Hindu Voice UK - A Voice For The British Hindu

:: EDITORIAL & ANALYSIS ::

The Kashmir Problem

Jayesh Ramzan

Hindu Voice UK, May 2006

The killing of 35 Hindus in Kashmir on the 1st of May was met by a typical muted response by the world media and human rights organisations. Tragically, the apathy with regards to such incidents extends to the general Indian public and government too. Perhaps the reason is that such indiscriminate killings of Hindus have become so commonplace, that it is just accepted now as part of the way things are.

This is especially true in Kashmir where Hindus (known as 'Kashmiri Pandits') have been targeted in this way over the course of over 17 years during which at least 62,000 people have been killed.

The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is divided into two major regions, Kashmir, which is populated mainly by Muslims, and Jammu, which is mainly Hindu. The overall population of the state is 67% Muslim and 29% Hindu, with small Buddhist, Sikh and Christian populations.

Jammu and Kashmir joined the Union of India in 1947 under the Independence of India Act. The decision to join India was made by Hari Singh, the then ruler of the state. Pakistan was against this accession on the grounds that Kashmir is a Muslim-majority region and shortly before the accession, Pakistan-backed tribals invaded the state. The Indian Army successfully beat back the invaders from most parts of Kashmir, but before the area could be fully cleared the Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru referred the matter to the UN, which in hindsight turned out to be a grave mistake. The UN treated both parties as equally aggrieved rather than acknowledging the aggression by Pakistan, and passed a resolution calling for Pakistan to vacate from the remaining areas, and called for a plebiscite (vote) so that the citizens of Jammu & Kashmir could determine the future of the state, even though it had been lawfully acceded to India with the support of the largest Muslim political party (the National Conference). Neither has Pakistan ever vacated the areas of the state that it controls, which was agreed as a pre-condition for the plebiscite to take place.

To this day, Pakistan continues to illegally occupy parts of Kashmir and has initiated two further wars with India in an attempt to 'liberate' the rest of the state from Indian control. It is a credit to the Indian Army and the people of Kashmir that each attempt has failed.

This failure in conventional armed warfare has led to a 'proxy war' against India in which it provides support to armed separatists who carry out random attacks on Indian Army patrols, as well as indiscriminate attacks on unarmed Hindus. This proxy war intensified in 1989 after separatist militias declared a 'jihad' (holy war). Pakistan claims that the terrorists are 'freedom fighters' fighting Indian rule and that they only provide moral support to the latter. However considerable evidence shows that the support has extended to financial, military, and logistical support, and that the terrorists are not just Kashmiri, but from countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and even the UK. Part of the terrorist campaign is to kill and frighten Hindus out of Kashmir, so that if a self-determination vote ever took place, it is less likely to go India's way. The second stage consists of imposing a strict Islamic rule on the people of Kashmir. Militants have closed down beauty parlours and cinemas, and women are told they must cover their faces or face punishment.

Indians fear that if Kashmir separated from India, it would lead to the 'balkanisation' (fragmentation) of India, which has a huge number of Muslims in other parts of the country. In fact the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh alone has nine times more Muslims than Kashmir.

Consecutive Indian governments have done little much to combat the terrorism other than verbally condemn the barbaric attacks taking place and posting more troops in the state. Nothing has been done to rehabilitate the majority of displaced Hindus (who continue to languish in refugee camps), nor provide sufficient security to those who choose to remain in Kashmir. Recently the current Congress-led government even launched a passport and visa-free bus service between Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and the rest of the state; such a service can only serve to make the infiltration of terrorists even easier, and wreak more havoc on the Kashmiri population.

So what can be done? More people around the world must help raise awareness of the plight of Kashmiri Hindus. Contacting local politicians and newspapers can help achieve this. Human rights organisations such as Asia Watch and Amnesty International must also be contacted and confronted as to why the terrorist attacks against unarmed civilians is such a small concern of their's. Finally, the Congress Party of India should be contacted and a request be made that sufficient plans are brought into action to help bring back displaced Hindus to their homeland, as well as the protection of Hindus and their places of worship. Until such steps are taken by the general public, there will never be the political in India help the dispossessed Hindus of Kashmir. Until then, another vivisection of India once again appears to be a possibility.

The author is a student of International Law, and member of 'Homeland', an international Kashmiri think-tank.