Kashmir Agitation turns

Thousands of people, using all modes of transport, have started converging on the vast Eidgah Grounds in Srinagar, after the state authorities decided to allow the ‘Eidgah Chalo’ march called by separatists.

There has been no extra deployment of police or paramilitary personnel on city roads or in the other towns of the valley.

Today will be the first time that Friday prayers are offered at the Eidgah Ground, which is normally used for Eid prayers only.

According to the police, one person was electrocuted and four others received serious burn injuries when a vehicle overloaded with people and on its way to the Eidgah Ground, crashed into a high-tension live electric wire at Bejibehara in southern Kashmir.

This is the fourth march called by the separatists in the last 12 days and all of the marches have received tremendous response.

The authorities have ordered security forces to exercise restraint. They have also appealed to the marchers to maintain peace and not to resort to any provocative measures.

After offering Friday’s prayers, the separatist leaders will address the mammoth rally.

A new generation seeks Azadi

The morning after the auspicious day of Shabhi Barat, the day when the almighty decides one’s fate and when people stay up all night praying for their destiny, there was no doubt what the Kashmir Valley had wished for: Azadi.

On Monday morning, Srinagar woke up to truck after truck with green flag-waving, green bandana-sporting youth. They came in all means of transport and from all over the Valley. Buses, cars, trucks, motorcycles and even the odd government civil supplies department vehicle appropriated for the occasion.

The Valley had converged in Srinagar following a call from the All Party Hurriyat Conference to march to the United Nations Military Observers Group office in the heart of the city. For the separatist leaders, the call had two purposes — to internationalise the issue and to gauge the intensity of the newly re-ignited call for freedom — before the leaders could decide how best to take it forward.

While the first was served by way of a memorandum to the UN, there was no saying if the response helped the leadership in any way. They were overwhelmed.

Anti-Indian — ‘Crush India’, ‘When the Lashkar comes, India will be defeated’ — and pro-Pakistani — ‘Kashmir ki mandi� Rawalpindi’. ‘Seb toh sirf bahana hain, Rawalpindi jaana hain’ — slogans punctuated the relentless call for Azadi as the crowd of more than 1,00,000 made its way to the Tourists Reception Centre grounds in the centre of the city.

Giving Kashmir away? No way
Is it an orchestrated coincidence or random chance that on August 17, two leading national dailies prominently carried commentaries advocating independence for the Kashmir Valley? With surprising ease and lack of angst, each author has argued in favour of secession by part of an integrally constituted state of the Union of India.

Tremendous efforts by all the state and non-state personae in Jammu & Kashmir and the rest of India over the last six decades have seen sharp ups and downs, almost see-saw phases in the feelings of alienation followed by assimilation, poverty followed by growing prosperity among the people of this state.

The last few years have brought in the most sustained period of political stability, free and fair elections, economic recovery and strengthening integration, achieved through painstaking efforts and sagacity by all players. Heading into the November 2008 state assembly elections in Jammu & Kashmir, the separatist groups found themselves on the sidelines, threatened with further irrelevance and declining support should these elections be held as smoothly and with equally wide participation as those in 2002.

The Amarnath Yatra land issue that surfaced in June has been extremely poorly handled by the state and central governments at every stage. The nation needs answers and accountability about why in less than two months the marginalised separatist groups are once again being allowed to set the political agenda in the Valley. Why have no efforts been made to explain the reality of the proposed temporary land allocation scheme (for the Amarnath Yatra) to the agitating people in the Kashmir Valley? Why have the strong feelings of every community in Jammu over the cancellation of the allocation been so deliberately ignored and under-estimated? Why is it that even the most elementary efforts were not undertaken to disabuse the people of Kashmir Valley about a so-called economic blockade? If there was at any point the possibility of a shortage of essential supplies for the people of the Kashmir Valley this should have been overcome by arranging sufficient airlifts and/or trucking in such supplies through the alternative Manali-Leh route.

At the same time, no matter how serious these lapses, the answer cannot be to suggest that the Kashmir Valley be allowed to secede from India. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is as much a composite whole as the human body is. If there is an ailing part of the body, you diagnose the problem and take remedial measures, not carelessly, almost casually, suggest an excision and discarding of the offending section.

For those who advocate a referendum in Jammu and Kashmir, there are some questions. Do they feel that Jammu and Kashmir legally and constitutionally cannot be considered a part of India? On what basis can there be a referendum in the Kashmir Valley, or separate referenda in Jammu, Ladakh and the Valley? On what basis can “independence” be considered as the so-called third option? Should the proposed referendum be based on the UN resolutions of August 1948 and January 1949? Or are such sentiments the manifestation of a simultaneous bout of exasperation and giving in to the separatists who have been quite unnecessarily allowed to mount pressures in a sudden reversal of the peaceful situation that existed in the state prior to June?

The UN resolutions of 1948/49 (adopted by the UN Commission for India and Pakistan) are unequivocal and specific in making the proposed plebiscite in all the five regions of Jammu and Kashmir conditional upon (i) withdrawal of Pakistani troops from all the areas of the state of Jammu and Kashmir that it has occupied (this includes PoK, the Northern Territories and the Shaksgam valley that has been ceded by Pakistan to China); and (ii) the withdrawal by Pakistan, from these occupied areas of Jammu and Kashmir, of their tribesmen and nationals not ordinarily resident in these areas. The UN Commission in an aide-memoire issued on January 14, 1949, stated that in the event of Pakistan not implementing these pre-conditions, India’s acceptance of the UN resolutions would no longer be binding on them.

As recently as March 2001 former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking in Islamabad, accepted the legal and practical difficulties in implementing the UN resolutions and hence their irrelevance. It is evident that the UN resolutions no longer provide any basis for holding referenda either in the Kashmir Valley or in Jammu and Ladakh.

Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India, and will remain so. The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir itself recognises this. Any move to hold a referendum in any part of Jammu and Kashmir would contradict the fundamental statement in Section 3 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir that ‘the State of Jammu and Kashmir is and shall be an integral part of the Union of India’. Section 147 prohibits any amendment of Section 3 by the state legislature. In any case, India has stringent laws that forbid secessionist activity.

It is time that the people of India and all national political parties come out unequivocally against anyone who advocates secessionism. In this context, the print and electronic media too should be more responsible about giving prominence to such views.

Violence escalates in Kashmir
Twelve persons have been killed in firing by security forces on protestors in Jammu and Kashmir, where an indefinite curfew has been imposed.

Police said 80 persons, including police and paramilitary personnel, were injured in Tuesday’s violence.

In curfew-bound Kishtwar in the Jammu area, the army was called out after two persons were killed and over 20 others injured in clashes, police firing and a grenade blast, officials said.

Police earlier lobbed teargas shells to disperse groups belonging to two communities which pelted stones at each other at Kishtwar’s Hidyal Chowk.

 

Amarnath fallout may engulf India

Amarnath fallout may engulf India   When Omar Abdullah declared in the Lok Sabha that the Amarnath Yatra would continue in Jammu and Kashmir as long as there were Muslims in the Valley, he was applauded by all sections of the House during the trust vote. The reason why he struck a chord in many was because he was articulating the very basis of India — and of Kashmir– as an entity, and indeed of Kashmiriyat. It is these ideas which are at stake in the conflict, which has engulfed Jammu and Kashmir during the last month, and not just the transfer of a piece of land. The upheaval since May 20, when a decision of the J&K cabinet to transfer 100 acres of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, has brought into focus all the faultlines in the state over 60 years. It was a classic case of how non-issues become issues. Nobody — not even the separatists — are suggesting that the yatra be stopped. There is an all round consensus that the yatris should be facilitated in every way. The contentious issue is one of modalities. Viewed dispassionately, the transfer of land was not to outsiders, though there was the environmental angle to it. Rationally speaking, the fear of the demographic change was misplaced. It was not as if thousands of Hindus were about to be settled, which as many pointed out, would not even be feasible at an altitude of 10,000 feet in an area which is snowbound for eight months in a year. The land was transferred to the SASB on a temporary basis. But the government failed to explain this to people before the situation spun out of control. Damage was also done when an aide of then J&K Governor General (retired) S K Sinha explained to journalists that the land transfer, though temporary, was meant for as long as needed, and was therefore “forever”. Politics is about perception and in this case the government should have been mindful of the context in which it was making the decision — 60 years of distrust of Delhi and the sensitivity of a border state. The decision to transfer the land to the SASB was needless. The state government had been making the arrangements for the yatris and could have enlarged and improved the facilities, without anyone taking objection. With elections slated for later this year, then chief minister Ghulam Nabi Aad may have hoped to win brownie points with the people of Jammu by going in for the land transfer. Another reason could be to please his friend, Sinha, who may have wanted to be remembered by posterity for doing for Amarnath yatris what former Governor Jagmohan had done for Vaishno Devi. But Vaishno Devi is located in Jammu while the Amarnath cave is in the Valley , though paradoxically that is also the beauty of what Amarnath represents — a place of pilgrimage of the Hindus, discovered and tended by the Muslims, lying in the heart of a Muslim dominated area and the yatra taking place every year despite the conflict of six decades. Competitive politics has played havoc with issues. The People’s Democratic Front leadership seized on the anger in the Valley to delink from the government, even though its ministers were involved in the cabinet decision to transfer land to SASB and the nodal forest ministry was headed by a PDP minister. In a bid to upstage Azad, who belongs to Jammu and it is here that the Congress got most of its seats last time, the Bharatiya Janata Party got an issue to flog. Its affiliates got into the act the moment the land order was revoked by Azad after mass protests convulsed the Valley. The Hurriyat leadership saw in the situation an opportunity to bounce back centrestage and they played on the fears of the Valley Muslims — and their distrust of Delhi — about a demographic change. The moderates led by Mirwaiz Omar Farooq and hardliner Syed Ali Geelani sunk their differences. Once, the decision had been made to transfer the land, it was bad politics to revoke it under pressure. If those who are supposed to be in the know are to be believed, Intelligence Bureau reports on day one suggested that the order should be revoked. Had it been rescinded then, the Hindus of Jammu might not have reacted the way they did. When they did, after sitting on it for two weeks, the message went to the country that the government was caving in under pressure because the shrine was a Hindu one. Even the liberal Hindus began to react. Now the implications of the land transfer are not confined to Jammu alone which continues to burn. Nor are they limited to the Congress, which is expected to lose in both regions of the state. The Hurriyat and the separatists have got a fillip in the Valley and the BJP in Jammu. Pakistan too is fishing in troubled waters. After its studied silence initially, the Pakistan Senate passed a resolution last week criticising the attacks on Muslims in Jammu, and the economic blockade imposed by the Hindus. As it is Indo-Pak relations had hit a rough patch, after the recent ceasefire violations and bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul. The Kashmir events may have serious all-India implications. The BJP has called for a `jail bharo’ movement nationally to protest against the Amarnath fiasco, and this will have its own fallout in the days to come The Kashmir flareup is reminiscent of the politics of flip flop in the eighties — from the Shah Bano judgement to the opening of the locks of the Ram Mandir, culminating in the demolition of Babri Masjid — and it changed the politics of north India. The whole affair has underscored the bankruptcy of leadership at all levels. Azad was clearly out of sync with the mood in the Valley, and with what BJP leader Arun Jaitley later described as the “Jammu psyche”. As for Delhi, it was like Rome burning and Nero sleeping. The Centre was too occupied with the nuke deal politics to pay heed to what was happening in the border state and left it to the Governor to sort things out. Finally when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took the initiative to call an all party meet and it was decided to send an all party group to Srinagar and Jammu to try and defuse the situation, it was like an attempt to shut the gates after the horses had bolted. This time the divide between the Valley and Jammu is so sharp and along communal lines and it will take a long time for the wounds to heal. It may give an impetus to the moves for trifurcation of the state. There is talk already in Jammu. In the past such efforts did not take off. Today they may find more takers. The struggle of Kashmiris for autonomy is one thing. The idea of trifurcating the state — a Muslim Valley, a Hindu Jammu and a Buddhist Ladakh — will undercut the very idea of India. India said `no’ to nationhood on the basis of religion at the time of independence, and this would also apply to statehood. If it accepts this, or is forced to accept it, it could be a downhill journey for a multi-faith, multi-cultural society, and have a bearing on the future of India as an entity.

 

Police out as torch hits Xinjiang

Security was tight as the Olympic torch began passing through China’s mainly Muslim Xinjiang region, on a highly sensitive part of its trip to Beijing. Police were out in force as the flame left People’s Square in the capital, Urumqi, on its run around the city. The torch will spend three days in the region, which is home to around eight million Muslim Uighur people. Ties between Chinese authorities and the Uighurs are tense. Officials fear separatists could target the relay. The relay has been moved forward by a week, in an apparent attempt to avoid unrest. The torch’s visit to another potential hotspot, Tibet’s main city, Lhasa, has also been moved up. Terror allegations In Urumqi, very tight security was put in place ahead of the relay. Police carried out vehicle checks and set up checkpoints in the normally busy city. Firecrackers were banned and many local people asked to stay away, reports said. People entering People’s Square had to pass through metal detectors while police searched their bags, AFP news agency reported. The majority of the crowd that gathered in the square were Han Chinese, the agency said. Many Uighurs resent the large-scale influx of Han Chinese settlers into the resource-rich region. Some groups are fighting to establish an independent Islamic nation, leading to periodic violence in Xinjiang. Beijing accuses the groups of links to al-Qaeda and this year claims to have foiled at least two Xinjiang-based plots targeting the Olympic Games. But human rights groups accuse the Chinese authorities of using the alleged terror links as a way of cracking down on the independence movement.

CHINA’S UIGHURS Ethnically Turkic Muslims, mainly in Xinjiang Made bid for independent state in 1940s Sporadic violence in Xinjiang since 1991 Uighurs worried about Chinese immigration and erosion of traditional culture

 

Police out as torch hits Xinjiang

Security was tight as the Olympic torch began passing through China’s mainly Muslim Xinjiang region, on a highly sensitive part of its trip to Beijing. Police were out in force as the flame left People’s Square in the capital, Urumqi, on its run around the city. The torch will spend three days in the region, which is home to around eight million Muslim Uighur people. Ties between Chinese authorities and the Uighurs are tense. Officials fear separatists could target the relay. The relay has been moved forward by a week, in an apparent attempt to avoid unrest. The torch’s visit to another potential hotspot, Tibet’s main city, Lhasa, has also been moved up. Terror allegations In Urumqi, very tight security was put in place ahead of the relay. Police carried out vehicle checks and set up checkpoints in the normally busy city. Firecrackers were banned and many local people asked to stay away, reports said. People entering People’s Square had to pass through metal detectors while police searched their bags, AFP news agency reported. The majority of the crowd that gathered in the square were Han Chinese, the agency said. Many Uighurs resent the large-scale influx of Han Chinese settlers into the resource-rich region. Some groups are fighting to establish an independent Islamic nation, leading to periodic violence in Xinjiang. Beijing accuses the groups of links to al-Qaeda and this year claims to have foiled at least two Xinjiang-based plots targeting the Olympic Games. But human rights groups accuse the Chinese authorities of using the alleged terror links as a way of cracking down on the independence movement.

CHINA’S UIGHURS Ethnically Turkic Muslims, mainly in Xinjiang Made bid for independent state in 1940s Sporadic violence in Xinjiang since 1991 Uighurs worried about Chinese immigration and erosion of traditional culture