kashmiri police officials, though Western intelligence officers say Pakistan is still actively supporting several militant groups.

Yasin Malik, a separatist leader who led an armed struggle against Indian security forces in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said the ranks of militant groups would continue to grow. A peaceful resolution in Kashmir became impossible, he said, when locals who tried demonstrating against the police continued to meet “brute force.”

“There is no space for a nonviolent political movement,” he said. “They are fighting because everyone has failed them.”
Violence is rising again in the region, where India has presided over a bloody campaign to hunt down those fighting a quixotic battle for independence. This year, according to police officials in Kashmir, Indian security forces have killed more than 240 militants, the highest annual toll in more than a decade.

But along with the combatants’ deaths has come a new set of casualties: those of civilians who try to defend them. Gone are the days when the sight of an armored vehicle was enough to send entire villages into hiding. Now, civilians are rushing in front of the heavily armed trucks, using stones and their own bodies to try to block security forces.

Last week, seven civilians were killed after inserting themselves between militants and advancing officers.

“This is a new phenomenon,” said Sheikh Showkat Hussain, an international law professor at the Central University of Kashmir. “Civilians have always supported militants, but never with such conviction.”

This year, rights groups say, at least 148 civilians have been killed. Many were teenagers.

For decades, Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan have fought for control of Kashmir, sending millions of troops to square off along a disputed border hundreds of miles long.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 19, 2018 at 8:37pm

#Pakistan Scores a Rare Diplomatic Victory on #Kashmir. The #oicinmog2018 condemning ‘#Indian #terrorism ’ in Kashmir is a diplomatic triumph for Pakistan. #Modi #Muslims #Islamophobia #Hindutva @Diplomat_APAC http://thediplomat.com/2018/12/pakistan-scores-a-rare-diplomatic-vi...

On Monday, the General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) issued a condemnation for the “wicked terrorist act by Indian forces in Indian-occupied Kashmir” after seven civilians were killed in Pulwama district on Saturday.

The OIC condemnation came after Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi wrote to the secretary general, with the United Nations secretary general and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also being approached.

While the OIC has called out Indian state brutalities in the past, the severity of the language in its latest statement is unprecedented, with the group categorically dubbing the Indian armed forces’ action “terrorism.”

Over the years, the OIC has largely expressed “deep concern” and “disappointment” and requested “restraint” in Indian-administered Kashmir. Even when violence escalated in summar 2016 following militant commander Burhan Wani’s killing in Kashmir, the then-OIC Secretary General Iyad Ameen Madani could only “express sorrow.”

Therefore, the language of the OIC’s condemnation this week is a clear diplomatic triumph for Pakistan, which has seen its narrative on Kashmir being increasingly ignored around the world, including Muslim states.

This was perfectly epitomized at the U.S. President Donald Trump-led Arab Islamic American summit in Riyadh last year. Trump, speaking amid representatives of the Muslim world, not only snubbed Pakistan, but actually called out Kashmiri separatist militancy as “terrorism.”

Probably the greatest demonstration of Muslim states’ indifference toward Kashmir is Saudi Arabia signing defense and counterterror pacts with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, under whose watch there has been an increase in anti-Muslim violence across India.

Pakistan’s diplomatic isolation, and the decreasing number of takers of its position in Kashmir, means that Islamabad has been increasingly hyphenating Kashmir and Palestine in a bid to gather more support around the world. Yet the Palestinian leadership has failed to back Pakistan’s Kashmir stance, and Israel maintains “there is no difference between Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hamas.” Islamabad has largely been devoid of diplomatic backing.

Hence, at a time while Islamist militancy is being universally shunned as terrorism, for the OIC to describe Indian state action as such provides legitimacy to Islamabad’s Islamist narrative – even if the backing has come from a group that represents Muslim states.

Pakistan will be looking to cash in on the diplomatic brownie points that it has won against India. Even so, Pakistan’s leaders are clearly not giving any thought to how Islamabad’s Islamist narrative on Kashmir has been detrimental for Pakistan itself.

The mullah-military stranglehold over the country has brewed jihadism in Pakistan for decades, with the military establishment’s desire to channelize militant Islamist groups toward India and Afghanistan having resulted in a boomeranging of terror on the state itself.

While tens of thousands of lost their lives owing to the jihadist maneuvers of the groups that got out of the Pakistan Army’s control, it has been mainstreaming the outfits so as to keep a check on the civilian leadership.

Hence, upholding the Islamist narrative continues to fuel jihadism in Kashmir, while sustaining the multipurpose “strategic assets,” whose militants are deployed for cross-border assignments while their political wings clip civilian authority.

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Comment by Riaz Haq on December 30, 2018 at 5:00pm

Use of force is #NewDelhi’s state policy, says former Indian foreign minister @YashwantSinha . we have made mistakes after mistakes as far as our policy on #Indian Occupied #Kashmir is concerned”. #Modi #BJP https://tribune.com.pk/story/1877421/1-use-force-new-delhis-state-p...

Former Indian Foreign Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha has said that Government of India has been suppressing the freedom struggle of the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir by the use of brute force.

According to Kashmir Media Service, Yashwant Sinha in an interview with a Delhi-based news portal said that he got this impression after visiting Indian Occupied Kashmir twice during which he had discussions with a senior government official on the situation of the territory.

“I was told there is a doctrine state – Machiavelli, Chankaya, Metternich. Everybody has a doctrine of state. So we have a doctrine of state also, and that doctrine is use force to quell any rebellion,” he said without naming the official he met. “So they are using force,” he added.
Sinha added, “All the visits I made, I have travelled around. I was not confined to one place. I told you how the Nepalese hate India. But the hatred in the minds of the people of the valley is far stronger than that in Nepal.”

The former minister also said that the Government of India had “ruined its relationship with the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir, especially the valley”.
“After the official told me that use of force is a state policy I stood up and told him Nameste,” Sinha said.

In solidarity: ‘India cannot suppress Kashmiris through force’

He decried that “we have made mistakes after mistakes as far as our policy on Indian Occupied Kashmir is concerned”.

He said the current Indian government only believes in using force “to solve problems, not consensus, nor democracy, nor Insaniyat but sheer use of brutal force to kill as many as you can”.

“What happened in Pulwama recently?” he asked, adding, “Do you think that it adds to the glory of the Indian state in the minds of the people of Kashmir.”

“We are losing Indian Occupied Kashmir”, he said.

“We have lost . .….We hold on to Indian Occupied Kashmir only by the fact that we have our armed forces there,” he added .

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 24, 2019 at 8:01pm

Stats on destruction of lives and property in #India Occupied #Kashmir

Killings: 94,479
Custodial killings: 7,048
Disappearances: 10,125
Gang rapes: 10,283
Civilans blinded: 188
Kids orphaned: 20,085
Women widowed: 20,005
Buildings destroyed: 106,071

https://medium.com/@cjwerleman/why-the-world-ignores-indias-violenc...

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 13, 2019 at 10:37am

This could become a self fulfilling prophesy if #Modi’s brutal oppression of #Kashmiris continues: #Kashmiris are preparing to take their jihad to pan-#India level and hit major #Indian cities in a big way

https://www.firstpost.com/india/message-from-anantnag-kashmirs-litt...

Inside Kashmir, there is a growing cohort of recruits willing to sacrifice their lives in fidayeen operations—something few were willing to do a generation earlier. Perhaps more important, the new-generation jihadists are seeking new fields for battle—their imaginations fired not by Kashmiri religious nationalism, but the global jihadist project.

For more than a year now, Al-Qaeda has been seeking means to transform the unwinnable war of attrition against Indian forces in Kashmir, by instead inflicting pain on the country’s cities.

The grenades tossed into the Maqsudan police station could prove to be the first shots fired by this new generation of little Osama Bin Ladens.

Little Bin Laden

Last week, one of the men behind the Punjab grenade attack, Abdul Hameed Lone, took charge of Kashmir’s fledgling Al-Qaeda unit—and of its project to transform the region’s conflict into a pan-India terror campaign. Born in 1990, to lower-middle class parents, Lone (also identified as Abdul Hameed Lelhari) grew up in the village of Lelhar, on the banks of the Jhelum, in the heart of southern Kashmir’s apple-growing country. His journey helps understand the generation of jihadists who have emerged from the debris of two decades of incessant conflict.

Lone completed his early school education from the Evergreen Public School, one of the private educational institutions that had sprung up across the region as public education collapsed amidst the conflict. In grade 5, though, straitened circumstances forced them to move him to a free, government school. Then, three years later, he dropped out of education altogether. He worked as a labourer, a cook, and then a mason.

Lone, family sources say, began exhibiting an interest in religion around this time. He turned to the Jama’at Ahl-e-Hadith—a neo-fundamentalist movement that was brought to Kashmir in 1925 by Sayyed Hussain Shah Batku, a Delhi seminary student who preached against the region’s Hinduism-inspired syncretic religious practices, such as worship at the shrines of saints, the veneration of relics, and the recitation of litanies before namaz prayers.

Early on, the Ahl-e-Hadith came under attack in Kashmir, from peasant clerics who charged Batku with being an apostate, and even the dajjal, or devil incarnate. Its message, though, resonated with an emerging, literate class. Though small, the historian Chitralekha Zutshi has pointed out, the “influence of the Ahl-e-Hadith on the conflicts over Kashmiri identities cannot be overemphasised”.

------------------

Even if Pakistan is compelled to shut down jihadist operations on its soil, though, Lone’s story shows the problem won’t end there: India faces a generation which believes sacrificing their lives will open the doors to utopia.

In the absence of genuine political outreach to stall the youth rage in Kashmir, the government’s post-Balakot gains could prove illusory. For each terrorist eliminated, Lone’s story shows, there are several others lining up to die for the jihad—and willing to kill for it.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 13, 2019 at 8:47pm

Long Undeclared #Emergency in #India. Draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act grants security forces broad powers to arrest, shoot to #kill, occupy or #destroy property without fear of legal challenge in #Kashmir and northeastern states. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/07/18/indira-gandhi-long-unde... via @nybooks

Speaking on November 25, 1949, just as India became a democratic republic, B.R. Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Indian constitution, exhorted his countrymen to maintain “democracy not merely in form, but also in fact.” Ambedkar, born in a low, formerly untouchable Hindu caste (Dalits), had ensured a progressive character to the constitution. It promulgated universal adult franchise in an overwhelmingly illiterate population; conferred citizenship without reference to race, caste, religion, or creed; proclaimed secularism in a deeply religious country; and upheld equality in a society marked by entrenched inequalities. The constitution made Indian democracy seem another milestone on humankind’s journey to freedom and dignity.

Ambedkar, however—as Gyan Prakash writes in Emergency Chronicles, his acute analysis of the sudden collapse of democracy in India in the mid-1970s—was “convinced that Indian society lacked democratic values.” India’s new ruling elite “had not broken from the hold of the privileged landed classes and upper castes.” Inheriting power from the country’s departing British rulers in 1947, they presided over a “passive” revolution from above rather than a radical socioeconomic transformation from below. This is why Ambedkar felt that in a society riven by caste and class, where neither equality nor fraternity was established as a principle, “political democracy” urgently needed to be supplemented by broad social transformations—the end, for instance, of cruel discrimination against low-caste Hindus.

A socialist by conviction, Ambedkar had plenty of reason to be worried in 1949 about some dangerous “contradictions” in his project of emancipation. As he explained:

In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy.

The calamitous explosion Ambedkar feared finally occurred in India in 2014, with the election of Narendra Modi, a Hindu supremacist, as India’s prime minister, ending decades of government by political parties that at least paid lip service to secularism. Modi is a lifelong member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a far-right organization founded by upper-caste Hindus and inspired by European fascists, which was briefly banned in India in 1948 after one of its former members assassinated Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi for allegedly pampering Muslims and preventing the creation of a proud Hindu nation. Modi, accused of complicity in a pogrom in 2002 that killed hundreds of Muslims and displaced tens of thousands, was barred for almost a decade from travel to the US, the UK, and other parts of the European Union.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 15, 2019 at 7:46pm

#India-#Pakistan track 2 diplomacy in #Islamabad. The civil society dialogue calls for more #trade, #people contacts. The dialogue comes ahead of a meeting on Sunday between the officials of both sides at #Wagah on the #KartarpurCorridor https://gn24.ae/8557640e7b01000

Improving cross-border connectivity and trade, people-to-people exchanges and educational collaboration were among the subjects discussed at the two-day civil society-led Track-II dialogue between India and Pakistan in Islamabad, the first such initiative after the Pulwama terror attack that soured relations between the two neighbouring countries.

The dialogue, titled ‘Beyond Politics and Polemics New Beginning on a Difficult Trail’, has been convened by the Islamabad-based Regional Peace Institute (RPI).

According to media reports, six delegates from India are participating in the dialogue that concludes on Saturday.

“There is no official-level representation from India. It is a purely a civil society-led initiative,” a source said.

Raoof Hasan, founder of the Regional Peace Institute, was quoted as saying: “Track-II diplomacy is the first step to improve relations between the governments of both the countries,” and added that the main objective of the talks was to bring the youth of the two countries towards peace.

Hasan also tweeted: “Here we are finally trying to untangle the tricky knot! It is always the scent of possibilities that sustains my hope for the future. Let’s do a toast to a tomorrow of peace and reconciliation.”

Pakistan’s Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Andleeb Abbas, addressing the talk on Saturday, stressed on greater people to people contacts between the two neighbours to normalise the bilateral relationship.

Abbasi said the 770 million young people on both sides of the border are a “ray of hope” and by bringing them together a paradigm shift can be brought in the bilateral relationship between the two countries.

She also said that great trade potential exists between the two nations which needs to be explored.

Abbasi said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has consistently been giving the message of peace to India, adding that war is not a solution to any problem and conflicts can only be resolved through peace and negotiations.


The second round of the dialogue will be held in New Delhi in September this year.

The theme of the first session was “With young leading the charge — discovering new paths for reconciliation & progress”, while the second session was on “Moving to overcome challenges — formulating a vision of the future”.

Another session was themed “Commonality of stakes — Connectivity as the gateway to development.”

Pakistan Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood is slated to address the participants of the dialogue later on Saturday, media reports said.

The dialogue comes ahead of a meeting on Sunday between the officials of both sides at Wagah on the Kartarpur corridor.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 5, 2019 at 5:22pm

#UnitedStates is “closely following...We are concerned about reports of detentions (in #Indian Occupied #Kashmir) and urge respect for individual rights and discussion with those in affected communities..” #India #Pakistan #Article370revoked https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/05/india-revoked-kashm...

The Indian government moved Monday to revoke special status for Indian-controlled Kashmir, a long-contested region abutting Pakistan and China that constitutes India’s only Muslim-majority state.

The move will rein in some of the autonomy Kashmir previously enjoyed, and it has raised worries of fresh armed conflict in an area that has already suffered decades of violence. Those fears have been heightened by India moving troops into the region ahead of the decision and cutting off Internet access after the announcement was made.

Here’s what you need to know about the region and what losing its special status could lead to:

Where is Kashmir and why is it contested?

The Himalayan region of Kashmir lies at the northernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent. As India and Pakistan won independence from Britain in 1947 and underwent a bloody partition into two states, Kashmir originally opted to remain independent from both nations. Facing threats from Pakistani militants, Kashmir’s Hindu ruler soon acceded the territory to India. The first of many armed conflicts between India and Pakistan over the region followed, and the sovereignty of Kashmir has remained disputed ever since.

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The removal of Kashmir’s special status comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, performed well in recent elections in May. Some raised concerns that curtailing Kashmir’s autonomy could lead to a demographic transformation of the Muslim-majority region and inflame tensions between Hindus and Muslims throughout the country.

What has the reaction been?

Opposition politicians in India have decried the move as an attack on Indian democracy, and analysts have described it as unprecedented.

Political leaders in Kashmir, meanwhile, called the special status revocation “illegal and unconstitutional.” Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state, warned that it would render India an “occupational force” in the area and called this the “darkest day in Indian democracy.”

Mehbooba Mufti

✔@MehboobaMufti

 · 18h

Today marks the darkest day in Indian democracy. Decision of J&K leadership to reject 2 nation theory in 1947 & align with India has backfired. Unilateral decision of GOI to scrap Article 370 is illegal & unconstitutional which will make India an occupational force in J&K.

Mehbooba Mufti

✔@MehboobaMufti

It will have catastrophic consequences for the subcontinent. GOIs intentions are clear. They want the territory of J&K by terrorising it’s people. India has failed Kashmir in keeping its promises.

3,639 people are talking about this

The Pakistani government has condemned the decision as an infringement on a United Nations resolution on the question of Kashmir’s sovereignty. In a statement, Pakistan’s foreign ministry described Kashmir as an “internationally recognized disputed territory” and said it would back its residents “right to self-determination.”

The ministry added that it would “exercise all possible options to counter the illegal steps” India had taken. The Pakistani government has indicated it hopes to involve the U.S. government as an arbitrator in the dispute, Reuters reported. Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, had already discussed the possibility of President Trump mediating between India and Pakistan in talks over Kashmir when Khan visited the White House last month. India rejected this offer againlast week.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement Monday that the United States is “closely following” the situation in Kashmir, though she noted that the Indian government described these measures as “strictly an internal matter.”

“We are concerned about reports of detentions and urge respect for individual rights and discussion with those in affected communities,” she said. “We call on all parties to maintain peace and stability along the Line of Control.”

Monday’s order could be challenged in court as a violation of India’s constitution, since it effectively overturned a constitutional provision “through executive whim,” Suhrith Parthasarathy, an expert on constitutional law, said.

Imran Khan

✔@ImranKhanPTI

I condemn India's attack across LOC on innocent civilians & it's use of cluster munitions in violation of int humanitarian law and it's own commitments under the 1983 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. UNSC must take note of this international threat to peace & security.

55.6K

3:34 AM - Aug 4, 2019

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23.2K people are talking about this

Could this move lead to more conflict?

It’s likely, given the region’s history. India sent an additional 8,000 troops to the region right after the announcement, according to local media reports. The government also imposed a curfew and cut communication lines and Internet in the region in what appeared to be an effort to preempt protests and shut down contact with the outside world. As a result, it’s difficult to gauge how Kashmiris have reacted.

But in neighboring Pakistan, protests have already broken out across the country, according to Reuters. In the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir — just 28 miles from the unofficial border — protesters chanted “down with India” and pledged to fight the decision, Reuters reported.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 5, 2019 at 5:49pm

"Kashmir is not the property of India or Pakistan. It belongs to the Kashmiri people. When Kashmir acceded to India, we made it clear to the Leaders of he Kashmir people that we would ultimately abide by the verdict of their plebiscite. If they tell us to walk out, I would have no hesitation in quitting Kashmir....We have taken the issue to the United Nations and given our word of honor for a peaceful solution. As a great nation, we can not go back on it. We have left the question of final solution to the people of Kashmir and we are determined to abide by their decision." Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru quoted in Amrit Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, January 2, 1952.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 30, 2019 at 5:42pm

Late Prime Minister #Nehru of #India on #Pakistan in a speech at #AligarhMuslimUniversity in 1948. " Pakistan has come into being, rather unnaturally I think. Nevertheless, it represents the urges of a large number of persons. " https://www.thehindu.com/society/freeing-the-spirit-of-man-nehru-on...

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1211821921479774208?s=20

Pakistan has come into being, rather unnaturally I think. Nevertheless, it represents the urges of a large number of persons. I believe that this development has been a throwback but we accepted it in good faith. I want you to understand clearly what our present view is. We have been charged with desiring to strangle and crush Pakistan and to force it into a reunion with India. That charge, as many others, is based on fear and a complete misunderstanding of our attitude. I believe that, for a variety of reasons, it is inevitable that India and Pakistan should draw closer to each other, or else they will come into conflict. There is no middle way, for we have known each other too long to be indifferent neighbours. I believe indeed that in the present context of the world India must develop a closer union with many other neighbouring countries. But all this does not mean any desire to strangle or compel Pakistan. Compulsion there can never be, and an attempt to disrupt Pakistan would recoil to India's disadvantage. If we had wanted to break Pakistan, why did we agree to the partition? It was easier to prevent it then than to try to do so now after all that has happened. There is no going back in history. As a matter of fact it is to India's advantage that Pakistan should be a secure and prosperous State with which we can develop close and friendly relations. If today by any chance I were offered the reunion of India and Pakistan, I would decline it for obvious reasons. I do not want to carry the burden of Pakistan's great problems. I have enough of my own. Any closer association must come out of a normal process and in a friendly way which does not end Pakistan as a State, but makes it an equal part of a larger union in which several countries might be associated.

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