A brief history of Kashmir and the cause of the conflict
According to the instruments of partition of India in 1947, the rulers of princely states were given the choice to freely accede to either India or Pakistan, or to remain independent. They were, however, advised to accede to the contiguous dominion, taking into consideration the geographical and ethnic issues.
In Kashmir, however, the Maharajah hesitated. The principally Muslim population having seen the early and covert arrival of Indian troops, rebelled and things got out of the Maharajah's hands. The people of Kashmir were undoubtedly demanding to join Pakistan. The Maharajah, fearing tribal warfare, eventually gave way to the Indian pressure and agreed to join India by 'signing' the Instrument of Accession on 26th October 1947. Kashmir was provisionally accepted into the Indian Union pending a free and impartial plebiscite. This was spelled out in a letter from the Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten, to the Maharajah on 27th October 1947. In the letter, accepting the Accession, Mountbatten made it clear that the state would only be incorporated into the Indian Union after a reference had been made to the people of Kashmir. Having accepted the principle of a plebiscite, India has since obstructed all attempts at arranging one.
Heavy fighting took place in 1947-48 between the Indian and Pakistani forces over Kashmir. On 1st January 1949 a cease-fire was declared which created the first Line-of-Control.
In 1957 the state was, in effect, incorporated into the Indian Union under a new Constitution. This was done in direct contravention of the standing UN resolutions and the conditions of the Instrument of Accession. The article was rushed through by the then puppet state government of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed; people of Kashmir were not consulted.
Heavy fighting broke out again in 1965 between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. A cease-fire was established in September 1965. Indian Prime Minister, Lal Bhadur Shastri, and Pakistani President, M Ayub Khan, signed the Tashkent agreement on 1st January 1966. They resolved to try to end the dispute by peaceful means.
In 1971 civil war broke out in East Pakistan and Indian forces again fought the Pakistani forces in Kashmir. This resulted in a new cease-fire and the signing of the Shimla Agreement by Indira Ghandi and Z A Bhutto. The Shimla Agreement basically reiterated the promises made in Tashkent.
Since the 1971 war, the situation may have been described as stalemate with India in control of much the larger part of Kashmir, and doing everything to emphasis her claim de jur. However, the dream of freedom from India never died; it was only suppressed from time to time by the Indians by using puppet state governments.
Guardian on 14th July 1970 reports that it is "ironic that India's position in Kashmir should be increasingly challenged from within at a time when Kashmir's status as a major unsettled international dispute is declining".
Hindustan Times of August 1970 reports, "In the Kashmir People's Convention held in Srinagar in the summer of 1970, but for a few feeble voices in our [India's] favour, most of the delegates favoured either accession to Pakistan or creation of an independent Kashmir".
The close of 1989 saw the beginning of the renewed struggle for freedom of Kashmir. The Kashmiris started to arm themselves to resist the Indian occupation. The then state government, headed by Dr Farooq Abdullah, was dissolved and the state placed in direct control of the governor. Since then the struggle for freedom and democracy has intensified.
Source:
http://www.ummah.org.uk/kashmir/history.htm
Kashmir belongs to the Muslims, not Hindu India.
Why should it go to Hindu India when it is a Muslim majority state so it should in all fairness go to Pakistan? Why does the Indian government avoid a plebiscite to decide where it should go?
One hypocritical act by the UN (at that time called The League of Nations) was to allow Gujarat to go to India, it was hypocritical because the ruler of Gujarat was a Muslim and he chose to accede his state to Pakistan yet Gujarat was given to India, but using that logic of giving a state to a country by way of it's religious majority (Gujarat is a Hindu majority state) should have seen the British or the UN (League of Nations at that time) unilaterally giving Kashmir over to Pakistan because it was a Muslim majority state! This was the genesis of the problem which continues today. It is the desire for this freedom from India by Kashmiri groups which gets condemned as terrorism by the UN or nations such as the US, who provide India with support for it's stance on Kashmir. Before Kashmir was invaded by India, the conditions prevalent in Kashmir before it's illegal invasion were:
"During the uncertain times surrounding partition in 1947, an entirely indigenous revolt against the rule of the Maharaja broke out in the Kashmiri town of Poonch. Starting in June 1947, two months before the Transfer of Power, a no-tax campaign began which evolved rapidly into a popular secessionist movement. We may note that UN mediator Sir Oxford Dixon records that the movements of external forces into the region occurred in October 1947, and later in May 1948 long after the popular indigenous protest movement of June 1947. As is noted by both Alastair Lamb and Michael Kolodner then, this revolt began indigenously, rooted in the sentiments of the majority of Kashmiris. As the Poonch troubles continued, Pakistan was faced with three options to deal with the Muslim uprising - in Lambs words: to ignore what was going on and leave the Poonch Muslims to their fate, to assist the Hindu Maharaja in suppressing the rebellion, or to permit (be it overtly or covertly, officially or unofficially) some degree of material assistance to reach the rebels from or over Pakistani territory."
- The rape of Kashmir by Nafeez Mosaddeq
India then invaded in 1947 after Pathan tribes from Pakistan infiltrated into Kashmir to defend Kashmiri's who were apparently heavily burdened by the ruling Hindu Maharaja:
"In Summer 1947 the Hindu Maharajah of Kashmir started a provocative campaign of oppression, banning pro-Pakistani newspapers, applying onerous new taxes and burning down villages." - Sue the British Bandits, by John-Paul Leonard.
After India invaded and Kashmir's ruler decided to join India irrespective of the wishes of the people of Kashmir, a war started between India and Pakistan, to which the UN proposed the resolution:
"A - RESTORATION OF PEACE AND ORDER
1. The Government of Pakistan should undertake to use its best endeavours:
(a) To secure the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the State for the purposes of fighting, and to prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State;
(b.) To make known to all concerned that the measures indicated in this and the following paragraphs provide full freedom to all subjects of the State, regardless of creed, caste, or party, to express their views and to vote on the question of the accession of the State, and that therefore they should cooperate in the maintenance of peace and order.
2. The Government of India should:
(a) When it is established to the satisfaction of the Commission set up in accordance with the Council's Resolution 39 (1948) that the tribesmen are withdrawing and that arrangements for the cessation of the fighting have become effective, put into operation in consultation with the Commission a plan for withdrawing their own forces from Jammu and Kashmir and reducing them progressively to the minimum strength required for the support of the civil power in the maintenance of law and order;
(b.) Make known that the withdrawal is taking place in stages and announce the completion of each stage;" - UN document
Even this was not fair as point 2. (a) of the document calls for the Indians to maintain a minimal presence in Kashmir, even though the only claim it had to Kashmir at that time was the signing of a treaty by it's non-Muslim ruler to give Kashmir to India, which flew in the face of the natives who wanted to go to Pakistan. Furthermore this treaty violated the UN principles of the right to accession based on the wishes of the majority. It was also a major piece of hypocrisy because the ruler of Gujurat was a Muslim, and he chose to accede to Pakistan, yet India invaded and annexed Gujurat on the basis that it was a Hindu majority state and the people overwhelmingly wanted to go to India, the UN and British approved of this, yet when we saw the reverse happen in Kashmir with the ruler opting to accede to a state which the majority of his subjects did not want to go to, we saw that this was tacitly approved by the UN and British by their accepting of Indian sovereignty over Kashmir with their decision to refer to a plebiscite even though overwhelmingly the people already wanted to accede to Pakistan. So at one point (Gujurat) the British and UN (then the League of Nations) chose to uphold the principle that a state of a certain religious majority should go to the nation with that religious majority (Hindu majority states go to Hindu India and Muslim majority states go to Muslim Pakistan), otherwise known as the "two-state policy" when India invaded Gujurat (with it's Muslim Prince deciding to go to Pakistan which prompted the Indians to invade) with no condemnation either from the British or the UN, but at another point (Kashmir) they chose not to uphold that very same principal that a state goes to the nation with that states religious majority, even though the parallel with Gujurat is the same only reversed, and yet they somehow legitimised India's rule over Muslim Kashmir. British hypocrisy is well documented in this case, I refer you to this link; click here.
The above UN resolution is criticised as UN complicity:
"What look like olive leaves on the UN seal really come from a fig tree. UN resolution #48 from 1948 calls for Pakistan to remove irregular guerrillas BEFORE India removes its regular army - although Kashmir is Pakistani by British and International rules, and the irregulars may or may not be from outside Kashmir: they are just a convenient red herring. Such conscience-numbing mumbo-jumbo resolutions are merely a guarantee of eternal military occupation, a license for progressive ethnic cleansing and eventual complete absorption by non-Muslim invaders." - Sue the British Bandits, by John-Paul Leonard.
This British complicity is further elaborated by way of highlighting certain errors in the Partition Plan:
"For most Princely States, it was a foregone conclusion that they would join Pakistan or India, whichever their population dictated. Otherwise, they would have been surrounded by territory of the opposite state. In Jammu and Kashmir, however, this choice was not simple or straightforward: the Maharaja was a Hindu who ruled over a predominantly Muslim population. Just as in Palestine, the British role appears to have been deliberately designed to bypass the right of the indigenous Kashmiri population to self-determination. As has been noted by British historian and Kashmir authority Alastair Lamb, whose research on the Kashmir issue is the most complete and impartial, Lord Mountbatten, the British Viceroy, engineered Partition in such a way that Jammu and Kashmir would inevitably go to India regardless of the sentiments of the indigenous population. At the very least, it seems evident that he tampered with the process sufficiently to leave that option wide open. By allocating the Gurdaspur district of the Punjab to India, even though it ought to have gone to Pakistan by the logic of partition, the possibility of Jammu and Kashmir joining India was left open. Had Gurdaspur gone to Pakistan, there would have been no land-route connecting India to Kashmir. The evidence, as Lamb observes, suggests that Mountbatten meddled with the proceedings of the Radcliffe Commission, whose job it was to assign territories to either Pakistan or India, intending India rather than Pakistan to be the guardian of the Northern Frontier because he had more trust in Indias secular leadership. In this respect, the parallel between Palestine and Kashmir is quite obvious. In both cases, British colonial manipulation resulted in the violation of the right of a people to self-determination, and the blocking of the emergence of a legitimate independent state." - The rape of Kashmir by Nafeez Mosaddeq
With regards to the legality of India's occupation:
"As Alastair Lamb records, included in the Instrument of Accession itself was a special clause requiring a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the people once law and order had been reestablished. The Governor-Generals further confirmation that the question of the statess accession should be settled by a reference to the people, actually concords with the Independence Act of 1947: An Indian State shall be deemed to have acceded to the Dominion if the Governor General has signified the acceptance of an Instrument of Accession executed by the Ruler thereof. For the Governor General Lord Mountbatten did not accept the Instrument of Accession unconditionally. Rather, in Lord Mountbattens very letter signifying his provisional and conditional acceptance of the Instrument of Accession signed by the Maharajah, we find the following:
My dear Maharaja Sahib,
Your Highness letter dated 26 October has been delivered to me by Mr. V. P. Menon. In the special circumstances mentioned by your Highness my Government have decided to accept the accession of Kashmir State to the Dominion of India. Consistently with their policy that in the case of any State where the issue of accession has been the subject of dispute, the question if accession should be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people of the State, it is my Governments wish that as soon as law and order have been restored in Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader the question of the States accession should be settled by a reference to the people.
Unlike other states, therefore, Kashmir had acceded to India conditionally and that conditional integration was accepted without much serious misgiving by Indias post-Independence leadership. Human Rights Watch describes the process as conditional accession to India. Thus there is no other choice for the leadership in New Delhi but to come to terms with the historical legacy of the unique nature of the social-contract with the people of Kashmir. But India has refused to do this. Consequently, the accession to India was and remains illegal. Michael Kolodner thus concludes: There is some question as to the chronology of the accession and of Indian intervention, including the fact that the Patiala brigade, officially troops of the Indian Union after that states accession, was in Jammu and Kashmir prior to the accession of Jammu and Kashmir. These questions of timing and the need for a plebiscite lead to significant doubts about Indias claim to the absolute legality of the Maharajas accession in 1947." - The rape of Kashmir by Nafeez Mosaddeq
The rest is history, to this day we see no UN intervention in this, which has been described by the CIA as the most likely place in which a nuclear war will be fought over, this should of course speed the process of forcing India to hold a plebiscite but of course it has not, mainly due to UN and Western inaction over this while they repeatedly condemn the guerrilla groups who emerged who want to get rid of the Indian occupying forces (a desire supported by UN resolutions which allow for groups to oppose occupying forces) as "terrorists".
Atrocities committed by the Indian army on Muslims and Sikhs in Kashmir:
Not a new problem. During 1947 Partition 500,000 Muslims were evicted from (Hindu) Jammu; 200,000 "disappeared".
The international human rights organisations, medical relief, humanitarian assistance and the media have been officially denied access to Indian-occupied Kashmir but serious abuses by the Indian security forces are nevertheless well-documented
What the human rights organisations say:
Amnesty International: The forces use torture as a matter of daily routine. ...Amnesty believes that thousands of prisoners have died as a result over the past decade. Rape is frequently used. The Indian government could stop torture if it tried
Asia Watch: In efforts to crush the militant movement, Indian government forces have violated the laws of war protecting civilians, engaged in summary execution of suspected militants and reprisal killings of civilians. Some 200 extra-judicial killings by government forces since the beginning of 1990. Torture is widespread
International Federation of Human Rights Groups (France) Indian security forces operate with complete impunity. Rule of law has broken down completely. Draconian legislation only serves to encourage brutality and violence by security forces much of whose conduct is in flagrant violation of fundamental human rights and international law - and India's own constitution
What the media say:
Times 12 August 1993: "Indian torturers fail to break Kashmir's will".
Times 16 August 1994 (editorial): "Kashmir may be territory disputed by India and Pakistan - and the UN regards it as such - but its people are entitled to be consulted in the simple matter of their own future"
Observer 13 Nov 1994: "While there is no doubt the army is involved in some of the grisly extra-judicial executions, New Delhi has also created special commando units licensed to kill"
Source:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/wkfm/hr_abi.htm
India: Use of the Public Security Act in Jammu and Kashmir
The arbitrary arrest and detention of those peacefully voicing dissent is continuing in Jammu and Kashmir, India, with the Public Security Act (PSA) increasingly being used to punish those who criticise the government, Amnesty International warned today.
Political activists were detained and beaten last week following public protests over the killing of six women. Amnesty International is calling for the immediate release of those who remain in detention and considers them to be prisoners of conscience, held solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and association.
On 8 June 2001 an unidentified attacker threw a hand grenade at a group of women picnicking at a shrine in Chara-e-Sharief. Four women were killed outright and two more died later of their injuries. Local observers believe that the attacker was a member of the Special Operations Group [SOG] which is a division of the police created to deal with militancy. Amnesty International urges the government of Jammu and Kashmir to immediately initiate an independent, impartial and transparent inquiry into this incident.
Several associates of the Human Rights Front, including their patron Mr Untoo, were taken from their homes at around 4:00am on the 9th June and held in detention until that evening. At the same time members of the Islamic Students League were also picked up and placed in preventive detention. A two year detention order was issued for Shakil Ahmad Bakhshi, a student leader under the Public Safety Act.
Dr Hubbi, a leader of the All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC) and vice Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Conference, and his wife attended a demonstration on Saturday 9 June. At the demonstration the couple were beaten by police and Dr Hubbi was taken into preventive detention. A two year detention order was issued against Dr Hubbi who is now being held in Kotbalwal jail. There are reports that the home of Dr Hubbi's brother, Abdul Kabir Hubbi, was also raided by the SOG on the night of 12 June. Dr Hubbi, who has no connections with the armed opposition, has served earlier periods in preventive detention, including eight months in 1999- 2000 along with 25 other leaders of the APHC.
Other APHC leaders including Shahidul Islam and Javed Ahmad Mir were also arrested. Amnesty International has also seen reports that APHC leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz was stopped from attending the demonstration by the police at Awantipora and that, together with activists Mukhtar Waza, Zahoor Sheikh and Khalil Ahmad Khalil, he was beaten by police.
Amnesty International is concerned about the widespread use of excessive force by the police when detaining activists. In March 2001, Syed Shah Geelani, who is known to the authorities as having a serious heart disease, was pushed to the floor and beaten unconscious by police when he was being released from detention.
Amnesty International is also concerned that the PSA continues to be abused in Jammu and Kashmir to detain opposition politicians. AI is aware of many cases of activists being held for years without recourse to the judicial process. As most people detained under the PSA are denied access to lawyers and family members, they also run a high risk of being subjected to torture or ill-treatment.
The Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978 is the main law relating to preventive detention in Jammu and Kashmir and permits administrative detention without trial for a period of up to one year if a person is deemed likely to act in a way "prejudicial to the maintenance of public order" or up to two years if their actions are likely to be "prejudicial to the safety of the state". Source:
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/ASA200...RIES\INDIA
A Brief Catalogue of Indian Atrocities in Kashmir
Source:
http://www.jamiat.org.za/whatsnew/kashmiri.html
This is a documentary testimony of horror in Indian Occupied Kashmir; of atrocities perpetrated on a people wanting to end foreign military occupation of their homeland. Since the beginning of the recent uprising in January 1990, the Kashmiris have been demanding and end to 48 years of Indian forced rule. What is depicted here is only part of the reality of Indian atrocities since no journalists, human rights and humanitarian organisations, or tourists were allowed to enter Occupied Kashmir until very recently. The real story will be told only when Indian occupation forces have left Kashmir.
The extent of torture, killings and rapes perpetrated on Kashmiri people by Indian forces are already creating a new record of atrocities. Gouging of eyes, cutting off of men's genitals, use of ever new methods of torture and endless curfews would shame Hitler's SS death squads. The Indian occupation army's deviltry such as gang-rapes, burning of entire villages and crops, destruction of economic life of whole communities and genocide of the Kashmiri people in defiance of international human rights laws, are everyday affairs.
(Dr Ayyub Thakur, President-World Kashmir Freedom Movement).
TORTURE AND CUSTODIAL DEATHS TORTURE
Indian armed forces have let loose a reign of terror and are pursuing with the policy of unabated killings, torture and brutal methods of killings in Kashmir State since 1989. Despite the fact that international community and Human Rights Organizations all over the World have registered constant protests against this policy of Indian Government in Kashmir, no change is visible in the acts of repressions and suppression at the hands of forces. In fact the death due to torture and in custody have alarmingly increased.
Many such incidents go un-noticed due to severe restrictions on the movement of people, constant crackdowns, curfews and other repressive measures by the forces. However, the Forum has been able to collect details about some such incidents which are based on personal information, print and electronic media and data collected by Human Rights activists. The officials and armed forces are in the habit of naming such killings as the result of so called encounters. But the fact of the situation is that most of such arrests are made during crackdown operations where people of the area are collected first, bodily searched before their entry in the specified area and then subjected to identification. The arrests of the people are made when such persons are totally unarmed and there is no possibility of any encounter with the forces. Such fake encounters are carved out by the forces in order to save themselves from the wrath of international community and over all public resentment.
Since 1989, an estimated 40,000 Kashmiris have been killed by the Indian forces stationed in Kashmir. For the last five years the people of the State have intensified their efforts in order to invite the attention of the world community towards the "Kashmir Dispute", though the people of the State had been fighting for their just cause peacefully for the last forty eight years. Indian Government throughout these four decades has been suppressing the people by illegal use of force, putting them into the jails/ Interrogation centres etc. under draconian laws. Whenever any person demanded holding of " Plebiscite", he has been put behind the bars.
The Indian Forces, stationed in Kashmir, have been given a free hand to kill any person they choose. These powers have been given to them under the draconian laws like "Disturbed Areas Act of 1990" and "Indian Armed Forces Act of 1990". Indifference shown by world community to the miseries of people, have encouraged and given a free hand to armed forces, to deal with the people, as they like. In October 1992, the Indian Armed forces started to intensify the killing of people immediately after their arrest. These operations have been carried out under the code name of "Operation Tiger", "Operation Eagle" and "Operation Shiva". Now the armed forces have resorted to another policy of "Catch and Kill" which means that no sooner a person is taken into custody, within minutes he is brutally tortured and killed. The dead body is then thrown into the street. In other cases, innocent civilians are arrested and taken to border areas where they are shot. The Indian government then publicises that these people were militants killed in armed encounters with the troops.
It is common practise for the paramilitary forces to walk into a quiet village/town and start shooting indiscriminately, killing innocent and unarmed civilians - all under the pretence of crack-down operations against the Freedom-Fighters. In most cases, innocent civilians are being killed, women gang-raped and properties set on fire.
Testimonies of Young and old women of Kunan Pushpora Kashmir
Gang rape victims
It was one dreaded night when the village of Kunan Pushpora was attacked by a unit from the Indian army camped about ten miles from the village. All the men of the village were rounded up and locked away in a room of an empty house. The soldiers carried bottles of alcohol in their hands and were drinking, swearing and shouting. They had been in the village before, looking for militants.
They turned the lights off and used torches to enter all the homes. When the carnage was over, around 60 women were found lying in their homes either unconscious or weeping in anguish and pain. They had been raped. The victims were old women as well as very young female children who will now be facing problems for the rest of their lives, if they live this foray by the Indian army. Please read the rest at:
http://www.kashmir.demon.co.uk/rape/index.htm
A catalogue of Indian atrocities with pictures:
http://www.ummah.net/kris/atrocities/index.html
After all this and the Western governments still say "India is fighting terrorism" when India it self is committing far worse crimes, plus Kashmir is meant to be a part of Pakistan, so why the hypocrisy? Recently in December 2001 the American government named all freedom-fighter groups in Kashmir as "terrorist" groups. Why? If it is because these "terrorists" (according to India) kill innocents then why does the US not name India as a terrorist nation when human rights groups have proven that India commits acts which are defined as terrorism and on an even larger scale?
Indeed, most of the massacres have been attributed to the Kashmiri militant groups yet no evidence has been given to prove that, and what is given by way of bodies has come under doubt with startling new revelations:
"The government in Indian-controlled Kashmir has acknowledged that DNA samples taken from five men blamed for the masscre of 35 Sikhs two years ago were tampered with. Samples were taken from the men only after protests in Kashmir by local people who insisted they were innocent, and were deliberately killed by the security forces in a stage-managed encounter. At the time, the authorities insisted they were foreign militants from the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen groups - although the groups themselves denied any involvement in the Sikh massacre. But allegations were made that they were in fact five local men picked up by the security forces and killed in a stage-managed encounter so they could be blamed for the massacre. The Indian authorities have in the past been accused by human rights groups of summary killings and other abuses in Kashmir - charges the government always denies." - Kashmir massacre sample "faked"; BBC report.
There is another report, though slightly lacking in historical oversight as the author misses some crucial facts about this conflict, nevertheless he highlights some interesting issues:
"This dismal story of state violence and deception is by no means unusual in Kashmir. Two weeks ago, a report in the Indian Express described how three so-called "militant infiltrators" who had been killed at the Kashmir border by Indian soldiers were local civilians. Such accounts show that while it is important for General Musharraf to end all Pakistani sponsorship of violence in India, the Hindu nationalist government of India has to do a lot more to earn the trust of the majority of Muslims who live in the valley of Kashmir." - The Guardian
This raises the possibility that Indian claims with regards to massacres being done by Kashmiri groups, even when they present "evidence" such as bodies and weapons cannot be taken as fact due to these reports which discredit Indian claims.