Comment by Riaz Haq on April 10, 2017 at 4:11pm

Farooq Abdullah: Wake up #India, talk to #Pakistan or lose #Kashmir http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/farooq-abdullah-srinagar-bypoll-... … via @indiatoday


National Conference chief and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Dr Farooq Abdullah today said the violence and loss of lives during the Srinagar bypoll "are a tragedy and a failure of the government of the day." 

National Conference chief and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Dr Farooq Abdullah, who is contesting the state by-elections from Srinagar, said that the violence and loss of lives during the bypolls in the state "are a tragedy and a failure of the government of the day. They could not provide security to the people, and further, it is the present dispensation which the people reject."
"Why am I playing with fire? Is that not true? Are the stonepelters fighting for MP-ship or MLA-ship or some ministerial post? Wake up, before it is too late," said Abdullah, demanding that the youth deserved to be heard.
Here are some excerpts from the explosive interview.

Rajdeep Sardesai: You said - Kashmiri youth are picking up guns for the freedom of Kashmir, and not for becoming legislators. As a senior statesman, shouldn't you be bridging the gap, but almost endorsing azadi and Kashmir is lost to India?
Farooq Abdullah: Sometime ago, a Parliamentary delegation came to Kashmir under the leadership of the home minister. The delegation was told that we will talk to the youth, and all the stakeholders. Have they done so, in a single step, in the last two years? Why do you blame me?"

Q: Because you want votes, you are stirring the pot..?
A: Wake up, wake up. The situation is quite bad, and don't tell me Pakistan is not a party to this problem. Whether you like it or not, you have to talk to Pakistan. If you want to beat the threat of the terrorists, then you better start talking now.
Q: With what end result? All the talking, and yet terrorists are sent across border, and violence continues?
A: Let us start mending our fences, and start controlling present problem. Let's not burn, let's talk to the youth, Hurriyat, other leaders and come to a solution.
Q: How are talks are going to be different this time?
A: You have 8 people dead, and God knows how many injured. How long will you keep on doing this? You think it's all law and order? Or, you think by development you can change the mind of people?"
Q: Your critics will say that this is theatrics. When you are in power you speak differently, and now you seem to be catering to separatist sentiment?
A: You are losing Kashmir. You better wake up, and start thinking on not a military solution, but a political way. And come down from your high horses...I am seeing a very bad situation. The youth is on boil. Which I have not seen before.
The situation remains tense in the Kashmir valley a day after violence and a historic low voter turnout, at 7 per cent, marred bypolls in Srinagar.
The Election Commission has postponed the bypolls in Anantnag Parliamentary constituency to May 25, 2016.
The decision came after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's brother Tasaduq Hussain Mufti, who is contesting a Parliamentary bypoll in Anantnag, appealed to the Election Commission to postpone his election.
On Sunday, 8 civilians were killed and school set on fire in Shopian, in incidences of poll violence in Kashmir.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 21, 2017 at 9:44am

Cruelty and Cowardice of #India's military in Occupied #Kashmir - http://NYTimes.com 


https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/opinion/cruelty-and-cowardice...


By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
APRIL 21, 2017
Members of India’s armed forces reached a new low in the long history of alleged human rights abuses in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir when they beat and then tied a 24-year-old shawl weaver named Farooq Ahmad Dar to the front of a jeep on April 9, using him as a human shield against stone-throwing crowds. As the jeep drove through villages, Mr. Dar said, “I saw people breaking into tears on seeing my state.”

The incident, which came to light when a video spread on social media, provides a gauge of an insurgency that has waxed and waned over nearly three decades in Kashmir, an area also claimed by Pakistan, which supports the rebels. Unrest surged last July after Burhan Muzaffar Wani, a charismatic, 22-year-old separatist militant, was killed by Indian security forces. The police responded by firing on protesters with pellet guns, killing scores and injuring thousands, many of whom were blinded by pellets lodged in their eyes.

The abuse of Mr. Dar occurred the day Kashmiris voted to fill a seat in the local Srinagar assembly. Following a call by separatists to boycott the election, only 7 percent of local Kashmiri voters turned out to vote, a low not seen in 27 years. Eight people were killed amid reports of widespread violence. A new vote was held on April 13, but only 2 percent of voters showed up. Mr. Dar, who says he never supported the separatists, complained: “I voted, and this is what I got in return. Do you think it will help India in Kashmir? No. It will give Kashmiris another reason to hate India.”

India’s army chief, Gen. Bipin Rawat, has vowed action against those responsible for tying Mr. Dar to the jeep. But he has also thundered against Kashmir’s stone-throwing youth and separatist militants, saying in February: “They may survive today, but we will get them tomorrow. Our relentless operations will continue.”

Such posturing will only doom Kashmir to a deadly spiral, where more brutal military tactics will feed more despair and more militancy. In January, a team of concerned citizens presented a report to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Citing strong feelings of discrimination and a “complete lack of faith” by Kashmiris in government promises, it pleaded for improved human rights and a multiparty dialogue aimed at a durable political solution.

Mr. Modi’s government would do well to follow the recommendations of the report, before Indian democracy loses its credibility and Kashmiris are robbed of a chance to dream, along with the rest of India, of a peaceful, prosperous future.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 9, 2017 at 4:35pm

#Modi's #India Is Sponsoring and Weaponizing its #Hindu Spiritual Tourists in #Kashmir

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/09/india-is-weaponizing-its-spirit...

very July, thousands of buses, trucks, cars, mules, and palanquin bearers crawl up 12, 768 treacherous feet of mountainous terrain to reach the Amarnath cave, where a smooth ice stalagmite dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva reaches up from the cave floor. The devotees heading for this linga (a Hindu term for venerated, somewhat phallic objects) are making one of the most dangerous pilgrimages in India — not just because of the height and harsh weather, but because the cave is slap-bang in the middle of the divided, and violent, border state of Jammu and Kashmir.

But the Indian state has been encouraging, protecting, and controlling the flow of funds to these dangerous journeys. Kashmir has its fair share of traditional yatra (pilgrimage) sites. But India’s current Hindu nationalist government is now backing efforts to turn it into an Indian Jerusalem, mixing religious and national sentiment to turn the disputed territory into sacred ground that can never be surrendered.

A busload of pilgrims on July 10 were the latest victims. Like most devotees, they traveled as part of an army-shielded convoy. The 200,000 yatris (pilgrims) who head to the cave every year are protected by 700,000 soldiers stationed in the province — 40,000 of them mobilized to protect this route alone. But a flat tire left them isolated and vulnerable. Four militants, allegedly from the Pakistan-based jihadi group Lashkar-e-Taiba, shot up the bus, killing seven people.

The attack on the Hindu pilgrims created a huge uproar in India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeting that he was “pained beyond words [by] the dastardly attack on peaceful Amarnath Yatris.” But the killings should have been no surprise. Indian intelligence organizations have gone on record saying they had information of an impending attack, and threats against pilgrims are made every year. This was the first successful attack since 2000, however, when 89 pilgrims were killed.

A dangerous pattern is emerging. New Delhi provides state patronage to religious pilgrimages in Kashmir, indirectly encouraging the Hindu claim over Kashmiri land. The organization of these pilgrimages sidelines the elected government of Jammu and Kashmir and emphasizes the jurisdiction of the national government over the state.And the pilgrimages in Kashmir are increasingly linked to rigid ideas of Indian nationalism. And the pilgrimages in Kashmir are increasingly linked to rigid ideas of Indian nationalism.

The roots of this lie in Kashmir’s torn status. In colonial times, it was a princely state, with a Muslim-majority population. When the subcontinent was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947, Kashmir (now the state of Jammu and Kashmir) was ceded to India — but under certain conditions and with much of the populace clamoring to join Pakistan.

The U.N. recognizes Kashmir as disputed territory between India and Pakistan, and many Kashmiris seek independence or union with Pakistan. But Hindu nationalists, increasingly vocal and powerful throughout India, insist that it’s an integral part of the country — and the fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now controls both the national and the Jammu and Kashmir state government.

School textbooks already drill the notion of Kashmir as India’s northernmost territory into children’s heads, a viewpoint reinforced by angry TV pundits. The money being poured into pilgrimages reinforces this, mixing the national and the sacred to powerful effect. “Once you create sacred places in the valley, these lands cannot be easily alienated from mainland India,” said Peer GN Suhail, the director of the Centre for Research and Development Policy (CRDP) in Srinagar.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 11, 2017 at 10:42am

#India at 70: #Lynchistan #racist #fascist #xenophobic #Hindu #Supremacist #Modi #BJP

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/opinion/india-70-partition-panka...

Indian leaders very seldom practiced domestically what they preached internationally. Though committed to parliamentary procedures, Nehru never let go of the British-created colonial state and its well-oiled machinery of repression. The brute power of the Indian police and army was used in 1948 to corral the princely state of Hyderabad into the Indian Union. Up to 40,000 Muslims were killed, and the episode remains the single-largest massacre in the history of independent India.

Nehru shared with Hindu nationalists a mystical faith in the essential continuity of India from ancient civilization to modern nation. Determined to hold on to Kashmir, for example, he abandoned his promise of organizing a referendum to decide the contested region’s political status. In 1953, he deposed a popular Kashmiri politician (and friend) and had him sent to prison, inaugurating a long reign of puppet leaders who continue to enrich themselves under the long shadow of the Indian gun.

As early as 1958, Nehru’s regime introduced the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the forerunner of repressive legislation that today sanctions murder, torture and rape by Indian soldiers in central India and border provinces. It was under Nehru that Indian troops and paramilitaries were unleashed on indigenous peoples in India’s northeastern states in the 1950s and ’60s. It was Nehru who in 1961 made it a crime to question the territorial integrity of India, punishable with imprisonment.

Yet in the eyes of the world, India maintained its exceptional status for decades, as many promising postcolonial experiments with democracy degenerated into authoritarianism, if not military rule. The country’s democratic politics appeared stable. But they did so only because they were reduced to the rule of a single party, the Congress, which was itself dominated by a single family — Nehru’s. And far from being socialist or redistributionist, Nehru’s economic policies boosted India’s monopoly capitalists. His priorities were heavy industries and elite polytechnics, which precluded major investments in primary education, health and land reform.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 17, 2017 at 10:47am

#American Sanctions on #Kashmiri militants #Hizbul Mujahideen unjustified: #Pakistan. #India #Kashmir #Terrorism

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-usa-kashmir-idUSKCN1AX1YU

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry on Thursday said Islamabad was disappointed over what it termed the unjustified imposition of sanctions by the United States on Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen.

The U.S. took the action on Wednesday against the largest of the anti-Indian Kashmiri militant organizations fighting in the Himalayan territory, which is divided between Pakistan and India.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it was freezing the assets of the Pakistan-based group, and prohibiting Americans from having dealings with it.

The State Department said the group had claimed responsibility for several attacks, including one in 2014 in Jammu and Kashmir that left 17 people injured.

The move against Hizbul Mujahideen comes after last month's U.S. designation of militant commander Syed Salahuddin as a terrorist - a label he has denounced.

"We are disappointed," Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said at a media briefing in Islamabad.

"The designation of individuals or groups supporting the Kashmiri right to self-determination as terrorists was completely unjustified," he said.

Zakaria said it was India which should be held to account for what he said was its brutal use of force and human rights violations in Kashmir.

The countries have fought three wars, two of them over the Muslim-majority Kashmir region, since they gained independence in 1947 from British colonial rule.

Delhi accuses Islamabad of fuelling an insurgency, a charge Pakistan denies, saying it only extends diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiri's independence movement.

In his Independence Day speech on Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was conciliatory towards Muslims in Kashmir, where violent protests against Indian rule have erupted over the past year. He said neither abuses nor bullets would be enough to pacify the region and that the Kashmiris needed to be embraced instead.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 12, 2017 at 9:27am

Kashmir talks: reality & myth
Riaz Mohammad KhanSeptember 11, 2017

https://www.dawn.com/news/1356915

KASHMIR is so deeply emotive that perceptions often mix reality with myth. This is true of discussions over the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, the Tashkent Declaration, the Simla Accords, the Lahore Summit Declaration and, most of all, of bilateral efforts to address the dispute.

On YouTube, I saw Prof Christine Fair snap at a Pakistani questioner who referred to the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir. She averred that Pakistan violated the UNSC Resolution 47 (1948) calling for a plebiscite by refusing to withdraw “tribesmen” from the territory of the state. This is a half-truth. Pakistan had expressed reservations to the resolution which led to the formation of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan and finally to Resolution 98 (1952) allowing Pakistan to deploy up to 6,000 troops and India up to 18,000. Pakistan accepted the resolution, but India rejected it invoking change of circumstances because of reports of an incipient Pakistan-US defence treaty.

Half-truths and political spin thus cloud agreements and talks on Kashmir. Politics was played around Tashkent and Simla. A text on Kashmir, similar to that of the Simla Accords, adopted at Lahore was projected as a pathway to a settlement. The 2005-06 backchannel negotiations drew criticism that Pakistan had abandoned its principled position. The fact is that Pakistan’s position, based on the UNSC resolutions and the Simla Accords, will remain intact until Pakistan accepts a new international legality affecting Kashmir. Neither the backchannel nor the earlier inconclusive talks changed this position. This aside, the plebiscite as conceived in the 1948 UNSC resolution is as academic today as is India’s claim based on the controversial accession document.

The first variant on the 1948 resolution came in the 1950 Owen Dixon plan for region-wise plebiscites, which was recognition of the demographic and communal realities in Kashmir. Later, Ayub Khan tried to persuade Nehru to accept a territorial adjustment; he had the Valley in mind. The Bhutto-Swaran Singh talks were not about the plebiscite. The Valley is the heart of the dispute. It represents 55 per cent of the India-held Kashmir population, where the Kashmiri people have refused to acquiesce to and have constantly agitated for freeing themselves of Indian occupation. This is the only pressure that India faces pushing it to look for a settlement. The latest youth uprising across the Valley lends fresh urgency to our moral response in support of Kashmiri rights and self-determination.

Moral principles alone provide justification for Pakistan’s position on Kashmir. Discussions sometimes meander into security considerations or the need to protect water sources, that Kashmir has tied down over half million Indian troops; and that Pakistan must remove an existential threat by securing control of rivers which pass through Kashmir. These are false arguments. Kashmiri sacrifices and suffering must not be viewed through the prism of our security; it will knock out the moral basis of our position, suggesting that we are not interested in a just political settlement. The argument negates the fact that nuclear deterrence is an equaliser which will not be altered even if India doubles its military strength. As for rivers, maps show that the upper reaches of the Indus and the Chenab lie in Ladakh and Jammu respectively, the two non-Muslim majority regions which are unlikely to accede to Pakistan under any scenario.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 25, 2017 at 12:04pm

Here's a link to UNSC Resolution 80 (1952) regarding demilitarization of Kashmir:


http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/80(1950)


Calls upon the Governments of India and Pakistan to make immediate arrangements, without
prejudice to their rights or claims and with due regard to the requirements of law and order, to
prepare and execute within a period of five months from the date of this resolution a programme of
demilitarisation on the basis of the principles of paragraph 2 of General McNaughton proposal or of
such modifications of those principles as may be mutually agreed

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kashun80.htm

It refers to paragraph 2 of General McNaughton's proposal which says as follows:


DEMILITARISATION PREPARATORY TO THE PLEBISCITE

2. There should be an agreed programme of progressive demilitarisation, the basic principle of which
should be the reduction of armed forces on either side of the Cease-Fire Line by withdrawal,
disbandment and disarmament in such stages as not to cause fear at any point of time to the people
on either side of the Cease-Fire Line. The aim should be to reduce the armed personnel in the State
of Jammu and Kashmir on both side of the Cease-Fire Line to the minimum compatible with the
maintenance of security and of local law and order, and to a level sufficiently low and with the forces
so disposed that they will not constitute a restriction on the free expression of opinion for the
purposes of the plebiscite.

The program me of demilitarisation should include the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and
Kashmir of the regular forces of Pakistan; and the withdrawal of the regular forces of India not
required for purposes of security or for the maintenance of local law and order on the Indian side of
the Cease-Fire Line; also the reduction, by disbanding and disarming, of local forces, including on
the one side the Armed Forces and Militia of the State of Kashmir and on the other, the Azad
Forces.

The "Northern Area" (including Gilgit-Baltistan region through which CPEC asses) should also be included in the above programme of demilitarisation, and its administration should, subject to United Nations supervision, be continued by the existing local
authorities (Pakistani authorities). 


https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/uncom3.htm

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 26, 2017 at 11:00am

From "The United Nations Security Council and War" by Vaughn Lowe:


"(After passing UNSC Resolution 80 of March 14, 1950, calling for progressive demilitarization based on reduction of forces on either side of the CFL) UN Representative Frank P. Graham proposed a twelve point demilitarization plan on 4 September 1952. However, there was disagreement over the specific number of forces to remain on each side of CFL (Ceasefire Line) at the end of the period of demilitarization--between 3,000 and 6,000 on the Pakistan side and 12,000-18,000 on the Indian side. The subsequent proposals on demilitarization by Swedish diplomat Gunnar Jarring also came to naught. At the same time, India began to harden its position on the UN-supervised plebiscite which it had committed to following the withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the Pakistani side of the CFL " 



https://books.google.com/books?id=i9zyRYYIJK4C&pg=PR3-IA42&...

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 28, 2017 at 10:27pm

Delhi's Jawaharlal University Professor Menon: "Everyone knows that India is illegally occupying Kashmir. It is said the world over. Everybody accepts (it)....The map of India in foreign publications like Time and Newsweek show a different map of Kashmir. These copies of the magazines always create a lot of controversies and are censored and destroyed. When the whole world is talking about India's illegal occupation of Kashmir, then we should think the pro-azaadi (pro freedom) slogans in the valley are justified"

https://youtu.be/KWp1E8xrY5E

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 14, 2018 at 7:29am

#Pakistan having a free ride in #Kashmir since 2016 due to New #Delhi's follies: Ex #RAW Chief A S Dulat. #India https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/pakistan-having-a... … via @economictimes

The former spymaster stated that whatever is happening in Valley after 2016, is an aberration and gun was neither the solution in 1990 nor it is the solution in 2018. 

“The story of Pakistan is over in Kashmir. What has happened post 2016 is again an invitation to Pakistan, because of which they are having free extra ride here. 

Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/64156561.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

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