The much-touted Indian secularism stands fully exposed, as Kashmiri Muslims grieve over the killing of Hurriyat's extremist-turned moderate leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz and about a dozen others on Monday. The martyred were a part of the state-wide protest march joined by a quarter of million Kashmiris on way to Muzaffarabad, across the Line of Control, to off-load their trucks of fruit.
They wanted to reach Azad Kashmir, more as a symbolic gesture, to bypass the economic blockade raised against them by Jammu-based Hindu extremists, straddling the main highway to mainland India. For the last two months or so the Hindu extremists are bristling with anger against Kashmiri Muslims' victory in getting revoked a government decision to hand over 98 acres of land to a panel that administers Amarnath, a popular Hindu shrine in the Himalayas.
According to reports, Sheikh Aziz died of a gunshot wound as he led the march. Kashmiris on this side of the border had vainly waited for their brethren from across the LOC at Chakothi with flowers and food as the marchers had among them many women and children.
None of the marchers belonged to the Kashmiri militant groups the three-quarters of a million of Indian security forces have been battling against for nearly two decades. It was the march of ordinary Kashmiri Muslims beset with increasing fear that they are being deprived of their bread and butter by the rival Hindus.
The tragedy would have been averted had the state governor acted in time to remove the road blockade - which, he was telling the world, is only a 'traffic disruption'. One would wish the Pakistan Foreign Office had summoned the Indian high commissioner and handed him a strong protest against this brutal operation. Even if the policy is not to rock the boat the seriousness of the hardship the Kashmiri Muslim population is being subjected to should not have been overlooked.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's statement on the floor of the National Assembly calling upon India to take immediate steps to end violence against Kashmiris is good to the extent that such a call was made. But where do stand the plethora of confidence-building measures (CBMs) the previous government has put in place, quite often unilaterally, mainly to create atmosphere to reduce tensions and secure peace and tranquillity.
With a hindsight one learns that most of the CBMs offered by President Musharraf were in terms of assuring his friends in the West of his co-operation in fighting the 'terrorists', be they in Afghanistan or Kashmir. That indeed let India, pitted as it was against the rising tempo of freedom struggle, breath more easily - much to the chagrin of discerning people of Pakistan who found that while buses ran fast between the borders there was total silence on substantive issues marked out for the so-called Composite Dialogue.
As the recent diplomatic encounter between the officials of Pakistan and India strongly suggests, New Delhi would like the new Pakistani government to 'reaffirm' commitments to CBMs rather than seriously perusing the agenda of the Composite Dialogue forum. Rightly then the skirmishes on the LOC last month and the economic blockade against Muslim population of Held Kashmir seem to be pressure-raising tactics by New Delhi.
Today, if militant Kashmiris have taken to the mountains to persevere in their freedom struggle against all odds the majority of leaders of their soft-spoken, peace-loving and coexistence-seeking counterpart, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, is behind bars.
They have earned their place behind bars because they want the economic blockade against Muslims enforced by Hindu extremist elements lifted. If the government in Srinagar could mobilise force large enough to intercept thousands of marchers almost all along the LOC and then place the entire valley under curfew one wonders why it failed to breakthrough the roads blocks near Jammu.
We have to look at the Kashmir problem in a larger perspective than the one which tends to accept illegal occupation of Kashmir as fait accompli and thus caters for mere diplomatic tinkering in the name of CBMs. No doubt, the brutality let loose on unarmed Kashmiri Muslims days before Pakistan's 62nd Independence Day forcefully vindicates the raison d'etre of the two-nation theory.
