Not all so-called "freedom fighters" are terrorists but most of the terrorists in J&K are "freedom fighters".
Kashmir | News & Discussions.
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Not all so-called "freedom fighters" are terrorists but most of the terrorists in J&K are "freedom fighters".
ek_indian
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This is another news. Different from what is discussed here. If you can not post something constructive apart from trolling, please refrain. Thanks.
blueoval79
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An intense churning is underway in militancy scenario in Kashmir, though the real reasons behind it are still not clear.Several developments are playing out at once: Some key Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives from J&K are returning to Pakistan; dozens of militants in P.0.K are being rounded up in camps; and there's been a huge jump in extortions by militants in J&K.
Observers say they are still not sure what is happening in Pakistan. But they are convinced that most developments are part of a strategic shift calibrated by the government there.
Though the strategy is not clear, one definite signal is emerging from J&K: Over the past four months there's been a huge jump in extortions by militants, almost four to five cases being recorded daily.
Sources tell DNA that the rising extortion cases are coinciding with a drop in "finance from Pakistan" for militancy. Widespread extortion is a crucial turning point for insurgency, rendering it unpopular among locals.
Over the past few weeks, Indian agencies have intercepted conversations between some LeT commanders, showing that some of them want to ex-filtrate from J&K into Pakistan. "We are seeing ex-filtration after a very long time," says a senior official in the security establishment.
A section of the security establishment believe, based on inputs, that Pakistan government is deploying LeT terrorists to fight the Taliban in NWFP (North West Frontier Province). The inputs show that some of the Pakistan-based LeT commanders have been moved from Punjab to NWFP to fight the Taliban.
This section also believes that the reports of ex-filtration of LeT commanders from India could also be linked to this move. That LeT assistance to Pakistan security forces is the reason why Islamabad is reluctant to act against LeT founder Hafiz Sayeed for the Mumbai attacks.
However, many observers are not ready to believe that LeT will fight Taliban, and speculate that the moves could be part of an elaborate hoax to build up a positive image of LeT to mislead the global community.
In *** authorities are rounding up several dozen militants, especially those from J&K and who have been living in Pakistan for years -- most of them are members of Hizbul Mujahideen.
Kashmiris being rounded up in camps has surprised observers here. "On the face of it," says a J&K hand, it looks as if Pakistanis are trying to "control" militants, a fact that could be used to mislead the international community.
But infiltration into India is showing a different trend: For the first time in five years, August and September have recorded huge spike in infiltration. "It could be a case of nobody being in clear control along the border, while a larger strategy is being unveiled," says a Kashmir hand.
Lashkar-e-Taiba men returning to Pakistan - dnaindia.com
Observers say they are still not sure what is happening in Pakistan. But they are convinced that most developments are part of a strategic shift calibrated by the government there.
Though the strategy is not clear, one definite signal is emerging from J&K: Over the past four months there's been a huge jump in extortions by militants, almost four to five cases being recorded daily.
Sources tell DNA that the rising extortion cases are coinciding with a drop in "finance from Pakistan" for militancy. Widespread extortion is a crucial turning point for insurgency, rendering it unpopular among locals.
Over the past few weeks, Indian agencies have intercepted conversations between some LeT commanders, showing that some of them want to ex-filtrate from J&K into Pakistan. "We are seeing ex-filtration after a very long time," says a senior official in the security establishment.
A section of the security establishment believe, based on inputs, that Pakistan government is deploying LeT terrorists to fight the Taliban in NWFP (North West Frontier Province). The inputs show that some of the Pakistan-based LeT commanders have been moved from Punjab to NWFP to fight the Taliban.
This section also believes that the reports of ex-filtration of LeT commanders from India could also be linked to this move. That LeT assistance to Pakistan security forces is the reason why Islamabad is reluctant to act against LeT founder Hafiz Sayeed for the Mumbai attacks.
However, many observers are not ready to believe that LeT will fight Taliban, and speculate that the moves could be part of an elaborate hoax to build up a positive image of LeT to mislead the global community.
In *** authorities are rounding up several dozen militants, especially those from J&K and who have been living in Pakistan for years -- most of them are members of Hizbul Mujahideen.
Kashmiris being rounded up in camps has surprised observers here. "On the face of it," says a J&K hand, it looks as if Pakistanis are trying to "control" militants, a fact that could be used to mislead the international community.
But infiltration into India is showing a different trend: For the first time in five years, August and September have recorded huge spike in infiltration. "It could be a case of nobody being in clear control along the border, while a larger strategy is being unveiled," says a Kashmir hand.
Lashkar-e-Taiba men returning to Pakistan - dnaindia.com
brahmastra
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Omar1984
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Kashmir Rape Victims' Bodies Exhumed
Indian forensic experts exhumed the bodies of two slain Kashmiri women Monday in an investigation aimed at defusing the latest tensions plaguing this bloody Himalayan region.
Many in Muslim-majority Kashmir accuse Indian security forces of raping and murdering the women and say justice will only be served when the troops leave.
"India has militarized every facet of Kashmir. These kinds of incidents are bound to happen as long as this occupation continues," said school teacher Fayaz Ahmed.
Underscoring the ongoing violence in the region -- claimed by both India and Pakistan and a perennial flashpoint between the rival nations -- three suspected militants and a civilian woman were killed Monday in a shootout with security forces in the village of Tral in southern Kashmir, said Col. K. Umamaheswar, an army spokesman. Two paramilitary soldiers were wounded, he said.
The attacks on 22-year-old Neelofar Jan and her 17-year-old sister-in-law Asiya Jan dramatically rekindled anti-India sentiments in the territory, where militant groups have been fighting for independence since 1989 but where violence has been waning over the past few years.
The two disappeared in May as they walked home from their family's apple orchard. Local authorities first said the women had drowned when they found their bodies a kilometer (half a mile) apart in a shallow stream on May 30. But police later declared the two had been raped and murdered.
Authorities, however, failed to make any arrests and called in national investigators after weeks of violent protests by residents.
The national investigators, and the security forces, have declined to comment.
The deaths led to 50 days of violent protests that shut down Shopian as protesters chanted "We want freedom," hurled rocks at security forces and ransacked government offices. Troops responded with gunfire and tear gas. At least two people were killed and 400 injured in the clashes that spread across the Kashmir valley.
On Monday, police and paramilitary forces with rifles and flak jackets closed the main roads leading to Shopian. The paths to the Muslim cemetery where the two women were buried were sealed with razor wire, and a tent shielded the grave sites from view.
A team of Indian doctors and forensic experts in the tent exhumed the bodies and conducted autopsies on the bodies throughout the day Monday, a local official who witnessed the process told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media while the investigation was ongoing.
The mood in Shopian was somber Monday, despite deep skepticism that the investigation will lead to arrests. Businesses were closed, and the streets were empty of vehicles as residents shut down the town, 35 miles (60 kilometers) south of Srinagar, the main city of Indian-controlled Kashmir.
"We have decided to fully cooperate so that they don't have any excuse to say that locals disrupted the exhumation process," said Javaid Ahmed, a local activist.
Indian soldiers remain a constant presence in Kashmir, even as deaths connected to the insurgency dropped from 4,507 in 2001 to 541 last year.
The shift was the result of India's peace process with Pakistan, as well as pressure on Islamabad to curtail militant camps on its soil after Sept. 11. Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, and the South Asian powers have fought two of their three wars over it since independence in 1947.
The Shopian protests reflect the deep-seated skepticism in Indian-controlled Kashmir that India's security forces would be held to account. Human rights groups have long accused the troops here of brutality and using rape to intimidate residents.
"The government and its institutions have no credibility in Kashmir. People say, from experience, that these probes are conducted to camouflage reality," said Sheikh Shokat, a law professor at the University of Kashmir in Srinagar. He said only an international investigation would satisfy the public.
Four police officers arrested on charges of suppressing and destroying evidence in the case were freed earlier this month, further stoking skepticism.
Throughout Shopian, black flags in memory of the women hang from shops and buildings. Dozens of women -- some wailing with grief -- gathered at the homes of the victims' families near the graveyard Monday.
"This fear will remain with us forever," Neelofar Jan's mother, Ayesha, said as she sobbed. "We are exhausted now. What can we do with this pain?"
When the investigators left the cemetery in the evening, hundreds of residents ran inside, shouting, "We want justice," and "We are ashamed, sisters, that your killers are still alive."
"All one can do is wait to see what the investigators can do," said resident Abdul Ahad, an apple farmer from Shopian. "But frankly speaking, no one expects the state to indict itself."
Indian forensic experts exhumed the bodies of two slain Kashmiri women Monday in an investigation aimed at defusing the latest tensions plaguing this bloody Himalayan region.
Many in Muslim-majority Kashmir accuse Indian security forces of raping and murdering the women and say justice will only be served when the troops leave.
"India has militarized every facet of Kashmir. These kinds of incidents are bound to happen as long as this occupation continues," said school teacher Fayaz Ahmed.
Underscoring the ongoing violence in the region -- claimed by both India and Pakistan and a perennial flashpoint between the rival nations -- three suspected militants and a civilian woman were killed Monday in a shootout with security forces in the village of Tral in southern Kashmir, said Col. K. Umamaheswar, an army spokesman. Two paramilitary soldiers were wounded, he said.
The attacks on 22-year-old Neelofar Jan and her 17-year-old sister-in-law Asiya Jan dramatically rekindled anti-India sentiments in the territory, where militant groups have been fighting for independence since 1989 but where violence has been waning over the past few years.
The two disappeared in May as they walked home from their family's apple orchard. Local authorities first said the women had drowned when they found their bodies a kilometer (half a mile) apart in a shallow stream on May 30. But police later declared the two had been raped and murdered.
Authorities, however, failed to make any arrests and called in national investigators after weeks of violent protests by residents.
The national investigators, and the security forces, have declined to comment.
The deaths led to 50 days of violent protests that shut down Shopian as protesters chanted "We want freedom," hurled rocks at security forces and ransacked government offices. Troops responded with gunfire and tear gas. At least two people were killed and 400 injured in the clashes that spread across the Kashmir valley.
On Monday, police and paramilitary forces with rifles and flak jackets closed the main roads leading to Shopian. The paths to the Muslim cemetery where the two women were buried were sealed with razor wire, and a tent shielded the grave sites from view.
A team of Indian doctors and forensic experts in the tent exhumed the bodies and conducted autopsies on the bodies throughout the day Monday, a local official who witnessed the process told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media while the investigation was ongoing.
The mood in Shopian was somber Monday, despite deep skepticism that the investigation will lead to arrests. Businesses were closed, and the streets were empty of vehicles as residents shut down the town, 35 miles (60 kilometers) south of Srinagar, the main city of Indian-controlled Kashmir.
"We have decided to fully cooperate so that they don't have any excuse to say that locals disrupted the exhumation process," said Javaid Ahmed, a local activist.
Indian soldiers remain a constant presence in Kashmir, even as deaths connected to the insurgency dropped from 4,507 in 2001 to 541 last year.
The shift was the result of India's peace process with Pakistan, as well as pressure on Islamabad to curtail militant camps on its soil after Sept. 11. Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, and the South Asian powers have fought two of their three wars over it since independence in 1947.
The Shopian protests reflect the deep-seated skepticism in Indian-controlled Kashmir that India's security forces would be held to account. Human rights groups have long accused the troops here of brutality and using rape to intimidate residents.
"The government and its institutions have no credibility in Kashmir. People say, from experience, that these probes are conducted to camouflage reality," said Sheikh Shokat, a law professor at the University of Kashmir in Srinagar. He said only an international investigation would satisfy the public.
Four police officers arrested on charges of suppressing and destroying evidence in the case were freed earlier this month, further stoking skepticism.
Throughout Shopian, black flags in memory of the women hang from shops and buildings. Dozens of women -- some wailing with grief -- gathered at the homes of the victims' families near the graveyard Monday.
"This fear will remain with us forever," Neelofar Jan's mother, Ayesha, said as she sobbed. "We are exhausted now. What can we do with this pain?"
When the investigators left the cemetery in the evening, hundreds of residents ran inside, shouting, "We want justice," and "We are ashamed, sisters, that your killers are still alive."
"All one can do is wait to see what the investigators can do," said resident Abdul Ahad, an apple farmer from Shopian. "But frankly speaking, no one expects the state to indict itself."
Omar1984
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No sell-out on Kashmir: Zardari
NEW YORK - “Pakistan will never sell out on Kashmir for improving relations with India”, stated President Zardari during his meeting with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Chairman Hurriyat Conference, in New York, Sunday. He added that Pakistan would continue to aid the Kashmiris’ politically and diplomatically. On the issue of resolving the Kashmir dispute, President Zardari reiterated that the wishes of the Kashmiri people would be paramount.
Mirwaiz informed the President that the people of Kashmir continued to have high expectations from their Pakistani brethren.
The Government of Pakistan should raise the Kashmir issue on every forum. The two exchanged in depth views on Kashmir. President Zardari emphasised that in the dialogue with India, Kashmir would remain the number one priority and its peaceful resolution was necessary for peace in the region.
Apart from Kashmir, other issues of common interest were also discussed. The meeting lasted over thirty minutes and amongst those participating were the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Ambassador Haqqani, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Shahid Malik and Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir.
On the occasion, Mirwaiz informed President Zardari about the latest situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir. After the meeting, in a television interview, Mirwaiz stated that the entire Hurriyat Conference wants Pakistan to include the Kashmiri leadership in the talks with India on Kashmir, in the future, so that the issue can be resolved in a just and peaceful fashion.
NEW YORK - “Pakistan will never sell out on Kashmir for improving relations with India”, stated President Zardari during his meeting with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Chairman Hurriyat Conference, in New York, Sunday. He added that Pakistan would continue to aid the Kashmiris’ politically and diplomatically. On the issue of resolving the Kashmir dispute, President Zardari reiterated that the wishes of the Kashmiri people would be paramount.
Mirwaiz informed the President that the people of Kashmir continued to have high expectations from their Pakistani brethren.
The Government of Pakistan should raise the Kashmir issue on every forum. The two exchanged in depth views on Kashmir. President Zardari emphasised that in the dialogue with India, Kashmir would remain the number one priority and its peaceful resolution was necessary for peace in the region.
Apart from Kashmir, other issues of common interest were also discussed. The meeting lasted over thirty minutes and amongst those participating were the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Ambassador Haqqani, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Shahid Malik and Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir.
On the occasion, Mirwaiz informed President Zardari about the latest situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir. After the meeting, in a television interview, Mirwaiz stated that the entire Hurriyat Conference wants Pakistan to include the Kashmiri leadership in the talks with India on Kashmir, in the future, so that the issue can be resolved in a just and peaceful fashion.
FlyingEagle
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She should be awarded...........Thums Up to the brave lady.
hembo
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Getting back to the topic:
RIP to the brave major and condolences with his family who has lost a young soul while fulfilling his duty to his motherland.
Those members who are calling the dead terrorist of LET as martyrs and freedom fighters are going against their own government as LET is in banned terrorist list of GOP. If someone still openly supports activists of this type of banned organization, GOP should prosecute the supporters for being sympathizers of terrorist organization and treason to Pakistan. Period.
RIP to the brave major and condolences with his family who has lost a young soul while fulfilling his duty to his motherland.
Those members who are calling the dead terrorist of LET as martyrs and freedom fighters are going against their own government as LET is in banned terrorist list of GOP. If someone still openly supports activists of this type of banned organization, GOP should prosecute the supporters for being sympathizers of terrorist organization and treason to Pakistan. Period.
hembo
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@ MZUBAIR
I am a little disapointed with your salutation of the terrorists. I thought you were among the sane ones here.
@ All posters
Those members who are calling the terrorist of LET as martyrs and freedom fighters are going against their own government as LET is in banned terrorist list of GOP. If someone still openly supports activists of this type of banned organization, GOP should prosecute the supporters for being sympathizers of terrorist organization and treason to Pakistan. Period
I am a little disapointed with your salutation of the terrorists. I thought you were among the sane ones here.
@ All posters
Those members who are calling the terrorist of LET as martyrs and freedom fighters are going against their own government as LET is in banned terrorist list of GOP. If someone still openly supports activists of this type of banned organization, GOP should prosecute the supporters for being sympathizers of terrorist organization and treason to Pakistan. Period
Last edited:
duhastmish
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what a brave women - she set her self as an great example - now india should give her all due respect and set an example out of her -
to show that india do care for people kashmir. these terrorist are loosing their ground in recent time - i heard lot of terrorist dying.
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it makes me feel good when propaganda makers like - jana and muzabir - people with two face ,find themselves lost for words.
these are terrorist organisation in paksitan too.
one side you are fightign terrorism - in taleban who are fight in name of jihad - second you talk opposite on east border ?????
haha - you guys have to realize - you can not make your voice heard with gun - killing people is not the way out- peaceful way is the only way possible - we must get together to eliminate terrorism .
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to show that india do care for people kashmir. these terrorist are loosing their ground in recent time - i heard lot of terrorist dying.
--------------------------------
it makes me feel good when propaganda makers like - jana and muzabir - people with two face ,find themselves lost for words.
these are terrorist organisation in paksitan too.
one side you are fightign terrorism - in taleban who are fight in name of jihad - second you talk opposite on east border ?????
haha - you guys have to realize - you can not make your voice heard with gun - killing people is not the way out- peaceful way is the only way possible - we must get together to eliminate terrorism .
--------
Y2A
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@ Indians
Guys you can do many things like bringing few mis-reported isolated events, laugh you teeth out on US strings towards Pakistan, feel proud on the increasing fadness of MILITARY side of Kashmiri freedom movement, continue your occupation for litile while more, but its really ironic what arundhutti roye has said:
kashmir will never be India as India could never be british, dig that.
Guys you can do many things like bringing few mis-reported isolated events, laugh you teeth out on US strings towards Pakistan, feel proud on the increasing fadness of MILITARY side of Kashmiri freedom movement, continue your occupation for litile while more, but its really ironic what arundhutti roye has said:
kashmir will never be India as India could never be british, dig that.
Last edited:
dabong1
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A new cold war in Kashmir
Speaking of consensus, there's the small and ever-present matter of Kashmir. When it comes to Kashmir the consensus in India is hard core. It cuts across every section of the establishment - including the media, the bureaucracy, the intelligentsia, and even Bollywood.
The war in the Kashmir Valley is almost 20-years old now, and has claimed about 70,000 lives. Tens of thousands have been tortured, several thousand have "disappeared", women have been raped, tens of thousands widowed. Half a million Indian troops patrol the Kashmir Valley, making it the most militarized zone in the world. (The United States had about 165,000 active-duty troops in Iraq at the height of its occupation.) The Indian army now claims that it has, for the most part, crushed militancy in Kashmir. Perhaps that's true. But does military domination mean victory?
How does a government that claims to be a democracy justify a military occupation? By holding regular elections, of course. Elections in Kashmir have had a long and fascinating past. The blatantly rigged state election of 1987 was the immediate provocation for the armed uprising that began in 1990. Since then elections have become a finely honed instrument of the military occupation, a sinister playground for India's deep state. Intelligence agencies have created political parties and decoy politicians, they have constructed and destroyed political careers at will. It is they more than anyone else who decide what the outcome of each election will be. After every election, the Indian establishment declares that India has won a popular mandate from the people of Kashmir.
In the summer of 2008, a dispute over land being allotted to the Amarnath Shrine Board coalesced into a massive, non-violent uprising. Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people defied soldiers and policemen - who fired straight into the crowds, killing scores of people - and thronged the streets. From early morning to late in the night, the city reverberated to chants of "Azadi! Azadi!" (Freedom! Freedom!). Fruit sellers weighed fruit chanting "Azadi! Azadi!" Shopkeepers, doctors, houseboat owners, guides, weavers, carpet sellers - everybody was out with placards, everybody shouted "Azadi! Azadi!" The protests went on for several days.
The protests were massive. They were democratic, and they were non-violent. For the first time in decades, fissures appeared in mainstream public opinion in India. The Indian state panicked. Unsure of how to deal with this mass civil disobedience, it ordered a crackdown. It enforced the harshest curfew in recent memory with shoot-on-sight orders. In effect, for days on end, it virtually caged millions of people. The major pro-freedom leaders were placed under house arrest, several others were jailed. House-to-house searches culminated in the arrests of hundreds of people.
Once the rebellion was brought under control, the government did something extraordinary - it announced elections in the state. Pro-independence leaders called for a boycott. They were re-arrested. Almost everybody believed the elections would become
a huge embarrassment for the Indian government. The security establishment convulsed with paranoia. Its elaborate network of spies, renegades, and embedded journalists began to buzz with renewed energy. No chances were taken. (Even I, who had nothing to do with any of what was going on, was put under house arrest in Srinagar for two days.)
Calling for elections was a huge risk. But the gamble paid off. People turned out to vote in droves. It was the biggest voter turnout since the armed struggle began. It helped that the polls were scheduled so that the first districts to vote were the most militarized districts even within the Kashmir Valley.
None of India's analysts, journalists, and psephologists cared to ask why people who had only weeks ago risked everything, including bullets and shoot-on-sight orders, should have suddenly changed their minds. None of the high-profile scholars of the great festival of democracy - who practically live in television studios when there are elections in mainland India, picking apart every forecast and exit poll and every minor percentile swing in the vote count - talked about what elections mean in the presence of such a massive, year-round troop deployment (one armed soldier for every 20 civilians).
No one speculated about the mystery of hundreds of unknown candidates who materialized out of nowhere to represent political parties that had no previous presence in the Kashmir Valley. Where had they come from? Who was financing them? No one was curious. No one spoke about the curfew, the mass arrests, the lockdown of constituencies that were going to the polls.
Not many talked about the fact that campaigning politicians went out of their way to de-link Azadi and the Kashmir dispute from elections, which they insisted were only about municipal issues - roads, water, electricity. No one talked about why people who have lived under a military occupation for decades - where soldiers could barge into homes and whisk away people at any time of the day or night - might need someone to listen to them, to take up their cases, to represent them.
The minute elections were over, the establishment and the mainstream press declared victory (for India) once again. The most worrying fallout was that in Kashmir, people began to parrot their colonizers' view of themselves as a somewhat pathetic people who deserved what they got. "Never trust a Kashmiri," several Kashmiris said to me. "We're fickle and unreliable." Psychological warfare, technically known as psy-ops, has been an instrument of official policy in Kashmir. Its depredations over decades - its attempt to destroy people's self-esteem - are arguably the worst aspect of the occupation. It's enough to make you wonder whether there is any connection at all between elections and democracy.
The trouble is that Kashmir sits on the fault lines of a region that is awash in weapons and sliding into chaos. The Kashmiri freedom struggle, with its crystal clear sentiment but fuzzy outlines, is caught in the vortex of several dangerous and conflicting ideologies - Indian nationalism (corporate as well as "Hindu," shading into imperialism), Pakistani nationalism (breaking down under the burden of its own contradictions), US imperialism (made impatient by a tanking economy), and a resurgent medieval-Islamist Taliban (fast gaining legitimacy, despite its insane brutality, because it is seen to be resisting an occupation).
Each of these ideologies is capable of a ruthlessness that can range from genocide to nuclear war. Add Chinese imperial ambitions, an aggressive, reincarnated Russia, and the huge reserves of natural gas in the Caspian region and persistent whispers about natural gas, oil, and uranium reserves in Kashmir and Ladakh, and you have the recipe for a new cold war (which, like the last one, is cold for some and hot for others).
In the midst of all this, Kashmir is set to become the conduit through which the mayhem unfolding in Afghanistan and Pakistan spills into India, where it will find purchase in the anger of the young among India's 150 million Muslims who have been brutalized, humiliated and marginalized. Notice has been given by the series of terrorist strikes that culminated in the Mumbai attacks of 2008.
There is no doubt that the Kashmir dispute ranks right up there, along with Palestine, as one of the oldest, most intractable disputes in the world. That does not mean that it cannot be resolved. Only that the solution will not be completely to the satisfaction of any one party, one country, or one ideology. Negotiators will have to be prepared to deviate from the "party line."
Of course, we haven't yet reached the stage where the government of India is even prepared to admit that there's a problem, let alone negotiate a solution. Right now it has no reason to. Internationally, its stocks are soaring. And while its neighbors deal with bloodshed, civil war, concentration camps, refugees, and army mutinies, India has just concluded a beautiful election. However, "demon-crazy" can't fool all the people all the time. India's temporary, shotgun solutions to the unrest in Kashmir (pardon the pun), have magnified the problem and driven it deep into a place where it is poisoning the aquifers.
Is democracy melting?
Perhaps the story of the Siachen Glacier, the highest battlefield in the world, is the most appropriate metaphor for the insanity of our times. Thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been deployed there, enduring chill winds and temperatures that dip to minus 40 degrees Celsius. Of the hundreds who have died there, many have died just from the elements.
The glacier has become a garbage dump now, littered with the detritus of war - thousands of empty artillery shells, empty fuel drums, ice axes, old boots, tents, and every other kind of waste that thousands of warring human beings generate. The garbage remains intact, perfectly preserved at those icy temperatures, a pristine monument to human folly.
While the Indian and Pakistani governments spend billions of dollars on weapons and the logistics of high-altitude warfare, the battlefield has begun to melt. Right now, it has shrunk to about half its size. The melting has less to do with the military standoff than with people far away, on the other side of the world, living the good life. They're good people who believe in peace, free speech, and in human rights. They live in thriving democracies whose governments sit on the United Nations Security Council and whose economies depend heavily on the export of war and the sale of weapons to countries like India and Pakistan. (And Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, the Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan ... it's a long list.)
The glacial melt will cause severe floods on the subcontinent, and eventually severe drought that will affect the lives of millions of people. That will give us even more reasons to fight. We'll need more weapons. Who knows? That sort of consumer confidence may be just what the world needs to get over the current recession. Then everyone in the thriving democracies will have an even better life - and the glaciers will melt even faster.
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
Speaking of consensus, there's the small and ever-present matter of Kashmir. When it comes to Kashmir the consensus in India is hard core. It cuts across every section of the establishment - including the media, the bureaucracy, the intelligentsia, and even Bollywood.
The war in the Kashmir Valley is almost 20-years old now, and has claimed about 70,000 lives. Tens of thousands have been tortured, several thousand have "disappeared", women have been raped, tens of thousands widowed. Half a million Indian troops patrol the Kashmir Valley, making it the most militarized zone in the world. (The United States had about 165,000 active-duty troops in Iraq at the height of its occupation.) The Indian army now claims that it has, for the most part, crushed militancy in Kashmir. Perhaps that's true. But does military domination mean victory?
How does a government that claims to be a democracy justify a military occupation? By holding regular elections, of course. Elections in Kashmir have had a long and fascinating past. The blatantly rigged state election of 1987 was the immediate provocation for the armed uprising that began in 1990. Since then elections have become a finely honed instrument of the military occupation, a sinister playground for India's deep state. Intelligence agencies have created political parties and decoy politicians, they have constructed and destroyed political careers at will. It is they more than anyone else who decide what the outcome of each election will be. After every election, the Indian establishment declares that India has won a popular mandate from the people of Kashmir.
In the summer of 2008, a dispute over land being allotted to the Amarnath Shrine Board coalesced into a massive, non-violent uprising. Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people defied soldiers and policemen - who fired straight into the crowds, killing scores of people - and thronged the streets. From early morning to late in the night, the city reverberated to chants of "Azadi! Azadi!" (Freedom! Freedom!). Fruit sellers weighed fruit chanting "Azadi! Azadi!" Shopkeepers, doctors, houseboat owners, guides, weavers, carpet sellers - everybody was out with placards, everybody shouted "Azadi! Azadi!" The protests went on for several days.
The protests were massive. They were democratic, and they were non-violent. For the first time in decades, fissures appeared in mainstream public opinion in India. The Indian state panicked. Unsure of how to deal with this mass civil disobedience, it ordered a crackdown. It enforced the harshest curfew in recent memory with shoot-on-sight orders. In effect, for days on end, it virtually caged millions of people. The major pro-freedom leaders were placed under house arrest, several others were jailed. House-to-house searches culminated in the arrests of hundreds of people.
Once the rebellion was brought under control, the government did something extraordinary - it announced elections in the state. Pro-independence leaders called for a boycott. They were re-arrested. Almost everybody believed the elections would become
a huge embarrassment for the Indian government. The security establishment convulsed with paranoia. Its elaborate network of spies, renegades, and embedded journalists began to buzz with renewed energy. No chances were taken. (Even I, who had nothing to do with any of what was going on, was put under house arrest in Srinagar for two days.)
Calling for elections was a huge risk. But the gamble paid off. People turned out to vote in droves. It was the biggest voter turnout since the armed struggle began. It helped that the polls were scheduled so that the first districts to vote were the most militarized districts even within the Kashmir Valley.
None of India's analysts, journalists, and psephologists cared to ask why people who had only weeks ago risked everything, including bullets and shoot-on-sight orders, should have suddenly changed their minds. None of the high-profile scholars of the great festival of democracy - who practically live in television studios when there are elections in mainland India, picking apart every forecast and exit poll and every minor percentile swing in the vote count - talked about what elections mean in the presence of such a massive, year-round troop deployment (one armed soldier for every 20 civilians).
No one speculated about the mystery of hundreds of unknown candidates who materialized out of nowhere to represent political parties that had no previous presence in the Kashmir Valley. Where had they come from? Who was financing them? No one was curious. No one spoke about the curfew, the mass arrests, the lockdown of constituencies that were going to the polls.
Not many talked about the fact that campaigning politicians went out of their way to de-link Azadi and the Kashmir dispute from elections, which they insisted were only about municipal issues - roads, water, electricity. No one talked about why people who have lived under a military occupation for decades - where soldiers could barge into homes and whisk away people at any time of the day or night - might need someone to listen to them, to take up their cases, to represent them.
The minute elections were over, the establishment and the mainstream press declared victory (for India) once again. The most worrying fallout was that in Kashmir, people began to parrot their colonizers' view of themselves as a somewhat pathetic people who deserved what they got. "Never trust a Kashmiri," several Kashmiris said to me. "We're fickle and unreliable." Psychological warfare, technically known as psy-ops, has been an instrument of official policy in Kashmir. Its depredations over decades - its attempt to destroy people's self-esteem - are arguably the worst aspect of the occupation. It's enough to make you wonder whether there is any connection at all between elections and democracy.
The trouble is that Kashmir sits on the fault lines of a region that is awash in weapons and sliding into chaos. The Kashmiri freedom struggle, with its crystal clear sentiment but fuzzy outlines, is caught in the vortex of several dangerous and conflicting ideologies - Indian nationalism (corporate as well as "Hindu," shading into imperialism), Pakistani nationalism (breaking down under the burden of its own contradictions), US imperialism (made impatient by a tanking economy), and a resurgent medieval-Islamist Taliban (fast gaining legitimacy, despite its insane brutality, because it is seen to be resisting an occupation).
Each of these ideologies is capable of a ruthlessness that can range from genocide to nuclear war. Add Chinese imperial ambitions, an aggressive, reincarnated Russia, and the huge reserves of natural gas in the Caspian region and persistent whispers about natural gas, oil, and uranium reserves in Kashmir and Ladakh, and you have the recipe for a new cold war (which, like the last one, is cold for some and hot for others).
In the midst of all this, Kashmir is set to become the conduit through which the mayhem unfolding in Afghanistan and Pakistan spills into India, where it will find purchase in the anger of the young among India's 150 million Muslims who have been brutalized, humiliated and marginalized. Notice has been given by the series of terrorist strikes that culminated in the Mumbai attacks of 2008.
There is no doubt that the Kashmir dispute ranks right up there, along with Palestine, as one of the oldest, most intractable disputes in the world. That does not mean that it cannot be resolved. Only that the solution will not be completely to the satisfaction of any one party, one country, or one ideology. Negotiators will have to be prepared to deviate from the "party line."
Of course, we haven't yet reached the stage where the government of India is even prepared to admit that there's a problem, let alone negotiate a solution. Right now it has no reason to. Internationally, its stocks are soaring. And while its neighbors deal with bloodshed, civil war, concentration camps, refugees, and army mutinies, India has just concluded a beautiful election. However, "demon-crazy" can't fool all the people all the time. India's temporary, shotgun solutions to the unrest in Kashmir (pardon the pun), have magnified the problem and driven it deep into a place where it is poisoning the aquifers.
Is democracy melting?
Perhaps the story of the Siachen Glacier, the highest battlefield in the world, is the most appropriate metaphor for the insanity of our times. Thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been deployed there, enduring chill winds and temperatures that dip to minus 40 degrees Celsius. Of the hundreds who have died there, many have died just from the elements.
The glacier has become a garbage dump now, littered with the detritus of war - thousands of empty artillery shells, empty fuel drums, ice axes, old boots, tents, and every other kind of waste that thousands of warring human beings generate. The garbage remains intact, perfectly preserved at those icy temperatures, a pristine monument to human folly.
While the Indian and Pakistani governments spend billions of dollars on weapons and the logistics of high-altitude warfare, the battlefield has begun to melt. Right now, it has shrunk to about half its size. The melting has less to do with the military standoff than with people far away, on the other side of the world, living the good life. They're good people who believe in peace, free speech, and in human rights. They live in thriving democracies whose governments sit on the United Nations Security Council and whose economies depend heavily on the export of war and the sale of weapons to countries like India and Pakistan. (And Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, the Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan ... it's a long list.)
The glacial melt will cause severe floods on the subcontinent, and eventually severe drought that will affect the lives of millions of people. That will give us even more reasons to fight. We'll need more weapons. Who knows? That sort of consumer confidence may be just what the world needs to get over the current recession. Then everyone in the thriving democracies will have an even better life - and the glaciers will melt even faster.
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
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