Momin Iftikhar
A tectonic shift is manifesting itself in the Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) where the allotment of 100 acres of land by the outgoing Governor, General (retd) S K Sinha to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) on June 4, 2008, has triggered a chain reaction of events that has shaken the very basis of Kashmir. Bandhs, tear stained processions by Kashmiri women bereaving the loss of their near and dear ones, the protests marking the discovery of victims of fake encounters, curfew to preclude chances of violent attacks on the occasion of state ceremonial functions are nothing new in the IHK. Indians have learnt to take such desperate forms of Kashmiri protests in stride and their well-tuned media has developed a choir-like response of explaining various forms of Kashmiri protests to the outside world as ISI-sponsored upheavals or brushed these aside using the worn-out cliché of “cross border terrorism”. However, the mass protests, that Kashmir is witnessing nowadays, is chilling from the Indian perspective. It is deep rooted, it is cold and determined, it is not violence prone and it says it all so emphatically – Kashmiris have had enough of Indian chicanery and their aspirations to cut ties with India have reached a point of no return.
The rise of Hindu nationalism in India has played a major role in charting the course for the latest round of Kashmiri outpourings by instilling a deep-rooted feeling of religious and communal victimisation in the IHK – the only Muslim majority state in India. The stimulus for the ongoing volcanic eruption of emotions is not a direct backlash of Indian ruthless tactics – fake encounters, forced disappearances, discovery of mass graves, etc – but an offensive assertion of strident Hindutva forces in IHK. Amarnath yatra – the pilgrimage to a cave shrine in Kashmir that is revered by Hindus for housing a ‘lingam’, a stalagmite structure, seen as icon of Shiva, has been going on for over a century and a half and fully supported by the local population. Governor Sinha, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appointee, began to introduce changes to the established practices that threw the established equilibrium – ecological as well as communal – out of the tightly strung balance.
Sinha’s endeavours to expand the infrastructure for facilitating pilgrimage in the ecologically fragile area touched a raw nerve among the local populace. Undeterred by such sentiments, the BJP protégée carved out new route through the mountains, unduly expanded facilities for the Hindu pilgrims and extended the annual duration of yatra from one to two months; even though the stalagmite, a perceived reflection of Lord Shiva, lasts for only about four weeks. The result was the manifold increase in the number of pilgrims which began to exceed 400,000 and an inevitable degradation of the ecological environment. To rub salt in the wound of Kashmiri pride, Sinha established the SASB and took away the stewardship of the cave from the Muslim family that had discovered the stalagmite over a century ago.
The transfer of the 100 acres of Kashmiri forestland land to the SASB for construction of staging facilities for the pilgrims proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. The situation had been building up and was ripe for a revolution for quite some time. The land transfer only acted as the trigger to set in motion a tsunami of pent up anger, pain and anguish that had built up by a strained to the limit life under the rule of bayonet in the IHK for the last two decades.
The unprecedented mass uprising in Kashmir heralds a new phase in the Kashmiri freedom struggle; bringing under focus some new dimensions of the independence struggle that have evolved since it was launched in 1989. First and foremost is the nature of the Kashmiri resistance, which has undergone a fundamental change of posture – transforming from a militancy dominated response to adoption of a non-violent approach. The non-violent Kashmiri resistance to the launching of India’s Independence Day rituals in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk was an apt demonstration of this new phenomenon. The presence of Kashmiri demonstrators in large numbers and the mood of the gathering was enough to command respect. The Indian flag that was unfurled in the morning to mark the occasion by CRPF Commandant was replaced by the gathering crowd even as the Indian soldiers gazed impassively. Quietly but resolutely flags of Jamaat-e-Islami and Hizb-e-Islami were raised at Lal Chowk as the unstoppable crowd chanted slogans of Pakistan Zindabad and Allah-o-Akbar. The same attitude was at display when a crowd of approximately 500,000 marched to the offices of the UN Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), brushing aside the lines formed by Indian army and paramilitary forces to deliver memorandum addressed to UN Secretary General. Obviously, there is a realisation at the grassroots level that a non-violent agitation by the Kashmiri masses communicates an aura of moral authority and power that is too overbearing to resist.
Second, the mass uprisings have put to rest the Indian propaganda tirade that the ‘cross border terrorism’ is what drives the Kashmiri resistance. In the post 9/11 period India has shrewdly projected the Kashmiri’s freedom struggle as a form of terrorism seeking to rent asunder the democratic fibre of the largest democracy in the world. The emergence of non-violent mass protests, unprecedented in the two decades old history of Kashmiri resistance, has effectively outlined the grassroots Kashmiri desire to get freedom from India. A world renowned author, Arundhati Roy, who was present at the April 18 rally in Srinagar made this point abundantly clear. “India needs azadi from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs azadi from India,” she concluded.
Third, the UN linkage to the Kashmir issue has made a resounding comeback at the global scene. This was emphatically at display as the swelling crowd defied Indian military and paramilitary lines to deliver a memorandum at the UNMOGIP offices, seeking UN intervention. Not many people in India know about the presence of UNMOGIP and the UN-mandated role that it has been assigned to the Group to play in Kashmir. This is because despite bearing the authority of the UNSC, India since 1971, has unilaterally stopped UNMOGIP from performing their surveillance and reporting role on the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. The memorandum submitted by the Kashmiri demonstrators should, hopefully, serve to draw attention of the UN Secretary General to rejuvenate the UN role in finding a solution to the Kashmir issue in accordance with the aspirations of the people of Kashmir. Indian theme of bilateralism fallaciously attributed to Simla Agreement 1972, has been overstretched to consign the Kashmir issue and Kashmiris to the dustbin of history. Kashmiris have thunderously voiced the demise of this one sided falsehood. Time has come for the UN to play its role in ensuring that the Kashmiris, after all, have a say in deciding their future.
A tectonic shift is manifesting itself in the Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) where the allotment of 100 acres of land by the outgoing Governor, General (retd) S K Sinha to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) on June 4, 2008, has triggered a chain reaction of events that has shaken the very basis of Kashmir. Bandhs, tear stained processions by Kashmiri women bereaving the loss of their near and dear ones, the protests marking the discovery of victims of fake encounters, curfew to preclude chances of violent attacks on the occasion of state ceremonial functions are nothing new in the IHK. Indians have learnt to take such desperate forms of Kashmiri protests in stride and their well-tuned media has developed a choir-like response of explaining various forms of Kashmiri protests to the outside world as ISI-sponsored upheavals or brushed these aside using the worn-out cliché of “cross border terrorism”. However, the mass protests, that Kashmir is witnessing nowadays, is chilling from the Indian perspective. It is deep rooted, it is cold and determined, it is not violence prone and it says it all so emphatically – Kashmiris have had enough of Indian chicanery and their aspirations to cut ties with India have reached a point of no return.
The rise of Hindu nationalism in India has played a major role in charting the course for the latest round of Kashmiri outpourings by instilling a deep-rooted feeling of religious and communal victimisation in the IHK – the only Muslim majority state in India. The stimulus for the ongoing volcanic eruption of emotions is not a direct backlash of Indian ruthless tactics – fake encounters, forced disappearances, discovery of mass graves, etc – but an offensive assertion of strident Hindutva forces in IHK. Amarnath yatra – the pilgrimage to a cave shrine in Kashmir that is revered by Hindus for housing a ‘lingam’, a stalagmite structure, seen as icon of Shiva, has been going on for over a century and a half and fully supported by the local population. Governor Sinha, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appointee, began to introduce changes to the established practices that threw the established equilibrium – ecological as well as communal – out of the tightly strung balance.
Sinha’s endeavours to expand the infrastructure for facilitating pilgrimage in the ecologically fragile area touched a raw nerve among the local populace. Undeterred by such sentiments, the BJP protégée carved out new route through the mountains, unduly expanded facilities for the Hindu pilgrims and extended the annual duration of yatra from one to two months; even though the stalagmite, a perceived reflection of Lord Shiva, lasts for only about four weeks. The result was the manifold increase in the number of pilgrims which began to exceed 400,000 and an inevitable degradation of the ecological environment. To rub salt in the wound of Kashmiri pride, Sinha established the SASB and took away the stewardship of the cave from the Muslim family that had discovered the stalagmite over a century ago.
The transfer of the 100 acres of Kashmiri forestland land to the SASB for construction of staging facilities for the pilgrims proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. The situation had been building up and was ripe for a revolution for quite some time. The land transfer only acted as the trigger to set in motion a tsunami of pent up anger, pain and anguish that had built up by a strained to the limit life under the rule of bayonet in the IHK for the last two decades.
The unprecedented mass uprising in Kashmir heralds a new phase in the Kashmiri freedom struggle; bringing under focus some new dimensions of the independence struggle that have evolved since it was launched in 1989. First and foremost is the nature of the Kashmiri resistance, which has undergone a fundamental change of posture – transforming from a militancy dominated response to adoption of a non-violent approach. The non-violent Kashmiri resistance to the launching of India’s Independence Day rituals in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk was an apt demonstration of this new phenomenon. The presence of Kashmiri demonstrators in large numbers and the mood of the gathering was enough to command respect. The Indian flag that was unfurled in the morning to mark the occasion by CRPF Commandant was replaced by the gathering crowd even as the Indian soldiers gazed impassively. Quietly but resolutely flags of Jamaat-e-Islami and Hizb-e-Islami were raised at Lal Chowk as the unstoppable crowd chanted slogans of Pakistan Zindabad and Allah-o-Akbar. The same attitude was at display when a crowd of approximately 500,000 marched to the offices of the UN Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), brushing aside the lines formed by Indian army and paramilitary forces to deliver memorandum addressed to UN Secretary General. Obviously, there is a realisation at the grassroots level that a non-violent agitation by the Kashmiri masses communicates an aura of moral authority and power that is too overbearing to resist.
Second, the mass uprisings have put to rest the Indian propaganda tirade that the ‘cross border terrorism’ is what drives the Kashmiri resistance. In the post 9/11 period India has shrewdly projected the Kashmiri’s freedom struggle as a form of terrorism seeking to rent asunder the democratic fibre of the largest democracy in the world. The emergence of non-violent mass protests, unprecedented in the two decades old history of Kashmiri resistance, has effectively outlined the grassroots Kashmiri desire to get freedom from India. A world renowned author, Arundhati Roy, who was present at the April 18 rally in Srinagar made this point abundantly clear. “India needs azadi from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs azadi from India,” she concluded.
Third, the UN linkage to the Kashmir issue has made a resounding comeback at the global scene. This was emphatically at display as the swelling crowd defied Indian military and paramilitary lines to deliver a memorandum at the UNMOGIP offices, seeking UN intervention. Not many people in India know about the presence of UNMOGIP and the UN-mandated role that it has been assigned to the Group to play in Kashmir. This is because despite bearing the authority of the UNSC, India since 1971, has unilaterally stopped UNMOGIP from performing their surveillance and reporting role on the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. The memorandum submitted by the Kashmiri demonstrators should, hopefully, serve to draw attention of the UN Secretary General to rejuvenate the UN role in finding a solution to the Kashmir issue in accordance with the aspirations of the people of Kashmir. Indian theme of bilateralism fallaciously attributed to Simla Agreement 1972, has been overstretched to consign the Kashmir issue and Kashmiris to the dustbin of history. Kashmiris have thunderously voiced the demise of this one sided falsehood. Time has come for the UN to play its role in ensuring that the Kashmiris, after all, have a say in deciding their future.
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