India is a strange place as it is vast and huge in terms of its population. However, when it comes to talking about Pakistan, the Indians, with the exception of its minorities particularly the Muslims, speak with almost the same rhetorical stance.
The country is lamenting the loss of 19 soldiers when four terrorists on September 18, 2016, near the town of Uri in the Indian Kashmir attacked a Brigade headquarters where 6 Bihar regiment was replacing the 10 Dogra regiment. It was reported as the deadliest attack on security forces in Kashmir in two decades. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, though the militant group Jaishe Mohammad is being accused by India of being involved.
Nobody however is talking about the more than 100 civilians who have died, about the thousands who have been injured since July 8 when Burhan Wani was killed; and about the hundreds who have gone blind due to use of pellet guns. The State is virtually under constant curfew; schools, banks and offices are closed.
The fact is that there is a clear discrimination against the people in Kashmir. And the apparent reason is because they are Muslims. What do the Indians have to say the way the people of Kashmir are being treated since independence, and then since 1989, and particularly since the killing of Burhan Wani in July this year? The Supreme Court of India takes suo moto notice of smog in New Delhi, or pollution of a river, but has failed to take any step to redress the grievances of the people in Kashmir. If a Jat gets killed in Haryana, the Center moves. If Muslims are killed for eating beef, the State looks the other way; but when the same thing happens to a Hindu in Gujaraat where more than 3,000 Muslims were killed but nothing had happened, the Chief Minister changes.
Let us not forget that there was almost daily exchange of fire at the Line of Control before Pakistan’s Prime Minister declared a unilateral ceasefire in November 2003. Guns mercifully have been silent on both sides since then. India took the opportunity of improved relations and the ceasefire to build one of the most sophisticated border fences in the world. Ironically, it still accuses Pakistan of infiltrating militants into the occupied Kashmir when it is virtually impossible to cross the LoC.
The fact is that people of Kashmir simply do not desire to be part of India for whatever reason. I have not been to the occupied Kashmir and so cannot say for sure if the Kashmiris desire to be part of Pakistan or simply be independent. But this is for sure that India is nowhere in the picture.
There are more than 600,000 Indian troops stationed in Kashmir. The Indian Army is one of the best armed in the world. So there is no doubt that it can control the unarmed civilians, just like the Israelis can control the Palestinians in the occupied areas. But for how long? The people throwing stone at the Indian troops and the police in Kashmir, and burning Indian flags, and waving Pakistani ones, are mostly born after 1989.
Waves after waves of these youngsters will keep coming on the street. They do not come out and protest because they are being trained by the Pakistanis or the ISI, or they are being paid by anybody. They simply want freedom, just the way Indians wanted freedom from the British; or the Scottish from the English; or the French speaking from the English speaking ones in Canada. Pakistan is not supporting all the freedom movements of the world. This phenomenon has its own dynamics, and cannot be crushed by lethal force. Never. Otherwise, Jalianwala Bagh would have ended the freedom movement of the Indians. If Bhagat Singh can be our freedom fighter, then so can Burhan Wani.
India should act maturely. Raising the bogey of Balochistan or Gilgit or Azad Kashmir is not going to divert attention from the streets of Indian Kashmir, and the Kashmiris will not stop throwing stones.
India is a democracy, and it should fulfill the pledge made by none other than Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, on November 2, 1947, when he had said:
“We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given, and the Maharaja has supported it, not only to the people of Kashmir but to the world. We will not, and cannot back out of it. We are prepared when peace and law and order have been established to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations. We want it to be a fair and just reference to the people, and we shall accept their verdict. I can imagine no fairer and just offer.”
It was not Pakistan but India that referred the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations. And the UN Security Council passed several resolutions calling for holding of a referendum in Kashmir.
If India is a democracy, then it should genuinely and sincerely hold talks with the people of Kashmir and Pakistan to achieve a permanent solution to this problem. The people of Kashmir deserve better; they have suffered enough. And the people of India and Pakistan ought to have peace so that we could move forward. Otherwise, we all would be discussing the same issues even 100 years from now while the world will have moved far ahead.
The Last Stop 