Jammu And Kashmir - 2

[Guest]

Major killed in encounter in Jammu and Kashmir

An Army Major was killed and six other Army personnel, including a Colonel, were injured in an encounter with suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants in the Mandhar sector of Poonch District in the night of July 13, reports The Hindu. Major Amit Phunge was killed in the operation while Colonel Ajay Katoch of the Rashtriya Rifles (47th Battalion) was injured when the militants resorted to heavy fire and lobbed grenades, official sources said. The Army team had gone to the spot following information that 15 Pakistan-based militants had sneaked in. The Army cordoned off the area and launched a search operation. Daily Excelsior added that two militants were believed to be killed in the encounter at Beri Rakh forests.



Separately, an Army trooper was injured in a mine blast when he was shifting from Sagar Post to Hans Post in Balakote area of Mendhar sector along with a Road Opening Party.



In addition, Pakistani Rangers once again opened firing at Border Security Forces’ forward post of Chak Phagwari in Pargwal islands in Akhnoor sector. However, there were no casualties or damage in the firing.



Further, authorities foiled the plans of both factions of separatist Hurriyat Conference to march to the Martyrs'' Graveyard and hold protest rally at Eidgah by imposing strict restriction on movement of the people in most parts of the Valley while imposing curfew in town areas. There was no untoward incident reported from anywhere in the Valley through out the day.

[Capt M Kumar]

Anantnag, Kulgam and Pulwama are already under curfew following the death of three youths on Monday in clashes between the Central Reserve Police Force and stone-pelters.



Anantnag and Pahalgam towns fall on the Jammu-Pahalgam pilgrimage route. But those taking the North Kashmir Baltal route to reach the cave shrine have to pass through Bijbehara, Awantipore and Pampore towns in the south.



The authorities have made extra-ordinary security arrangements for this year's yatra in view of the heightened tension. http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/j...esumes.htm

[Guest]

[url="http://www.telegraphindia.com//1100803/jsp/nation/story_12763767.jsp"]Mutiny cry from mosque- Shrine loudspeakers blare pro-freedom chants in Valley[/url]

Jagmohan mentioned several incidents in his book, My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir. “The subversives used mosques extensively for rearing, nursing and fanning their activities. In fact, one of the instructions was to make mosques centre of revolution (sic).”



History was repeating itself today as scores of mosques reverberated with azaadi songs, and pro-freedom and anti-India slogans. Thousands, including the elderly and children, flocked to such mosques. Some went even at night.



At many places, the crowd spilled onto the streets. But at the forefront were mostly teenagers or youths in their early twenties — described as the “children of conflict” because they were born during the past 20 years of strife. Many were painting roads and walls with the slogan: “Go India go”.

[Guest]

Situation is quite bad and Farooq is unable to control and Mehbooba is busy inciting violence, she using kids to get back in power.

[Capt M Kumar]

“When the situation is at such a sensitive point, no kind of political packages should be envisaged...because it will only indicate the weakness of the Indian state,” the BJP leader warned and pointed out that concessions being sought were to either dilute the border across the PoK, which may become an option for legitimate infiltration; dilute the provisions of AFSPA which will cripple the Armed Forces; and take away the land meant for Army cantonments. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news...268018.cms

[Capt M Kumar]

As usual Nehru talked about the United Nations, Russia, Africa, God almighty, everybody, until Sardar Patel lost his temper. He said, 'Jawaharlal, do you want Kashmir, or do you want to give it away'. He (Nehru) said,' Of course, I want Kashmir (emphasis in original). Then he (Patel) said 'Please give your orders'. And before he could say anything Sardar Patel turned to me and said, 'You have got your orders'. http://www.rediff.com/freedom/0710jha.htm

[Capt M Kumar]

In recent comments on Kashmir, Mr. Singh and other Indian officials have avoided referring to the protesters as agents of Pakistan. Acknowledging that the people of Kashmir have legitimate grievances and genuine aspirations is a welcome change, said Amitabh Mattoo, a professor of Strategic Studies at Jawarhalal Nehru University and a Kashmiri Hindu. But that is not enough.



“If you want to hold on to Kashmir, it will require a real perestroika and glasnost put together,” he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/world/...nagar.html

[Capt M Kumar]

Talks with separatists are meaningless at this stage. The Mirwaiz refused to sit with what he called "Tom, Dick and Harry" during the round table conference and Mehbooba Mufti has repeatedly spurned the Prime Minister�s invitations for talks. If Sheikh Abdullah could be kept in detention and deported outside the state, why can�t the same treatment be meted out to the separatists?



(Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle; August 22, 2010)



(URL: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/dc-commen...ndrome-304 )

http://www.socialcause.org/getarticlefromdb.php?id=3148

[ramana]

Expectation is PM wants to cripple the AFPSA as part of his Eid pakcakge!

Targeting the Armed Forces

September 09, 2010 1:00:42 AM



Kanchan Gupta



Manmohan Singh is believed to be working on an ‘Eid Package’ to appease separatists in Kashmir Valley. Will AFSPA be diluted?



The Union Government, according to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is “groping for a solution” to the current unrest in the Kashmir Valley where separatists, with the help of their rage boys whom they pay to pelt the police and security forces with stones, have been virtually holding the administration to ransom for the past couple of months. Just in case people expect the Government to act firmly and restore the authority of the state without allowing the situation to worsen any further, Mr Singh has let it be known that “we are not dealing with an easy problem… The country and the people must be patient”. After all, a problem that has been allowed to fester for 60 years cannot be solved in six years; that would be an unfair expectation.



Yet, the need to do something, or at least to be seen to be doing something, in response to the worsening law and order situation in the Kashmir Valley and arresting the slide into separatist violence and chaos reminiscent of the late-1980s and early-1990s, cannot be entirely wished away. The Prime Minister, therefore, has called a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security to “discuss the Kashmir issue threadbare”. It’s amazing that he should have waited till now to do so. But, as the cliché goes, better late than never.



However, the manner in which the Prime Minister has phrased the agenda of the CCS meeting should cause disquiet and discomfort, at least among those Indians who still passionately believe that Jammu & Kashmir was, is and shall remain an integral part of the Union of India; that instead of conceding even an inch to the Pakistan-sponsored separatists, we should focus on governance and restoring law and order; and, that the best option at the moment is to ride out the storm while minimising collateral damage.



It is, in a sense, alarming that Mr Singh, given his penchant for ‘thinking out of the box’, should propose to “discuss the Kashmir issue threadbare” along with his colleagues in the CCS. That would imply discussing the entire range of issues raised by the separatists, including azadi, the demand for “autonomy” voiced by the National Conference (articulated in the voluminous report that was drafted and approved by the State Assembly when Mr Farooq Abdullah was Chief Minister) and the People’s Democratic Party’s insistence on “greater autonomy” (a delightfully undefined and vague concept which includes accepting Pakistani currency as legal tender in the State).



However, we can seek comfort in the fact that it is unlikely the CCS, after “discussing the Kashmir issue threadbare”, will come to any definitive conclusions. For instance, it is unimaginable that the Government would be authorised to use its executive powers to grant either ‘autonomy’ or ‘greater autonomy’. Apart from the fact that this cannot be done with a note being sent out by the PMO or a notification being issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the political backlash would be too strong for the Congress to risk, leave alone weather. India’s corrupt, cynical and self-seeking urban middle-class may have become indifferent to the nation’s unity and integrity, but the masses still carry the vote on polling day.



Any changes in the existing arrangement through amendments to the Constitution can similarly be ruled out. The BJP may not have sufficient votes in Parliament to force the deletion of Article 370, but it can block the strengthening of this debilitating Article through further amendments to the Constitution. The Government is presumably mindful of this simple arithmetical fact and will not make a promise that it will later regret having made to the separatists (and their masters in Pakistan).



But something is cooking, of that we can be sure. Or else Chief Minister Omar Abdullah would not have been summoned by Mr Singh for discussions, nor would a meeting have been convened to “discuss the Kashmir issue threadbare”. We are told that the Prime Minister is keen on announcing an ‘Eid Package’ to restore peace in the Kashmir Valley. If there is any truth in it, then we should expect a dramatic gesture of capitulation — nothing less than that would make the separatists feel they have won half the battle and ask their rage boys to take a break — amounting to appeasing those who repudiate India’s sovereignty.



And this is most likely to come in the form of the Government announcing its decision to amend the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Separatists and their stooges among jholawallahs masquerading as human rights activists want the Act to be repealed. Since the Government wouldn’t dare do that, it will seek to dilute the law that makes life difficult for the lawless. While it is anybody’s guess as to what those amendments, which will probably be introduced through an Ordinance and then ratified by a Bill that will require a simple majority in Parliament (and hence cannot be blocked by the BJP), will be, but a fair guess can be attempted on the basis of the discussions that have taken place so far between the Government and the Armed Forces.



The amendments are likely to focus on three clauses in the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. First, the right of Army personnel to search premises and arrest individuals believed to be guilty of terrorism and separatist violence without warrants will be sought to be curtailed. The Army has rightly asserted that without this power its counter-insurgency operations will be rendered futile.



For, it’s frightfully stupid to expect the Army to deliver results without the element of surprise that is necessary to raid a hideout or arrest a terrorist. In Jammu & Kashmir, where the civil administration has been infiltrated by the separatists and their sympathisers, information about the Army seeking and securing warrants to raid a particular house where terrorists may be hiding or arrest a suspect will not remain a secret. Indeed, it will be communicated within minutes and the Army will be left looking silly; its men will become objects of ridicule and worse.



The second amendment that is being proposed will make it mandatory for the Army to hand over those who have been arrested to the police or a magistrate within 24 hours of the arrest. Given the terrain of operations and the logistics involved, this will prove to be virtually impossible. If implemented, this amendment will force the Army to abandon mopping up operations; jawans will have to rush to the nearest police station or magistrate’s court instead of sanitising the area and ensuring there are no more militants hiding there. This is a patently absurd proposition and is designed to raise obstacles for the security forces rather than make their task easier.



The third amendment which the separatists and their jholawallah friends are pushing for is a sinister move to tarnish the reputation of the Indian Army and a devious ploy to prevent it from fearlessly performing its duties. The UPA Government, which has a pronounced bias towards jholawallahs, has apparently agreed to the demand for setting up ‘grievance cells’ in every sub-division.



This would be a perfect recipe for disaster. The right to file a complaint will be merrily misused and there will be a flood of allegations, dealing with which will become the main occupation of the Army instead of conducting counter-insurgency operations. Even without such a mechanism, the Army has been repeatedly accused of ‘violating’ human rights, more often than not with the sole purpose of tarring the dignity and honour of our men in uniform.



Along with financial sops at the tax-payers’ expense, these and other amendments to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act would make a perfect ‘Eid Package’ for the separatists: They can celebrate a big victory in the proxy war they have been waging against the nation with the help of its foes. But the ‘peace’ such abject surrender may bring will be a prelude to another offensive for azadi which will be timed to coincide with US President Barack Hussein Obama’s November visit. Make no mistake about that.

[Guest]

[url="http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/detailed_news3.asp%3Fdate3%3D20"] link[/url]

'Islamabad told United States not push too far on Kashmir as it's ours', reveals declassified documents

US had asked Pakistan in 2002 to end infiltration across the Line of Control in J&K but was instead told not to push it too far" on the issue with an assertion that “Kashmir should have been ours", Times of India quoting declassified documents released by the National Security Archive of the George Washington University reported on September 14. This communication forms part of a meeting Richard Haass, the then director of policy planning staff at the US state department, had with an unnamed Pakistani military official on October 31, 2002 to discuss US-Pak cooperation a year after the deadly 9/11 attacks in the US. &quotOn Kashmir, Hass stressed the importance of ending infiltration, but the Pakistan official warned the US not to push Pakistan too far on Kashmir," classified documents said.



Further, the declassified documents reveals that as the US prepared to invade Afghanistan in 2001 after 9/11 attacks, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) wanted America to enter into a dialogue with the Taliban, but the then George Bush Administration “bluntly” told President Pervez Musharraf that it had no inclination to do so. According to classified documents released by the National Security Archive of the George Washington University, two days after al-Qaeda unleashed terror on the US, its envoy to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlin “bluntly” told Musharraf on September 13, 2001 that there was “absolutely no inclination in Washington to enter into a dialogue with the Taliban, which controlled Afghanistan at that time. “The time for dialogue was finished as of September 11,” he told Musharraf, the documents said.

[ramana]

I think UPA-2 just had its 1962 moment and lost POK without a shot being fired. And we dont even comprehend that. PRC has added Gilgit-Balwaristan to its Aksai-Chin as areas under its control.

[Guest]

Other way round, many people do believe it is extremely difficult to get the Chinese pull back their forces. It will take some time for the implications to sink in.



West is going to pull out of AfPak soon, and recent unrest in J&K fits the script. Indian Kashmir may have been bartered away by UPA2 for all we know.



AFSPA will not go away, but we should see pieces falling in place by its. Increasing "autonomy" measures will be thrown to placate Islamists.



It feels extremely painful...but one must accept the facts that the recent uprisings are part of pan-Islamic upsurge. Its time to salvage Jammu and Ladakh.

[G.Subramaniam]

http://countercurrents.org/chatterji260910.htm



Kashmir: A Time For Freedom



By Angana Chatterji



26 September, 2010

Greater Kashmir



--



Pages and pages of blather from Angana

[G.Subramaniam]

Above URL



Kashmir: A Time For Freedom



By Angana Chatterji



26 September, 2010

Greater Kashmir



“Freedom” represents many things across rural and urban spaces in India-ruled Kashmir. These divergent meanings are steadfastly united in that freedom always signifies an end to India's authoritarian governance.



In the administration of brutality, India, the postcolony, has proven itself coequal to its former colonial masters. Kashmir is not about “Kashmir.” Governing Kashmir is about India's coming of age as a power, its ability to disburse violence, to manipulate and dominate. Kashmir is about nostalgia, about resources, and buffer zones. The possession of Kashmir by India renders an imaginary past real, emblematic of India's triumphant unification as a nation-state. Controlling Kashmir requires that Kashmiri demands for justice be depicted as threatening to India's integrity. India's contrived enemy in Kashmir is a plausible one - the Muslim “Other,” India's historically manufactured nemesis.



What is at Stake?



Between June 11 and September 22 of 2010, Kashmir witnessed the execution of 109 youth, men, and women by India's police, paramilitary, and military. Indian forces opened fire on crowds, tortured children, detained elders without explanation, and coerced false confessions. Since June 7, there have been 73 days of curfew and 75 days of strikes and agitation. On September 11, the day of Eid-ul-Fitr, the violence continued. The paramilitary and police verbally abused and physically attacked civil society dissenters. Summer 2010 was not unprecedented. Kashmir has been subjected to much, much worse.



The use of public and summary execution for civic torture has been held necessary to Kashmir's subjugation by the Indian state. Militarization has asserted vigilante jurisdiction over space and politics. The violence is staged, ritualistic, and performative, used to re-assert India's power over Kashmir's body. The fabrications of the military -- fake encounters, escalating perceptions of cross-border threat -- function as the truth-making apparatus of the nation. We are witness to the paradox of history, as calibrated punishment -- the lynching of the Muslim body, the object of criminality -- enforces submission of a stateless nation (Kashmir) to the once-subaltern postcolony (India).



Kashmir is about the spectacle. The Indian state's violence functions as an intervention, to discipline and punish, to provoke and dominate. The summer of 2010 evidenced India's manoeuvring against Kashmir's determination to decide its future. The use of violence by the Indian forces was deliberate, their tactics cruel and precise, amidst the groundswell of public dissent. This was the third summer, since 2008, of indefatigable civil society uprisings for “Azaadi” (freedom).



What is the Indian state hoping to achieve? One, that Kashmiris would submit to India's domination, forsaking their claim to separation from India (to be an independent state or, for some, to be assimilated with Pakistan), or their demand for full autonomy. Or, that provoked, grief-stricken, and weary, Kashmiris would take up arms once again, giving India the opportunity to fortify its propaganda that Kashmiri civil society dissent against Indian rule is nurtured and endorsed today by external forces and groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan. If the latter transpires, India will manipulate this to neutralize Kashmiri demands for de-militarization and conflict resolution, to extend its annexation of Kashmir, and further normalize civic and legal states of exception.



If India succeeds in both provoking local armed struggle and linking Kashmiri resistance to foreign terror, it will acquire international sanction to continue its government of Kashmir on grounds of “national security,” and “have proof” that Kashmiris are not organically debating India's government of them, but are pressurized into it by external forces. India can then reinforce its armed forces in Kashmir, presently 671,000 strong, to prolong the killing spree.



Such provocation as policy is a mistake. Such legitimation of military rule will produce intractable conflict and violence. All indications are that Kashmiri civil society dissent will not abate. It is not externally motivated, but historically compelled.



Dominant nation-states overlook that freedom struggles are not adherent to the moralities of violence versus nonviolence, but reflect a desire to be free. Dominant nation-states forget that the greater the oppression, the more fervent is resistance. The greater the violence, the more likely is the provocation to counter-violence.



Whether dissent in Kashmir turns into organized armed struggle or continues as mass-based peaceful resistance is dependent upon India's political decisions. If India's subjugation persists, it is conceivable that the movement for nonviolent dissent, mobilized since 2004, will erode. Signs indicate that it is already slightly threadbare. It is conceivable that India's brutality will induce Kashmiri youth to close the distance between stones and petrol bombs, or more. If India fails to act, if Pakistan acts only in its self-interest, and if the international community does not insist on an equitable resolution to the Kashmir dispute, it is conceivable, that, forsaken by the world, Kashmiris will be compelled to take up arms again.



Misogynist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba, al-Qaeda, or the Taliban are mercenaries looking for takers in Kashmir. By the Indian state's record, there are between 500-700 militants in the Kashmir Valley today. These groups have not been successful because Kashmiris have been disinterested in alliances with them, and not because the Indian army is successful in controlling them. This time, an armed mobilization by Kashmiris would include an even stronger mass movement than that which occurred between 1990 and 2004/2007, led by youth whose lives have been shaped by the two-decade long violence of militarization.



Who wants that? Can the South Asian Subcontinent, already nuclearized, survive that? India is accountable to keep this from happening. Not through the use of unmitigated force, but through listening to the demands for change made by Kashmiris.

[G.Subramaniam]

Above URL



Will to Power



This summer, India's violence on Kashmir was threaded through with strategic calculation. The police, military, and paramilitary have, without provocation, brutalized widespread peaceable protests across Kashmir that were dissenting the suppression of civil society by Indian forces. Hostile Indian forces acted with the knowledge and sanction of the Government of India and the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. The repeated repression by state forces provoked civilians, whose political means of expression and demands have been systematically denied, to engage in stone pelting. The conditions of militarization prompted them to be in non-compliance with declared, undeclared, and unremitting curfews. In instances, civilians engaged in acts of violence, including arson.



Each instance of civilian violence was provoked by the unmitigated and first use of force on civilians and/or extrajudicial killings on the part of Indian forces. Peaceable civilian protests by women and men dissented the actions of Indian forces. Individuals, caught in the midst of the unrest, or mourning the death of a civilian, were fired upon by Indian forces, leading to other killings by Indian forces, more civilian protests, greater use of force by the police and paramilitary, use of torture in certain instances by Indian forces, more killings by Indian forces, larger, even violent, civilian protests, and further state repression.



In Summer 2010, dominant discourse focused on the use of stone pelting and on the instances of violence by youth in Kashmir as the reason for armed action on the part of the state. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh focused on the need for efficient tactics in “crowd control.” India's elite intelligentsia, inculcated into “rational” conduct, and no longer outraged by suffering, assessed the costs and benefits of militaristic violence.



Civil society demonstrations in Kashmir are not a law and order problem, as they have been reported. Stone pelting, and incidents of arson and violence, are not causal to the violence that is routine in Kashmir today. Stone pelting does not seek to kill, and has not resulted in death. Pro-freedom leaders (termed “separatists” by the Indian state) have emphasized nonviolent civil disobedience, and have appealed to civil society to not engage in violent protests in reaction to the violence and killings by Indian forces.



Indian potentates disregard that suppression acts to catalyze the resistance movement in Kashmir. The Government of India continues to monitor the resistance movement, shifting the boundaries of acceptable practise of civil liberties. Kashmiris are allowed to protest in New Delhi, while in Kashmir sloganeering (“Go, India, Go Back,” “Indian Dogs Go Home,” “Quit Kashmir,”) is met with force. When Masarat Alam Bhat, a rising pro-freedom leader, issued an appeal to Indian soldiers in July to “Quit Kashmir,” Indian authorities banned its circulation.



Acts of violence by protesting civilians increased as military violence continued into September. On September 13, crowds in Kashmir torched a Christian missionary school and some government offices while protesting the call to desecrate the Qur'an by Florida Pastor Terry Jones. On September 13, 18 civilians were killed by the Indian forces in Kashmir (a police officer also died). Provocation is easy in a context of sustained brutality. Provoking Kashmiri dissenters to violence serves to confirm the dominant story of Muslims as “violent.” Yet again, several pro-freedom leaders condemned the attack on the Christian school and renewed their call for nonviolent dissent.



On September 13, the Government of India stated its willingness to engage with Kashmiri groups that reject violence. New Delhi did not apply the same precondition to itself. Nor did it acknowledge that pro-freedom groups have repeatedly opposed the use of violence in recent years.



The Kashmiri Muslim is caricatured as violent by India's dominant political and media apparatus. There is a refusal to recognize the inequitable historical-political power relations at play between Muslim-prevalent Kashmir's governance by Hindu-dominant India. The racialization of the Muslim, as “Other” and barbaric, reveals the xenophobia of the Indian state. Distinctions in method and power, between stone pelter and armed soldier, between “terrorist” and “freedom fighter,” are inconvenient.



The Indian state's discourse is animated by the prejudice that Kashmiri inclinations to violence are subsidized by Pakistan. Such misconceptions ignore that while Kashmiris did travel to Pakistan to seek arms training, such activity was largely confined to the early days of the armed militancy, circa late 1980s through the mid-1990s. Pathologies of “violent Muslims” legitimate the discursive and physical violence of the Indian “security” forces, which is presented as necessary protection for the maintenance of the Hindu majoritarian Indian nation.



I have spent considerable time between July 2006 and July 2010 learning about Kashmir, working in Kashmir. In undertaking the work of the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir, I have travelled across Kashmir's cities and countryside, from Srinagar to Kupwara, through Shopian and Islamabad (Anantnag), with Parvez Imroz, Zahir-Ud-Din, and Khurram Parvez. I have witnessed the violence that is perpetrated on Kashmiris by India's military, paramilitary, and police. I have walked through the graveyards that hold Kashmir's dead, and have met with grieving families. I have sat with witnesses, young men, who described how Indian forces chased down and executed their friends for participating in civil disobedience. I have met women whose sons were disappeared. I have met with “half-widows.” I have spoken with youth, women and men, who are enraged. I have also spoken with persons who were violated by militants in the 1990s. Peoples' experiences with the reprehensible atrocities of militancy do not imply the abdication of their desires for self-determination. The Indian state deliberately conflates militancy with the people's mass movement for liberation.



I have met with torture survivors, non-militants and former militants, who testified to the sadism of the forces. Men who had petrol injected through the anus. Water-boarding, mutilation, being paraded naked, rape of women, children, and men, starvation, humiliation, and psychological torture. An eagle tattoo on the arm of a man was reportedly identified by an army officer as a symbol of Pakistan-held Azad Kashmir, even as the man clarified the tattoo was from his childhood. The skin containing it was burned. The officer said, the man recalled: “When you look at this, think of Azaadi.” A mother, reportedly asked to watch her daughter's rape by army personnel, pleaded for her release. They refused. She then pleaded that she could not watch, asking to be sent out of the room or be killed. The soldier pointed a gun to her forehead, stating he would grant her wish, and shot her dead before they proceeded to rape the daughter.



Who are the forces? Disenfranchised caste and other groups, Assamese, Nagas, Sikhs, Dalits (erstwhile “untouchable” peoples), and Muslims from Kashmir, are being used to combat Kashmiris. Why did 34 soldiers commit suicide in Kashmir in 2008, and 52 fratricidal killings take place between January 21, 2004 and July 14, 2009? Why did 16 soldiers commit suicide and 2 die in fratricidal killings between January and early August in 2010?



Laws authorize soldiers to question, raid houses, detain and arrest without chargesheets, and prolong incarceration without due process. They blur distinctions between military/paramilitary, “legality”/“illegality.” Citing “national security,” Indian forces in Kashmir shoot and kill on uncorroborated suspicion, with impunity from prosecution. Yet, revoking the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, for example, will not stop the horror in Kashmir. India's laws are not the primary contention. India's political and military existence in Kashmir is the issue. Legal impunity is the cover for the moral impunity of Indian rule.



Is the military willing to withdraw from Kashmir? Since 2002, the Government of India has procured 5 billion US dollars in weaponry from the Israeli state. Authoritarian alliances between once subjugated peoples mark another irony of history. Five billion dollars is a colossal sum for India, where 38 percent of the world's poor reside. Eight of the poorest states in India are more impoverished than the 26 poorest countries of the African continent. Five billion dollars, in addition to the other monies and resources invested in the militarization of Kashmir, do not evidence an intent to withdraw.



Human rights violations in Kashmir will not stop without removing the military. The military cannot be removed without surgically rupturing India's will to power over Kashmir.

[G.Subramaniam]

Above URL



Inflexible Diplomacy



India needs to make the “Kashmir problem” disappear. India's diplomacy is directed toward assuming a role as a world power, a world market, and a world negotiator in global politics. India is also seeking a seat on the United Nations Security Council.



What constitutes India's dialogue with Kashmiris in conditions of extreme subjugation? The Government of India has scheduled a hurried timeframe in propelling Track II diplomacy into success, to secure a proposal for resolution that is acceptable to India and Pakistan, and, ostensibly, to Kashmiris. The terms of reference set by New Delhi exclude discussions of self-determination or heightened autonomy, boundary negotiations, the Siachen glacier and critical water-resources, and renegotiations of the Line of Control.



New Delhi and Islamabad appear to be in collusion. If Pakistan overlooks India's annexation of Jammu and Kashmir, India would be willing to forget Pakistan's occupation of another fragment of Kashmir. The Musharraf Formula is no longer acceptable to the Government of Pakistan. Afghanistan is the current priority, not Kashmir. Conversations on the phased withdrawal of troops by India and Pakistan at the border, local self-government, and the creation of a joint supervision mechanism in Jammu and Kashmir, involving India, Pakistan, and Kashmir, are at an impasse.



The Government in New Delhi is looking to neutralize Kashmir's demand for self-determination or unabridged autonomy, pushing forward a diluted “autonomy,” seeking to assimilate Kashmir with finality into the Indian nation-state. New Delhi is seeking buy-in, which it hopes to push through using the collaborator coterie in Srinagar. Local self-government would be New Delhi's compromise -- a weak autonomy -- with a joint supervisory apparatus constituted of India, Pakistan, and Kashmir.



New Delhi hopes that the Kashmiri leadership, including pro-freedom groups, can be restrained, for a price, and weakened through infighting. Certain segments of the pro-freedom leadership have, through history, lacked vision, honesty, and the ability to prioritize collaboration for justice and peace in Kashmir. Certain segments of the religious and political leadership have been unable to collaborate meaningfully with civil society, with observant Muslims and those irreligious, and with non-Muslims. The spiritual commitment to justice in Islamic tradition has receded as religious determinations embrace instrumental political rationality. The determination of what “freedom” is has been deferred since 1931; instead there has been a focus on immediate and small political gains.



This has plagued and rendered ineffectual segments of the complex Hurriyat alliance in the present, which is often unable to capitalize on the exuberant people's movement on the streets and pathways of Kashmir. Segments of the pro-freedom leadership have focused on New Delhi rather than Kashmir civil society. New Delhi has fixated on enabling this dynamic, using vast resources to create a collaborator class in Srinagar that undermines the will of the Kashmiri people.



While Pakistan's politicians have pointed to India's injustices, they have not reciprocally addressed issues in the management of Pakistan-held Kashmir, including the deflation of movements for the unification of Kashmir. The crisis of state in Pakistan, and the role of its ruling elite in vitiating people's democratic processes, remains a pitfall for regional security.



The logic that Muslim-prevalent Kashmir must stay with secular India or join Muslim-dominated Pakistan is configured by India's and Pakistan's internal ideological needs and identitarian politics. Neither is inevitable. Neither speak to the foremost aspiration of Kashmiris.



The Government of India's “inclusive dialogue” this summer has systematically disregarded Kashmiri civil society demands, thrusting a violent peace brokered by New Delhi's agents of change. New Delhi has invited various Kashmiri stakeholders from civil society as well. Their articulations, however, have not shifted the agenda, even as bringing people to the table is used to legitimate India's visage of inclusivity.



What do a majority of Kashmiris want? First, to secure a good faith agreement with New Delhi and Islamabad regarding the right of Kashmiris to determine the course of their future, set a timeframe, and define the interim conditions necessary to proceed. Following which, civil society and political leaders would ensue processes to educate, debate, and consult civil society, including minority groups, in sketching the terms of reference for a resolution, prior to negotiations with India and Pakistan.



Significantly, pro-freedom leader Syeed Ali Geelani's statement of August 31 sought to shift the terms of engagement, not requiring the precondition of self-determination or the engagement of Pakistan. Unless New Delhi responds, the protests in Kashmir will continue. Geelani's statement, supported by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, testifies to this. The mood in the streets testifies to this.



New Delhi's current approach repudiates what Kashmiris want. The omissions made by New Delhi are roadblocks to constituting a minimum agenda for justice and an enduring and relevant peace process.



The Government of India's “inclusive dialogue” this summer does not recognize Kashmir as an international dispute.



The Government of India's “inclusive dialogue” this summer does not include: An immediate halt to, and moratorium on, extrajudicial killings by the Indian military, paramilitary, and police; An immediate halt to, and moratorium on, the use of torture, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, and gendered violence by the Indian military, paramilitary, and police; A plan for the release of political prisoners, the return of those exiled, and contending with the issue of displacement; Agreements on an immediate “soft border” policy between Kashmir, India, and Pakistan, to enable the resurgence of Kashmir's political economy; Agreements to non-interference in the exercise of civil liberties of Kashmiris, including the right to civil disobedience, and freedom of speech, assembly, religion, movement, and travel.



New Delhi has refused to acknowledge the extent of human rights violations, and how they are integral to maintaining dominion. New Delhi has not explained why militarization in Kashmir has been disproportionately used to brutalize Kashmiris, when ostensibly the Indian forces are in Kashmir to secure the border zones.



The Government of India's “inclusive dialogue” this summer does not include a plan for the proactive demilitarization and the immediate revocation of all authoritarian laws. Nor does it include: A plan for the transparent identification and dismantling of detention and torture centres, including in army camps; A plan for the instatement of a Truth and Justice Commission for political and psychosocial reparation, and reckoning loss; A plan for the international and transparent investigations into unknown and mass graves constitutive of crimes against humanity committed by the Indian military, paramilitary, and police. Such omissions are a travesty of any process promising “resolution.”

[G.Subramaniam]

Above url



Islamphobia and Realpolitik



New Delhi has been the self-appointed arbitrator in determining the justifications of Kashmir's claims to freedom. Kashmir's claims are historically unique and bona fide. History -- the United Nations Resolutions of 1948, Nehru's promise of plebiscite (to rethink the temporary accession determined by the Hindu-descent Maharaja, Hari Singh), Article 370 of the Indian Constitution -- is jettisoned by an amnesic India. Official nationalism seeks to rewrite history, affixing Kashmir to India, to overwrite memory. Within the battlefields of knowledge/power, official “truth” becomes the contagion sustaining cultures of repression and mass atrocity, creating cultures of grief.



The Indian state is apprehensive that any change in the status quo in Kashmir would foster internal crises of gigantic proportion in India. Across the nation there is considerable discontent, as dreams and difference are mortgaged to the idea of India fabricated by the elite. Adivasis (indigenous peoples), Dalits, disenfranchised caste groups, women, religious, ethnic, and gender minorities are fatigued by the nation's deferred promises. Forty-four million Adivasis have been displaced since 1947. Central India is torn asunder, and as Maoists are designated as the latest “national threat,” national memory forgets the systematic brutalization of peoples in the tribal belt that led to a call to arms. Then there is the Northeast, Punjab, the massacre of Muslims in Narendra Modi's Gujarat, riots against Christians in Orissa, farmer suicides, the plight of peasants and Adivasis of the Narmada Valley where dams are not the “temples of India,” but its burial grounds. Kashmir cannot remain India's excuse to avoid dealing with its own internal matters.



Indian civil society decries that Kashmir is not deserving of autonomy or separation, as it, as an assumed Islamist state, would be a threat to India's democracy. To assume that a Muslim-majority state in Kashmir will be ruled by Islamist extremists in support of global terror reflects majoritarian India's racism. Dominant Indian (left-oriented) civil society must rethink its characterization of Kashmiri civil society as prevalently “Jamaati.” Jamaat is Arabic for assembly. “Jamaati” is used by Indian civil society to imply Islamist or fundamentalist. The reference can often be translated as Muslim = Jamaati, and Muslim-observant = fundamentalist.



Indians of Hindu descent largely overlook that India's democracy is infused with Hindu cultural dominance. Indian civil society assumes that Islam and democracy are incompatible, supported by the inflamed Islamphobia in the polities of the West. Importantly, India forgets that in its own history with the British, freedom fighters had noted that the oppressor cannot adjudge when a stateless people are “deserving” of freedom.



Freedom is fundamentally an experiment with risk that Kashmiris must be willing to take. The global community must support them in making such risk ethical. Jammu and Kashmir is a Muslim majority space. The population of India-held Kashmir was recorded at approximately 6,900,000 in 2008, of which Muslims are approximately 95 percent. Kashmir's future as a democratic, inclusive, and pro-secular space is linked to what happens within India and Pakistan.



Kashmiris that wish to be separate from India and Pakistan must assess the difficult alliances yet to be built between Kashmir, Jammu, and Ladakh, and between Muslims and Hindu Pandits, Dogra Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, indigenous groups, and others. Then, there is the question of what lies ahead between Indian-held Kashmir and Pakistan-held Kashmir. Minority groups, such as Kashmiri Pandits, must refuse the Indian state's hyper-nationalist strategy in using the Pandit community to create opposition between Muslims and Hindus in Kashmir, as part of a strategy to religionize the issue and govern through communalization.



Where is the international community on the issue of Kashmir? In present history, Palestine, Ireland, Tibet, and Kashmir share correspondence. In Tibet, 1.2 million died (1949-1979), and 320,000 were made refugees. In Ireland, 3,710 have died (1969- 2010). For Israel, the occupation of Palestine has resulted in 10,148 dead (1987-2010), with 4.7 million refugees registered with the United Nations (1987-2008). In Kashmir, 70,000 are dead, over 8,000 have been disappeared, and 250,000 have been displaced (1989-2010).



During British Prime Minister David Cameron's recent visit to India, he was asked to refrain from bringing up the “K” word. United States President Barak Obama's proposed visit to New Delhi in November is already laden with prohibitions. India's rule in Kashmir and its larger human rights record are among them. As well, right-wing Hindu advocacy groups have been successful in securing the silence of many on Capitol Hill on the issue of Kashmir. The Kashmiri diaspora has been partly effective in bringing visibility to the issue, even as the community remains ideologically and politically fragmented. International advocates have propagated an “economic” approach to “normalcy.” This avoids the fact that militarization impacts every facet of life, making economic development outside of political change impossible.



The United States and United Kingdom have debated the reasons for their involvement in Kashmir. In 2010, as of September 23, 351 soldiers from the United States have died in Afghanistan, while the United Kingdom sustained 92 fatalities. Of paramount concern for both is bringing their forces home without compromising the principles of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) operations in the region. To accomplish this would require that Pakistan move sizeable forces from the Indo-Kashmir-Pak border to the Af-Pak frontier. This cannot be done without cessation in Indo-Pak hostilities, which cannot be achieved without the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. However, Kashmir's resolution cannot mean a sanction to Pakistan's encroachment on Afghanistan, which, given the political situation in the region, remains a highly likely possibility. For the United States and India, the containment of China is another issue, also linked to Kashmir.



Kashmiris in Kashmir are caught amidst world events and regional machinations, and the unresolved histories of the Subcontinent. The Indian state's military governance penetrates every facet of life. The sounds of war haunt mohallas. The hyper-presence of militarization forms a graphic shroud over Kashmir: Detention and interrogation centres, army cantonments, abandoned buildings, bullet holes, bunkers and watchtowers, detour signs, deserted public squares, armed personnel, counter-insurgents, and vehicular and electronic espionage. Armed control regulates and governs bodies. It has been reported that, since 1990, Kashmir's economy has incurred a reported loss of more than 1,880,000 million Indian Rupees (40.4 billion US Dollars). The immensity of psychosocial losses is impossible to calculate. The conditions of everyday life are in peril. They elicit suffocating anger and despair, telling a story of the web of violence in which civil society in Kashmir is interned.



For India, constituting a coherent national collective has required multiple wars on difference. National governance determines territory and belonging, disenfranchising subaltern claims. Local struggles for self-determination are brutalized to reproduce obedient national collectives. Systemic acts of oppression chart a history, as relations of power are choreographed by nation-states in the suppression of others. Massacre, gendercide, genocide, occupation, function within a continuum of tactics in negation/annihilation.



India's relation to Kashmir is not about Kashmir. Kashmir's aversion to being subsumed by the Indian state is not reducible to history. If violence breaks lives, Kashmir is quite broken. If oppression produces resistance, Kashmir is profusely resilient. From Michel Foucault to Achille Mbembe, and so much in-between, we are reminded of the myriad techniques in governance that seek to subjugate, while naming subjugation as subject formation, as protection, “security,” law and order, and progress.



Realpolitik triumphs against a backdrop of persistent refusal. Through summer heat and winter snow, across interminable stretches of concertina wire, broken windowpanes, walls, barricades, and checkpoints, the dust settles to rise again. The agony of loss. The desecration of life. Kashmir's spiritual fatalities are staggering. The dead are not forgotten. Remembrance and mourning are habitual practises of dissent. “We are not free. But we know freedom,” KP tells me. “The movement is our freedom. Our dreams are our freedom. The Indian state cannot take that away. Our resistance will live.”

[G.Subramaniam]

Dr. Angana Chatterji is Professor, Department of Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies. She is Co-convener of the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir.



This article was first published in Greater Kashmir, Daily Newspaper, Srinagar

[G.Subramaniam]

The reason I am posting Angana article is how she spouts tripe and twists and turns to malign Hindus

[Capt M Kumar]

In what’s a plunge against the tide, former RSS spokesperson M.G. Vaidya has recommended that Kashmir be cleaved from Jammu and Ladakh and granted pre-1953 levels of autonomy with a prime minister (Wazir-e-Azam) as head of government with powers over all subjects other than defence, currency, foreign affairs and telecommunications.



But unlike the pre-1953 status, there should be no separate president (Sadr-e-Riyasat) for the state because “we have only one President for the whole country”. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101003/js...011947.jsp