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  #11  
Old Wednesday, April 03, 2013
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India’s weapons in IHK

April 03, 2013



In an open challenge to the world conscience and international law to which it subscribes, India has, for some time past, been resorting to the use of chemical weapons, after other methods had failed to silence the voice of freedom in the part of Kashmir it has forcibly occupied. Foreign news agencies have cited instances where the security forces in the Valley have thrown pepper gas grenades, the so-called non-lethal weapon, to which the doctors have attributed at least three deaths so far. The chemical in pepper gas causes respiratory problems and suffocation and could prove fatal for heart and allergy patients. Besides, marbles fired from sling-shots and pellet guns have rendered two young Kashmiris blind. The figures of victims could be much higher. For, the media reports that many opt to remain silent for fear of retribution. These are no allegations; but true stories confirmed not only by hospital sources, but also by the unabashed admission of the Indian Held Kashmir Law Minister and the IG Police that the use of such weapons has become “necessary to maintain law and order; otherwise elements who don’t want peace stand to benefit”.

That high government officials make no bones about these weapons lends their use another dimension: New Delhi’s non-challance at how the international community might react. It considers itself so powerful in world politics that it feels free to violate international law and, of course, basic human rights with impunity. Strangely, the police on the spot are left to assess the situation and, if they deem necessary, commit such heinous crimes; no orders from a higher authority are needed.

The poor Kashmiris are not new to atrocities. As they have struggled to get free from India’s bondage in the past 65 years, its 700,000-strong security force has perpetrated untold human rights abuses, torturing and maiming, abductions and disappearances, raping of women, shooting at peaceful demonstrations, terrorising ordinary citizens to prevent them supporting the freedom fighters and, especially, the target is the youth. So far, nearly 100,000 Kashmiris have lost their lives. The tragic news for the badly cornered Kashmiris is that powerful states and the so-called custodians of human rights prefer to turn a blind eye to their miseries in the vain hope that India would safeguard their strategic interests in the region. And India-occupied Kashmir continues to bleed.

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  #12  
Old Thursday, April 04, 2013
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The Kashmir conundrum
By Sabina Khan

In February, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, urged India and Pakistan to exercise restraint and resolve issues peacefully after the incidents that occurred along the Line of Control in Kashmir. Statements like these do nothing to resolve the ongoing injustices in the disputed territory. India has put significant effort into gaining support from developed nations and appears to still have a strong pull within the UN. As long as the UN remains on the sidelines, terrorists will continue to flourish in the region.
In Pakistan, it is becoming unacceptable to mention Kashmir for fear of being branded an ultra-nationalist and being excluded from the ‘India friendship’ club. While pursuing better relations with our neighbour is indeed noble, it should not come at such an expense. In reality, there has been no political resolve to fix the issue due to India’s determination to keep branding it as an internal matter and then ignoring it. There has been no constructive conflict resolution and, instead, the Kashmir issue is held hostage every time an incident occurs between India and Pakistan.

Article 370 of the Indian Constitution accorded Kashmir a special status within the union and clearly states: “All subjects of the state … shall be safe and free in expressing their views and in voting on the question of the accession of the state to India or Pakistan”. According to the 1949 UN resolution, both India and Pakistan agreed that the accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan would be decided through a plebiscite. The resolution also states that all persons (other than citizens of the state) who have entered it after August 15, 1947 for other than lawful purpose, shall be required to leave the state. This requires Pakistan to withdraw its military, while India is allowed to maintain its forces (currently numbering 500,000) in Kashmir to preserve law and order. Consequently, the Indian Army declared a defacto martial law and became excessively violent. Thousands of Kashmiris have disappeared and their whereabouts remain unknown. A police investigation in 2011 by the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission found 2,730 bodies dumped into unmarked graves at 38 sites in northern Kashmir.

India’s position on Kashmir appears to be hypocritical. The state of Junagadh had originally acceded to Pakistan on August 15, 1947 but was occupied by the Indian military in November, which ultimately led to its accession to India after a referendum was held in February 1948. Likewise, the Nizam of Hyderabad had declared his intention to remain independent rather than be a part of the Indian Union. On September 17, 1948, however, Indian forces invaded Hyderabad and the Nizam had to sign the instrument of accession. Keeping these two events in mind, is Pakistan’s position that the Maharaja of Kashmir signed the instrument of accession under duress so unbelievable?
The 1972 Simla agreement binds India and Pakistan to settle their differences (including Kashmir) through peaceful means using bilateral negotiations. However, India has refused to make a genuine effort to find a solution to this conflict. This dispute will not go away and clearly, the usual mechanisms, peace dialogues and such are not working.

UN resolutions have been implemented in Kosovo, East Timor and South Sudan. It is time for a plebiscite to be held in Kashmir and determine what the Kashmiris want. The first step towards ensuring a fair plebiscite would be a step-by-step mutual demilitarisation of the region. Accordingly, India should allow the UN Military Observer Group to conduct its mission on the Indian side of the LoC without restrictions. Finally, Pakistan needs to do everything within its means to motivate the international community to get serious about the conflict before people take matters into their own hands. A fairly conducted plebiscite, which was already mutually agreed to, will remove a significant source of extremism and erase a blockade to lasting peace with India.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4th, 2013.
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  #13  
Old Friday, April 05, 2013
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Kashmir setting records

April 05, 2013

The Kashmir dispute has set a number of records, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, none of them bringing credit to either Pakistan or India, both countries also figuring in the records. Along with the records, the Guinness Book presents an analysis of the situation as it must appear to any neutral observer. According to a report appearing in the held state’s press, the Guinness Book has found that India and Pakistan have together got a million troops manning the Line of Control, and have fought two wars. The Guinness Book identifies the refusal to grant the Kashmiri people the right of self-determination as the reason not just for the wars, but also the continued tension in the whole South Asian region. One of the records set has been that for the highest battlefield in the world. That would not be the case if India had not added the Siachen dispute to the Kashmir issue. The longest speech at the UN was also delivered on the Kashmir issue, an eight-hour marathon. It is also the most heavily militarised boundary in the world with a million troops. It also holds the record for the most military bases in the world. The Guinness Book also notes that the Kashmiri people also had begun an armed struggle for the right of self-determination and that the world community seemed to have gone to sleep over the matter.

That the only true solution of the Kashmir issue is to be found in the UN Security Council Resolutions on the subject is becoming obvious to the world community, but it is time that this realization was also brought home to New Delhi. Not only that, but the world community must also make it clear that there will be consequences for India to go on ignoring its will even after it had itself brought the issue before it, and to go on committing the sort of human rights abuses that the Guinness Book notes.

The Kashmir issue may not have set a record yet as the oldest dispute before the UN, but it will very soon. If the world community continues to look upon India as an emerging power and a potential market, and allows itself to be taken in by Indian propaganda about being the world’s largest democracy, it will continue to present a skewed view of the Kashmir problem, as in the Guinness Book, where the Indian record for obduracy has not been noted, even though that obduracy is at the root of the dispute. India must realise that the issue will be resolved by implementing the UN Resolutions, not pressurising Pakistan.

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  #14  
Old Wednesday, April 10, 2013
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Resounding confession


An Indian Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has confessed what most of his colleagues in Parliament know but would rather not say for obvious reasons. The confession came about towards the conclusion of his visit to the Kashmir Valley. He remarked that India’s media was biased while New Delhi’s Kashmir policy was being run by intelligence agencies. If such words had been uttered by any foreigner or worse still some Pakistani observer they would have been ridiculed as hogwash but since they have been made by an active member of Indian political life they are first of all closer to reality and secondly a gross indictment of India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir.

And on the list of such conscientious Indians criticising their state’s authoritarian character figures a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court Rajinder Sacher who stated that India was persecuting its Muslim population in the name of terrorism. His observation that any state that does not accord its minorities their proper place in society cannot be called civilised, debunks the myth that India is a shining democracy. These are Indian’s own intellectuals and leaders who have started to criticise their state and intelligence agencies for their atrocious behaviour. New Delhi can neither prevail with the occupation nor can it continue to masquerade as a democratic society.

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  #15  
Old Friday, April 19, 2013
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President on Kashmir

April 19, 2013


In his address to the joint sitting of the Kashmir Legislative Assembly and the Kashmir Council, President Zardari said all the right things. However, the policies of the outgoing government sharply contradict these words. Mr Zardari, among other things, said that the hanging of Kashmiri leader Afzal Guru was an "abuse of judicial process". The President said that Pakistan would continue moral, political and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir for their just and principled struggle for the right to self-determination. However, India must make a move to accord them this right, according to the UN resolutions. It is unfortunate that whereas he said this forthrightly and bluntly to the joint sitting, the previous government, of the party of which he was Co-Chairman, did not even deign to list Kashmir on the agenda in its bilateral discussions with India.

Mr Zardari may have noted that Azad Kashmir is in the hands of his party. Both AJK President Sardar Yaqub Ibrahim and AJK Prime Minister Ch Abdul Majid who also addressed the joint session, belong to the AJKPP. The question of Kashmiri self-determination is thus the subject of a bipartisan consensus in the Free State. However, there have been doubts about Pakistan’s willingness to provide the kind of support needed by the Kashmiris. The UN resolutions on the subject are clear: a UN-supervised plebiscite is to be held to allow the Kashmiri people to exercise their inherent right of self-determination. For that, Pakistan should only be discussing modalities with India, not discussing merely bilateral ties. The President should not forget that his party’s founding Chairman, and his father-in-law, famously vowed to struggle for Kashmir for a thousand years, but perhaps the five years that the first democratic government has ever completed in Pakistan's history have been deemed to be equal to a thousand ordinary years. With Kashmiris feeling betrayed and sidelined by Pakistan's visible coyness at discussing the Kashmir issue before all others with India, there is much ground to be covered before Pakistanis can reassure their Kashmiri brothers and sisters that they are willing to invest more effort than just tall speeches and reassuring words, in ensuring resolution of the Kashmir issue according to the wishes of its people.

However, as elections are to be held in Pakistan in less than a month, it should be left to the new government how it handles the Kashmir issue. As the popular groundswell has shown, the outgoing government’s pusillanimous attitude towards India and apologetic attitude towards it on Kashmir, even though it is the core issue between the two countries, has not been appreciated, and the incoming government should prepare to take a stance more supportive of the Kashmiris than has been the case, and also more in line with the words of the President to the joint session. Even if the PPP is not re-elected, he remains in office until September, In either case, his words demand that he play his role in guiding the new government, whatever its party affiliation, to a more proactive Kashmir policy than has been the case so far.

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  #16  
Old Saturday, October 31, 2015
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Default A wrecked compact

ARTICLE 370 of the Indian constitution was devised as a guarantee of the autonomy of the territory that was the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir. It is the only provision of the constitution which was negotiated for five months from 15 May 1949 to 16 October 1949 between Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah.

A solemn compact is now a total wreck. The home minister G.L. Nanda said in December 1963, “only the shell is there”. The previous month, Nehru had said “this process of gradual erosion of Article 370 is going on”.

A constitutional provision is not a natural element to be “eroded”. It was systematically violated in breach of its terms. The process was begun by Nehru himself after Sheikh Abdullah was unconstitutionally ousted from the office of prime minister of Indian Kashmir on Aug 8, 1953 on Nehru’s orders. Since then, New Delhi foisted its men, now as chief ministers, through rigged polls to provide the requisite consent for the ‘erosion’ of Article 370.

The ruler Hari Singh acceded to India on Oct 26, 1947 only in respect of three subjects — defence, foreign affairs and communications. India was governed by an adapted Government of India Act, 1935. The Instrument of Accession did not bind Kashmir to accept the new constitution which the constituent assembly was to draft. Hence the need for the Nehru-Abdullah parleys.

Article 370 in India-held Kashmir has been systematically violated.
Article 370, as agreed, exempted Kashmir from the provisions for governance of all the states. It was free to have its own constitution. Parliament’s power over it was restricted to those three subjects.

But Article 370 also empowered the Indian president to make orders to extend to it other provisions of the constitution for a federal framework — but with two provisos. If they corresponded to matters already comprised in the Instrument of Accession mere “consultation” with the Indian Kashmir government was required. If they went beyond it or more central subjects were to be extended, its “concurrence” was obligatory.

However, if it was given before its constituent assembly was “convened”, the concurrence was to be “placed before such Assembly for such decision as it may take thereon”. In plain words, Kashmir’s constituent assembly alone could accord that requisite consent to the Kashmir government’s interim “concurrence”. Once it was convened in October 1951, the Kashmir government’s authority to concur with the Union on further extension of the centre’s powers vanished.

On the Assembly’s formal dissolution on Nov 17, 1956, the sole consenting body was gone and the Indian president lost any power to make further orders under Article 370.

Yet, the Indian president made as many as 47 orders from 1958 to 1994. Of the 395 articles of India’s constitution, 260 were extended to Kashmir; 94 of the 97 matters for legislation in the Union List were extended to it, including the residuary powers of legislation. From the concurrent list 26 of the 47 items were applied. All this was accomplished by procuring in the teeth of Article 370 the concurrence of handpicked chief ministers elected through rigged polls.

The report of an autonomy committee set up by the Indian Kashmir government said: “Far from enjoying a special status, as Article 370 envisaged, [Kashmir] was put in a status inferior to that of other states. One illustration suffices to demonstrate that. Parliament had to amend the constitution four times, by the 59th, 64th, 67th, 68th constitution amendments to extend president’s rule imposed in Punjab on May 11, 1987. For ... Kashmir, the same result was accomplished by executive orders under Article 370.”

In a note to Nehru in 1952, president Rajendra Prasad referred to the “ex*tr*aordinary” power of amending the constitution by executive orders. It had to end once Kash*mir’s constitution was enacted in November 1956.

Even the unio*nists demand its rollback to its pre-1953 status. One order can repeal another. In June 1999, prime minister Vajpayee’s cabinet brusquely rejected the Kashmir Assembly’s resolution endorsing the autonomy report. The PDP’s manifesto promised to “use Article 370 itself to restore the original special status” of Kashmir. But the BJP has always been for its abrogation. The PDP-BJP coalition pact says “the present position will be maintained on all the constitutional provisions pertaining to J&K”. Article 370 plus the Orders made thereunder alone answer that description.

The phraseology is a poor cover for Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s deceit. The wreck of Article 370 reflects the betrayal of Kashmiri politicians who sold their peoples’ right for the sake of a taste of power

Article 370 was adopted by the constituent assembly in October 1949 when the Indian government was committed to a plebiscite in Kashmir. Its terms therefore did not bar a plebiscite.

The writer is an author and a lawyer.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2015
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