Quest for Friends

Not Masters(Volume – II)

Azam Inqilabi

All rights reserved bySho’aba Tasneef-o-Taleef

J & K Mahaz-e-Azadi

Name of the book: Quest for Friends, not Masters

Author: Azam InqilabiPhone: + (0)194 - 2422462 / 2420327E-mail: majk1232003@yahoo.co.in

Published: 2004

Published by:Sho’aba Tasneef-o-Taleef J&K Mahaz-e-Azadi

Composing & Design: B. B. YASIRBaghaat-Barzulla, Srinagar.

Number of copies printed: 2000

Price: Rs. 200/-

Printed by:

Al-Hayaat Printographers, Gawkadal, Srinagar, Kashmir.

Printed at:

Dedicated to

Martyr Mohammad Maqbool Butt,the legendary political geniuswho will continue to inspire

the future generations of Kashmir

CONTENTS

Prologue: viSection I

01. Please seize the opportunity. 302. Prospects of global peace process. 703. We did not discuss weather. 1104. Checking this fanaticism and bigotry. 1505. Kashmir: After a decade hence. 1906. Democracy: The antidote of jingoism. 2307. Looking for a scapegoat. 2708. OIC: An apology for alliance. 3109. World with unpredictable future. 3510. Chasing an invisible enemy. 3911. Kashmir in quandary. 4312. Combating the violence in Kashmir. 4713. Kashmir on the receiving end. 51

Section II14. Bury the hatchet for good. 5715. Let truth prevail. 6116. Banish this communal fixation. 6717. Co-existence of peace and war. 7218. Crisis legalized and legitimized. 7719. Stop tinkering with Kashmir issue. 83

Section III20. Paying homage to Maqbool Butt: 89

My friend and guide21. Hostages to obsessive thinking. 9422. Sentiments of a bruised nationalist. 9923. Kashmir: The arena of subjective politics. 10424. UN Resolutions on Kashmir. 10925. Metaphysics v/s Temporal politics. 11426. World conscience on trial. 11827. From idealism to realism. 12328. Repercussions of protracted Kashmir war. 12729. Dismemberment of Kashmir. 13230. The last odyssey. 13731. Pragmatic approach to Kashmir issue. 14232. Letter to Bill Clinton. 148

Epilogue: 150

Prologue

After my repatriation from Pakistan in January 1995 I found it quite expedient to write articles for the local English dailies of Kashmir to apprise the valiant struggling people of Kashmir of the various aspects of Kashmir issue. While discussing Kashmir issue I have also dwelt on some important problems of the global civil society. It is for the readers to assess the importance and worth of the articles which constitute the compilation “Quest For Friends, Not Masters”. (Volume-II). I have selected only the most relevant articles for this compilation. The book will certainly help the young students and scholars of Kashmir in their in-depth study of Kashmir problem. In the articles written after Sept. 11, 2001 episode I have made an honest effort to explain how the menace of violence can be stamped out. So the book is equally helpful for those analysts who are engaged in a serious business to suggest means and methods for ensuring global peace.

Here I feel highly indebted to my friend Dr. Haider Hijazi (aka - B. B. Yasir Kashmiri) who, as a computer expert, worked hard to make this compilation presentable. I pray for his success.

Sept. 23, 2004 Azam InqilabiNageen, SrinagarKashmir.

SECTION-I

Please seize the opportunity

is never too late to mend”. The universal adage will help retrieve the situation in Kashmir. A few days back Nisar

Memon, the Information Minister of Pakistan, while addressing a gathering of Kashmiris, said that Pakistan supported a referendum in Kashmir through which Kashmiris would decide for themselves whether to accede to India or Pakistan or opt for total independence. I think it is neither a routine rhetoric to further sentimentalize Kashmir case nor a slip of the tongue. It is ostensibly a calculated diplomatic move to woo the Delhi rulers to come to a negotiating table to address Kashmir issue to finally redress the grievances of a heroic but victimized people of Kashmir valley. Kashmiris, while exercising their inalienable and unlimited (unfettered) right of self-determination, can conveniently determine their political future if and when a free and fair referendum is held in Kashmir. Pakistani rulers have, in fact, taken a positive step in the right direction. We wish them success.

“It

However, we reserve the right to question the rationale for the ambiguous stand and stance which Pakistan adopted during the past 13 years. Why did you trigger off infighting among Kashmiri resistance forces by manoeuvring ideological dissent within their ranks? The freedom zealots of Kashmir frittered away their potentialities in a self-defeating process of ideological polarisation. The fratricidal commotion consumed great warriors of Kashmir resistance movement. The confrontation between pro-independence and pro-Pakistan militants was orchestrated on all the fronts – militant, political and diplomatic. It is ironic that the anticlimax of the whole synchronised exercise was that the free world started looking on Kashmir issue as a simple border dispute between India and Pakistan instead of a case and cause of freedom struggle with a genuine indigenous character. To be precise, the

13-year-old resistance movement of Kashmir appeared to be zero-sum game where Kashmiris and Pakistanis felt miserably cornered in the arena of global politics. Today the whole world is worried about an early peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue notwithstanding the reverses, which our resistance movement faced at home and abroad. Why? It is not the ghastly look of the war-ravaged Kashmir which makes the western brokers of peace weep. The fear psychosis, which overwhelmed the globe as an aftermath of the US military action in Afghanistan against the Al-Qaida activists who now have gone into hiding posing a threat with added dimensions, has forced the global leaders to make a serious effort to address the root cause of terrorism and ultraism wherever and in whatever form it exists.

A suave and docile college student, an ideal bookworm averse to playground and games, was arrested first in 1965 by Indian police for his pro-freedom activities and lodged in central jail Srinagar where he made up his mind to do something concrete for the liberation of Kashmir. Thus the resolve of Azam Inqilabi eventually culminated in self-assertion as chief of United Jihad Council at Muzaffarabad in Nov. 1990. Prof. Ashraf Saraf, as executive member of UJC, played a substantive role in giving a final shape to the draft constitution of UJC. The manifesto of UJC read “After their liberation from foreign yoke, Kashmiris will determine the political future of Kashmir for themselves through a free and fair referendum” (something analogous to UNCIP resolution of Aug. 13, 1948). A few days after three senior officers of the establishment called on me and asked me to replace the manifesto by the one which read “After their liberation from Indian domination Kashmiris will accede to Pakistan” (something compatible with UNCIP resolution of Jan5, 1949). The controversy ensued from there and a sad saga of UJC split started. The UJC split was followed by infighting among the militants in Kashmir Valley. Counter-insurgency culture of the renegades was a by-product of this internecine infighting. It was the assassination of Maqbool Malik (of Danter Anantnag) in Kashmir Valley which forced me to distance myself from militancy and work for the peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue on political and diplomatic fronts. Thus my London-based Save Kashmir Movement in 1992-93 played a pivotal role in retrieving the Kashmir resistance movement from the state of anarchy.

Today all the political resistance leaders feel that they should necessarily work with their own political initiative for the early peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue. By pawning and mortgaging our conscience we will simply be rendering the Kashmir issue more complicated and confounded. So it is imperative for us all to divest ourselves of the obsessive and self-defeating mode of thinking and exert like conscientious protagonists of the cause for which over 80,000 Kashmiris laid down their precious lives. A bit of our subjectivity will prove a powerful deterrent against the trends of war in South Asia. It will serve the purpose of a genuine buffer between the belligerent nuclear powers India and Pakistan, which are pitted against each other. So we should cease to act like non-entity if we want to save the situation in Kashmir.

Revolt of Dhaka Muslims against Islamabad in 1971 and sustained war of attrition of Northern Alliance against Taliban in Afghanistan is in itself a living testimony of the irrefragable fact that faith alone is not the arbiter, definitive and determining factor in the political and social life of a nation. If faith does not safeguard the values of justice and dignity and honour of citizens it is mere hypocrisy. In 1947 we gave a rebuff and rebuttal to those coreligionists whose brigandry and licentiousness did not allow them to march ahead straight to Srinagar airport to pre-empt the military action of India in Kashmir. If Kashmiri Muslims did not forgive Muslim ruffians of 1947 how can they condone the barbarism and vandalism of Indian soldiers who brutalised Kashmiris with unprecedented ferocity. Assassins, predators and rapists excelled Chengez and Halaku in tyranny and repression. Killing of innocent people, torturing men and women in concentration camps, desecrating the modesty of women, loot and arson is all that fetches highest awards for you in Delhi. We are proud of our Sufi and Reshi culture, which guaranteed the safety and security of Kashmiri Pandits in 1947 when the whole of Indian subcontinent was ablaze with communal fire and frenzy. It was again our Kashmiriyat, which ensured the safe exit of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990 when Governor Jagmohan asked them to leave Kashmir Valley en-masse just to facilitate a decisive military action against Muslim insurgents here.

If India as a nation is hell-bent on imposing a military solution on Kashmir then the only option left for Kashmiris is to identify themselves, irrespective of their ideological moorings, with

Pakistan which is awfully involved in Kashmir as a staunch supporter of Kashmir cause. If India is adamant to pursue its one-point agenda, i.e. to completely strangulate, batter and pulverize Kashmir then all the Kashmiris, no matter what political ideas they profess, will be forced to express their solidarity with the Muslim warriors who want to demolish political boundaries from Kashmir to Morocco to carve out a formidable Muslim empire. By emphasizing a military approach to Kashmir tangle you are, in fact, inadvertently communalizing what is basically a simple political issue. So a military solution is fraught with dangers; it will inevitably come home to roost.

If India is interested in a political and democratic solution of Kashmir problem it should declare without any further delay that humanistic approach to the problem is priority agenda of India in Kashmir. Kashmiris should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to be part of India or accede to Pakistan or opt for independence. Thus a free and fair referendum held in a genuinely democratic atmosphere is the real answer to the crisis here. And this is the only way to safeguard our Kashmiriyat, which envisages disdainful aversion to coercion overt or covert. So it is time to seize the opportunity and seek a peaceful and democratic solution of Kashmir issue taking Kashmiris’ freedom aspirations into account.

It is national aggrandizement of the powers around and the self-aggrandizement of Kashmiri leaders which proves a stumbling-block in the peace process aimed at seeking an early peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue. If USA and other western powers are really keen to ensure peace in South Asia and thwart the march of Al-Qaida brigade to Kashmir then they should do something substantial beyond hackneyed platitude and diplomatic verbiage to pressurize both India and Pakistan to begin a dialogue for lasting solution of Kashmir problem. This is the only way to mitigate and alleviate the sufferings of benumbed Kashmiris.

[Kashmir Images - August 29, 2002]

Prospects of global peace process

ourgeois elite of the capitalist class of global society will continue to tread the path of exploitation and monopolization

thereby ignoring the wounds and woes of the proletariat. The polarization between haves and have-nots has, in fact, been a permanent feature of class-war since the time immemorial. Sadistic vampires of the capitalist class feel relieved and even exalted when they, through all their shenanigans and manipulations, succeed in ensuring the failure of under-privileged and dispossessed people in their campaign for the establishment of a system based on egalitarian justice. Preponderance and monopoly of the capitalist economy will continue to be the primary objective of the powers which crave for their overlordship. The realpolitik of these powers allures them to do everything possible to perpetuate their hegemony – hegemony in politics, trade and economy. Neocolonialists would want to use all the modes and methods of globalization just to monopolize their role as ideal plutocrats, of course, in league with the surrogate rulers of their client states in the under-developed world.

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Disintegration of erstwhile Soviet Union proved to be a bane or boon in itself is a moot point. Analysts reserve the right to bring forth diversified reflections on the subject. However, it is an admitted fact that the break-up of the Soviet empire helped USA in its emergence as the sole superpower commanding respect, real or imaginary, all over the globe. Notwithstanding how the critics grumble against the hidden agenda of the authors of New World Order the enslaved and brutalised people of Kashmir and Palestine look upon USA as their saviour. Theism-based humanism of US nation should force Mr. Bush (Mr. G. W. Bush)

to act like a genuine philanthropist during his campaign for assertion as a global pacifist. Humanistic approach of US leaders to global issues will help USA assume the role of a de-jure global leader having capability to address the festering issues like Kashmir and Palestine. Right now the deteriorating situation in Kashmir and Palestine makes the critics look askance at USA. They believe that the selective humanism of America is a strong destabilizing force creating power imbalance in various regions of the world. US emphasis on its doctrine of unilateralism and exclusiveness in the global political theatre will inevitably prove counter-productive. It will sow the seeds of hatred which through a gradual process of metamorphosis will become a palpable brew of vengeance. And in the final stage there can be a volcanic eruption involving the wrath of the adversaries hell-bent on wreaking revenge. Bruised ego of the old global adversaries can serve the purpose of a powerful catalyst in the whole process of a counter- revolution. It is, therefore, quite expedient that the importunately obtruding power should hold back and, after proper sole-searching, have a dispassionate reappraisal of its policy vis-à-vis the global issues. As a theistic society US nation has to bear in mind that the law of retribution cannot be transcended if one becomes a party to the phenomenon that forcibly imposes an order of injustice.

Optimists are not completely disillusioned with what the world powers are doing to ensure global peace through sustained multifaceted efforts aimed at eradicating and stamping out violence-based extremism and fanaticism abbreviated as ‘terrorism’ in the political parlance of the present-day world. Asian nations including Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Malaysia should play a pro-active political role for the early resolution of the outstanding political issues including Kashmir, Palestine and Chechniya. Almaty Conference of the important Asian nations did kindle a hope of better prospects of the peace process being vigorously and persistently pursued by a few pacifists of the world. Why should others be allowed to make a cat’s-paw of Asian nations just to further the cause of those who vie with your power and potential? If Asian nations assert for the peaceful settlement of the long-standing disputes which have bedeviled and embittered relations between them the day is not far when the ‘supercop’ will condescend to objectively rationalize its role for crisis management and conflict resolution. Here we emphasize that human civilisation should not be allowed to relapse into anachronistic regression in the name of religion or culture. Evolutionary growth of scientific knowledge has, in fact, revolutionised the concept of metaphysical meditation

and exploration. An introvert literally finds himself in a state of union with God when he watches a TV documentary showing an artificial satellite orbiting the earth or voyaging through space for a rendezvous with Jupiter or Mars. Let knowledge and logic alone work as a force majeure in the determination of our position on this tiny planet earth.

Events of internecine infighting in early nineties in Kashmir are still reverberating in our head and heart. Those were the days when every Kashmiri was upset by the fratricidal mayhem in his homeland. In London I launched Save Kashmir Movement in (Jan-Feb) 1993 just to stem the rot. Eventually I in league with my contemporary resistance friends – Fazal Haq Qureshi, Yaseen Malik, Shabbir Shah and G. M. Butt (JI Chief) – succeeded in (i) saving the Kashmiri nation from ideological infighting (ii) reducing the level of violence (iii) segregating the political resistance organizations from militancy. It took us long eight years to revive the political institutions of Kashmir resistance movement. But for Sheikh Abdullah’s political somersault in 1975 when he disbanded Plebiscite Front, the insurgency in Kashmir would not have been triggered off. Kashmiri youth rejected Indra-Abdullah Accord of 1975 and decided to spearhead the resistance movement first on political front and later, while getting disenchanted with the democratic process of 1987, on the militant front and that too in a big way. People eulogized and idolized the great warriors of the violent insurrection. Ashfaq Majid Wani, Maqbool Illahi, Altaf Qureshi, Ashraf Dar, Sheikh Hameed, Nasir-ul-Islam are a few who form part of the galaxy of valiant votaries of Kashmir freedom movement.

Here by way of a rejoinder we once again make it clear that violence is not the favourite hobby, recreation or pastime of Kashmiri youth. They were constrained to have a recourse to violent mode of agitation against the military, constitutional and cultural onslaught of India in Kashmir. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, as the Prime Minister of India, unequivocally made it clear in Indian parliament and Srinagar that Kashmiris reserve the right to self-determination. In a radio broadcast from New Delhi on 2nd of Nov. 1947 Mr. Nehru said, “……. We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. This pledge we have given and the Maharaja has supported it, not only to the people of Kashmir but also to the world. We will not and cannot back out of it. We are prepared, when peace and law and order have been established, to have referendum held under international auspices like United Nations…….”.

Repeating and reiterating his pledge and promise in a similar tone and accent in January 1952 Mr. Nehru said, “…… Kashmir is not the property of either India or Pakistan. It belongs to the Kashmiri people. When Kashmir acceded to India we made it clear to the leaders of the Kashmiri people that we would ultimately abide by the verdict of their plebiscite; if they tell us to walk out I would have no hesitation in quitting Kashmir … . … We have taken the (Kashmir) issue to the United Nations and given our word of honour for peaceful solution. As a great nation we cannot go back on it. We have left the question for final solution to the people of Kashmir and we are determined to abide by their decision……” (Amrit Bazar Patrika, Kolkatta, Jan. 1952)

Why is it so that the Indian leaders, despite their clarion commitment regarding a referendum in Kashmir for its final dispensation, blatantly reneged on their promise and pledges. Don’t you feel that the betrayal and perfidy has cost your honour as a great nation? Therefore, shouldn’t your smaller neighbouring countries harbour suspicion and assert to combat your hegemonic designs? And how can you stake a claim to the permanent membership of UN Security Council when the world community feels averse to perverted and profane culture of fraud and treachery. You lynched, mauled and mutilated Kashmiris simply because they reminded you of your moral obligation apropos Kashmir. In fact, India has already forfeited its right to stay in Kashmir. Bullets and bayonets cannot be answer to Kashmir crisis. You have to revert to humanistic approach to Kashmir issue if at all you are serious about checkmating the domino effect of Kashmir turmoil, which has the inherent potential to destabilize peace of the whole South Asian region. Kashmir can become a hotbed and an ideal breeding ground for the future Bin Ladens if Kashmir issue remains unsettled for a few years more. It is an unwholesome revelation for those who are eager to see peace and tranquility enveloping the globe. So instead of harping on the outdated policy of subjective rhetoric and polemics you should display sagacity, stoicism, prudence, magnanimity and a strong political will to address the Kashmir issue. Pakistan, as an important party to Kashmir issue, can help you in finding an honourable and peaceful way out of Kashmir vortex. Kashmiri leaders will play a constructive role in the whole peace process. Insha-Allah.

[Kashmir Images - August 20, 2002]

We did not discuss weather

arrister K.H.Khursheed, the Kashmiri leader who hailed from Srinagar, worked as personal secretary of Quad-e-Azam

Muhammad Ali Jinnah for some time and later on became the President of Azad Kashmir. He founded JK Liberation League in 1962 and propounded the idea of a united free Kashmir. Late Khursheed, as the president of Azad Kashmir, was dethroned and lodged in Dulai interrogation centre. He had to suffer for the rest of his life due to his commitment to the subjective freedom movement. He was not averse to the concept of referendum in free Kashmir for or against Pakistan. Muhammad Maqbool Butt, the revolutionary visionary, embarked upon the most tedious and perilous task of getting his free (independent) Kashmir concept recognised by India and Pakistan. He entered (returned to) Kashmir Valley in 1966 as NLF guerilla leader. After his arrest he was interrogated and subjected to torture. Death sentence was passed against him in Srinagar central jail wherefrom he escaped in December 1968 to cross the snow-clad mountains. In Azad Kashmir he remained engrossed in free-Kashmir movement with added vigour. He again repatriated to Kashmir Valley in 1976 to ‘instigate’ the Kashmiri youth against Indra-Abdullah Accord. He was again arrested and lodged in Tihar Jail Delhi where he had to languish for eight long years without the transparent trial of the cases he had been implicated in. Eventually it was due to the joint connivance of India and Pakistan that he had to face gallows and

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die as a martyr on Feb. 11, 1984. General Zia-ul-Haq, the president of Pakistan, kept mum when India, on Feb. 8, 1984, decided to hang Maqbool Butt. Dr. Farooq Abdullah (then the ‘Chief Minister’ of Indian held part of Jammu & Kashmir) signed the black warrant. Thus elimination of Maqbool Butt symbolised the formalization of a joint Indo-Pak campaign (with unwritten agreement) to sabotage and jeopardize the independence movement of Kashmir.

All those who ventured to make an effort to further the cause of an independent Kashmir in one way or the other became a casualty and scapegoat in the confrontation between the proponents of ‘Shah-Rug’ and ‘Atoot-Ang’ theory. Molvi Farooq, Dr. Qazi Nissar, Prof. A. A. Wani, Dr. G. Q. Wani, Advocate Jaleel Andrabi, Shabbir Siddiqui, Maqbool Malik and hundreds of protagonists of Kashmir independence movement got consumed by the fratricidal mayhem. Molvi Umar Farooq says that about 30 options are being considered for resolving Kashmir issue. Well, it took us long 12 years to render the option of independence of Kashmir irrelevant and redundant using all the overt and covert coercive means and methods to break the will of pro-independence ideologues. It will, therefore, take us (12x28) i.e. 336 years to reject all other options except the one which is dear to every citizen of Pakistan. Sardar Abdul Qayoom Khan Saheb and Molvi Umar Farooq Saheb can afford to live with the reverie of options for Kashmir as they have to lose nothing except a few moments of solitude in their secure dens just to facilitate a dialogue and discussion on Kashmir in various regions of the world. This is an affordable political pastime for a few indeed. Lakhs of Kashmiris who have been writhing in anguish and anger for over a decade are earnestly looking for a way out of what ostensibly appears to be complicated and ineluctable situation.

Acquisition of technical know-how and expertise by Pakistan to manufacture nuclear weapons and missiles has added to the impregnability and invincibility of that country in such a way that her nuclear adversary, India, cannot afford to think in terms of an all-out war with Pakistan unless the two countries actually prod each other to commit a suicide. Credibility of numerical superiority of India over Pakistan is now an extinct myth. Parity in power and potential of the two to strike a balance is a guarantee for strategic restraint and hence peace in South Asia. In Kashmir the status quo (‘no peace no war’ situation) suits none but the adversaries which vie with India and Pakistan for their nuclear capability. It is, therefore, quite expedient and advisable for India and Pakistan to de-emotionalize the Kashmir issue and disengage on Kashmir front to retrieve the strife-torn area from the quagmire

of turmoil, chaos and uncertainty. A political package envisaging a visionary but practicable solution of Kashmir issue on short-term and long-term basis can jointly be worked out by Pakistan and India.For Kashmiris a news about ‘hartal’ or sighting of Eid moon is a mere rumour unless it is confirmed and endorsed by Radio Pakistan or PTV. It means that Kashmir will continue to be natural constituency of Pakistan for times to come. Hurriyat leaders will simply be managing their share of credit for what is more natural than stage-managed. We don’t envy that role of theirs. When Hurriyat Chairman Prof. A. G. Butt saheb said that he ‘discussed weather’ with Ram Jethmalani, the elderly Indian opposition leader, people did not become impatient to know more about Hurriyat weather forecast. Instead they furtively switched on their television sets to gather information from PTV about the political weather forecast regarding Kashmir. In the calm and cool atmosphere of Hotel Grand Palace I, alongwith thirty or forty friends including lawyers and scholars, had an occasion to interact with Ram Jethmalani. We all apprised the Indian leader of the ground realities in Kashmir. Barring weather we discussed almost all the aspects of Kashmir resistance movement. 80,000 martyrs felt relieved when we completed our briefing with complete transparency. The brilliant Indian lawyer too emphasized the importance of peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue through dialogue.

Now it is an open secret that Hurriyat leaders were already engaged in secret informal dialogue with New Delhi even before K. C. Pant’s visit to Srinagar in May 2001. Hurriyat leaders had asked New Delhi not to declare Pant’s name as interlocutor before their visit to Pakistan. When Mr. Pant arrived in Srinagar to meet Azam Inqilabi and Shabbir Shah Hurriyat Conference raised hue and cry against what they called a violation of ‘collective sense of responsibility’. It took me several months to understand that we had actually ‘violated the proprietorship right’ of Hurriyat Conference to advocate Kashmir cause. So it was a simple rights-violation case for which they should have approached Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch USA. There was no need of going in for media trial against the committed warriors of Kashmir resistance movement. Late A. G. Lone fell a prey to the same media trial. Thanks to parochialism and paranoia which is the hallmark of Kashmir society.

If world community is really interested in thwarting violence and containing the trends of extremism and ultraism in Kashmir it should rise to the occasion to address the root cause of unrest

here. Please try to understand the genesis of the turmoil and upheaval here. After all, who is responsible for the political cataclysm and intricacy in Kashmir. It is the volte-face of the Indian rulers who blatantly reneged on their promise and pledge regarding the final dispensation of Kashmir based on Kashmiris’ inalienable right to self-determination. It is Delhi and Delhi alone which facilitated commotion and pell-mell in Kashmir by installing stooges through farcical and sham elections. Kashmiris feel disillusioned with Indian democracy, which in Kashmir means administrative arrogance and totalitarianism. Ask your philosophers and psychologists to make a realistic assessment of the magnitude of hatred that is brewing in the hearts of the brutalised and traumatized people of Kashmir. Revert to humanistic mode of approach to deal with Kashmir tangle. This is the only way to heal the wounds, which history has inflicted on this benumbed ethnic community beleaguered by tall mountains and ruthless bayonets of the soldiers who are now looked upon as assassins and depredators even by sane Indians. Let the Indian strategists bear in mind that all Kashmiri resistance leaders are moderates if India is serious about finding an honourable, amicable, equitable and durable solution of Kashmir issue; and all of them are reckless hawks if treachery, fraud, perfidy and coercion form the basis of Indian modus operandi to tackle Kashmir imbroglio and embroilment. Please don’t try to create dissension among Kashmiri leadership by categorizing it into moderates and hardliners. People in Kashmir want a radical change for good. Inevitably you have to allow the conscientious but suppressed class of the civil society of Kashmir to manage the state affairs here if and when Pakistan and India approve of a workable plan for the permanent settlement of Kashmir issue. This is the bottom line of what all the revolutionaries would like to suggest.

[Kashmir Images - June 15, 2002]

Checking this fanaticism and bigotry

slam, the religion of peace and moderation, emphasizes compassion, benevolence and accountability in every sphere of

social and political life. A genuinely practicing Muslim is always polite, suave and unassuming in his personal demeanour. He is averse and allergic to arrogance and postures of subjective bragging and boasting. Islam would like to see every Muslim becoming an ideal dayee. In fact, the whole Ummah, as Kher-e-Ummah, has to play the role of devoted dayee. And for the success of dawah a dayee has to adopt, not profess, humility, righteousness, patience and altruism. Islam disdains and detests self-conceit, impetuosity and intolerance. It was the strong metaphysical mystic message of the great saints and sages like Bulbul Shah and Mir Syed Ali Hamdani that conquered the hearts of those who knew nothing about Islam before its advent in Kashmir. It is not sword which is proving instrumental in the spread of Islam in Europe and America today. It is, in fact, the knowledge of the western citizens which persuaded them to acknowledge Islam as the religion of love – love for God, love for humans and love for the lofty ideas, opening up new vistas of research in various disciplines of knowledge.

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It is incumbent on the whole Muslim Ummah, as the vicegerent of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), to apprise the world of the real teachings of Islam. Defeatist mindset and apologetic approach to global issues cannot extricate the Ummah from the crevasse and abyss of helplessness and retrogression. It was the sustained theistic resistance of Muslims and Christians alike, which eventually culminated in the dismemberment of Soviet Union.

That means the agreement of interests and alliance of convenience practically facilitated what appeared to be remote possibility in early eighties. Today the world is facing the menace of global terrorism – an invisible monster that is haunting and horrifying the minds in East and West. Again the Muslims and Christians, through a concerted humanistic and metaphysical approach, can effectively fight the menace of terrorism no matter whether it is the terrorism of an individual, a group or a state. Intellectual waywardness of the lunatics in scholars’ guise may suggest something like ‘clash of civilisations’ but in the world of realism and rationalism, the ‘international coalition’ for a campaign against terrorism finds it quite expedient to accommodate both theists and atheists all over the globe.

After the end of Cold War era, civilizations were engrossed in the involuntary endeavour to relapse into anachronistic regression when the surprise catastrophic terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 in USA sent shivers down the spine of the sane political scientists. Thus the traumatized global leaders were forced to shun and shed obscurantism, parochialism and exclusiveness. Now humanism seems to be underlying dogma of the ‘international coalition’ for ‘war on terror’. The whole phenomenon of terrorism will prove potent enough to break the barriers of bias, bigotry and particularism. It was the fanaticism and bigotry of racist Nazis of Germany which dragged the world into the holocaust of World War II. It was the illusory socialistic megalomania of erstwhile Soviet Union which allured the leaders of that empire to embark upon an adventure (nay, misadventure) in Afghanistan in 1979. It was the political fanaticism, bigotry and bias which did not allow the leaders of undivided Pakistan to come to terms with one another in 1971. Group aggrandizement of Taliban fanatics and bigots left no stone unturned in demonizing and diabolizing Islam through acts which were never compatible with the essence of Islam. So the failure of fanaticism symbolised and epitomized the success of moderation and objectivity.

Frenzied Zionist zealots are making a conspicuously awkward attempt to locate and lynch Hitler in the refugee camps of Palestine. Instead of slaughtering the innocent Palestinians the Israeli leaders should beat their breasts for their failure in bringing Hitler to justice. And here in South Asia Modis have gone berserk. The crowd of cowards could not take on Baber who had come brandishing not Ghori and Shaheen missiles but the petty iron sword which the Modis of that time could have easily manufactured in their kitchen ovens. Why did not they display the masculine prowess then in defense of their beloved homeland Hindustan? Now it is useless to look for a scapegoat in Gujrat just

to satiate and assuage the sentiments of revenge. In Gujrat you are actually massacring the disciples of the Sufi saint of Ajmer. Is it not a fact that Indian Muslims generally identify themselves with the Sufi saints and seers like Nizam-ud-din and Garieb Nawaz whose shrines are revered and respected more by Hindus than Muslims? Modis of today should once again read the 700 shalooks of Bhagwat Geeta. Don’t you know that Shree Arjun was hesitant in waging a war against his kith and kin notwithstanding the genuineness of his cause? And here you don’t feel ashamed of yourself while displaying savagery and butchery in the streets of Gujrat.

How is it possible that a country which is psychologically riven and ripped apart within due to communal polarization and sectarian violence can exist as a single administrative unit when religious fanatics are free to rule the roost? Whither secularism of India? One billion people of India cannot permanently become hostage to a particular communal fixation.

I am not completely disillusioned and disenchanted with the progressive and emancipated secular forces of India. There are luminaries like Proful Bidwai, Tapan Bose and Kuldeep Nayar whose sermons do not go unnoticed. In his article captioned BJP’s castle in the air, published in Kashmir Images of April 19, 2002, Kuldeep Nayar writes, “I am surprised over the absence of action against religious terrorism. Members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal are no different from the Taliban. The world woke up to their obscurantism and violence after their attacks in the US. India is waking up to their barbarism after the massacre in Gujrat. The Taliban disfigured Islam, the Sangh Parivar Hinduism”. Why should the chauvinism and fascism of 5 percent (micro-minority) of people be allowed to destroy the pluralism which forms the base of Indian system? So it is time to checkmate the menace of fanaticism and bigotry which is eating into the very vitals of Indian society. General Musharaf has already taken an initiative to contain the menace in and around Pakistan. Secular India can orchestrate a better show of tolerance, fraternity, philanthropy and egalitarian justice.

Abul Kalam Azad, the late Congress stalwart explains in his autobiography India Wins Freedom how Pt. Nehru’s latent anti-Muslim paranoia and egoistic aggressiveness sabotaged the British Cabinet Mission Plan for United India with three autonomous zones. Again it was the same subjective arrogance of the Delhi rulers which taught them how to renege on their own commitment regarding the final political dispensation of Kashmir. Who encroached upon the Article 370 of Indian Constitution?

Who humiliated and tortured the Kashmiri political leaders and activists in jails and interrogation centres despite their steadfast peaceful campaign for the political settlement of Kashmir issue? It is you who pushed Kashmiris to the wall. So you have no moral right to cast aspersions on them and calumniate and vilify them for no fault of theirs. Today you find yourselves entangled and entrenched in what ostensibly appears to be an ineluctable and confounded situation. Still it is never too late to mend. A serious political initiative for early peaceful solution of Kashmir tangle can help in bringing round those who feel totally disgusted with the shenanigans and prevarications of Delhi Maharajas.

Continued stand-off suits neither India nor Pakistan. Indian and Pakistani strategists should try to realise that in the presence of your nuclear weapons and missiles, Kashmiri ultras shoulder no obligation to abide by your rules of ‘strategic restraints’. They would, rather, feel tempted to continue their activities just to add to your vulnerability and bewilderment. It is, therefore, absolutely preposterous to think about breaking the will and resolve of Kashmiri ultras through military operations. To be true, it is the peaceful political stance of Kashmiri leaders which serves the purpose of an ideal deterrent against the growing trends of violence. So you should try to be prudent by recognising the role of the political institutions of Kashmir. You simply cannot afford to belittle or underestimate their importance. They alone can salvage you from the quagmire and mesh of Kashmir imbroglio.

Kashmiris are proud of their Kashmiriyat which envisages and entails regard for the Sufi and Reshi culture of Kashmir. It was the Sufi’ism of Kashmir which ensured the safety and security of Kashmiri Pandits in 1947 and 1990 when thousands of furious guns were booming around. It is obligatory on our part to save our Sufi’ism from the onslaught of Indian Modi’ism. And the objective can be achieved through a sustained political resistance movement. Indian Modi’ism has provided enough ammunition to our resistance movement for its survival and success.

[Kashmir Images- April 26, 2002]

Kashmir: After a decade hence

errorism is a phenomenon involving the cathectic impulsive reaction of psychologically bruised men. It is a cathartic

expression of suppressed feelings and sentiments. It is a ruthless and reckless violent rebuff and rebuttal to the authors of persecution and humiliation. Terrorism is not the disease. It is in fact symptom of disease – the relentless aggressiveness of the haughty egotistic desperadoes in power. Expansionism, which is aimed at seeking overlordship and preponderance through all the coercive means and methods, is the real cause of the discontent and unrest in the underdeveloped countries. USA, the sole superpower, is awfully busy in her brawn-assertion campaign all over the globe just to browbeat and terrorize the terrorists known or unknown. However, the US modus operandi to deal with the menace of terrorism has become controversial. In his article “Why the War on Terror won’t Work” published in the Daily Kashmir Observer, Srinagar of March 22, 2002 Bill Christian, the former senior CIA officer, maintains: “….. But elsewhere in much of the world, especially the underdeveloped world, this overwhelming invincibility of the US military intensifies the frustrations about and hatred of USA. This in turn makes future terrorist acts against US or what is now called by US strategic thinkers asymmetrical warfare even more likely. Those in underdeveloped lands who oppose the US drive for worldwide hegemony are increasingly coming to see no means other than terrorism as an effective method of opposing the United States. ….. I believe that unless the US moves in the directions I have been suggesting throughout this talk, in five or ten years the terrorism against the United States will become so intense that our global relationships with other nations will be in shambles……”.

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Terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001 on WTC and Pentagon in USA changed the very concept of warfare. The formidable nuclear arsenal and sophisticated computerized missiles of USA could not defend this country against the catastrophic assault of the terrorists whose guerilla expertise in terms of surprise, precision and insurmountable will to strike rendered the whole US defence paraphernalia obsolete and redundant. In fact, it will be always difficult to identify the unknown terrorists whose ulterior motives and intentions will lie buried in their hearts till the last moment of strike. Thus the element of surprise will continue to take the victim by surprise unless some wonder device works wonders in deciphering the innate feelings and ideas of a man. So, for times to come, unpredictability will be always a mystery in the whole dynamics of terrorism. All that a terrorist has to do is to decide to die. And with the advancement of information technology the technical know-how about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons will be an open secret. Such a congenial scientific atmosphere will certainly coax and cajole the future terrorists to give a vent to their pent-up feelings and sentiments of revenge, vengeance and wrath. If Mr. Bush, the US president, is really serious about addressing the problem of global terrorism he should focus his attention on the 4-point programme I have vociferously been mooting and supporting since Sept. 11, 2001 viz: (i) Dialogue between civilizations. (ii) Resolution of all the outstanding political issues in various regions of the world. (iii) Bridging the gulf between haves and have-nots all over the globe and (iv) Emphasis on family-concept as a bedrock of human civilisation. A few days back, while addressing a gathering of intellectuals in the Georgia Institute of Technology USA Mr. Jimmy Carter, the former US president, castigated and rebuked his country for its apathy and antipathy vis-à-vis Afghanistan which was used as an expendable pawn and later on unceremoniously jettisoned to languish and writhe in the parching and suffocating atmosphere of political ostracism and economic sanctions.

Kashmir is a powder keg, rather a flashpoint in South Asia. Kashmiris have a genuine case. The criterion that justified the intervention of Indian government in Junagarh and Hyderabad was blatantly flouted in Kashmir. Jammu Kashmir State, like 564 princely states, should have been allowed to determine its political future for itself. But for the animosity between Sheikh Abdullah and Maharaja Hari Singh, the state of Jammu & Kashmir would have succeeded, notwithstanding the prevarication of Indian National Congress and Muslim League, in retaining the independence of the State. Sheikh Sahib’s “Quit Kashmir” slogan,

undoubtedly, hastened the process of Indian intervention in Kashmir. Rivalry between the two state-leaders facilitated not only the Indo-Pak confrontation in Kashmir but also the communal polarization within the State. Now Kashmir is a bone of contention between India and Pakistan. True, UN resolutions on Kashmir are as valid as Simla Agreement and Lahore Declaration. Nevertheless, the complexities of Kashmir issue demand that parties to the vexed issue should adopt a pragmatic and objective approach while addressing the various aspects of the issue. It is a sin to live on the misery of Kashmiris. Kashmiris feel sandwiched between the two nuclear powers of south Asia. It is high time when intransigence and intractability should give way to logic, humanism and philanthropy.

Leaving Kashmir issue in limbo means perpetuating the state of uncertainty, chaos and confusion here on the one hand and spawning and grooming the uncompromising ultras on the other. Contemporary Afghan history reveals that it takes 20 years to produce a complete crop of die-hard ultras hell-bent on wreaking vengeance upon the adversary. Kashmir, after a decade hence, will be an ideal breeding ground of the ultras who will excel Bin Ladens of today in their resolve to display prowess so characteristic of a reckless sadist seething with inveterate hatred and rancour. How can the draconian laws like TADA and POTA prove an effective deterrent against the latent militant resolve of those who are yet in teens and whose naked eyes witness the carnage, arson, loot, torture, rape and desecration of the sacred places of worship? So by imposing a military solution on Kashmir you are actually sowing the seeds of future revolution – a spontaneous volcanic eruption. Alas! All this will happen in Kashmir – a bastion of Sufi and Reshi culture, the present-day Kashmiris are so proud of. Why should subjective arrogance and complacency be allowed to ignore the prognosis of a genuine pacifist and humanist who, in league with many emancipated friends, played an important role in saving the present generation of youngsters from complete extinction? Well, the hardened hearts are, indeed, impervious to the sermons of peace, pacification and pacifism.

Today USA says that “ Kashmir is the top priority” of its foreign affairs agenda. Thank you, we wish you success in your endeavour to redress the grievances of the brutalised ethnic community of Kashmir. Russia, China, Japan and European Union – all stress an early peaceful settlement of Kashmir tangle

through sustained dialogue and negotiations between the parties concerned.

OIC, the political Milli forum of the Muslim World, can do a lot to mitigate and alleviate the sufferings of the hapless Kashmiris. No need of exporting a few dissidents and petro-dollars to Kashmir. Please, express solidarity with the helpless people of Kashmir by severing trade relations with India. Impose economic sanctions on her for a period of six months so that 650-billion rupee Indian Defence budget is reduced by 50% and this reduction will ensure the subsequent reduction in the human rights abuse and violations in Kashmir. This is what you should do if at all you are averse to the word “hypocrisy”. By the time you take a bold decision to pressurise India to concede to Kashmiris’ right to self-determination you should try to provide relief to the orphans, widows and other war-affected people of Kashmir.

Here, I cannot but pay tribute to the 80,000 martyrs who lie buried in the 500 cemeteries of Kashmir. Also, I pay tribute to the great Kashmiri warriors who have been languishing in Indian prisons for the last decade. Kashmiris are craving and praying for an early peaceful solution of the Kashmir imbroglio. Status quo in Kashmir will inevitably prove fatal for India. Due to domino effect Kashmir turmoil and upheaval will engulf the peaceful areas of India. If Kashmir issue is amicably solved before long half of the problems which India is facing within will get automatically solved. Political leaders of Kashmir resistance movement are ready to cooperate with the Indo-Pak joint working group for Kashmir. We want to help you find an honourable way out of Kashmir vortex. We will not let you down, if you respond with promptitude. So it is time to seize the opportunity. The present stalemate on Kashmir front suits the interests of some sadistic vampires in the West. The continued log-jam will jeopardise the strategic interests of India and Pakistan. It is equally detrimental for the Asian security too.

[Kashmir Images - March 29, 2002]

Democracy: The antidote of jingoism

emocracy is a suffocation-free political culture, which guarantees empowerment of the masses; it elevates the

underprivileged intelligentsia to the position of power and prominence; it safeguards the conscience of a common man by encouraging healthy dissent. The poor man who stood up in the mosque and asked Caliph Umar to explain wherefrom he had acquired the cloak he donned was basically exercising his right to dissent and freedom of speech. The satisfactory answer of the Caliph did have a positive impact on the heart of the pious but poor Muslim who posed the question. So Islamic democracy guarantees freedom of speech and constructive dissent. Democracy, in essence, envisages installation of a government by adult franchise. So a government formed by the massive mandate of the common people will necessarily be wedded to the cause of egalitarian social justice and welfare of the common man. In Islamic democracy popular verdict of the common Muslims in favour of a particular issue will be always based on righteousness and truth. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) guarantees the righteousness and judiciousness of Muslim consensus saying: “My Ummah will never assemble to have consensus on ‘Munkar’ (the forbidden things); so side with the Muslim majority mainstream.”

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Hence there is nothing wrong in having a ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’. The concept is perfectly in conformity with Islamic democracy. In fact democracy, in its ideal form, is a boon and benediction.

In the underdeveloped countries of the present-day world money and muscle power of the privileged acts as a carte blanche and force majeure in determining the nature of the government formed through adult suffrage. It is, in fact, the government of plutocrats and aristocrats – the privileged class of civil society. It is the same sham democracy of the bourgeois elite which proves instrumental – through acts of mismanagement, nepotism, corruption, scams and scandals – in generating unrest, discontentment among the impoverished dispossessed and degraded proletariat in the underdeveloped countries. Thus the political upheaval, communal polarisation, xenophobia, violence, fanaticism and terrorism are some of the main indispensable attributes of this sham democracy. In order to provide a firm footing to the edifice of farcical democracy the authors of the hallucinatory system of governance create a smokescreen of artificial crisis by demonising certain issues within and outside their countries. The objective of empowering the underprivileged and talented altruists is an anathema and eyesore to those who, by default, are already firmly glued to their position of sway over the Muslim and secular countries of the Third World. The Western powers would want to capitalise on the crisis the Third World demagogues usually live on. They just jump on the bandwagon of these opportunists to simply obfuscate the already flummoxed issues. Thus the agreement of interests facilitates a campaign to brutalise the prisoners of conscience. And had there been no Osamas and Saddams the vampires in power would have certainly discovered one – a real or imaginary bogeyman. Yes, this is the tack and tact that suits their interests.

Human civilisation seems to be sitting at the crater of a volcano; it is quite oblivious of the threat of its extinction. In such a situation the world is and should be looking for a saviour who by dint of his intuitive approach can extricate and retrieve the human civilisation from the vortex of crisis – the crisis of mutual trust and understanding. Let the Messiah descend from the heaven to chastise and baptize the inflated egotists who are holding the humanity to ransom. In the second chapter of his book “The Myth of Independence” written 34 years back Z. A. Bhutto, the late social democrat who ruled over Pakistan for several years, maintains: “But as long as nations exploit one another, as long as there is dictatorship and suppression of civil liberties, as long as people are denied their rights and the poor are plundered the Cold War will remain and might even culminate in a real war between the Great Powers, between one ideology and the other. Oppressed people will never abandon their search for a redeemer and if none

is found to assume the mantle, the people in bondage will redeem themselves and achieve an egalitarian order free of domination and want, tyranny and exploitation.”If suicide is not the priority option of the human civilisation the violence in all its forms and with all its dimensions should be eschewed and there should be a serious effort to address the genesis of the menace. Violence cannot be eradicated and uprooted by violence. Retaliatory violence, especially institutionalised one, will definitely breed more violence based on acrimony, rancour and revenge. Therefore, the problem needs to be dealt with in a more sophisticated and scientific way. Democracy, with its ideal norm and form, is potent enough to act as an antidote of violence and jingoistic hysteria. But the question that arises here is whether the people who are already enjoying power in East and West will ever display selflessness by empowering those who are recognised as real philanthropists and altruists in the society. To be true, nobody is going to voluntary abdicate the throne for a better democrat. The ideal democrats, who despite their leadership flair are living in solitude and would like to seek permanent seclusion due to the choked political environment, have to muster courage to stake a claim to leadership for a better change.

This is an impassable imperative if at all the nations and continents are to be saved from disastrous violence and terrorism; and if at all demagogues, who are crying wolf, are really serious about redressing the grievances of those who have suffered at the hands of assassins, depredators and predators. These are the imponderables of the present global struggle between haves and have-nots or between broke ideologues and arrogant riff-raff in power. And remember that this one-upmanship of the global warlords is not the real answer to the crisis created by the violent dissidents in various regions of the world. Every ruffian is a terrorist but every terrorist is not a ruffian. Every revolutionary is not a member of the lumpenproletariat advocating blaze.

Muslim Ummah, as the real repository of the concept of ideal democracy, can play an important role in stemming the rot by launching a movement for the empowerment of the multitude of Muslims underprivileged but cultured. However, the Muslim feudal lords, the capitalist bourgeoisie, are an obstacle in the campaign for the accomplishment of the objective identified as a panacea. Muslim capitalist elitism is a mere blemish, slur and stigma on the very essence of Islam and Ummah. Islamic democracy, if introduced and implemented, can remedy all the ills, which are eating into the very vitals of Ummah. It will

guarantee true egalitarianism, which will, in turn, help contain the trends of fanaticism and violent extremism.

US campaign against ‘global terrorism’ is gradually assuming the posture of a racist war against Muslims all over the world. Before lynching the innocent but pauperised Afghans for the crime they never committed USA should pay heed to what American humanist Mr. Noam Chomsky says about the ‘state-terrorism’ of the ‘supercop’. Just appraise the economic fallout and political ramifications of the US sabre-rattling, which, instead of frightening the invisible enemy, has emboldened the dissidents in East and West. Oligarchy of the haughty desperadoes is playing with fire. Traumatized and agonized people, already reft and bereft of solace and tranquility, are being forced to react with vengeance. The brewing anti-US hatred is becoming the rallying force for the oppressed people of the world. USA can still play the role of a de-jure global leader subject to the condition that she gives up the blatant aggressiveness and reverts to humanism characteristic of Jesus Christ. Campaign to sustain uncertainty all over the world through subjective obduracy and impetuosity will inevitably end in the failure of USA as capitalist democracy.

It is true that India and Pakistan are being forced to play second fiddle in the arena of global politics. But it is equally true that the two quasi-democratic countries have to learn to live like cultured neighbours if at all peace and prosperity in Asia is paramount. Leaving Kashmir issue in limbo will mean further vitiating the political atmosphere of South Asia and adding to the vulnerability of Asia. If the hapless Kashmiris, under circumstantial compulsions, are destined to become a permanent appendage to either India or Pakistan, why should the contending powerful parties use force to seek our consent. A forced marriage always proves to be a failure. An over ambitious dandy who is hell-bent on converting a unilateral love affair into a forced marriage invites wrath of the sandal-wielding modest lady victimized thus. So allow Kashmiris to determine their future through free and fair plebiscite under the aegis of UNO. And the objective can be achieved through a phased democratic process. Please do not complicate the issue through polemics, rhetoric and recrimination. Delay in peaceful settlement is fraught with dangers unimaginable.

[Kashmir Images - Nov. 14, 2001]

Looking for a scapegoat

full-fledged conventional war, if and when it breaks out, between any two nuclear powers will necessarily culminate

in a nuclear holocaust. Such a war, due to domino effect, will engulf other nuclear powers too in such a way that the flames of nuclear conflagration will consume billions of people alongwith their mansions of pride. Every symbol of industrial achievement will get destroyed. So the very recollection of the horrible consequences and aftermath of a nuclear war proves in itself an effective deterrent against the trends of direct armed conflict between nuclear powers. Still there is an innate urge to get the better of one another in the arena of political and diplomatic manoeuvre. But, how to achieve the objective? This is the perplexing enigmatic thought that haunts their minds. Aversion to war and propensity for a quarrel are the concomitant realities to be taken into account while having critical appreciation of the situation the globe finds itself entangled in at present. In order to give vent to the pent-up feelings a nuclear power has to look for a scapegoat, which can easily be demonized and brutalized just to browbeat the real adversary. USA, with its sadistic nostalgia for Vietnam war, is awfully busy in converting Afghanistan into a theatre of ‘anti-terrorism’ hot pursuit to terrorize its old rivals.

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The global anti-Osama frenzy is on the ebb now. Sane and sensible people have already started questioning the rationale for making a mountain out of a molehill. They are worried about the spawning and grooming of hundreds and thousands of future terrorists. If life in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir and

Chechniya becomes synonymous with death and destruction the people pushed to the wall will have a natural longing and yearning for a heroic death. And death of Osama bin Laden will simply epitomize and delineate that masochistic desire of the humiliated and traumatized people. It is not Afghanistan or Iraq, which is breeding ground for terrorists. It is, in fact, the environment of political suffocation, economic deprivation and desecration of the symbols of chastity and honour that breeds them. The present global campaign of the bourgeois elite in power against the hapless and helpless people in various regions of the world cannot guarantee the safety and security of your exuberant cosmopolitan culture. Instead, it will add to the vulnerability of your assets. Does it mean that US action in Afghanistan will inevitably recoil and come home to roost? It is high time to have a dispassionate and sedate approach to the global crisis. Just a bit of soul-searching and introspection can help save the situation.

China, the responsible Asian nuclear power, has now realised the exigency of shouldering its responsibility as genuine custodian of Asian Security. In Shangai APEC meet China, as the host country, presented only a ‘visionary’ concept of a concerted campaign against global terrorism; the specifics, with special reference to Afghanistan, were eluded. China, Russia, Indonesia and Malaysia stressed the need to initiate political process in Afghanistan. China is providing military assistance to Taliban. In fact, China has the capacity and will to assert as an Asian ‘supercop’ to counterbalance the role of global ‘supercop’. Asian nations, as votaries of save Asia movement, should not allow USA to go berserk in Afghanistan. The installation of a home-made multi-ethnic broad-based government in Afghanistan is the suitable answer to the crisis and turmoil there; and it is, in fact, a savoury idea that appeals to all those who are interested in retrieving and redeeming that country from 20-year-old upheaval, violence and pandemonium. The bourgeois elite, the plutocrats in power in East and West cannot ensure global peace by inadvertently perpetuating uncertainty in Afghanistan, the country already ripped and rent by external aggression and infighting within. Outside interference will further aggravate the situation there. Let peace and good governance be given a chance in this war-ravaged country. This is what prudence demands of you.

Hypocrisy of OIC is equally responsible for the present Afghan crisis. Hedonistic self-indulgence of most of the Muslim rulers does not allow OIC to become a potent and powerful forum representing sentiments of over billion Muslims of the world.

Ideological emasculation, political inertia and self-defeating monolithic planning on educational and scientific front are the hurdles, which checkmate our endeavour as Ummah to attain the position of power and prestige. So revival of Caliphate is a must to rejuvenate and invigorate the Muslim Ummah and help it glorify and glamorize itself as a beacon light of spirituality, peace and progress. Why does an average Muslim feel disillusioned and disenchanted with his identity as a member of Millat? Whither monotheism (Tawheed) of Muslim Ummah? Is not sectarianism a modified form of idolatry? Muslims of various sects have yet to discover the puritan Islam based on Tawheed. And for that you have to delve into Qur’an and Hadith de novo. In the absence of Tawheed the concept of Caliphate becomes preposterous and the spirit of Jihad a ‘fasaad’.

Also the culture of political corruption, economic exploitation and nepotism and favoritism being patronised in most of the Third World countries proves instrumental in fostering the trends of violent ultraism now abbreviated as terrorism. This is a serious problem, which deserves attention; otherwise the simmering belligerency and animosity between haves and have-nots will assume the posture of a cathartic convulsion, which will in turn consume everything symbolizing the pride of the privileged. And in that catastrophic situation these Bin Ladens of today will be eulogized and worshiped as the heroes of revolution. So, instead of raising the bogey of terrorism to co-opt every myopic and self-centred ruler of the world you should try to address the political and economic problems, which have polarized the nations and countries on different axes. They say ‘ a stitch in time saves nine’. The axiom should certainly coax and cajole the global political scientists to examine and scrutinize the global problems whatsoever. This blitzkrieg, the ‘supercop’ is fond of, is, indeed, a self-deceptive waywardness just to camouflage the inability to accept the reality of genuine problems standing unresolved hitherto. So stand back for an objective analysis of the problems which have embittered the relations between neighbours in various continents of the world.

Indian strategists, who are breathlessly crying wolf in Kashmir, lack insight, imagination and equability. Instead of suggesting an early peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue they are rendering the issue more complicated and confounded through their political and diplomatic detour and procrastination. Who is responsible for

the log-jam and stalemate in Kashmir peace process aimed at seeking an honourable and practicable solution of Kashmir issue? Who knocked at the door of UNO in 1947? Who nodded and assented to the UNCIP resolutions of August 13, 1948 and January 5, 1949 – the resolutions which recognise our right to self-determination? Who encroached upon Article 370 (of the Indian Constitution) which for the interim dispensation had guaranteed our special status? Who installed puppet governments in Kashmir? Who tortured the political leaders and activists in jails and interrogation centres? Who managed the economic siege and strangulation of Kashmir through neocolonialist modes of administration? Who reneged on the pledge and promise your leaders made regarding the final settlement of Kashmir issue? So you provided sufficient ammunition to Kashmiri youth for a revolt against your authority as a plenipotentiary power bent upon enslaving Kashmir at gunpoint. And hence the mayhem and carnage here. Kashmiris were lynched, brutalised, mutilated, maimed, persecuted and battered. Innumerable innocent people were consigned to flames. Chastity and modesty of women was outraged. About 80,000 Kashmiris lie buried in 500-cemeteries of Kashmir. After having alienated Kashmiris through all the repressive and coercive means and methods you want to see them kowtowing to your boots! Thanks to your sadism. You have yet to understand the dynamics of Kashmir resistance movement, which survived despite the brutal onslaught of Mughals, Afghans, Sikhs, Dogras and ‘democrats of India’. Just comprehend the resilience.

India and Pakistan, the neighbouring belligerent nuclear powers in South Asia, should realise that Kashmir political resistance forces, already acting as a buffer between Delhi hawks and Kashmiri ultras, are playing a modest role in defusing and de-escalating tension in the region. Our Kashmiriyat is prompt in alluring us to strike a balance and neutralise the offensive impulsiveness of the powers around. If you fail in seizing the opportunity to involve the political resistance forces of Kashmir in a process of serious and meaningful dialogue for the peaceful and honourable settlement of Kashmir issue the aggrieved ultras of Kashmir will have every reason to marginalise and bypass us to march to their cherished goal with their own innovative and creative approach. We don’t want to bequeath the legacy of uncertainty to our progeny. We don’t want to see Pakistan and India becoming permanent hostages to anachronistic regression. Such an entrenchment of

yours can be the priority agenda of your adversaries only. Please meditate on it.

[Kashmir Images - Nov. 1, 2001]

OIC: An apology for alliance

fghanistan is on fire. A nation which, because of its unflinching commitment to and faith in Islam, proved an

impregnable fortress against the onslaught of alien atheistic rulers for complete a decade, was unceremoniously jettisoned by those who professed to be its benefactors and mentors. We are not grumbling against USA for which Afghanistan was expediently an expendable pawn. Yes, we are certainly sore at the betrayal and apathy of OIC – the alliance of Muslim countries. Afghanistan made supreme sacrifices for the supremacy of Islam and safety and security of the Muslim Ummah. OIC did not help Afghanistan in the all-important task of dispensation. We do concede that diversity in ethnicity, religious ideas, tribal demeanour coupled with egocentricity and personality cult of warlords proved instrumental in the initiation and perpetuity of infighting among the various militant outfits of Afghanistan. However it was the bounden duty of OIC, as per the dictates of Sura Hujrat of the Holy Qur’an, to force the warring factions to sink down their differences and come to terms for a viable political system of free Afghanistan. Alas! The Muslim forum, OIC, could not come to their rescue in the hour of crisis and confusion. It was, indeed, sheer dereliction never to be condoned.

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OIC is basically an alliance of convenience; it is a conglomerate of Muslim rulers who want to safeguard their interests as representatives of the countries which are ghettoed by their own obsessive ideas originating from their cathectic overemphasis on ethnicity, religious dissent or cultural formalism. Obviously, therefore, the homogeneity of ideas regarding various global issues is a dream far from being materialized. In fact, Muslims

lack visionary leadership. We should look for a Caliph who, for his originality and resourcefulness, can become a hub and rallying force for the whole Muslim Ummah. Adherence to rituals alone won’t help in the deliverance from the state of helplessness. A dynamic leader with a scientific and objective approach has to spearhead the assertive Muslim-renaissance movement. We have to rouse ourselves from slumber and stagnation. Then and only then we can lead the humanity to the cherished goal of peace and prosperity. For the present OIC is an apology for Muslim alliance. Nevertheless, we cannot but live with it just to keep the cord of coordination intact.

Enervation and impotence of OIC has rendered not only the Muslim Ummah but also the whole Asia vulnerable. The dismemberment of Soviet Union has already added to the vulnerability and instability of Asia. In the unipolar world, therefore, USA, as a nation hankering after global preponderance and hegemony, finds itself accountable to none but its own prerogative as ‘supercop’. USA notwithstanding its bragging and boasting as a nation having theistic moorings intact, is practically treading a path of revolt and contumacy by denying justice in the settlement of political affairs in and around Asia. She has already battered and pulverized 27 countries of the world with lethal bombs. So people from Kashmir to Palestine and Afghanistan to Indonesia complain against US mismanagement which gives an inkling of her hidden agenda of absolute expansionism. Present US action in Afghanistan has maximized the consternation and trepidation of the people in Asia. It is, therefore, incumbent on the powerful Asian countries like China, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Iraq, Syria, India, Indonesia and Malaysia to forge an alliance to launch Save Asia Movement (SAM) which should envisage relentless struggle for peace and pacifism. Resolution of outstanding problems – Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan etc. – through dialogue and discussion should be the priority agenda of the Movement. Objectives of the SAM can be achieved by ensuring the involvement of political and human rights institutions in the campaign for peace and justice. “Pacifism for Peace and prosperity” should be the favourite slogan of the Movement. The Movement can prove a powerful deterrent against the trends of violent ultraism.

In a situation where some individuals, groups and countries are hell-bent on leading the world to the abyss of abysmal failure and disaster launching of SAM is a must to avert global nuclear holocaust. The New World Order (read disorder) of the ‘supercop’

is gradually leading the world to disarray, chaos and anarchy. China, as the sagacious and judicious Asian nuclear power and also as a member of SAM, has to play a pivotal role, on the political and diplomatic front, in combating the trends of destabilization in and around Asia. Failure in overcoming the menace of rowdyism of a particular group or individual cannot justify the hooliganism of a country howsoever innocent it may look in its obtrusive assertion. Terrorism in any form is abhorrent, repugnant and reprehensible. Kashmiris, as a sensitive nation feeling weary of violence, have every right to look askance at the intentions of a country which wants to legalize and escalate the institutionalised violence and that too in the name of justice. Don’t you feel afraid of God who, under the law of retribution, can undo what you want to unjustifiably do while doing away with the things detestable?

It is time to replace bourgeois-elite journalism by peace journalism, which has a clear objective: saving the world from disorder and violence by empowering the impoverished, suppressed and dispossessed people in various regions of the world. Peace journalists have to take on the ultras controlling the print and electronic media. They can play an important role in Save Asia Movement. In pursuit of their objective they have to display perseverance and patience of the highest order.

Today the whole world is supporting the idea of a broad-based government in Afghanistan. Nice; the thought is quite palatable and wholesome. What was a simple domestic issue of free Afghanistan has now become the primary concern of world politics. After all, who facilitated this interference? Bureaucracy is a global institution working without a central office and publicity secretary. Pak bureaucracy remained always surreptitiously engaged in plotting schemes which were often in contravention of the established principles of that state. Afghan resistance leaders who exhibited indomitable will and valour while taking on the Red Army for complete a decade were looked upon by the Islamabad bureaucrats as mediocre clerks of a local municipal authority. Instead of recognising the role of resistance leaders, who are now living in exile in different countries, Pak bureaucrats thought it quite expedient to dislodge them from their position of prominence and support the Madarassa boys now known as Taliban. Afghans, through a process of metamorphosis and symbiosis in the furnace of Jihad, had become conscious and committed soldiers of Islam. You failed in reposing trust in them to enable them to manage their affairs themselves in free

Afghanistan. Hence the crisis that has upset every sympathizer of that pauperised country. Now it is imperative for Pak leadership to be prompt and serious in rectifying the wrong.

A broad-based government in Afghanistan will be, in essence, a government of the Mujahideen no matter what tribal background they have. And remember that all the genuine Mujahideen are the natural lovers of Pakistan and Muslim Ummah. Nobody should be allowed to demonize the tribalism of Afghanistan. Allah, Qur’an and Ka’ba should be the source of inspiration. That is enough.

India, as a democratic country with composite (diverse) culture, should display sobriety, prudence and self-possession in the present crisis. To be ostentatiously overzealous on Afghan front is something that smacks of your policy of reliance on the self-defeating and self-deceptive artificiality of your approach to the most sensitive and almost ineluctable problem of the resilient nation in Asia. Emergence of BNP in the parliament elections of Bangladesh as the ruling party with a massive mandate suggests that your foreign policy lacks originality. So humanistic approach alone can have a psychological impact on the hearts of bruised Afghans. A foreign policy based on this approach will ultimately add to the stature of India as a friend in fiend’s guise. Kuldip Nayar, the proud son of India, maintains: “India needs a dynamic foreign policy with the moral content that Nehru tried to give it”. Please sheathe the sword you unsheathed in a hurry just to intimidate your ‘adversary’ in neighbourhood. Jingoism is no answer to the present crisis.

Kashmiris have a strong case. Indian position in Kashmir is weak and susceptible to failure. Chasing the monster of violence without a serious effort to address the genesis of upheaval in Kashmir will be an exercise in futility. Remember that you owe something to Kashmir as a professed friend. How grotesque and awkward it is on your part to renege on the commitment and promise which your great leader Pt. Nehru made regarding the final settlement of Kashmir issue based, of course, on Kashmiris’ right to self-determination! Promises cannot become obsolete unless ethics is buried under the debris of a failed system. India still exists as a strong democratic country, notwithstanding the trends of multifaceted polarization within. Moderate forces in dissent in Kashmir are there to help you extricate yourselves from the mind-boggling embroilment with a decent face-saving mechanism. Early settlement of Kashmir issue is more in favour

of India than the contending country you vie with. Just make out the enigma.

[Kashmir Images – Oct. 18, 2001]

World with unpredictable future

good sense does not prevail on the world leaders to bring the palpable state of confrontation between neurotic subjectivity

and humanistic objectivity to a natural end by addressing the root cause of the problems which bedevil peace and tranquility the day is not far when the whole world will look like a bedlam where nobody will be able to fathom even the intelligible sermons of the great sages and seers who command respect. Group particularism and national aggrandizement, with its blatant aggressive postures, has plagued the present-day world to such an extent that all the modest messages of compassion, fraternity and altruism get subdued and overshadowed. Haughty aristocrats, enjoying power and prominence in various continents, are hell-bent on launching a ruthless campaign to deprive the underprivileged communities and countries of their basic right to freedom, honour and economic prosperity. And communal passion of the allies serves the purpose of a hegemonic domination. In essence it is the campaign of the haves against the have-nots. The bourgeoisie is shrewd enough to camouflage its temporal materialistic agenda through its ostentatious clamour and cowboy bluster ostensibly aimed at maintaining global peace.

Why did not the importunately obtruding power take cognizance of the revelation that four thousand Jews employed at the World Trade Centre (WTC) were conspicuously absent from their duty on the day of catastrophic attack? In his article ‘Operation Infinite Justice’ published in Kashmir Monitor, Srinagar of Sept. 27,

Iftikhar A. Khan, while quoting a Canadian expert, David Stern, on Israeli intelligence operations, writes, “The attack on WTC and the pentagon required a high level of military precision and resources of an advanced intelligence agency. In addition, the attackers would have needed to be extremely familiar with Air Force flights operations, civil airline flights path and aerial assault tactics. According to Stern, a US military intelligence source revealed details of an internal intelligence memo that pointed to Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, having links to WTC and Pentagon attacks”. If authenticity of the report, which suggests Mossad’s complicity in Sept. 11 tragic episode, is not questionable, then what does the whole story insinuate? Does it mean that Israel wants to sabotage Palestinian freedom movement by dragging the whole globe to what is disdainfully christened as ‘clash of civilizations’? In so far as human psychology is concerned revenge is the priority agenda of every humiliated person. So the countries which had to suffer at the hands of USA and as such vie with her power and prestige would like to facilitate, through all sophisticated means and methods, the involvement of US nation in a military adventure which will inevitably end in her discomfiture. Prudent US leadership should, therefore, display fortitude and stoicism while dealing with the menace of terrorism. Why should we inadvertently get trapped in a snare laid by an invisible enemy? Can we really extricate the globe from the crevasse of crisis by hunting down or eliminating Osama Bin Laden, a bogeyman indeed? Bernard Haykel, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies New York University, suggests: “We should not send US or Western troops and special forces into Afghanistan with the aim of arresting or killing Bin Laden. He has thought about this scenario and desires it. A military attack on him would provide a double victory. If he is killed he dies a martyr and (becomes) symbol of resistance to Western domination; he also gets to kill a number of US soldiers and tarnishes the image of America in the minds of ordinary Muslims.” (Kashmir Monitor, Srinagar. Sept. 23, 2001) To me Laden is only a symptom. Have we capacity and capability to diagnose the disease? This is really a serious poser and dilemma.

Future of our world appears to be bleak and unpredictable. Self-conceited rulers, bereft of vision and wisdom, are ruthlessly pursuing their agenda of expansionism. They are forcing every powerful adversary to play second fiddle in the arena of global

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politics. Their brinkmanship is apt to lead this world to doom and destruction. Philanthropy and compassion has given way to barbarism and savagery. The world is really on the verge of collapse. The human civilisation has, perhaps, forfeited the right to exist. Who sanctified the predatory role of Israel in Middle East where innocent Palestinians are mercilessly butchered for no fault of theirs except that they are the lovers of their freedom? Who smothered and strangulated the innocent children of Iraq and Afghanistan through economic sanctions? Who condones the state terrorism, which claimed thousands of lives in Kashmir? I am impressed with “faith-based reconciliation” theory of Mr. Brian Cox, vice president of Dispute Resolution Training of the International Centre for Religion and Diplomacy based in Washington DC. The theory envisages recognition of the role of God as a sovereign authority over a community or nation. Compassion, tolerance and social justice are the affiliated values to be emphasized for ensuring durable peace and prosperity of the world. In an article published in Kashmir Images, Srinagar of Sept. 28 Mr. Cox writes: “ Well, I am one of those Americans who care about Kashmir and who have been profoundly moved by the suffering of Kashmiri people ……. As a person of faith, I believe that a purely humanistic approach in Kashmir is doomed to continued failure. To be effective, the approach must have spiritual and political substance to it. It must invite and welcome the active intervention of God coupled with initiative to impart vision, build bridges, resolve conflicts, heal wounds, advocate social justice and encourage the development of a Kashmiri ‘leadership under God’. I call this approach ‘faith-based reconciliation’. …… faith-based reconciliation is the way to recover Kashmiriyat.” I do respect the American reformist for his noble ideas. However the unassuming sage appears to be a bit naïve in his approach. The noble man doesn’t know that the faith-based reconciliation in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Palestine is dubbed as ‘fundamentalism’ – a nickname for religiosity. Well, plea for religiosity should not be misconstrued. Our aversion to fanaticism and extremism is intact. Please get my right to religious fundamentalism, the one compatible with the Sufi and Reshi culture of Kashmir, recognised by the Western leaders who have unnecessarily demonized some pious symbols of our Eastern culture. My faith-based Kashmiriyat teaches me how to be equidistant from licentious materialism and escapist spiritualism. Please don’t rob the already dispossessed and underprivileged

class of the global civil society of its right to religious and political freedom. By monopolizing the world trade and economy through WTO and IMF you will simply be introducing a concept of neocolonialism. Politically suppressed and economically deprived people have already waged a war of attrition against despotism and aristocracy of the privileged class, the bourgeoisie, all over the globe. If, instead of addressing the cause of commotion and turmoil with a surgeon’s tack and finesse, you launch a retaliatory terror campaign to contain and uproot the menace of terrorism you will simply invite more trouble of greater dimensions. So it is quite expedient and advisable to emphasize a copious philosophical debate and discussion on the topic as a necessary prerequisite of the cleansing operation.

Violence, which consumes innocent people, is certainly reprehensible. Inflamed sentiments of the aggrieved people have afflicted various regions of the world. You can temporarily browbeat and intimidate the restive people through a show of force. However, the exercise will serve the purpose of a painkiller and not an antidote. Therefore the authors of anti-terrorism campaign should display sobriety, prudence and political acumen while dealing with abstract metaphysical virus. They should remember that due to the tirade and war hysteria against terrorism the ultras have become cynosure and as such they are now conscious of their importance as the inventors of unconventional innovative modes of operation. Protracted war, if it literally starts from somewhere, will eventually transcend religious ideologies and become a simplified tussle between haves and have-nots --- a distinct class war, indeed, in which volatile and infuriated paupers shall have to lose nothing but chains of slavery and serfdom. So an early reconciliation between haves and have-nots is a must to avert a global holocaust of colossal dimensions. Wisdom of all those who matter is on trial.

[Kashmir Images – Oct. 8, 2002]

Chasing an invisible enemy

uman history testifies that it were the omnipotent emperors and kings who, due to their egocentricity and megalomania,

were always eager to display their urge for preponderance and dominance. They always used to be in search of an excuse and alibi to intimidate and ultimately invade their rival kingdom in neighbourhood. While taking on their comparatively less powerful adversaries they would dislodge them from their position of power and prestige through a comprehensive physical and psychological onslaught. The vanquished rulers and tribal leaders would later on, after some respite and reprieve, start a process of realignment for a proper act of reprisal and vengeance. So the tussle between the authoritarianism of self-centred despots and helplessness of the enslaved and subjugated leaders would continue for an indefinite period of time. Eventually the psychologically humiliated and wounded elite of the oppressed people would feel invigorated to rise in revolt against the state terrorism of the ruthless autocratic rulers. And remember that selfishness and perfidy is the pride and joy of every reckless ruler who continues to trample the traits of humanism with inveterate hatred and contempt.

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The present-day emperors would want to orchestrate a show of their authority reminiscent of the sway and overlordship of the emperors of medieval ages. Just imagine the bestial ravenousness of the Greek and Roman emperors who would enjoy, with a sadistic lust of revenge, the helplessness of the crying and

screaming political prisoners whom the hungry beasts, lions and bears, would tear to pieces in the amphitheatres specially built for this barbarian show. Such a bestiality is still the pith and marrow of many a human at the helm of affairs. Cruelty, tyranny and repression generate acrimony and hatred which in turn develops into a brew of the sentiments of revenge. Perpetrators of the acts of revenge are always ferocious in action and reckless about the consequences. Nowadays they are called terrorists. Terrorism of an individual or a group of individuals is basically a by-product of state terrorism. Without understanding and addressing the genesis of retaliatory terrorism any rash and rapid action of a government to eradicate and stamp out violence-based ultraism will simply prove counterproductive. And an initiative to preempt the future subversive designs of an ultra will boomerang. So it is only through a sustained crusade based on scientific and objective approach that terrorism can be contained and neutralized. Terrorism, the violent impulsiveness, is a militant culture with no code of conduct.

Some time back the word ‘fundamentalism’ would haunt the minds of the people all over the globe. Ultimately the people who used to raise the bogey of fundamentalism realized that every theist, practising or non-practising, is metaphysically coordinated to God Almighty so much so that he would rather die than accept a sermon of apostasy with or without coercion. It means that every Christian, every Hindu, every Muslim, every Jew and every Sikh is a committed lover of God. So every theist is a fundamentalist. Well, what is really disdainful, abhorrent and abominable is fanaticism and extremism. Illogical overemphasis on a point not compatible with the moderate teaching of a religion leads to perversion which finally culminates in revulsion and violence. Every civilised person should condemn the individual or collective acts of violence and terrorists where innocent people become a casualty. The civilised world cannot afford to bear and live with terrorism, which is aimed at converting a peaceful city or hamlet into a veritable hell. It is, therefore, incumbent on all the humanists of the world to identify the factors which lead to violence and terrorism. While dealing with this malaise and menace we have to be meticulously cautious like a surgeon, pragmatic like a scientist and resolute like a soldier. And restoration of justice and egalitarianism should be the primary objective of the whole operation against terrorism.

Terrorism, unlike the bogey of ‘fundamentalism’, is a genuine problem the globe is confronted with. All those who matter in the higher echelons of power in East and West should ponder over the problem to look for the root cause of the epidemic. No patchwork or superficial remedial measures based on inadequate diagnosis can help seek a durable and credible solution of the problem which has upset and benumbed every peace-loving citizen. It is time to have a psychoanalysis of the dynamics of terrorism. Some less assertive ethnic communities, who have already been pushed to the wall, can easily provide a pretext for violent dissent. Some people who have been deprived of their inalienable right to live with honour and prestige are being forced to identify themselves with the trends of extremism and ultraism. So the political scientists should rise to the occasion to bring home to the whole world that it is time to seek a permanent and peaceful settlement of the long-standing disputes like Kashmir and Palestine. The present global crisis should not precipitate into a global communal backlash or a regional armed conflict which will eventually reduce the global economy to shambles. No subjective hot-headedness and impetuosity can prove infallibly effective in dealing with the complex issue of global terrorism. We have had enough introspection and meditation to identify the humanistic means and methods to take on the invisible enemy acting clandestinely.

We vehemently condemn the acts of terrorism which claimed the precious lives of thousands of innocent people in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001. We share the grief and sorrow of USA. Perpetrators of the terror and horror should certainly be brought to book. While chasing the invisible enemy USA should be absolutely cautious and calculated. Terrorism is not an institution. It is a culture, a natural dividend of institutionalized injustice, aggressiveness, predatoriness and exploitation. Let the American nation chase the culprits in the courts of justice and not in the battlefields of the latter’s choice. The whole game, which caused panic in USA through acts of vandalism in the great cities, smacks of an intrigue to engage US nation in a protracted unconventional war which will consume the economic power and strength of that nation. And it can be the unwritten minimum common agenda of the powerful adversaries who have historical contradiction with the “supercop”. A rash act of revenge and

reprisal can create problems unimaginable. So it is time to behave like responsible, sagacious and judicious statesman. You have to pay heed to what your own citizens say about the Sept. 11 catastrophe. Mansoor Ijaz, the Pakistani American who is known for his Track-II diplomacy performance vis-à-vis Kashmir, writes in his article published in the ‘Kashmir Monitor’ of Sept. 15, 2001: “.…I had often warned the (US) officials that a day was coming when the terrorism of the world would not only unite but (also) bring their dirty war to our shores, and we as Americans would be just as guilty for having created our own demons with skewed pro-Israel foreign policies and prejudiced domestic one. The problem with America is that it believes in its own might as the only right to solve mankind’s problems. We are not an arrogant people as much as we are ill-informed. When we know all the facts our judgments are always judicious. ….. The time has come for a dramatic shift in American foreign policy. Our cruise missiles, nuclear bombs and star war missile defence system cannot protect us against what is essentially a virus of the mind. Terrorists have no code. ….. We had an opportunity after the Cold War was over to engage Islam and understand it. That time has passed. All we can hope for now is to manage the anger so that it will never again reach our shores.”

Oppressed class of the global civil society has already been languishing in strained and vitiated political atmosphere. The debilitating onslaught of the privileged class has rendered the underprivileged class impotent but aggrieved and agonised. Thus the lamenting people from Kashmir to Palestine and Iraq to Afghanistan are grumbling against the high-handedness and totalitarianism of the plutocrats who enjoy power and prestige in East and West. How is it possible to make the deprived class cooperate when the global aristocracy is not serious about alleviating and minimising the sufferings and hardships of the people who have been pushed to the wall through all the coercive and repressive modes of operations against them. In the backdrop of such a scenario of realities that exist on ground it is incumbent on the people, who are not hostage to any obsessive obscurantism, to review the entire gamut of their policy and approach to ensure peaceful co-existence of the members of this global family. It is time for the non-conformists to come forward to assert as genuine reformists to save the globe from the artificial crisis – “Clash of Civilisation”. We are all the descendants of Adam and Eve. So we

should behave like a single global family, sharing one another’s grief and suffering. Yes, this is what futuristic vision demands of you.

[Kashmir Images – Sept. 24, 2001]

Kashmir in quandary

annibalism and sadism will always remain juxtaposed to humanism in the arena of human struggle. Malevolence and

benevolence will be in a state of constant confrontation till the day of resurrection. It is the minority community of sadists which will continue to sabotage the efforts for peace, pacifism and amity. Sadists, in fact, derive pleasure and ecstasy from the ghastly look of the corpses mutilated, wounded humans writhing with pain and agony, women and children wailing and weeping over their plight of victimization and helplessness. Humanists of India, irrespective of their creed and cult, share a common sentiment to empathize and sympathize with the oppressed and suppressed people of Kashmir. They are the real deterrent against the nefarious designs of Indian hawks to completely brutalize and batter Kashmir. How long will India as a democratic country hoodwink and mislead the free world? Promises made by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, as Prime Minister of India, regarding Kashmiris’ right of self-determination will eventually militate against the illogical “Atoot-Ang” stance of India.

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Kashmir was a simple political issue. Chauvinism of the Indian rulers rendered the issue more complicated and confounded. Subjectivity, parochialism and arrogance of the Delhi rulers taught them to destroy the political and democratic institutions in Kashmir. Puppet governments were installed in Srinagar to ensure

constitutional erosion and encroachment. In fact you forced the youth of Kashmir to rise in revolt against your onslaught – military, constitutional and economic. Kashmiris, who had the courage to save Kashmir from communal frenzy and fire in 1947, felt compelled and constrained to identify themselves with the ultras who wanted to take on India on all fronts. So it is political dogmatism and administrative high-handedness of the myopic and blinkered leadership of India which proved instrumental in triggering off political cataclysm and militant upheaval and insurgency in Kashmir. You left no stone unturned in humiliating and enslaving Kashmiris.

So the poor Kashmiris had no option but to give a rebuff and rebuttal to you. Now Kashmiris are simply asserting as a conscious and conscientious self-respecting community to expose your postures of expansionism. It is your aggressive and fascist approach which offended and instigated Kashmiris – the mystic ethnic community which was once known for its humility, compassion and introversion. Kashmiris were forced to resort to violence. However, violence cannot be a permanent feature of Kashmiriyat. Kashmiris sincerely believe in a peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue.

I, as the humble protagonist of Save Kashmir Movement which I launched in London in 1993, worked in league with my contemporary colleagues like Shabbir Chaudhary, Yasin Malik, Dr. Gh. Qadir Wani, Shabir Shah, Fazal Haq Qureshi, G. M. Butt (Jamaat Chief) to retrieve the resistance political organizations of Kashmir from a mesh and quagmire of mass violence, which had become a boat without rudder. With persistent efforts we eventually succeeded in segregating political institutions from militancy. In nineties a lethal weapon, say a gun or pistol, had become status symbol of an average Kashmiri political activist. Today a political activist identifies himself with the sermons of peace, pacifism, détente, reconciliation and rapprochement. He genuinely believes in a peaceful resolution of Kashmir tangle. As a patriot he is averse to the trends of ultraism in dissent. He feels aggrieved when violence consumes a few patriots here and there. But for your imprudence which facilitated the liquidation of Kashmiri political luminaries like S. Hameed, Shabbir Siddiqui, Dr. Gh. Qadir Wani and Jaleel Andrabi, we would have certainly succeeded in forging an alliance of the moderates who wanted to work for an honourable and peaceful solution of Kashmir problem. While emphasizing our right to self-determination we were seriously particular about a safe and honourable passage of India and Pakistan out of the Kashmir imbroglio. Your hardened hearts did not spare even Commander Masood of Hizbul

Mujahideen who was basically a scholar having intellectual and philosophical approach to Kashmir insurgency. He would have proved an asset for the political movement of Kashmir. He was a genuine votary of pacifism. And as such he vehemently espoused the cause of peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue through tripartite talks. Indeed Masood was serving the purpose of a buffer between political movement and ultraism. Your proactive adventurism destroyed this institution of moderation and Kashmiriyat. So, now it is because of your misadventure that the word cease-fire has become an anathema to the Mujahideen of high profile militant outfits.

If you are not ready to recognise the role of political leaders like Ashraf Sehraie, Shabir Shah, Naeem Khan and Syed Ali Geelani as the only appropriate substitute of the extremism you are so much averse and allergic to, then you should await the day when all the political leaders will become irrelevant and redundant and militant hawks will take over to rule the roost to dictate terms from their hideouts in the mountains of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. A nightmare, of course, so unwholesome for the Kashmiris who are wedded to the cause of Kashmiriyat. This is time to have a dispassionate reappraisal of your approach to Kashmir issue. Don’t you realise that as per the domino theory Kashmir turmoil can have irreparable negative impact on the comparatively peaceful zones of India as well?

It is true that ultras in the Muslim world are in minority, but it is equally true that they are a force to be reckoned with. They are always on a prowl here and there looking for their adversary real or imaginary. For them Kashmir is the ideal hunting ground where they have an occasion to display their ideological resolve, prowess and expertise. After his return from Agra General Pervez Musharraf, while addressing a press conference in Islamabad, made an appeal to the moderates of India, Pakistan and Kashmir to come forward to isolate the hawks. Was it political poetry, Kashmir rhetoric or demagogic manoeuvre to assert as the powerful ruler of Pakistan? I think Mr. Musharraf, as an original think-tank and adept military strategist, was serious and sincere in his assertion as a lover of peace, which is indispensably paramount for South Asia to guarantee transition from impoverishment to prosperity and progress. Indian premier Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, as a seasoned statesman, is equally serious in finding a peaceful and honourable solution of Kashmir impasse through meaningful dialogue with Pakistan president. So every lover of peace is now zeroing in on New York rendezvous. Let

wisdom prevail on the two leaders who are supposed to come up to the expectations of hapless Kashmiris.

Parity between India and Pakistan in nuclear capability and missile technology is an established fact. So the two nuclear powers of South Asia have to behave like responsible nations to avert a nuclear holocaust by addressing all the outstanding issues especially Kashmir. The two neighbours can no longer afford to be the prisoners of the past communal fixation; they should cease to be the hostages to a particular mindset. Any inadvertent emphasis on political polarization in South Asia will put every peace process into jeopardy. So the outdated agenda of permanent belligerency and bellicosity should be consigned to archives, if at all ensuring of a bright future of the posterity is priority. Let the chapter of anachronistic Indo-Pak confrontation be closed for good. And this sacred objective can be achieved only by respecting the freedom aspirations of Kashmiris.

Kashmiris, beleaguered and bewildered, are on the receiving end in the continued process of hostility between India and Pakistan. They find themselves sandwiched between the intractability of India and Pakistan and passivity of the fora like UNO and OIC. In a situation where over 80,000 Kashmiris lie buried in the cemeteries of the wailing vale; thousands of orphans and widows bemoan and call for help; thousands of freedom activists have been languishing in the jails and concentration camps of India, it is imperative for the free world especially USA to force India and Pakistan to take cognizance of the realities on ground in Kashmir. Kashmiris have reached a stage of no-return. Fully fulminated and exasperated Kashmiris should not be forced to tread a path leading to their extinction on the one hand and total disintegration of the Indo-Pak subcontinent on the other. And the flames of violence will inevitably engulf the western cities too. So it is high time to address the genesis of Kashmir issue and do something concrete to alleviate and mitigate the sufferings of poor Kashmiris. Mere platitude and verbiage cannot console this aggrieved and bruised ethnic community of Kashmir – the repository of the great Sufi and Reshi saints and sages. It is only a strong political will of India and Pakistan to disengage on Kashmir front that can help seek a practicable solution of the Kashmir dispute. Subjective stance will further complicate the issue and aggravate the situation in Kashmir. Hope Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Musharraf will behave like true statesmen having courage to take a bold initiative for a lasting and viable settlement of Kashmir issue. In fact, your vision and wisdom is on trial. Kashmir is in quandary indeed.

[Kashmir Images – Sept. 12, 2001]

Combating the violence in Kashmir

he whole world is aghast at what happened on and after Sept. 11, 2001. The surprise terrorist attack on WTC and Pentagon

in USA changed the very concept of warfare. Nuclear arsenal, missiles, conventional combat forces and the well-defended borders of sovereign nations – all became controversial in terms of defence capabilities. In fact the whole defence structure with all its mighty conventional and unconventional weapons became obsolete and redundant. The US blitzkrieg on Afghanistan partially achieved its objective there. Ironically, while neutralizing and disarming the visible enemy (viz. Al-Qaida, Taliban, Jaish, Lashkar etc.), it inadvertently imparted strength to the recalcitrant invisible enemy who is no more ghettoed and beleaguered in Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan. The US onslaught in Afghanistan forced the visible enemy to go into hiding and operate clandestinely against its adversary. Now all the proficient military strategists all over the globe feel that the invisible enemy is more dangerous than the visible one. Does it mean that the US action against the visible enemy has boomeranged? This is an enigmatic and paradoxical query seeking a reply based on objectivity and realism. In the present-day world of advanced technology and scientific know-how it is not a difficult job for the invisible enemy to manage access to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. So

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the underestimation of the capabilities and potentialities of the unknown and invisible enemy is fraught with dangers unimaginable.

If the festering long-standing political issues like Kashmir and Palestine remain unsettled for an indefinite period of time the global terrorism will become more powerful due to the burgeoning and spawning of volatile militant hawks. So it is imperative for the global community to address the root cause of terrorism. Remedial patchwork will not work. Aggressiveness and arrogance in reaction will simply recoil and backfire. So be dispassionate and sedate while appraising your capability to deal with the menace of terrorism. You have yet to understand the dynamics of terrorism which derives strength from a society beset by political cataclysm, economic deprivation and discrimination on grounds of race or religion. Kashmir will continue to be an ideal breeding ground of the intractable local ultras and uncompromising Al-Qaida activists unless Kashmir issue is permanently settled in accordance with the freedom aspiration of Kashmiris. In an interview to Financial Times US Deputy Secretary of State Mr. Richard Armitage said, “It is quite clear that Al-Qaida likes to fish in troubled waters such as Kashmir and that it would like nothing better than a splendid war between India and Pakistan.” So the threat perception regarding the growing trends of ultraism in Kashmir is not unfounded. And counter-terrorism brinkmanship can in no way be a proper substitute for the prudence and political acumen suggesting a serious and sincere effort to address the vexed Kashmir problem.

The historic resolution passed by RSS at Kurukhshetra (Haryana) on June 30, 2002 regarding Kashmir envisages a scheme to trifurcate Jammu and Kashmir. As per the resolution the scheme of trifurcation will guarantee the end of violence in Kashmir. To me the resolution is more humanistic than political. So I salute the RSS leaders for their visionary and humanistic approach to Kashmir tangle. In my statement published by Kashmir Images on July 1, 2002 I simply supported the principle of trifurcation and not the details of the resolution. If the Muslim majority of Kashmir valley including Doda, Rajouri, Mendher and Poonch does not want to be a part of India why should Jammuites be forced to accept what they call “serfdom camouflaged by secularism.” Let Hindu majority areas of Jammu constitute a

separate state. There is nothing wrong in it. Now Kashmir valley can have a serious dialogue with the major contending parties to Kashmir issue. It is time to seize the opportunity to assuage the bruised sentiments of Kashmiris. This is the only way to contain the trends of escalation in violence here.

All those who suggest that even Doda, Rajouri and Poonch should constitute the proposed Jammu state are, in fact, unwittingly ratifying and endorsing the game plan of ultras who want to keep India engaged in guerrilla warfare in the inhospitable mountainous terrain of these areas. Therefore the only way to preempt the ulterior motives and designs of the intransigent ultras is to annex these Muslim majority areas with Kashmir valley. Free Kashmir will not be allowed to become safe haven for those who want to live on violence and die for violence. Hence for the strategic and tactical reasons Doda, Rajouri and Poonch should necessarily be merged with Kashmir valley.

In so far as the jurisprudence of Kashmir case is concerned it has two aspects – de jure and de facto. UNCIP resolutions on Kashmir (of Aug. 13, 1948 and Jan. 5, 1949) have in principle recognised Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. So the de jure position is that Kashmir is a disputed territory and hence not a part of India. However, India is enjoying a de facto control over Kashmir. Kashmiris can, therefore, be temporarily a part of Indian system. Security Council resolution of Jan. 24, 1957 has minimised the role of Kashmir Assembly by debarring it from doing anything by way of determining the political future of Kashmir. Kashmir Assembly is, therefore, a local administrative body not more important than Srinagar Municipality. So it is absolutely futile to demonize and diabolize the election issue. Basically it is a non-issue. Resistance leaders will certainly think in terms of participating in the Assembly elections if these form a part of the political package for the final dispensation of Kashmir.

India, through a policy of temporization, would like to elude and evade a genuine settlement of Kashmir issue without a modicum of remorse, compunction and angst. And this is flagrant violation of priority agenda of the global coalition which is engaged in a serious business to stamp out terrorism from the globe. So all acts of prevarication which are aimed at baffling and bluffing the coalition leaders will inevitably prove counter-productive. A

genuine transition from the syndrome of confrontation, belligerency and mistrust to a state of thaw, reconciliation and friendship should be the priority objective India and Pakistan must strive for. Mere diplomatic verbiage – ‘strategic restraint’ and ‘de-escalation’ – cannot mitigate the suffering of Kashmiris. It is only a strong political will to settle Kashmir issue for good that can help alleviate the miseries and woes of this brutalised and traumatized ethnic community of South Asia.Resistance leaders should bear in mind that they cannot become a force to be reckoned with unless they extricate themselves from the cocoon of egocentricity, narcissism, megalomania and paranoia. Devotion, selflessness, courage and objectivity alone can help evolve a consensus of opinion regarding visionary and futuristic approach to Kashmir issue. The concept of collective leadership (the ‘shoora’ as the Qur’an puts it) is in itself a guard against egotistic waywardness of the leaders who matter. We should love our Sufi and Reshi culture – the essential characteristic of Kashmiriyat. Tolerance, compassion and mysticism should continue to be the base of our political culture here. We have already been on the receiving end in the low intensity war of attrition which claimed 80,000 Kashmiris who are lying buried in 500 cemeteries of Kashmir. I am proud of the heroic struggle of my compatriots who remained steadfast in their resistance against the campaign of forced assimilation by the powers around. The day is not too far when the highly conscious and self-respecting people of Kashmir will achieve their cherished goal of self-determination. No power on earth can deprive them of their right to determine the political future of Kashmir for themselves.

[Kashmir Images – July 3, 2002]

Kashmiris on the receiving end

n may 24, 2002 all the humanists and pacifists of the world heaved a sigh of relief when Mr. (G. W.) Bush and Mr.

(Valadamir) Putin signed an agreement to allow the slashing of the existing nuclear warheads during the decade hence. As per the agreement the number of the US warheads will be reduced from 6000 to 2200 and of Russia from 5000 to 1700. The agreement, in fact, delineates and epitomizes the stark anticlimax of the sentiments of belligerency and animosity between the two major nuclear powers during what is christened as Cold War era. The agreement also insinuates that the two world powers are really averse to the very concept of suicide. After all, why should the sane and sober people commit suicide unless they actually feel world-weary? Here the political apes in the East feel nostalgic about the Cold War era. They want to browbeat one another through ostentatious display of the quality and quantity of their nuclear warheads. Do the politicians in the East really feel disillusioned with their ability to redress the grievances of the crores of pauperised people? Do they feel that the only way to get rid of the irredeemable problems of want and hunger is to adopt the mutually-assured-destruction course of a nuclear war? Please hold back. Do not be led astray by your cynicism. Wait for the doomsday when everything on this earth will get perished. Have

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patience. Just a bit of yearning and longing for life can help avoid a nuclear holocaust.

Britain, as the main author of what is now known as Kashmir dispute, cannot absolve itself of the guilt complex unless she condescends to express solidarity with the suffering people of Kashmir by playing a proactive political and diplomatic role in the global campaign aimed at seeking an early peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue. USA, the hyper-power, is interested in arrogating to itself the role of a de jure global monarch even when the long-standing political issues like Kashmir, Palestine, Chechniya etc. remain unsettled with an inherent potential to sabotage the efforts to stamp out terrorism as a global menace. Dispossessed and underprivileged class of the global society is already grumbling against the uncompromising bourgeoisie over its apathy and indifference vis-à-vis the have-nots. Thus the political and economic discontent is, in fact, fraught with dangers unimaginable. It is incumbent on the political strategists in East and West to have a dispassionate reappraisal of their approach to the outstanding political and economic issues and suggest means and methods to address these issues with promptitude. All the major nuclear powers should rise to the occasion to make sincere concerted efforts to solve the burning issues especially Kashmir, the bone of contention between India and Pakistan. The festering Kashmir issue has bedeviled and embittered the relations between the two countries to such an extent that thinking about lobbing an atom bomb here and there seems to be an affordable recreation in rancour and acrimony.

India, while playing second fiddle in the US campaign for assertion as de facto global ruler, is awfully busy in its endeavour to emerge as an Asian dictator by default. In a world where underdeveloped countries feel already disgusted with the hegemonic preponderance of the powers which matter how can India succeed in reducing the role of its sovereign neighbours to that of a political appendage and dependency? Presence of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles has rendered the very concept of numerical superiority in conventional warfare abysmally preposterous and redundant. The hawkish irredentists of ‘Akhand-Bharat’ movement should learn to live with the realities on

ground. Within a decade hence about a dozen Muslim countries including Bangladesh and Iran will acquire the expertise to manufacture an atom bomb. Thus OIC nuclear club will effectively checkmate the growing influence of India on the one hand and frustrate the ulterior motives of the invisible terrorists on the other. In such a situation USA, Russia, China and France will psychologically feel motivated to acquiesce in just to ensure the global political harmony between nations. And remember that global power balance is the only guarantee for peace and tranquility; and hence a credible deterrent against the fanaticism and extremism of the forces overt or covert.

It is customary in the Subcontinent politics that if a man falls out with his better-half over a trivial domestic issue he finds it quite expedient to evade the embarrassment by implicating either ISI or RAW in the domestic unrest. So is the case with the known political parties of New Delhi and Islamabad which always remain scrambling for a position of prominence in the rat race aimed at diverting the attention from the pressing economic issues to “threat from across the border” alarm. And thus Kashmir becomes an ideal battlefield to settle the domestic and national issues of India and Pakistan. Alas! It is Kashmir, which is on the receiving end. Kashmiris are being punished for the follies, which the leaders of India and Pakistan committed while dealing with Kashmir tangle. Now it is the law of retribution which is gradually dragging India and Pakistan to the point of no-return in the mutual confrontation which is a making of their own. It is high time when good sense prevails on India and Pakistan to save the situation and ward off nuclear holocaust in South Asia.

It is time when importunately obtruding global powers should take cognizance of the mayhem in Kashmir. Why does not the appalling scenario of carnage, arson, torture, custodial killings and desecration of the symbols of chastity and sanctity move you so that you act in Kashmir the way you did in East Timor or Bosnia? UNCIP resolutions of August 13, 1948 and Jan. 5, 1949 have permanently sanctified our just struggle for right to self-determination. Kashmiris will continue to struggle for their sacred cause even for 200 years to come. We started our resistance movement in 1586 – the year when Mughals subjugated Kashmir. The adept warriors of the political resistance movement of Kashmir are determined to march towards the cherished goal of

freedom. It is India, which sabotaged the independence option for Kashmir. Why did you liquidate the pro-independence stalwart, Maqbool Butt, on Feb. 11, 1984 without the transparent trial of the cases he had been implicated in? Maqbool Butt spent eight long years in Tihar Jail Delhi. You failed in recognising him as the Kashmiri political genius with his love for humanism, history and Sufi culture of Kashmir. Now the only option left for Kashmiri youth is to make themselves identify with the slogans like ‘La Shar-kiya …..’ and ‘Jeeway Jeeway ……’. Despite all that senior and seasoned leaders of Kashmir feel that they have an important role to play in seeking a way out of Kashmir impasse and imbroglio.

Violence is not the favourite hobby of the gun-wielding youth of Kashmir. It is you who compelled them to have recourse to the violent mode of agitation. It is your aggressiveness, highhandedness and administrative bungle which vitiated the political atmosphere of Kashmir. Puppet governments were installed in Kashmir just to complete your imperialistic agenda of ‘total integration’. You wanted to assimilate Kashmir like a morsel of pudding. You were basically oblivious of the very dynamics of Kashmir resistance movement. You stirred up a hornets’ nest in Kashmir by humiliating and brutalizing the votaries of political resistance movement in the jails and interrogation centres of India. Now with the burgeoning of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles like ‘Agni’ and ‘Ghori’ a concept to determine the political future of Kashmir through violence appears to be incompatible with the growing global trends of détente, pacifism and pacification. And here the resistance political elite can play an important role as a relevant moderating force in the inevitable Indo-Pak rapprochement, reconciliation and finally the agreement for an honourable and permanent settlement of Kashmir issue. So it is time when you should realise the exigency of recognising the importance of political institutions of Kashmir. Resistance political institutions of Kashmir are the genuine harbingers of peace.

Now since the global society is poised to transgress the realm of subjective realpolitik to forge a collective working system of dispensation to guarantee political harmony and economic and social justice the global powers including USA, Russia and China should earnestly work for a viable and practicable solution of Kashmir issue keeping, of course, the freedom aspirations of Kashmiris in view. Deferring a solution will be tantamount to

sowing the seeds of future unrest with colossal dimensions. Please have pity on the suffering but self-respecting people of Kashmir. It is time to seize the opportunity to look for a solution which will prove to be a panacea for all the wounds which the tyrants have inflicted upon the hapless people of Kashmir.

[Kashmir Images – May 30, 2002]

SECTION - II

Bury the hatchet for good

he Feb. 21 Lahore Declaration, which was the culmination of the much hyped bus journey of Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee to

Lahore, instilled a bit of hope and confidence into the hyper-sensitive Kashmiris who were otherwise feeling completely disillusioned with the demagogic rhetoric of leaders in neighbourhood. The Declaration envisages a resolve to (i) eschew violence and avoid nuclear holocaust in South Asia (ii) redouble the efforts to seek a solution of the long standing Kashmir dispute. Hurriyat Conference ridiculed it as an eyewash to hoodwink the world. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq hailed the Lahore Declaration thereby expressing cautious optimism about the early settlement of Kashmir problem. This is how the Kashmiri leadership disputed the validity of Hurriyat verdict. Quomi Mushawarti Council, the think-tank of about a dozen freedom-loving organizations, supported Umar Farooq for his moderate stand and stance vis-à-vis the Lahore Declaration. Like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the Hurriyat Chief, Dr. Farooq Haider and Amanullah Khan of JKLF, Abdul Rasheed Turabi of Jamaat-e-Islami, justice

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Majeed Malik of Liberation League and Shaukat Maqbool Butt of NLF expressed their aversion to Lahore Declaration simply because it did not guarantee the involvement of Kashmiris in the process of dialogue for the solution of Kashmir issue. Hence does it mean that Lahore Declaration itself became disputed like Kashmir dispute?

The track record of the chaotic process of dialogue on Kashmir testifies that Indian leaders never mustered courage to honour their own decisions regarding Kashmir. They always reneged on their commitment recklessly. In the background of the perfidy, therefore, Kashmiri leaders are justified in feeling skeptical about the much-trumpeted Lahore Declaration. Now it is only a strong political will to address the Kashmir issue without any mental preoccupation which can assuage the bruised sentiments of Kashmiris. Literal demonstration of your latent sincere motive alone can convince Kashmiris about the importance of a peace process in south Asia. After having accepted Kashmir as a dispute India has really put Pakistan in the dock. We, as the committed warriors of Kashmir cause, have to look for the reasons for the logjam in Kashmir tangle. Should we attribute the stalemate to a particular mindset of the leaders of India and Pakistan? Why should A. B. Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif become hostage to the chauvinistic movements which would like to see India and Pakistan permanently entrenched in the quagmire of confrontation and belligerency? They should take bold decision which will be really consonant with the modern concept of a global village – the concept which teaches to belittle the importance of geographical boundaries. These boundaries have, indeed, erected the barriers of mistrust, paranoia, hatred and sense of insecurity among the various ethnic communities. If you just broaden your vision you will conveniently find the concept of Akhand World more palatable than the utopian dream of Akhand Bharat. As the descendants of Adam and Eve we belong to the same family. Can’t we assure the unity of this family through temporal means and methods of interaction and cooperation?

After having failed on the domestic front to come up to the expectations of crores of people impoverished you found it quite expedient and convenient to camouflage your failures by looking for a bogeyman in the North – the poor Kashmiri. Now Lahore declaration gives a new direction to South Asian politics.

Signatories to the Declaration have prioritized peace to ensure the economic uplift of multitude of poor masses. If, instead of stemming the rot within, you once again wobble to raise the bogey of “threat from across the border” you will simply make your position awkwardly vulnerable. There will be political backlash in your countries which will reject you as the redundant demagogues lacking vision and prudence. Kashmiris feel already disenchanted with the subjective politics of the leaders in Jinnah’s Pakistan whose self-aggrandizement proved instrumental in the dismemberment of Pakistan and whose mismanagement converted Afghanistan into a slaughterhouse through fratricidal war. We have had enough experience of your mismanagement on Kashmir front too. Hope Mr. Nawaz Sharif, the revolutionary leader of Pakistan, will continue the peace offensive against his adversary in neighbourhood. He is certainly a man of wit and wisdom. Being a Kashmiri by origin he would like to do everything possible for the early settlement of Kashmir issue. Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, as an adept and seasoned politician, should seize the opportunity to take Kashmiris into confidence for substantive dialogue with Pakistan on Kashmir issue. Addressing the Indian Parliament on March 15, 1999 he said, “There were three wars between India and Pakistan in the past. Now since both the countries are equipped with nuclear weapons we cannot, therefore, afford to think in terms of another round of armed conflict. So a permanent solution of the outstanding issues is to be found to prevent a war with Pakistan. There is no option but to live together like good neighbours.” Thus in Vajpayee’s statement there is explicit message of peace and friendship. Let the dream get materialized but not at the cost of our freedom.

Strategy of the revolutionary organizations of Kashmir like JKLF, Mahaz-e-Azadi, People’s League, Jamaat-e-Islami, etc. to retreat from the militant front in an orderly way and rejuvenate the political resistance movement was, in fact, a calculated move to create a congenial psychological environment for the peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue. Our low profile stance is a part of what you call “ confidence building measures” in your diplomatic parlance. In case you fail to redress the Kashmiris’ grievances the third generation in teens and twenties will feel completely disillusioned with the role of political activists in and around Kashmir. Nadeem Ahmad Khateeb was a Kashmiri pilot in USA earning about a million rupees per month. After all, what forced

him to say goodbye to the amenities in USA and join the fray in Kashmir to achieve his cherished goal – the martyrdom? Such is the resolve of Kashmiri youngsters who are being groomed in an atmosphere of hatred, repression, humiliation, atrocities, arson, rampage and carnage. So in order to mitigate the sufferings of helpless Kashmiris India and Pakistan should immediately sit across a negotiating table to seek a permanent solution of Kashmir issue through serious, substantive and meaningful dialogue. An inadvertent effort to defer a solution of Kashmir imbroglio is fraught with dangers inconceivable. Please guarantee genuine détente and entente in South Asia.What is the rationale for allowing the booming of guns in the orchards of Kashmir when both Indian and Pakistan are now poised to enter into an agreement of coexistence and friendship? Further efforts to settle the accounts with each other in the streets of Srinagar will prove counter-productive for both the major contending parties to the conflict. Enough is enough. It is high time for the prisoners of the past to concretize the desire to bury the hatchet for good. Traumatized Kashmiris want to be heard before they hear the news of nuclear holocaust which will consume everything except truth.

[Kashmir Times – March 23, 1999]

Let truth prevail

he motto ‘Let Truth Prevail’ depicts the ardent yearning of one of the most leading English dailies of India. The motto,

which adorns the emblem of the reputed newspaper “The Times of India”, should certainly kindle the conscience of the crores of Indians, especially their rulers, to recognize the realities regarding Kashmir issue. It is not the paper alone which emphasizes truth and its preponderance as the basic trait of character. All the religious books, including Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta, lay stress on the importance of truth as the basic underlying principle of human civilization. So the lovers of Absolute Truth, God, should be truthful in the collective demeanour. If India wants to attain the position of prominence in the comity of nations it should become the beacon light of truth in its temporal and metaphysical activities. Otherwise, if hypocrisy and treachery becomes its hallmark, it will forfeit a right to exist as a powerful nation. Remember that it is the puritan metaphysics, not the licentious materialism, which imparts real strength to a theistic nation.

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Indian society, owing to its pluralism, is, in essence, a theistic society which portrays the synthesis of ideas and ideologies of and about religion. The day Indian society distances itself from its proud cultural heritage of truthfulness and righteousness it will find itself embedded in a marshland of internal contradiction, chaos, confusion, and anarchy. And finally it will give way to fissures and dissipation – so nightmarish a situation which no patriotic Indian introvert would like to hail and vail.

Should not our conscience coax us to address a problem, unresolved legacy of British Raj, which has bedeviled and embittered the relations between India and Pakistan for the last fifty years? Should we continue to be the hostage to obsession regarding this unresolved legacy of British colonialism which is now an extinct myth? Should we continue to leave Kashmir issue in limbo at the cost of peace and prosperity of South Asia? It is not a fact that notwithstanding three fatal wars between India and Pakistan, Kashmir still exists as a problem awaiting a solution? Kashmir dispute will continue to be the source of upheaval and commotion in South Asia unless the leaders of India and Pakistan, under compulsion of other innumerable problems, feel like extricating themselves from Kashmir fixation. We fail to fathom the rationale for perpetuating the state of confrontation and belligerency in South Asia when crores of innocent people are languishing in impoverishment and debilitating hygienic environment, Kashmir will continue to be flashpoint if political parochialism and obsessive obscurantism is allowed to supersede the sentiments of realism, rationalism and objectivity.

It was subjective politics of egocentric leaders of Indian National Congress which proved instrumental in the birth of Muslim League in 1906 AD. Mohammad Ali Jinnah had already joined Congress in 1905. Muslim League became a cynosure for him simply because the League had an urge to become Muslim rights movement aimed at safeguarding the interests of Indian Muslims in an environment of emerging reality of ‘majority onslaught’ of the Hindu community. Mr. Jinnah worked in congress for fifteen years. The parochialism of Congress leaders which had persistently been giving an inkling of their outlook of exclusiveness could not allow the sentiments of codependency prevail in the organizational hierarchy with the result that mutual trust and understanding gave way to mistrust and misgivings.

Eventually, in 1920, Mr. Jinnah realized that there were no chances of his emergence as the plenipotentiary leader of Indian National Congress which, according to him, was trapped in a particular mindset. With that he decided to distance himself from Congress and be wedded to the cause of Muslim League. Philosophers and psychologists will certainly subscribe to my viewpoint that wounded ego of personalities plays an important, rather pivotal, role in the dynamics of political movements. It invigorates a leader to assert for the accomplishment of his cherished goal. It makes him reckless, ruthless and stubborn. It continues to be the driving force for him till he emerges victorious in his battle against his adversaries.It was a blunder on the part of Indian National Congress to be inadvertently satisfied with its internal metamorphosis which allured it to identify itself with the growing trends of Hindu particularism that was conspicuously symbolized by some fanatic Hindu groups and movements which had ostensibly come into being by way of reaction to the oppressive alien rule of British and a psychological rebuff to the Muslims who were proud of their history of sway over India, lasting for about nine hundred years, prior to the British Raj. This typical communal cathexis of Congress leaders, therefore, proved an obstacle in the path of rapprochement and reconciliation between Congress and Muslim League. The self-aggrandizement, imprudence and myopic politics of egocentric Congress stalwarts strengthened the trends of communal polarization in India. Muslim League, which was in essence a Muslim rights movement, continued to live on its assertion as a sentinel of Muslim aspirations, temporal indeed. The cause of reservation for Muslims was first taken up by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. His well-known 14-point formula, presented in 1929, sought and stressed concessions. He wanted the congress to give its assurances that the constitution which would be framed after independence would guarantee the approval of 14-point formula of concessions. The eleventh point was that in the government services in India the proportion of Muslims would always be maintained in direct ratio to their population. By conceding to this demand Congress leaders could have averted the division of India. Thanks to their parochialism, they could not accommodate the League with its modest stand and stance.

In 1930, in an atmosphere of brewing hatred and communal polarization, Dr. Mohammad Iqbal, the poet and philosopher, stressed in his presidential address to the Muslim League convention held at Allahabad, the need of carving out of a Muslim state within Indian Subcontinent. The idea mooted by Iqbal appeared quite romantic and utopian to M. A. Jinnah who was still optimistic about a change in the mindset of Congress leaders. In 1937, the year of general elections in India, Muslim League emerged as the most powerful political party of Indian Muslims securing 29 seats in UP assembly of 144 seats. Organizational aggrandizement and latent communal fixation of Congress, the majority party, could not allow it to reconcile to the idea of accommodating Muslim League in a coalition government. Congress was too callous to recognize Muslim League as a political force representing Muslim sentiments. In fact Congress, with its dominating attitude, was promptly in search of an occasion to manage and manoeuvre the merger of Muslim League with Congress. Poignant Jinnah too was ready for a marathon struggle for self-assertion. So the year 1937 marked the beginning of a political tug-of-war between Muslim League and Congress. Mr. Jinnah, the League supremo with bruised ego, began to assert like an original revolutionary to make its adversaries realize that Muslim League was a force to be reckoned with. On March 23, 1940 Muslim League passed a resolution in its Lahore Convention demanding a sovereign state for Muslims of India. Adversaries became restless to jeopardize the movement for a sovereign and independent Muslim state then christened as Pakistan by the votaries of two nation theory.

In 1946 British Cabinet Mission plan offered an independence package which envisaged (i) three-zone Indian federation of Muslim and Hindu majority areas with only three subjects (defence, foreign affairs and communication) surrendered to Centre (ii) a central cabinet comprising equal number of ministers of the two major communities Muslims and Hindus. In the beginning both Indian National Congress and Muslim League approved the plan. Congress resilience and innate aversion to Muslim politics of assertion as a conscious ethnic community cajoled the Congress supremo Pundit Jawahirlal Nehru to sabotage the plan in a press conference of June 1946 in Mumbai where, in reply to a scribe’s poser, he said that Congress with its majority vote, would undo the plan which guaranteed the internal

autonomy of Muslim majority zones in the West and East of India. The statement, Abdul Kalam Azad reveals in his book ‘India Wins Freedom’ came as a bombshell to M. A. Jinnah who was, therefore compelled and constrained to have recourse to assertive and aggressive politics characteristic of an aggrieved and offended community. He convened an emergency meeting of Muslim League which, after thorough discussion, decided to observe 16th of August 1946 as the ‘Direct Action’ day. The day was marked by unprecedented communal riots which consumed about one thousand innocent people in Calcutta alone. Other Indian cities too got engulfed by the communal frenzy, fury and fire. Eventually India got divided into two parts Bharat and Pakistan in August 1947. The protagonists of secular democracy had to accept the reality of partition as a fait accompli. All original Indian writers like Kuldeep Nayar, S. K. Mosemdar and N. Sein Gupta believe that it was the short-sightedness, paranoia and bias of the Congress leadership which offended, alienated and finally infuriated the Muslim League leader Mr. Jinnah compelling him to pave the way for Lahore resolution of March 23, 1940 which envisaged a demand for a separate homeland for Muslims.

The rose that emblazoned the white coat of Pandit Nehru basically symbolized his exuberant love for nature especially the panorama of bewitching mountains, fragrant orchards, lustrous lakes and cascades of Kashmir. Yes, it was Kashmir and Kashmir alone which fascinated the eyes of romantic hero of India independence movement. Panditjee’s hobnobbing with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was based more on his political expediency than a friendly commitment to stand by through thick and thin. Pandit Nehru would perspire, court arrest and take up the cudgels for Sheikh Abdullah, his friend. However the professed friendship could not stand the test when Sheikh Abdullah tried to assert subjectively for the cause of Kashmiryat. Pandit Nehru’s aversion to assertion of his friend or foe was always ambivalent with his stratagem as a socialist ideologue. Also, it is in fact that Sheikh Abdullah became a scapegoat in the psychological Indo-Pak tussle that ensued from partition of Indian Subcontinent. Pandit Nehru, in an effort to get the better of his traditional rival Pakistan, found it quiet expedient and convenient to dispense with Sheikh Abdullah. Pt. Nehru could not visualize the aftermath of a betrayal. The developments which followed the episode of August

9, 1953, when the Sheikh was dethroned and detained, proved that Panditjee’s impulsiveness and impetuosity blurred his wisdom and acumen as a statesman. One can, perhaps, justify his contradiction and controversy with Jinnah. But what was the rationale for offending and antagonizing a friend who had reposed trust in him when no Kashmiri was consciously ready to empathize with Delhi?

Despite the UN resolutions on Kashmir, which suggested and recommended plebiscite based on Kashmiris’ right of self-determination, Article 370 of Indian constitution served the purpose of a bridge of understanding between Kashmir and India. It provided mechanism of working relationship between Srinagar and Delhi. The renowned Indian writer A. G. Noorani, while discussing Article 370 in his essay published in Kashmir Times on 13th Feb. 1998, explains with his erudition: “There is, however, more grave aspect which has been overlooked and which two former Union Home ministers and a Prime Minister pointed out. On 4th Dec. 1964 G. L. Nanda said that it would be totally wrong to assume that with the repeal of the Article all constitutional provisions would automatically apply to Kashmir. P. V. Narasimha Rao spelt out the implications on 12th of June 1996 saying, “Abrogation of the Article 370 is just not possible, unless you want to part with State of Jammu & Kashmir. …… Abrogation of Article 370 is a legal impossibility. Any attempt to do so would reflect moral bankruptcy and political ineptitude.” This is all about the Article which has already been encroached upon by the Delhi rulers. Then why did you look on sheikh Abdullah’s stance of assertion in defence of Article 370 as ‘treason’ to manoeuvre secession? Why should you not punish the people who, in league with one another, connived with Delhi ruler Nehru to dislodge Sheikh Abdullah from the position of power and prominence to make him languish in jails for long eleven years? The present turmoil in Kashmir is, in fact, a political backlash triggered off by the totalitarianism of Delhi rulers who were led astray by sycophants and lackeys. So you are reaping what you have already sown in Kashmir. Why should you, therefore, pass the buck on your adversary in neighbourhood? It is high time to rectify the wrong to retrieve the situation in Kashmir. Seize the opportunity to pragmatise the sentiments of Azadi which will otherwise get fulminated to the detriment of hope and optimism. The brew of discord and discontent is still intact.

Political will is required to address the core issue. Dereliction will be tantamount to suicide. Let humanism overcome sadism. Let wisdom prevail on all concerned.

[Kashmir Times – March 1, 1998]

Banish this communal fixation

sychoanalytical study of the behaviour of man reveals that a theist, who derives solace from his meditative and

introspective activities, likes to be regarded as an introvert engrossed in the metaphysical world of realities regarding spirituality and intellectual modes of self-absorption. An introvert with highest degree of enlightenment would like to be an embodiment of compassion, love and mercy. Ascetics and hermit are basically introverts who enjoy a blissful world within. They are averse to the external world of commotion and conflicts. Sadhus and Sufis, the introverts lost in their world of meditation and introspection, are the beacon light of tranquility and trance. They are the lovers of transcendental realities – the realities of and about God, Allah or Eishwar. A common theist would like to empathize with them and their world of metaphysical activity. For him they are the source of benediction and bliss. Extroverts, unlike introverts, are generally overwhelmed by a sense of deprivation which they never talk about. They camouflage their inferiority complex by their vociferous urge for service on social and political front. They take pride in identifying themselves more

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with the number of their supporters and admirers than the principles of ethics and politics. Empire building is the objective they cherish. So their self-aggrandizement is always juxtaposed to the cause of group or community aggrandizement and domination. They are always prompt and poised to spearhead a revolution aimed at subjugating the weaker ethnic group in their neighbourhood. This is the semantic background of what we call communalism, chauvinism, fascism and (euphemistically) nationalism in political parlance.

Communalism is a sign of spiritual weakness and deprivation. It leads to depravity, arrogance and impetuousness. Nationalism based on communal sentiments renders its votaries blind to the extent that they are seldom amenable to reason and rationalism. Adherents of communalized nationalism are never self-possessed. Hence their aggressiveness and onslaught simply gives birth to inveterate hatred, acrimony and rancour – which in turn hardens an adversary and makes him intransigent in his political attitude and approach. If professed secular nationalism of Indian National Congress, owing to its propensity for imperceptible communal feelings, could not save undivided India from dismemberment in 1947 how cam BJP, with its conspicuously aggressive communal nationalism, ensure the unity of Bharat? The transformation of pluralism-based secular democracy of Bharat into fanatical communal nationalism will inevitably prove counter-productive. Low profile communal stance of Congress has already failed in safeguarding the unity of India. There is an apprehension of further dissipation and disintegration due to the high profile communal stance of the votaries of communal nationalism. Communal nationalists are hell-bent on triggering off communal polarization and schism. All the efforts to ensure détente and entente will be put into jeopardy. South Asian countries will, perhaps, once again start looking askance at one another. The free world, which is engaged in fostering the trends of moderation in political and religious ideas, cannot afford to be a mere spectator to the campaign for negativism and obscurantism in a society which derives strength from its secular democracy that is based on respect for the composite culture of India.

Is it not absolutely fanatic to think about wreaking vengeance upon the emperors and warriors who, several centuries ago, desecrated a few temples in India in a fit of war fury and

exasperation? The tormentors are lying buried in graves, their monuments of power and prestige do exist but in the form of desolate ruins inspiring more regret than awe. The dilapidated forts and tottering palaces, which now form the most precious part of the archaeological heritage of India, speak of the mortality of man and remind us of the Day of Judgment when everyone of us will be answerable to Allah or Eishwar for his or her deeds good or bad. Let us try to be magnanimous and gracious enough to forgive one another. Let us rid ourselves of the obsessive and subjective empathy with history. The emancipated people cannot afford to be the prisoners of past history of contradictions and conflicts of self-centred heroes of subjective politics of onslaught and assimilation. We are living in an era of knowledge explosion. The whole world has shrunk to a global village. Man is earnestly in search of places of seclusion on Mars and Jupiter for meditation and yoga. So is it not ludicrous and preposterous to be the hostage of medievalism which characterizes predatory sway and barbarian intolerance? Let us try to achieve the objective of serenity and cosmic consciousness through intuitive absorption and scientific research. This is what our conscience demands of us. Here I, as a modest citizen of Kashmir, cannot but claim to be the lover of Rishi and Sufi culture of Kashmir which envisages love, brotherhood and tolerance. Alas! the beautiful vale of Kashmir with proud culture of tolerance and brotherhood, got engulfed by the fire and fury of communalism during the decade gone by. Enough is enough. It is high time for the people of South Asia to banish the communal fixation which has persistently been jeopardizing the serious efforts for rapprochement and reconciliation between India and Pakistan.

Why should Kashmir be made scapegoat in the war of attrition between India and Pakistan – the two countries which are still obsessed by the pre-partition syndrome of sentiments and feelings of communal polarization and confrontation. The Subcontinent rulers who, for their domestic consumption, find it quite expedient to raise the bogey of ‘Kashmir issue’ and ‘threat from across the border’ should remember that any further effort to perpetuate the policy of confrontation on Kashmir front will simply boomerang to the ultimate disadvantage of their own people who are already disenchanted with the self-aggrandizement of plutocratic predators. It is a sin to emotionalise and communalise a political issue which, if allowed to be pragmatically localized, can be

settled amicably and honourably to the astonishment of global detractors who want to see you permanently entangled in the mire and marsh of ostensibly complex and confounded Kashmir issue. Your elusive approach has agonized about a billion people of South Asia. Emphasis on recognition of ground realities can, of course, help seek a way out of Kashmir impasse. Well, there were no UN resolutions for the vivisection of India or dismemberment of Pakistan. If UN resolutions on Kashmir cannot be literally implemented for some unavoidable reason of political expediency the options which are compatible with the ground realities should certainly be discussed to evolve a practicable and mutually acceptable solution of Kashmir tangle. You have to assuage the wounded feelings and sentiments of an ethnic community brutalized and humiliated by gun-wielding men under marshal prerogative. Your acts of violence and vandalism have, in fact, tarnished your image as a professed friend, defender and custodian of law and order. The bruised sentiments of traumatized Kashmiris can instigate them for a protracted battle if you fail to address the Kashmir issue with a resolve to solve it judiciously and expeditiously.

We, as the lovers of Rishi and Sufi culture of Kashmir, are not oblivious of what is happening in Afghanistan, Algeria and Egypt in the name of Islam. We understand that assertion of the dissent there is more an apology for religion than a reference of pride. However, our proud commitment to the Rishi culture of Kashmir should not be construed as a weakness of our resistance movement which is based on a resolve to struggle for the position of power and prestige. We want to see Kashmir becoming a symbol of enlightenment and knowledge for the mankind. Mahatma Gandhi, the father of Indian nation, while aspiring to discern light of inspiration in Kashmir, said on Dec. 29, 1947: “Will not India and Pakistan come together and settle the issue with the help from impartial Indians? Is there no one here who is impartial? I am sure that we have not become bankrupt to that extent. Today Hinduism and Islam are being tested in Kashmir. If the right thing is done and right direction given to the process the chief actors will win fame. It is my prayer that in the present darkness in the country Kashmir may become the star that provides light.” (The Hindu, Dec. 30, 1997). Sheikh Abdullah, as some Indians believe, was the first Kashmiri symbolizing the enlightenment which Gandhiji had visualized. Alas! You

discovered a visionary in Abdullah after long fifty years. Mr. I. K. Gujral, the Prime Minister of India, by way of acknowledgement and recognition belated indeed, said on Dec. 5, 1997 in a function organized by Sher-i-Kashmir Peace Foundation that Sheikh Abdullah was a great visionary but misunderstood. Does it mean that it takes Indian leaders complete fifty years to discover the identity of a Kashmir leader? You will again fail to recognize the visionaries of today due to your neurotic Kashmir obsession.

About sixty thousand Kashmiris sacrificed their lives for the sacred cause of Kashmiryat and Azadi. Thousands of political activists have been languishing in jails for the last eight years. There is no let-up in the reign of terror and horror there. Custodial killings, sacrilege of the symbols of honour, arson and loot hounds the anarchical situation there. Human rights activists of India, including Kuldeep Nayar, Tapan Bose, Justice Tarkunde and Prof. A. M. Khusroo feel agonized over the human rights abuse and violation in Kashmir. Even Lt. Gen. S. Padmnabhan of Northern Command grumbles in his own way saying, “ The basic reasons which led to insurgency taking roots should first be addressed. ..… People call it a low-intensity conflict. But for a soldier, who stops a bullet, all intensities are the same. A bullet is a bullet. The semantics do not matter …. Aviation corps airlifted 5000 casualties from Siachin from early’90s to 1996.” (The Hindu – Nov. 21, 1997) And the number of the soldiers and officers who got killed in Kashmir during the decade long insurgency is almost equal to the number of the soldiers killed in all the previous conventional wars with Pakistan. In the light of the aforementioned facts emphasis is, hereby, laid on the exigency to advise the people at the helm of affairs in Delhi to have a reappraisal of their Kashmir policy just to save South Asia from economic catastrophe and political cataclysm. Peace is paramount if at all prosperity is your priority objective.

Struggling Kashmiris are inspired even by Lord Krishna whose sermon invigorated and energized Arjun to assert in the battlefield against his adversaries who had usurped his empire. Resolute Kashmiris have reposed trust in God Almighty. He will not leave them in the lurch. The genuineness of their cause imparts strength and confidence to them for a protracted battle against the forces of onslaught and assimilation. They will certainly condescend only when you acquiesce in across a table of dialogue and debate on

Kashmir. Substantive talks and negotiations are, therefore, stressed for a peaceful settlement of Kashmir problem, so knotty and vexed. Obduracy which prompts procrastination shall have to be shunned if a practicable and viable solution of the long-standing problem is to be sought before long. It is imperative for you to be wedded to positivism to save the situation in Kashmir. We are still in search of an Indian humanist who will practically share the grief and sorrow of Kashmiris. May our optimism discover him before God intervenes to assert for justice in dispensation!

[Kashmir Times – March 12, 1998]

Coexistence of peace and war

ife of a political activist becomes prosaic, monotonous and monolithic if there are no adversaries to vie with him for his

position of power and prominence, temporal or metaphysical. The same is true about a nation as well. A nation will cease to be vibrant, dynamic and assertive if there are no detractors and adversarial powers pitched in a psychological battle to deprive it of the position of power and prestige. Rivalry and jealousy has, in fact, imparted luster and glamour to human civilization. A nation owes much to bestiality which perpetually revitalizes and rejuvenates it for a struggle against the forces which want to dislodge it from the position of exaltation, individuality and identity. India and Pakistan, the two belligerent countries, would, for their ideological contradictions, perhaps, opt for a thousand-year conventional war with each other; their beastly urge for confrontation is, however, suppressed by a longing for peace which is indispensably paramount for the solace and prosperity of their people. Nuclear capability of the two countries will certainly guarantee détente in South Asia, because nuclear weapons automatically contain the trends of war. We will soon find India

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and Pakistan signing and ratifying the Subcontinent – SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty); predilection for cold war will suffice them.

Both India and Pakistan possess nuclear expertise and potential. Both the countries are awfully busy in manufacturing ballistic missiles and nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction. Their nuclear capability has, however, successfully blurred and dampened their obsessive sentiments of bellicosity and animosity. It has, in fact, sharpened their wisdom and vision which cajoles them to propound and propose the principle of global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Thus, the nuclear capability of the two countries has to some extent helped in neutralizing the communal sentiments of the two major communities of South Asia. Why should Hindus and Muslims be at loggerheads with each other at the cost of scientific advancement which, through evolutionary modes of metaphysical interaction, can cobble the two communities together in an ambivalent whole never detestable? Global detractors and denigrators are bent on making you a cat’s-paw in the global war of interests. It is for you to decide whether you would like to be fooled like fools of the first water. Why should the temptation of a pawn’s role become a force majeure for you? Remove the irritants in your relationship by addressing the mind-blowing problems and rationalizing your national aspirations. A bit of magnanimity and prudence can give a different nuance to your SAARC organization. Its founding principles can be put as ‘Strategic Accommodation and Reconciliation Course’ (SAARC). So your SAARC can become real binding forum with the empirical nuance suggested.

In Kashmir the SAARC spirit, in the perspective of the connotation evolved and explained above, is already in vogue. People with diverse ideas and ideologies have genuinely begun to adapt themselves to the lemma ‘Strategic Accommodation and Reconciliation Course’ just to retrieve Kashmir from the state of helplessness, chaos and anarchy. Kashmiris want to be regarded as a single family enjoying unity in diversity under unwritten modus-vivendi agreement. We will not allow Kashmir to become the arena of hostilities of powers intractable and uncompromising. Our strategic manoeuvre for the retrieval of Kashmir will certainly safeguard the intrinsic indigenous character of the resistance movement which, to our dismay, is reeling under the

extrinsic influence whatsoever. How can a sensitive ethnic community, which is already riven and ripped apart by hatred and mistrust, allow Kashmir to fall a prey to balkanization and sectarian polarization? We are averse and allergic to everything that can create malice and malevolence. We vehemently stress, through our comprehensive message of love and brotherhood, the metaphysical reunion of Kashmiris.

In South Asia peace aspirations will always remain juxtaposed to war tactics. War strategists, notwithstanding the due appreciation and recognition of the peace initiative of humanists, will be engaged in sustained struggle to compensate their failures. The editor of the reputed Indian daily THE HINDU, while commenting on the modernization of war industry of Pakistan and India maintains: “India’s strategic needs are quite different from Pakistan’s. It is pity that Pakistan has chosen to arm itself with Ghauri (missile) out of an urge for equalization of its weaponry with that of India. Such a strategy implies that it achieves nothing more than the ‘balancing of terror’ and its missiles remain under wraps to save the Subcontinent from ‘mutually assured’ destruction in the Cold War parlance.” (The Hindu – Jan. 7, 1998). Also unconventional modes and methods of operation will be applied to unhinge and dislodge the adversary from a particular position of superiority and sway. In fact peace and war will continue to coexist in South Asia till the objective of harmonious relations is achieved through the multifaceted efforts of rapprochement and reconciliation. Original thinkers and visionaries of India and Pakistan are relentlessly struggling to create thaw and mutual trust between the two neighbouring countries obsessively harbouring suspicions against each other; each trying to obtrude and preponderate.

Gujral doctrine of Mr. I. K. Gujral, the Prime Minister of India, carries weight. It can help ease tension in South Asia. The doctrine, which envisages demonstration of unilateral gestures of friendship based on magnanimity without stress on reciprocity of the contending party, can yield better dividends. Nikhil Chakravarty, the renowned writer of India, while discussing the exigency of peace in his article captioned “In peace lies their salvation”, observes: “Barring what may be called the lunatic fringe – which craves for the restitution of the old – the sober sentiment on both sides of the Indo-Pakistan border is that the two

countries must bury the hatchet and learn to live in peace and amity.”(The Hindu – Nov. 30, 1997). Similarly “In a radical break with the past, the Pakistan chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Fasih Bukhari, has called for ending 50-year old confrontation and hostility with India, stressing the need for befriending India in the coming 50 years in Pakistan’s own strategic interest …… (yet the chief unassumingly grumbles saying) We do not see her (India) as an honest partner in peace until she sits down to resolve the major Kashmir issue alongside other issues.” (The Hindu – Dec. 14, 1997).

It is true that the nuclear capability of India and Pakistan proved a success as an effective strategic deterrent against the tendency of an all out conventional war, but it is equally true that the unresolved Kashmir issue still awaits a solution. Kashmir is on fire. Roaring guns, bursting bombs, bleeding wounds, screaming women and burning houses create a scenario of terror and horror coupled with uncertainty and cynicism. Where Indian sadists suggest a more aggressive approach to deal with Kashmir freedom movement, the hawks in Pakistan are looking for an original soldier, a military genius, who can organize and mobilize the disgruntled youth of Afghanistan and Central Asian Muslim states for an unconventional military activity, a guerrilla war indeed, in Kashmir where the inhospitable mountainous terrain can prove helpful in repeating the war history of Panjsheer valley of Afghanistan. War strategists believe that the Panjsheer valley played a strategic decisive role in routing the Red Force of erstwhile Soviet Union. Remember that in a situation where the historical political forces of Kashmir including JKLF, People’s League, Mahaz-e-Azadi and Jamaat-e-Islami have practically distanced themselves from gun the endeavour to resurrect the urban activity of brawn-assertion will simply prove counter-productive, unless the barbarian attitude of the ruthless Indian forces compels the Kashmiri youth to toe the line of extremism as a last resort. We are very serious about a peaceful political solution of Kashmir problem. The traumatized, agonized and brutalized people of Kashmir are musing on the political developments in New Delhi and Islamabad with incisive curiosity and care.

It is incumbent on you to fully comprehend the dynamics of Kashmir resistance movement which is, in essence, a struggle to

safeguard the Rishi and Sufi culture of Kashmir through an emphasis on the Azadi outpourings. The political atmosphere is quite congenial and conducive for a dialogue and interaction with the historical resistance forces of Kashmir, including Hurriyat Conference, to seek an early peaceful and honourable settlement of Kashmir dispute. Ostrich optimism will, otherwise, lead you to the crevasse of crisis and abysmal failure. Your intransigence and myopic politics has already sown the seeds of hatred and discontent in Kashmir. It will be again a folly to underestimate the resolve of Kashmiris. We will revert to comprehensive political movement, with a characteristic subjective stance, to achieve the goal of self-rule in Kashmir for Kashmiryat.

The entrenchment of Indian and Pakistani leaders in their egotistic stand and stance vis-à-vis Kashmir can be attributed to their inborn sadism which does not allow them to take cognizance of the human rights abuse and violations in Kashmir. In Greek and Roman empires of medieval ages rulers used to enjoy the indoor games in their amphitheatres where their political opponents, held in captivity, were exposed to hungry rapacious beasts like lions and bears who would devour them without dither. So Kashmir is the Indian amphitheatre where rulers, like their Greek and Roman predecessors, enjoy the victimization and humiliation of enslaved Kashmiris. We believe that if the process of persecution and victimization of innocent Kashmiris does not come to a natural end before long, Providence, under the law of retribution, will certainly give verdict to requite the tormentor for the atrocities and brutalities perpetrated by him. Kashmiris are being punished for the ‘sin’ to remind you of your commitment regarding the final dispensation of Kashmir with special reference to Kashmiris’ inalienable right of self-determination. Don’t you realize that Kashmir turmoil is infallibly a portrayal of your betrayal? Conscientious Indian patriots should make out what has been explicitly conveyed above. Hope your theistic vision will kindle your conscience to rectify the wrong.

Let my Kashmiri compatriots try to understand that it is time when our brain, not brawn, should assert (i) to provide some respite and reprieve to war-torn Kashmir (ii) to make the leaders of India and Pakistan realize that Kashmiris cannot be taken for granted indefinitely (iii) to launch the movement for general awareness in India to muster support for Kashmir cause. With all

that our sermons cannot permanently mesmerize the resolute Kashmiri youth whose meaningful “wait-and-watch” strategic posture betrays their anxiety to see the men in higher echelons of power displaying promptitude in their pragmatic response. The mandate for dialogue and negotiations has only time-bound relevance. Obsolete colonial approach should be replaced by a humanistic tack to tackle the Kashmir problem. Hope the admonition will stir your stagnant soul.

[Kashmir Times – March 24, 1998]

Crisis legalized and legitimized

eep your word” is the universally accepted dogma which impeccably guides human beings in their social and

political life. A breach of the principle, if and when it occurs, simply signifies perfidy and venality which eventually leads to conflict and confrontation. Ethics, as all the Scriptures enjoin, devoid of commitment to “vachan” (promise) is moral corruption which gradually culminates in social and political anarchy. In such a situation, therefore, social and political polarization becomes the pith and marrow of state system. The epidemic of moral turpitude engulfs the neighbouring countries as well. Failure of UNO in its half-hearted efforts to stress the implementation of its relevant resolutions on Kashmir can be attributed to the intransigence and obduracy which originated from the perfidy and breach of “vachan”. A pertinent question arises here as to what prompted the contending party to back out –

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Nehru’s romance with the natural beauty of Kashmir, Pakistan’s ineptitude or Kashmiris’ naivety or all the factors collectively. Alas!, destiny betrayed us to the abyss of servitude, helplessness, and debility. None but one God can retrieve Kashmir from the quagmire of deprivation, serfdom, persecution and humiliation. Certainly hope sustains life.

With the lapse of British paramountcy and suzerainty in India the 565 Princely States, under the Indian Independence Act of 1947, became automatically independent and were vested with authority as sovereign States. However, the act left it to their discretion whether they would accede to India or Pakistan – the newly emerged dominions. Partition of Indian subcontinent, which had become unavoidable circumstantially indeed, was accepted as a fait accompli by the moderates of Muslim League and Indian National Congress. The Muslim majority areas got merged with the geographically contiguous Pakistan and Hindu majority areas merged with India except Junagarh and Hyderabad opted for independence which, however, proved short-lived when Indian troops stormed in just to express solidarity with their coreligionists who were in majority there. Here we fail to fathom the rationale for thwarting the efforts of Pakistan to express solidarity with the majority community of Kashmir where most of the people, despite strong nationalistic dissent, were ready to reciprocate with “Muslim-solidarity” sentiments. It is obligatory for patriotic historians and research scholars to delve into Kashmir history to identify the factors which proved instrumental in managing and manipulating the subjugation and dismemberment of Kashmir.

Turmoil in Kashmir is not a treason and sedition against a government, recognized with its de jure status of sway, but a revolt against the de facto control of a country which, through its misdeeds and mismanagement, has triggered off upheaval, intricacy and pandemonium there. Some historic events which have practically lagalized and legitimized the present crisis in Kashmir need adumbration. Let us try to enumerate the few important events here:

(1) Partition of Indian subcontinent, save the fall-out of communal polarization it was fraught with, was in principle a serious political move to satiate the subjective sentiments of the

highly conscious aristocrats and plutocrats of the two major communities of South Asia – Hindus and Muslims. The 50-year history of personality clash between the political luminaries of Pakistan and India testifies that it was not the religion which was at stake in South Asia but the personal agenda of power and prominence of the few prominent and assertive personalities. So the Hindu and Muslim plutocrats of South Asian nationalist movements always exploited the religious sentiments of the common people just to further the cause of their self-aggrandizement. Military intervention of Hindu plutocrats in Junagarh and Hyderabad was, therefore, ostensibly aimed at expressing solidarity with the Hindu majority of these States; however it, simultaneously, provided incentive and legitimacy to the military intervention of Pakistani plutocrats in Kashmir which had already taken place in Oct. 1947. Pakistan, therefore, finds it quite convenient and expedient to attribute the resolve of Indian plutocrats to stay in Kashmir to their “chauvinism and expansionism”. The plea provides sufficient ammunition to the Kashmiri insurgents who, therefore, consider India as usurper and detractor. The very recollection of the Indian action in Junagarh and Hyderabad will continue to provoke Pakistan to nullify and neutralize the Indian influence in Kashmir.

(2) Maharaja Hari Singh, the autocratic ruler of the princely State of Jammu and Kashmir, was interested in safeguarding the independence and sovereignty of Kashmir. Maharaja offered “Standstill Agreement” to Pakistan as well as India. Pakistan accepted the offer whereas India procrastinated. The Indian rulers wanted to bide their time through diplomatic prevarications for an opportunity to intervene and take on their adversaries in Kashmir. They say Mahatama Gandhi, during his week long visit to Kashmir in the beginning of Aug. 1947, had brought home to the Maharaja (through his Queen) that he should identify himself with the Hindu culture of India. Maharaja replaced Ram Chand Kak, the State Prime Minister with moderate political ideas, by Mehar Chand Mahajin, a hardliner. This important move smacked of a change in Maharaja’s ideas and intentions. So Pakistan, in an attempt to pre-empt the Congress military initiative (camouflaged by political manoeuvre of its leaders), provoked and instigated the Muslim revolutionaries of the border areas of JK State – Poonch, Bagh, Plandari, Mirpur and Muzaffarabad. Armed revolt of the Muslim insurgents was so fierce that Maharaja was forced to flee

from Srinagar on Oct. 25, 1947 at the dead of night and take refuge in Jammu as a fugitive. Alas! the fleeing ruler could not protect the life and honour of his Muslim compatriots in Jammu. Sheikh Abdullah did succeed in protecting the life and honour of Kashmiri Pandits. Maharaja Hari Singh, a fugitive without any locus standi in the crisis, had, therefore, no right to decide about the future dispensation of Kashmir.

Maharaja Hari Singh, the deposed and dethroned ruler of the State of Jammu & Kashmir, decided to accede to India on Oct. 26, 1947. Mr. V. P. Menon, Secretary to Government of India, got the Instrument of Accession signed by the deposed Maharaja in Jammu. On Oct. 27, 1947 Lord Mountbatten, the Governor General of India, while accepting Hari Singh’s accession to India, wrote back to him: “Consistent with the policy that, in case of any State where the issue of accession has been subject of dispute, the issue of accession should be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people of the State, it is my Government’s wish that as soon as law and order has been restored in Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invaders, the question of State’s accession should be settled by reference to the people.” On the same day, i.e. Oct. 27, 1947, Indian troops were airlifted to Srinagar. Late Maulana Masoodi, a close associate of Sheikh Abdullah who had ratified Hari Singh’s accession, while commenting on the development, said: “These (Indian troops) are the new fetters of our slavery.” Since manipulation of the accession of Kashmir to India was a gross violation of the declared policy of Indian National Congress that ‘the question of accession shall be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people and geographical proximity’ Pakistan refused to recognize the so-called accession and, while regarding it as immoral, illegal and fraudulent, declared that the intervention of Indian troops in Kashmir was a flagrant aggression against its people.

(3) In his historic address, broadcast by All India Radio on Nov. 2, 1947, Pandit Nehru, the Prime Minister of India said:

“We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by its people. This pledge we have given, while the Maharaja has supported it, not only to the people of Kashmir but also to the world at large. We will not and cannot renege on our

commitment. We are prepared when peace and law and order has been restored, to have referendum held under the auspices of UNO.”

Again in his public address at historical Lal Chowk Srinagar on Nov. 11, 1947 Pandit Nehru declared:

“Indian forces are here just to restore peace. We have no intention to grab the territory of Kashmir. India, as a great democratic country, guarantees that Kashmiris will be free to decide about the future dispensation of Kashmir”.

On Feb. 23, 1948 Mr. Gopala Swami Ayengar, Indian representative in UNO, while addressing the Security Council, said:

“As the Security Council is aware the Govt. of India is fully committed to the view that, after peace is restored and all the people belonging to the State have returned there, a free plebiscite should be conducted and the people should decide whether they wish to remain with India, go over to Pakistan or become independent and sovereign”.

A still more emphatic and categoric assurance was given by Pandit Nehru to the people of Kashmir on Jan. 2, 1952 saying:

“Kashmir is not a patrimony of Bharat or Pakistan. It belongs to Kashmiris. When Kashmir acceded to India, we made it clear to leaders of Kashmiri people that we would ultimately abide by the verdict of plebiscite; if they tell us to walk out, I would have no hesitation in quitting Kashmir”. (Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, Jan. 2, 1952).

In fact Pandit Nehru and other Indian leaders reiterated their stand vis-à-vis Kashmir about a dozen times. On Aug. 7, 1952 Pandit Nehru reaffirmed his pledge in India parliament. From Oct. 1947 to Aug. 7, 1952 there was no change in the official stand of Indian rulers regarding Kashmir.

(4) On Aug. 9, 1953 Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, the Prime Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, for his pro-Kashmir stance, was dethroned, arrested and lodged in a jail. Puppet rulers were

installed to help encroach upon the Article 370 of Indian Constitution which had guaranteed ‘Special Status’ for the State of Jammu & Kashmir. There was political backlash in Kashmir followed by gradual disillusionment and alienation of Kashmiris.

Instead of keeping their word Indian leaders blatantly reneged on their commitment in a true Machiavellian style under the pretext that since Pakistan had become a member of SEATO and CENTO it was, therefore, imperative for India to have a reappraisal of plebiscite proposal. Commenting on this plea an eminent judge, jurist and humanist of India, Justice V. M. Tarkunde, maintains:

“One of the biggest mistakes committed by Jawaharlal Nehru was to back out of the plebiscite proposal on the wholly irrelevant ground that Pakistan in the meantime had accepted arms and entered into a military pact with United States. The offer of plebiscite was not in the nature of a concession made by India to Pakistan but was recognition of the right of self-determination of the people of Jammu & Kashmir. The denial of the right of self-determination by India on irrelevant grounds led, naturally, to a plebiscite movement in Kashmir. It became a secessionist movement and was further strengthened by the subsequent policy of the government of India which showed that the Govt. had no confidence in the people of Kashmir”. (The Radical Humanist – March 1990)

(5) On Dec. 31, 1947 India referred Kashmir problem to the UN Security Council; Pakistan too lodged a complaint on Jan. 15, 1948. A debate ensued therein. Security Council resolution of April 21, 1948 and UNCIP resolution of Aug. 13, 1948 and Jan. 5, 1949 form the basis of debate on Kashmir in UNO. And UNCIP resolutions suggest free and fair plebiscite as a solution to Kashmir dispute. Both India and Pakistan accepted these resolutions. Pakistan, despite vulnerability, still supports the proposal for plebiscite whereas India, which is obsessed by a dream of overlordship in South Asia, is averse to a reference to plebiscite based on Kashmiris’ inalienable right to self-determination. Should not Kashmiris feel provoked to react?

Is it not true, in the light of aforementioned facts, that crisis in Kashmir is legalized and legitimized? Kashmiris have been forced to rise in revolt. Remember that ‘bullet for bullet’ policy cannot retrieve the situation in Kashmir. No doubt, humanistic approach can solve the Kashmir tangle amicably; but who will break the ice? Sane and sober pacifists of the State, irrespective of caste or creed, are ready to cooperate.

[Kashmir Times – April 4, 1998]

Stop tinkering with Kashmir issue

n an era where man has conquered space and time thereby converting the world into a global village how can Kashmiris

be oblivious of the trends of globalisation which are fostered through an emphasis on the confederation of free and sovereign countries. In the present era of knowledge and information explosion an average global citizen finds himself surrounded by an environment of research, analysis, objectivity and intellectual inquisition. So his intellect is no more subservient to sentimentalism and impulsiveness which was the hallmark of human civilization a few centuries back. Objectivity which is indispensably characteristic of modern democratic countries has controlled, if not completely replaced, the lust for brawn-assertion which formed the bedrock of the old subjectivity-based monarchial and dictatorial systems of governance. It is this objectivity and scientific realism which taught the nuclear powers

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to coexist notwithstanding their innate yearning for dominance and expansionism. Nuclear capability of these powers has successfully contained the trends of an all out global armed conflict. Thus the present day confederation regime represented by UNO, NAM, OIC, NATO, ASEAN, SAARC etc. has facilitated the job of achieving national objectives of economic prosperity and uplift of many a country. Democracy, which forms the ethos and essence of our global village culture, imparts strength to this principle of coexistence in dissent.

Man in himself is a complete institution looking for suffocation-free socio-political environment so that he can give vent to his sentiments and feelings as a conscious living being. He would like to be free to profess the ideas which appeal to him. Religion, the intuitive perception of God and his manifestations, forms a part, to be more empirical, of the temporal and metaphysical life of a large section of global society. Kashmir, as a part of this global society, would like to contribute to the growth and refinement of human civilization apropos scientific research and philosophical study of the dynamics of human activity and society. Kashmir, as a lover of its proud Rishi and Sufi culture, could play a commendable role in the various spheres of life – knowledge and culture. Alas! captive Kashmir finds herself totally strangulated and smothered. Kashmiris want to be free to thrive and prosper like free citizens of the free world.

Kashmir (J&K State) is surrounded by the three powers – China, India and Pakistan. All the three countries have occupied different portions of our State. China has occupied 12000 sq. miles of Aqsai-Chin; Pakistan enjoys a sway over 32000 sq. miles of Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir; and India has occupied 42000 sq. miles of Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Ladakh. So all the three neighbouring countries are parties to Kashmir issue. Reunification of all the parts of divided Kashmir is, of course, a dream which Kashmiri nationalists cherish. But an attempt to emphasize, with militant intransigence, this unification will be tantamount to waging a war of attrition against all the three powers in our neighbourhood. So, in order to avoid a situation where the Kashmir issue will be more confounded and complicated due to confrontation, it is quite expedient and advisable to stress a dialogue and debate on Kashmir. We sincerely believe that the negotiations between the parties concerned can eventually

culminate in an amicable, honourable and practicable solution of Kashmir tangle.

Emergence of free independent Kashmir is an idealistic objective of the nationalists of Kashmir. They would not like to compromise their stand and stance vis-à-vis the 52-year old Kashmir problem. However, in the background of their knowledge about global village and breaking barriers of obsessive and obsolete ideas about a state, they will certainly cooperate in a process to seek the equitable, viable and practicable solution of Kashmir impasse. Negotiating table will itself determine the nature and structure of future boundaries of free Kashmir.

In free Kashmir all the ethnic communities – Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists – will, in a federal system, share the privilege and responsibility of governance to make Kashmir a real welfare state free from economic exploitation, deprivation, ignorance and disease. With all our stress on scientific and industrial advancement we will ensure that our materialistic aspirations do not prove instrumental in creating ecological imbalance. Our cities and industries will certainly be eco-friendly. Protection of forests, wild life, lakes and orchards will be a part of our national agenda of priorities. Despite our commitment to democracy we will not allow muscle and money power to be the base of strength of the electorate. No corrupt or mediocre person will be allowed to contest elections. Our pattern of democracy will be, in fact, averse to the mediocrity of candidates aspiring to represent the people in various democratic institutions. However, honest, resourceful and benevolent votaries of social justice, freedom and human dignity will be encouraged to attain the highest position of power and prominence through genuine democratic process where adult suffrage will be free to assess and value the worth of the democrats in the election fray. The federal system of free Kashmir will guarantee the cultural autonomy of various ethnic and religious groups. ‘Cultural autonomy’ is the proper phrase to be used to express our concern about the freedom of our citizens to profess the ideas they like. Sufi and Rishi culture of Kashmir envisages guaranteeing the freedom of religion. Our democratic system will ensure that a common citizen is free to assert to further the cause of his/her ideology and ideas whatsoever. I am quite optimistic about the future dispensation of Kashmir. Traditional values of ethics in Kashmir will be safeguarded by

federal political system. In the democracy, which is in vogue in our neighbourhood, mud-slinging and vilification is the characteristic feature of the election campaign ostensibly aimed at highlighting the qualities and programme of the contending candidates. In our system of democracy a trend to dislodge the opponent through immoral means and methods will be discouraged by law.

Talking about the constitutional modalities of parliamentary democracy of free Kashmir at this juncture when Kashmiris find themselves sandwiched between the belligerent guns of India and Pakistan looks like building castles in the air. Better stress an early settlement of Kashmir dispute in accordance with the freedom aspirations of Kashmiris who are being butchered, maimed and mutilated by Indian forces day in and day out. Arson, carnage, rampage, molestation of women and desecration of holy places of worship is something the Indian forces are proud of identifying themselves with. These so-called security forces do not spare even the innocent children of Kashmir. In fact, life, property, honour and chastity of women is at stake in Kashmir. The free world, despite the disgusting scenario of human rights abuse and violations in the beleaguered valley of Kashmir, stands as a mute spectator to the onslaught of Indian forces. Cautious diplomatic verbiage of powerful countries regarding the deteriorating human rights situation in Kashmir has emboldened India. Your policy to appease the tormentors in our neighbourhood will simply aggravate the situation here and perpetuate our state of helplessness. So please express practical solidarity with the suffering people of Kashmir. You have to act right now to redeem the wailing Kashmir from the state of servitude, strife, chaos and confusion.

The free world should stop tinkering with Kashmir issue. It should take cognizance of the atrocities which the India security forces are perpetrating in Kashmir. A bold initiative should be taken by the free world to save Kashmiris from extinction and annihilation. Kashmiris are peace-loving by nature. Warring factions here will automatically come to terms with one another if and when Kashmir is set free by the intractable alien rulers. Hope the conscientious human rights activists will emphasize the exigency of an early settlement of Kashmir issue. This is what the weeping and wailing widows and orphans of Kashmir demand of you. Let

the global pacifists compel India and Pakistan to sit across a negotiating table to seek a durable, practicable and attainable solution of Kashmir issue ostensibly so vexed and knotty. Let this modest message of the moderates of Kashmir resistance movement be heard and noticed by the protagonists of peace, democracy, freedom and human dignity working in various world organizations especially UNO, NAM and OIC. It is high time for the world humanists to sympathize with victimized Kashmiris whose seventy thousand compatriots were martyred by Indian security forcers during the past decade. About twenty thousand Kashmiri freedom fighters have been languishing in the interrogation centres and jails of India for the last nine years. In fact Kashmiris’ sufferings are ineffable.

[Kashmir Times – Feb. 14, 1999]

SECTION-III

Paying homage to Maqbool Buttmy friend and guide

fter Magrib Nimaz and evening walk I and my colleague Maqbool Ganai, now a senior KAS officer in the state

administration here, had just opened the door of Mustafa villa at Muzaffarabad when I caught a glimpse of a glowing and lustrous face of a young man clad in black suit, with a neck-tie too, puffing away at his cigarette in a pensive mood. I approached the veranda

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where he was sitting in a chair. “Are you Maqbool sahib”, said I. “Yes, I am Maqbool”, he replied with a smile. I felt excited to the extent that I embraced Maqbool with exuberant love and passion as if we were ten –year old friends feeling thrilled and elated at the reunion. Immediately we started discussing the various important aspects of Kashmir freedom struggle. Ghulam Mustafa Alvi, our respected host, was kind enough to provide necessary comfort to facilitate our discussion which continued till late at night. A few days after, Maqbool sahib addressed the Plebiscite Front convention which was held in the second week of November 1969 at Muzaffarabad. Maqbool Butt was unanimously elected President of the Front which was previously headed by Advocate Abdul Khaliq Ansari.

Mohammad Maqbool Butt, my friend and guide, felt excited, exulted and exalted when my improvised experimental bomb, as a result of the reaction between concentrated sulphuric acid and a mixture of potassium chlorate and sugar, exploded with a blaze in the make shift training camp. Soon boredom overwhelmed me in Pakistan. Ultimately after spending complete seven months with Maqbool Butt sahib in Azad Kashmir I repatriated to Kashmir valley alongwith other two colleagues in May 1970. Maqbool sahib had advised us to travel unarmed. We could appreciate his prudence as infallible strategist when, after traveling for complete two days without food and while trying to negotiate appetite and fatigue by partaking of snow and abuj (sour leaves), about fifty BSF soldiers surrounded us in an ambush in the mountains of Athmuqam sector. Had the BSF soldiers recovered weapons from our bags they would have felt obliged to inaugurate the ‘catch and kill’ programme which is now so dear to them in Kashmir. My professed innocence could camouflage my real militant intentions which burgeoned in the later stage when militancy engulfed the whole of Kashmir valley in the year 1989. I never met my friend Maqbool Butt again after 1970.

Robust Maqbool Butt was a political genius at least ten years ahead of his age. He was an adept guerrilla leader having ingenious approach to problems unforeseen. He could speak in Urdu and English with authority and eloquence characteristic of an original orator. But for his deep involvement in political and militant activities he would have written a lot about philosophy of life and dynamics of a nation struggling for honour, freedom and

prominence. He remained languishing in Pakistani and Indian interrogation centres and prisons for about a period of fifteen years. He propounded the theory of independent Kashmir as an honourable way out of Kashmir tangle, impasse and imbroglio. As a Kashmiri patriot, therefore, he had a subjective approach to Kashmir issue. He was a lover of Kashmiriyat which is hallmark of Kashmiris believing in mystic way of life. Maqbool, as a guerrilla, entered Kashmir valley first in 1966. He was arrested in an encounter with Indian security forces. Tahir Aurangzeb, Maqbool’s colleague, was martyred in the encounter. After his escape from Srinagar Central Jail in Dec. 1968 Maqbool crossed the cease-fire-line and reached Muzaffarabad fort for sustained interrogation. He was subjected to physical and psychological torture simply because the Pak interrogators did not feel convinced with his statement about his escape adventure. Those were the days when the free world had not yet recognized Kashmiris as the most intelligent, brave and conscientious people struggling for freedom and glory as the distinct ethnic community of the world.In 1976, Maqbool, in order to register his protest against Simla Agreement of 1972 and Indra-Abdullah Accord of 1974, entered Kashmir valley again as a guerrilla leader alongwith his two proud colleagues Abdul Hamid Butt and Riyaz Ahmad Dar. All the three were arrested by Kashmir police at Handwara where a bank manager got killed at the hands of Riyaz Dar. Maqbool Butt remained languishing in Tihar jail for eight long years. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, the President of Pakistan, kept mum when India decided to hang Maqbool on February 11, 1984. Radio Pakistan did not bother to highlight the news. Kashmiris here in the valley were just in a fix what to do. I was in Srinagar Central Jail, living a prisoner’s life. Maqbool’s ideological adversaries in the jail did not feel worried much. Martyr Mohammad Maqbool Malik was one of the few who shared my grief and sorrow. Today everybody is eager to identify himself with Maqbool Butt. Maqbool to Kashmiris is a beacon light, legend and a hero to be emulated for times to come especially when it comes to offering a resistance to the forces of aggrandizement keen to assimilate and annihilate us. Posterity will certainly remember Maqbool with love and respect. Maqbool was a soldier of invincible courage and indomitable determination. He was a paragon of fortitude, will and valour. His name will continue to inspire the Mujahideen of Kashmir who

have been following in his footsteps, for the last seven years, with commitment and devotion.

The architect of the concept of independent Kashmir had to face untold sufferings and ineffable impediments and hardships during his struggle against the forces which could not bear with his veracity, subjectivity and originality of thought and action. The gem was a casualty in an environment of sadism, apathy, parochialism and obscurantism. Now eighty percent people living on either side of the cease-fire-line espouse the cause of independent Kashmir. Even the Pakistanis, who have a rational and objective approach to global problems, support the idea of a sovereign free Kashmir. In his article “Kashmiris’ Freedom Struggle” published in Greater Kashmir on Feb. 8, 1996 Dr. Qazi Ainuddin Ahmad flays his Pakistani brethren for their obsessive and outdated approach to Kashmir issue. “It is to be understood that the present and past failures could be attributed not to just Indian adamancy, but to our own policy weakness. A good and realistic policy should have brought dividends which are nowhere to be seen”. – “Let Kashmir, the whole of it, be returned to the Kashmiris who are the real owners of the land”. – “The fair solution is that if we offer to part with our part (of Kashmir) and India parts with the areas occupied by her, and let Kashmir go to Kashmiris. Thus there will be no loss and no gain for India and Pakistan”. – “There was a time when the present policy of Pakistan for plebiscite in Kashmir to choose between India and Pakistan was workable. Not any more. The Kashmiris are up in arms against Indian occupation. They are now a force to be reckoned with. They will have voice in any settlement. Third option has to be given not by choice but by compulsion. It is the only option which could bring the Kashmir problem the lasting solution”. These are some of the important excerpts from Dr. Qazi’s article which has explicitly unveiled the contradiction in Pak policy regarding Kashmir. Sardar Mohammad Ibrahim Khan, the first President of the provisional government of Azad Kashmir, had made an appeal to Pakistan to accord recognition to his government; there was no appeal for managing and manoeuvring the annexation of Kashmir with Pakistan. Let sagacity and sanity prevail on the people who look askance at those who want to suggest something pragmatic and practicable. Why should Pakistan continue to harp on something romantic and

impracticable, and that too at the cost of her own economic and political stability?

Kashmiris will continue to pay homage to martyr Maqbool Butt and the galaxy of other thousands of martyrs, including martyr Mohammad Hussain Advocate, for their heroic and patriotic role in the freedom struggle of Kashmir. If India could not spare an intellectual like Advocate Mohammad Hussain, what will be the fate of the intractable young men, a million in number, who look upon India as the murderer of fifty thousand Kashmiris and depredator of their culture, economy and solace? How would you assuage the bruised sentiments of thousands of Kashmiri women whose honour is at stake due to the presence of barbarian troops in the streets of Srinagar? Have the custodians of secular democracy decided to liquidate one and all in Kashmir? Don’t you realize that Kashmiris believe in God Almighty who is powerful enough to order and ensure the extinction of the might you are proud of? Yes, we believe in the law of retribution. You have to be answerable for your acts of repression.

Indian strategists, civil and military, should try to understand that their detractors in the West would like to see them embedded in a situation in Kashmir where your security forces will have no option except going berserk just to ensure their presence in Kashmir. This is how your ‘friends’ want to enigmatize your secular democracy. This is how they want to compel you to play second fiddle in the arena of global activities. Also it is equally true that Kashmiris, brutalized and traumatized, will continue to give vent to their feelings of vengeance and retaliation. Thus the action and reaction process will belittle your position to such an extent that you will eventually feel isolated all over the globe. It is, therefore, quite expedient to see reason in Kashmir case to help India extricate herself from the state of helplessness and uncertainty in Kashmir. India, as the powerful party to Kashmir issue, can take an initiative to pave the way for a peaceful and honourable settlement of Kashmir issue through intellectual interaction, political dialogue and negotiations. Senior and seasoned militants of Kashmir are poised to provide an occasion for it. It is for you to rise to the occasion to respond with optimism

[Greater Kashmir – Feb. 11, 1996]

Hostages to obsessive thinking

If guns fail in the wailing vale,To bring to you the woeful tale,

Of people killed, mauled and maimed,Then listen to me, the mourner you hail.

his is how I started my key-note address in Nehru University seminar on Kashmir held on Nov. 15, 1995 by South Asian

Forum for People’s Initiative. Dr. Anand Kumar, President of the Forum, and his proud colleagues, especially Sudhindra Bhadoria, ensured that the audience of the scholars, politicians and human rights activists remained passive and attentive so that I would divulge something startling while throwing light on the various aspects of Kashmir issue. It was really a privilege for me to find myself addressing the distinguished scholars and intellectuals of India in the highest seat of learning attributed to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the proud son of India.

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The conscience of the audience felt really tickled when I addressed the soul of late Pandit Nehru saying, “Can you quote a single Shalook from Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta, or a single verse from holy Qur’an or Bible where we find God emphasizing or giving us a provision that after making a commitment we should simply back out at our own sweet will?” During my hour-long speech I could discern that the mute listeners approved of my style of appeal and dialectics. However, in the second session of the conference a young man, perhaps an activist of Panun Kashmir organization, tried to create trouble by alluding to Nizam-e-Mustaffa in a sarcastic tone and accent. At this Dr Anand, my friend, tried to be prompt to give a rebuttal to restore the decorum of the conference. I don’t know how my speech provoked and cajoled Mr. Yousuf Tarigami, Kashmiri Communist leader, and Prof Bhim Singh to speak in a typical Kashmiri subjective way. This certainly added to the austerity of the decorous conference. Also I cannot but appreciate the role of the lady peace protagonist Ms. Shushila Bhan who in her address said that we were petty beings to speak for Nizam-e-Mustaffa. This was the humility characteristic of a realistic and dispassionate Kashmiri Pandit lady. While giving a rebuff to Dr. Ajay of Panun Kashmir for his shrewd effort to traumatize the audience by narrating the woeful tale of Kashmiri Pandit migrants I said, “ you proved cowards in the history. Let only ten Pandits join my struggle; I will shed my blood for your cause.” Next day BJP student activist published a handbill against me and the JNU student leader Mr. Krishan, who, during his address in the seminar, had categorically and vehemently espoused the idea of independent Kashmir and its confederation with South Asian countries.

It is true that Nizam-e-Mustafa is not a demon determined to devour you, but the way some Muslim fanatics and extremists plead the cause of Islam can certainly be unwholesome for the people who are already obsessed with their parochial ideas about life and universe. Obsession leads you to delusion. Orientalists interpreted the teachings of Islam in such a way that an average citizen of the West is allergic to a mere reference to Islam and Islamic system. Anything that tends to advise the Western countries to live a puritan life is attributed to ‘fundamentalism’ – the nick-name for a religion emphasizing self-denial, introspection and justice. It is obsession of Western countries about Islam which compelled them to carve out trouble spots in the various regions of the world. Israel, Bosnia, Kashmir and now Chechnia are only a few examples to be cited to explain how the western countries are interested in ensuring the involvement of the Muslim world in problems which are bound to consume its potentialities and capabilities. India and Pakistan accepted and recognized the reality of vivisection of Indian subcontinent in 1947. 564 princely states did realign themselves between the newly emerged Bharat and Pakistan. Alas! Kashmir became a bone of contention between India and Pakistan due to the handiwork of a cunning British, Lord Mountbatten at whose behest Red Cliff managed the annexation of Muslim majority zone Gurdaspur with Bharat through what is now known as Red Cliff Award. But for the ghost of ‘fundamentalism’ which continues to haunt the minds of the people of Western countries the Kashmir issue would have been solved by now.

It is ironic and equally deplorable that over-emphasis on Islam by some militant outfits in Kashmir facilitated the Indian endeavour to portray Kashmir liberation struggle as the onslaught of ‘fundamentalism’ being patronized by Pakistan and her allies like Afghanistan and Iran. So the unwritten memorandum of understanding envisages the close nexus between India and Western countries to contain ‘fundamentalism’ in Kashmir. Atoot-Ang obsession of India has further added to the intractability and irreconcilability of Indian leaders. They will continue to harp on their stand and stance vis-à-vis Kashmir until Indian forces are psychologically unhinged and physically dislodged from Kashmir by reckless assertive Mujahideen of Harkat-ul-Ansar.

It is again an obsession to believe that the conventional forces of India in Kashmir will eventually vanquish the unconventional guerrilla forces there. Guerrillas of Kashmir are a bit more volatile and energetic than those who defeated US troops in Vietnam, French troops in Algeria and Russian troops in Afghanistan. Protracted guerrilla war in Kashmir will ultimately culminate in the discomfiture of Indian troops which are already feeling tired and sick of the eight-year old war there.

Pakistani demagogues too are obsessed with the Shah-Rag theory regarding Kashmir; Pakistani leaders should have been equally wedded to the cause of sovereignty of Pakistan. These leaders of subjective approach believe more in group particularism than in the sincere will to express solidarity with the aggrieved people of Sindh and Karachi. Their ostensible political demeanour makes us believe that they have not learnt anything from Dacca fall episode. Is Karachi and Sindh a ‘liability’ like East Pakistan? Alas! The empire created by Quaid-e-Azam Mr. Mohammad Ali Jinnah in the name of Pakistan is now facing internal crisis, chaos and confusion. Internal turmoil of Pakistan has a natural bearing and imprint on the minds of Kashmiris here. It has given a new impetus to the process of disillusionment already set forth by the Pakistani authors of mismanagement on Kashmir front. Nothing can be done to rectify the wrong except that Pakistani leaders should divest themselves of the obsessive and subjective approach to Kashmir issue. They should try to visualize the horrifying ramifications of their less assertive initiative in Kashmir arena notwithstanding their profound boasting and bragging that their commitment to Kashmir cause is intact.

Pakistan cannot go to war with India, for the simple reason that nobody can guarantee the avoidance of nuclear holocaust in the subsequent phase of enhanced belligerency and bellicosity. Both India and Pakistan are equipped with nuclear weapons. Both the countries are engaged in a futile exercise to exploit and blackmail each other. Why should Kashmiris become a scapegoat in the psychological war of attrition between India and Pakistan? Why should the two countries continue to live on our misery? Guerrilla war in Kashmir will continue unless Pakistan and India display political will to negotiate and renegotiate for the permanent settlement of Kashmir issue. Sardar Mohammad Abdul Qayum Khan, the Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, in his recent ZEE TV

interview said, “Pakistan cannot afford to stop the movement of Mujahideen on the cease-fire-line. Why should she fight Indian war on her own soil? So we will continue to ensure that the border in Kashmir remains porous for Mujahideen of Kashmir.” What does Sardar Sahib’s statement insinuate? Yes, it unequivocally implies that guerilla war in Kashmir will continue until India gives up the path of intransigence in Kashmir issue. Mr. Saberwal, the police chief in Kashmir, addressed a press conference on Jan. 1, 1996 thereby revealing that ten thousand foreigners were active in Kashmir. Still the ‘election process’ is in ‘full swing’ in Kashmir. If Indian military officers cannot walk in the streets of Srinagar without proper protection, how can the Rasool Kars, the helpless redundant lot of politicians, invigorate your election machinery here? Let the sleeping dogs lie. Don’t try to aggravate the situation in Kashmir by playing with fire. Shun your myopic approach just to retrieve the situation here.

If the parties to Kashmir issue have a genuine longing for peace in Kashmir in particular and in South Asia in general they should cease to be hostage to obsessive thinking. In his thought-provoking article “Quaid-e-Azam on the status of princely states at the time of independence” published in Greater Kashmir of Jan. 25, 1996, Dr Qazi Anniuddin Ahmad has made an honest effort to explain how Quaid-e-Azam believed in the unfettered right of self-determination of the princely states which had become independent after the lapse of British paramountcy in India. Dr Anniuddin concludes his article with the verdict: “On the question of self-determination of Kashmiris, we have not been quite in line with the policy (of Quaid-e-Azam). If the future is to be determined by the will of its people, then they should be allowed all the three options which Quaid has allowed, joining Pakistan or India or to remain independent.” Kuldip Nayar the renowned Indian columnist, in his article captioned “Obsession of India and Pakistan” published in Kashmir times on Jan 17, 1996 complains in his scholarly way: “How can they (Indians) talk of peace with Pakistan when their logic is to talk from the position of strength.” Again he quotes a foreign correspondent who says that while Pakistan is obsessed with India, India is obsessed with itself.

History bears witness to the fact that rulers of belligerent countries never condescended voluntarily to seek a way of rapprochement until one of the warring countries was forced to give way to the

power and potential of its opponent under circumstances unexpected and unforeseen. Perhaps the same will hold good even today. We believe that blood of the innocent people who are being butchered by ruthless Indian forces day in and day out will not go waste. We will continue to crave for independent and sovereign Kashmir.

[Greater Kashmir – Feb. 1, 1996]

Sentiments of a bruised nationalist

ventually Jaleel Andrabi, the proud freedom zealot with exemplary commitment and devotion, succeeded in

surpassing his contemporary colleagues in the struggle for prominence as a lover of freedom and human rights which

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Kashmiris have been deprived of. I remember how Jaleel, as the junior but promising lawyer, used to assist the senior lawyers who were always prompt to defend me when Kashmir police would try to lay hands on me under various Indian draconian laws about a decade back. Advocate Jaleel Andrabi was an eyesore to the fascist forces of India which are bent upon breaking the will and resolve of freedom loving Kashmiris through barbarian acts of genocide, arson, pillage and desecration of holy places of worship. Jaleel, as a vocal human rights activist, successfully pleaded the case and cause of his enslaved and humiliated compatriots in Geneva. He was worried about the welfare of the victims of vandalism and repression especially the persecuted prisoners of conscience who have been languishing in the Indian jails and interrogation centres for the last seven years. Energetic and dynamic Jaleel was a passionate votary of Kashmir cause.

Jaleel Andrabi was not a gunman. He was not a militant in the strict military sense. Yet he was mercilessly liquidated by the so-called security forces of India. Why? The answer is not far to seek. Jaleel was a genuine democrat and pacifist who felt disgusted with the scenario of human rights abuse and violation in Kashmir. As a true philanthropist his heart would always feel wounded at the appalling and gruesome look of the ruined towns and villages of Kashmir. Elimination of Jaleel is certainly a cold-blooded murder and dastardly act to be condemned for times to come. Jaleel’s martyrdom has, in fact, added a feather to the cap of Kashmir Bar Association which is spearheading the legal battle for Kashmiris’ right to self-determination and freedom. The episode should not deter Kashmiri lawyers from continuing their struggle for the supremacy of human values. We salute the mother and learned brothers of Jaleel for the courage they displayed when everybody felt aghast at the heart-rending episode of the murder of the young jurist in thirties.

Today, on the 30th of March 1996, I was just having ablution for Fajar prayers when automatic weapons began to roar outside Hazratbal shrine. It was almost a one-sided show of a complete battle where deafening voice of the booming rifles and machine guns conveyed the message of a large scale raid on the house in which JKLF activists, who had already vacated the shrine a few days back, had been lodged by the Indian forces. The JKLF activists alongwith their chief Shabbir Siddiqi remained starving

for several days due to the siege laid by the Rashtriya Rifles around the house. So the starving and dozing hostages could not find time to react with the weapons which were lying in their possession. Shabbir Siddiqi, not a militant, practically expressed solidarity with the resolute warriors who laid down their precious lives for the safety and sanctity of Hazratbal shrine. They could use the shrine as a shield the way some militants did at other places. The committed young devotees did not let us down. The sacred shrine is intact. Hats off to the valiant votaries of freedom and mystic culture who testified with their blood that when it comes to safeguarding the supreme metaphysical urge for union with Allah life and body is immaterial. Martyrs are really alive. That is what the holy Qur’an teaches us. So supreme sacrifice of about thirty Mujahideen including Shabbir Siddiqi and Basharat Raza will continue to inspire the freedom fighters who are determined to continue their struggle for the liberation of Kashmir from alien rule.

Shabbir Siddiqi, 38-year old protagonist of Kashmir independence movement was a writer and orator. After all what is the rationale for liquidating the intellectuals like Shabbir Siddiqi and Jaleel Andrabi? It is a serious question to be answered by those who matter in the higher echelons of power in Delhi. Indian strategists have yet to understand the dynamics of Kashmir resistance movement. Try to study Kashmir history de novo. Sufi culture of Kashmir forms the bedrock of the socio-political activities of Kashmiris. Kashmiris believe in omnipotent Allah (God, Eishwar) who is powerful and competent enough to change the fate of a nation being victimized by a ruthless power. It was the metaphysical strength and power of Kashmiris which dislodged Mughals, Afghans, Sikhs and Dogras from Kashmir. Tyrant rulers may rule for a few days, but somersault and disastrous end is their ultimate destiny. You martyred Mohammad Maqbool Butt, the political genius of Kashmir, in Feb. 1984. Today every brave Kashmiri is eager to identify himself with martyr Maqbool. Maqbool Butt symbolizes Kashmiriyat which envisages absolute faith in God Almighty, resolve to resist the forces of onslaught and taking pride in our identity as a distinct ethnic community averse to the culture of bigotry, bias, fraud and perfidy. You Indians have no moral moorings in Kashmir. You made a solemn pledge in 1947 and after a few years backed out. Your “Atoot-Ang” stance is based on fraud and treachery. Your acts of betrayal

and high-handedness have already pushed Kashmiris to the wall. The third generation in teens and twenties resorted to violence to give a militant rebuttal to your acts of omission and commission. If you continue to belittle and underestimate the metaphysical resolve of the Sufi militants of Kashmir you will simply be inviting more trouble for yourself in Kashmir. It is the sacred blood of Kashmiri martyrs which inspires the junior incumbents of our resistance movement and as such forms the hub and pivot of the life in Kashmir.

I was still engrossed and engaged in writing something original about the Hazratbal tragic episode when a young man called on me and requested me to spare a few minutes for him. The young man, robust and articulate, mused on me saying “Sir, you will forgive me for my insolence. I should be allowed to declare that your moderate nationalistic line has miserably failed. It is true that we are sandwiched between apathetic Pakistan and ruthless India, but we should look for the friends who will extend total support to our cause of independence. With the martyrdom of Jaleel Andrabi and Shabbir Siddiqi Kashmir resistance movement has entered a new phase where the protagonists of independence movement have to have a reappraisal of their strategy to achieve their cherished goal of national independence and honour. I do concede that you are, perhaps, a bit tired of your ambition of freedom. However, the movement should recruit some more resourceful and dynamic activists who will continue their battle against the forces of onslaught and assimilation all over the globe. I will leave Kashmir in a couple of days and visit some important friendly countries to muster the support for Kashmir cause. Just possible I will never see you again in life. Once again I apologise for the inconvenience caused due to my interruption. Please pray for my success …….” With that the young political activist burst into tears. He left my cottage with lustrous and pensive eyes speaking volumes about his determination to do something substantial for the cause of freedom.

I leaned against a pillow in my room and felt listless for an hour. In the heart of my hearts I remained pondering on what the bruised young nationalist said to me. “Certainly the dimensions of Kashmir resistance movement have changed; the moderates have become irrelevant,” I muttered in solitude.

If India and Pakistan do not shun and abandon their obsessive and subjective approach to Kashmir issue the youngsters of Kashmir will be forced to think in terms of a protracted war of attrition with their adversaries in neighbourhood. Remember that war-weary elderly people shall have to go into oblivion. History will give birth to the most resourceful strategists of the unconventional war of which you have experienced only a rehearsal in Kashmir. To each and every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The more you suppress Kashmiris the more are the chances of their vehement reaction in revolt. Well, the callous and haughty strategists of India may not feel the warmth of the brewing revolution in their air-conditioned rooms. They will continue to be myopic and imprudent until the forceful currents of history constrain them to feel high and dry in an atmosphere of events which they cannot even visualize at present.

Shabbir Siddiqi’s martyrdom has traumatized the whole Kashmiri nation. In fact Shabbir Siddiqi and his proud colleagues, thirty in number, became scapegoats in the battle for supremacy and group aggrandizement of the political parties of India which are awfully busy in dislodging one another from the arena of election politics. Congress party and the BJP are trying to excel each other in an effort to humiliate and brutalise Kashmir. How long will this sadistic politics survive? At home here, equally sadistic was the role of Hurriyat Conference during the recent Hazratbal crisis. The day Commander Basharat Raza and his eight colleagues sacrificed their lives to safeguard the sanctity of Hazratbal shrine, Hurriyat Conference issued a statement which read: “We oppose the monopoly of a particular person or group on Hazratbal shrine…..” I fail to fathom how these words can help Dr. Fai in USA, Dr Ayub Thukar and Shabbir Choudhary in London in compiling a report on human rights abuse and violation in Kashmir? Ironically this statement certainly helped General K. V. Krishna Rao, the Governor of J&K, in the completion of his ‘task’ at Hazratbal on March 30. Still some people claim to be the leaders of this suffering nation. The hypocrisy so conspicuous has, therefore, tarnished the image of Hurriyat. It is time to make amends for the follies committed on the political front, or else your paranoia, brinkmanship and ostrich optimism will lead you to abysmal failure and frustration.

Genuine revolutionaries of Kashmir cannot but feel obliged to Krishna Rao for the indirect support he extended to Kashmir resistance movement at Hazratbal. Hazratbal episode has given a boost to Kashmir struggle. It has, in fact, rejuvenated the resolve of Kashmiri freedom fighters to assert subjectively against the forces which want to subjugate them.

[Greater Kashmir – April 3, 1996]

Kashmir: The arena of subjective politics

ubjectivity is the essence of existentialism. If you are keen to ensure the burgeoning of the creative ideas of philosophers,

poets, artists, architects or adept generals you should certainly foster their propensity for the subjective way of thinking. It is, in

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fact, advisable to allow calculated amount of encouragement in grooming the inner being of an individual endowed with potentialities and capabilities of head and heart. Freedom of thought is indispensable for the growth and development of originality. Unlike the individual cases of genius the subjectivity of a political leader proves fatal for a struggling nation having objective approach to life. Thanks to ego-centric leaders of Kashmir who could not see eye to eye with one another in evolving a consensus about the nature and future of Kashmir freedom struggle which started in 1931 AD with the martyrdom of about two dozen freedom zealots. But for the subjective approach and self-aggrandizement of the warriors of freedom movement there would have been no question of the present state of uncertainty and insecurity. Now we are engrossed in a war against the forces of onslaught and assimilation. We are supposed to live with it till we achieve our goal – the goal of independence, honour and dignity.

Every individual and self-respecting man identifies himself with his ego. Egoism is the hallmark of metaphysical being of a man. Egotism is, of course, the symbol of a syndrome of paranoia, megalomania and narcissism. Egotism of our egocentric leaders, now lying buried, played an important role in changing the course of our history. It was the same trait of their character which advised them to be intractable when the mainstream of natural events was persistently inviting them to have a reappraisal of their parochialism-based politics. Thus the self-aggrandizement and imprudence of leaders betrayed the poor Kashmiris thereby consigning them to the flames of carnage, rampage, molestation of women and desecration of sacred places of worship. Perversion in the local politics of Kashmir persuaded the senior stalwarts of Subcontinent politics to make a cat’s-paw of Kashmiri leaders whose subjectivity had rendered them unable to fathom the intrinsic nature of the group particularism of India National Congress and its adversary, the Muslim League. Thus Kashmir became the arena of subjective politics. Even Lord Mountbatten, the sadistic British ruler in India, played a subjective role in vitiating the atmosphere of Kashmir politics. He, due to his bias and malice, found it quite expedient to get the better of Jinnah in Kashmir by paving a way for Gandhian philosophy and Machiavellian politics of Nehru. While facilitating the Indian intrusion in Kashmir Lord Mountbatten advised Maharaja Hari

Singh to allow a referendum in Kashmir after restoration of normalcy to determine the future of Kashmir. Pandit Jawahirlal Nehru made a solemn promise of allowing a free and fair plebiscite in Kashmir to determine whether Kashmiris wanted to remain independent or that they wanted to accede to either of the two neighbouring countries India or Pakistan. Where Pakistan, despite her vulnerable and defensive position in the relevant UN resolutions on Kashmir, adhered to her policy of support to Kashmiri cause India found it quite convenient and expedient to back out of her commitment vis-à-vis Kashmir. Thus Indian political duplicity and hypocrisy complicated the Kashmir issue to the extent that the whole globe is worried about finding a possible way out of Kashmir tangle and impasse to ensure global peace. Indian intransigence and obduracy is the main hurdle in thwarting the efforts to seek a practicable solution of Kashmir problem. It is the same Indian intransigence and myopic approach as gave birth to militancy in Kashmir. Kashmiri youth, in teens and twenties, seem to have resolved to carry on the present struggle to its logical end. Sixty thousand Kashmiris were martyred by Indian soldiers. Events of molestation, sacrilege of mosques, custodial killings, victimisation, torture and destruction of villages and towns cannot allow Kashmiri youth to sit still. They have become absolutely reckless and volatile in their campaign to assert in the battle- field against 600,000 Indian soldiers. Folly on the part of Indian strategists, military or civil, to underestimate the resolve of Kashmiri freedom fighters to struggle for the cause of freedom and recognition as the self-respecting sovereign entity of the global community will simply boomerang to their astonishment. So Indian political elite and military top brass should see a reason in Kashmir case. Remember that a protracted battle in Kashmir will eventually force the Kashmiri freedom fighters to play a subservient role in what you call “fundamentalism-oriented” insurgency in Kashmir. True, we may lose our identity as a distinct ethnic society. But you too shall have to face something unexpected and unprecedented. Bear it in mind that the limited militancy in Kashmir, which we support just to break your will to stay here, can engulf whole of India if the clan of my contemporary political moderates expires physically or politically. We are the men of integrity, self-confidence and patriotism. By the grace of God Almighty we command respect in our society. It is high time to create a nexus with the genuine representatives of

Kashmir to seek a practicable and peaceful solution of Kashmir issue based on Kashmiris’ inalienable right to self-determination.

History bequeathed the legacy of subjectivity to the present generation of leaders and protagonists of Kashmir freedom struggle. On April 1, 1995 Ahdoos Hotel seminar culminated in the agreement to disagree. Despite modest appeal of Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Abdul Ghani Lone to have a reappraisal of the decision of self-immolation dear Yasin Malik continued to stick to his policy of individuality in decision making. Can we afford to approve his line of thinking in a situation when his decision is in contravention of the teachings of Qur’an and Hadith? Indian rulers understand that young Yasin is a devoted Muslim. They believe that this Muslim devotee can never consign his body to flames. They know that every ideological Muslim is averse to the very reference of Naar (fire). Also immolation ultimatum is the weapon of the weakest person to stress his demand. Is Yasin Malik, the committed warrior with a good background of struggle and sacrifice, really so weak as to be constrained to think in terms of suicide when thousands of his friends and colleagues wish him a happy and successful life. Yasin’s subjectivity, which is based on sincerity of purpose, has to give way to objectivity and collective opinion of the people he is proud of. Hope my political disciple will make out my message and change his line of ultimatum to make the enemy realize that Kashmiri warriors are competent enough to modify their war strategy. God bless him.

Brother Shabbir Ahmad Shah, my respected contemporary soldier, addressed a press conference in Srinagar on April 3, 1995 and complained that Kashmiri leaders were prisoners of subjectivity and party politics. Dear Shabbir visited my cottage thrice during the last three months. Still we did not discuss the important aspects of Kashmir resistance movement. Hope during his sojourn in Kashmir valley he will spare an hour for serious discussion with his elder brother. Seeking elections under UN supervision amounts to approving large scale infighting in Kashmir. United Front of the genuine forces struggling for the freedom of Kashmir has a natural mandate to plead Kashmir cause in any international forum. Yasir Arafat of Palestine and Nelson Mandela of South Africa were not asked to seek a mandate of their people through so-called elections. Their background of struggle and sacrifice was in itself a manifestation of mass support

to their cause. The political quarters abroad which suggest elections in Kashmir in any form and pattern are, in fact, interested in synchronizing the Afghan events of internecine war in Kashmir. So my friend Shabbir has to be cautious and calculated in his expression. Shabbir’s innocent subjectivity is never stubborn. He understands the language of his colleagues. It is time to forge unity of thought and action. A consultative forum of the historical forces of resistance can seek a solution of any knotty and vexed problem haunting the ongoing movement.

Indian state terrorism has reduced Kashmir to shambles. Indian forces have lost their moorings in Kashmir. They are brutalizing the innocent people. They have already butchered, maimed and mutilated thousands of young men here. The story of their atrocities and repression is, in fact, ineffable. The horrifying and ghastly look of the brutalities perpetrated by ruthless Indian soldiers has worried the human rights activists all over the globe. Kashmir is a volcano or a powder keg. The upheaval in Kashmir can trigger off a nuclear holocaust in South Asia. It is high time for India and Pakistan to rise to the occasion to seek a practicable solution of Kashmir issue. Do not belittle the metaphysical potency of the freedom struggle of Kashmir. The chivalrous Kashmiri freedom fighters do not yet feel like broadening the militant base of their struggle. They genuinely believe that the limited militancy will soon culminate in the peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue. Pakistan, while taking stock of the situation in Kashmir, should accept the changed ideological ground realities in Kashmir. Kashmiris cannot be taken for granted now. Kashmiris, with all their mystic culture and love for pan-Islamism, want to be pragmatic and realistic in seeking a viable solution of Kashmir problem. Pro-Kashmir stance of Kashmiris can neutralise the Indo-Pak belligerency and animosity so much so that the two countries, which are directly and indirectly involved in Kashmir turmoil, will practically shift from subjective stance to objective assessment of the realities related to Kashmir. Kashmir freedom fighters have, therefore, to assert in their campaign for self-recognition. We have to attach due importance to our individuality as a distinct socio-political community of the global village. Subjectivity of Kashmir will ultimately emerge victorious in the battle against the relentless forces which are bent upon assimilating it like a morsel of pudding. Yes, our movement

is really a resistance movement. We want to be a deterrent against alien onslaught, aggrandizement and assimilation.

[Greater Kashmir – April 6, 1995]

UN resolutions on Kashmir

ashmir, beleaguered and battered, continues to groan with the agony caused due to servitude and serfdom. Indian K

rulers, like their predecessor imperialist rulers, Mughals or Sikhs, did everything nefarious and abominable to humiliate and subjugate the poor Kashmiris who appear to be resilient and resolute to fight for freedom, honour and dignity. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had sentimental attachment with Kashmir for her natural feminine beauty. His innate love for Kashmir was camouflaged by his ostentatious and flamboyant political relations with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, then a Kashmiri stalwart in the forefront of Kashmir freedom struggle. Lord Mountbatten, the British ruler of India visited Kashmir and tried to persuade Maharaja Hari Singh to renounce the idea of independent and sovereign Kashmir. He, due to his aversion to and contradiction with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was ambitious to see Hari Singh coming to Congress fold. He, therefore, proved instrumental in providing an incentive to Mahatma Gandhi to visit Kashmir. Mr. Gandhi visited Kashmir in the first week of August 1947. During his stay in Kashmir he, through his incisive and prompt metaphysical intuitional appeal, tried to coax and cajole Maharaja Hari Singh to accept the dogma of docility in the realm of Bharat. Replacement of Ram Chand Kak, a moderate Kashmiri patriot, by Meharchand Mahajin, a committed Hindu fundamentalist, as Prime Minister of the State was in itself a stark inkling of the changed intentions of Maharaja. Pakistan was, therefore, provoked to pre-empt the designs of Maharaja by instigating the revolutionaries of Poonch and Mirpur to rise in revolt against the Maharaja. Thus Maharaja Hari Singh was compelled to flee Kashmir valley with bag and baggage on Oct. 25, 1947. Frustrated Maharaja found it quite convenient to make haste in signing the so-called instrument of accession – a sale deed, indeed, reminiscent of the one known as Treaty of Amritsar of 1846 when the British rulers of India handed over Kashmir to maharaja Gulab Singh in lieu of 75,0000 Nanak Shahi rupees. With the arrival of Indian troops in Kashmir on Oct. 27, 1947 the political influence of Indian National Congress in the state got augmented manifold. After having ensured their military presence in Kashmir Indian rulers, with an intention to sanctify their stand vis-à-vis Kashmir, lodged a complaint against Pakistan in UNO. Pakistan too castigated India in UNO for her conspicuous military intervention in Kashmir. Then only a few people knew that Pakistani troops were already engaged in giving military rebuff to India in Kashmir.

With the lodging of a complaint in UNO by belligerent India and Pakistan against each other debate on Kashmir ensued and eventually culminated in the passing of resolutions on Kashmir. UN Security Council resolution of April 21, 1948 and also United Nations Commission on India and Pakistan (UNCIP) resolutions of Aug. 13, 1948 and Jan. 5, 1949 envisage that:

(i): Pakistan should withdraw all her armed forces and tribesmen from Kashmir

(ii) India should withdraw bulk of the forces from Kashmir and deploy the remaining forces in Kashmir for the maintenance of law and order

(iii) Plebiscite administrator be installed with the consent of Srinagar government. It is worthwhile to mention here that Azad Kashmir government has been declared as a local authority in these resolutions.

So this is the crux of the resolutions which Pakistan refers to with assertion and emphasis day in and day out. Pakistan is quite conscious of the loopholes in these resolutions. That is why she is always prompt to bluff India in international fora. These days India and Pakistan are engaged in hectic activities in USA to dislodge and unhinge each other on the diplomatic front. It is, therefore, for the first time that Mr. Pranab Mukerjee, the Indian Foreign Minister, achieved partial success when he referred to UN resolutions on Kashmir with a bit serious diplomatic tone and accent saying that it was Pakistan which was violating these resolutions by avoiding to honour the obligation to withdraw her forces from the areas of Jammu and Kashmir lying under her control. After all, what forced Sardar Mohammad Abdul Qayum Khan sahib, Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, to declare in USA in unequivocal words that plebiscite was an impracticable idea. (Kashmir Times – Oct. 7; The Hindustan Times, Oct. 6, 1995.) Does it, therefore, mean that if India starts stressing the idea of implementation of UN resolutions on Kashmir the protagonists of accession to Pakistan theory will feel cornered, dislodged and vanquished in their battle for right to self-determination. If Pakistan is really serious about plebiscite in Kashmir she should suggest to Security Council that after necessary amendment of the UN resolution on Kashmir both India and Pakistan should be asked to work together for the simultaneous withdrawal of Indian and Pakistani troops from Jammu and Kashmir. After complete

demilitarization of the J&K state 12 million people living there can easily determine their future through free and fair plebiscite to be conducted under UN auspices. Well, if India, Pakistan and China, for certain strategic geo-political reasons, do not feel like approving the carving out of the sovereign independent Kashmir of 1947 with an area of 85,000 sq. miles serious negotiations between the parties to Kashmir issue for the early peaceful settlement of the tangle should, therefore, be emphasized everywhere. Intellectual interaction will form the bedrock of the political will to seek a peaceful, honourable and practicable solution of Kashmir issue so confounded because of the obsessive myopic approach of political elite of India and Pakistan, the two countries practically involved in the proxy war in Kashmir to get the better of each other.

Kashmir, like a bogeyman, will continue to haunt the minds of Indian and Pakistani rulers unless some metaphysical force helps them out of the Kashmir imbroglio they find themselves awfully entangled in. Mesmerised rulers and politicians of India and Pakistan have lost the capability to initiate meaningful dialogue on Kashmir. They are not interested in the well being of one billion people of the Subcontinent. Well, they are certainly engrossed and lost in their love for the mountains and jungles of Kashmir. So they will continue to vie with each other in their mad pursuit for Kashmir even at the cost of the solace and security of Punjab, Assam, Sindh and Karachi which are infested by the extremists hell-bent on destabilising the South Asia.

Indian forces in Kashmir are now running amok. These forces, in a fit of rage and frenzy, are trying to smear the vestige of hope and optimism by wreaking vengeance on everything that thwarts their way to vandalism, barbarism, rampage and carnage. The fear and phobia these forces are victim of compels them to look askance at every tree, bird and pebble lying on the bank of a murmuring rivulet. Manzoor Ahmad Butt, brother of martyr Mohammad Maqbool Butt, was liquidated by Indian forces for the simple reason that he was a committed lover of Azadi. Only a day back Prof. Mufti Abdul Ghani Azhari, renowned Arabic scholar of Kashmir University and Moulana Mohd Syed Naqishbandi, the Imam of Jamia Masjid Srinagar, fell prey to the brutality perpetrated by Indian forces. Prof Azhari was shot at with an intention to kill him. He had a narrow escape, though he was

injured by the bullets which pierced through his legs. Similarly Moulana Syed was beaten and bruised by the so-called custodians of law and order. In fact, custodial killing, burning of houses, desecration of sacred shrines and mosques, molestation of women and destruction of crops forms part of the programme of imperialist forces to humiliate and subjugate Kashmiris. Counter-insurgency is another facet of Indian ferocity. It consumed even the mystic gems like Haji Mohammad Siddique Dar. It is true that certain follies committed by dear militants gave birth to what has worried every sober and sensible citizen of Kashmir. Indian rulers are, in fact, playing with fire in Kashmir.

Both India and Pakistan are tinkering with Kashmir issue. India is notorious for her intransigence and intractability in Kashmir case. But what about Pakistan which fails to recognize the ground realities of Kashmir. Does she know that Kashmiris are now feeling disillusioned with the Shah-Rag theory because of the hypocritic attitude of Muslim Ummah which is interested more in trade with India than in a resolve to express solidarity with the suffering people of Kashmir. Quislings, stooges and puppets have always befooled and misled their mentors and masters. Why should hired persons apprise our Pakistani friends of the realities existing on ground here? People are fed up with obsolete and redundant modes and methods of furthering Kashmir cause. They want a change in strategy to deal with the Indian zealots of Machiavellian politics. Utopianism cannot pay now.

Kashmiris are indebted to Pakistan for her consistent support to Kashmir cause. Kashmiris have, however, a right to differ with the personalities which are inadvertently bent upon complicating the Kashmir issue. Sardar Abdul Qayum Sahib’s statement that plebiscite in Kashmir was an impracticable idea has forced us to believe that a reference to UN resolution on Kashmir by the dignitaries living on the other side of cease-fire-line is just a stunt to keep the Kashmir issue alive. Genuine revolutionaries of Kashmir resistance movement too believe that these resolutions are not indispensably sacrosanct. Remember that there were no UN resolutions for the partition of Indian subcontinent or dismemberment of Pakistan. It is the people’s resolve which gave birth to Pakistan or Bangladesh. Kashmiris are in no way safe in Indian system. They have been brutalized by the alien forces. Therefore, come what may they will continue to struggle for

freedom, honour and prestige as a self-respecting nation eager to enjoy an independent and sovereign status in the comity of nations. So this is the cherished goal of the heroic Kashmiris whose sixty thousand votaries of freedom got ruthlessly butchered at the hands of merciless Indian forces. Posterity cannot afford to renege on the commitment to the sacred cause of freedom.

[Greater Kashmir – Oct. 12, 1995]

Metaphysics VS temporal politics

istory testifies that the rustics of Afghanistan equipped with rust-ridden obsolete weapons kept hewing at the Soviet

agnostics for about a decade till vast empire of Soviet Union disintegrated into fragments which, in the comity of nations, are now recognized as sovereign units commanding respect like any free country of the world. After all, what inspired the poor militants of Afghanistan to offer tough resistance to Soviet onslaught? What persuaded them to offer the unprecedented sacrifice of thirteen lakh martyrs in the name of freedom, honour and dignity? Certainly it was their unflinching faith in God Almighty which imparted will and vigour to them to take on their enemy in the battlefield of Afghanistan. It was their commitment to the cause of Islam which invigorated them to the extent that they would always crave for martyrdom. Also it was the concept of hereafter which made them understand the mortality of this

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world and the eternity of the Absolute Truth they were wedded to. So it was their metaphysical approach to life and the world around that elevated them to a position where they would find it convenient to prefer death to surrender and slavery. Yes, it was the cosmic consciousness which infused the spirit of struggle into the nomads of Afghanistan. Thus the metaphysics of Afghanis faced the onslaught of Soviet temporal politics with perseverance and persistence till the latter gave way to the former.

Soviet agnostics and atheists, due to their temporal approach to life and universe, could not comprehend the transcendental realities which formed the bedrock of Afghan philosophy and politics. Hence the temporal politics of Soviet agnostics taught them to rely on tanks, artillery and aircraft in their war against the Afghan theists who would derive inspiration from their belief in Allah. In fact, Afghan war was a war between Allah and Soviet rebels. It is true that some Afghan Muslim guerrillas were equipped with modern sophisticated weapons; but these weapons were not actual source of their strength and power. Soviet nuclear arsenal could not frighten the Muslim guerrillas of Afghanistan. The recollection of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons and missiles could not intimidate and harass them. They faced the Soviet forces with indomitable will and valour. Eventually they emerged victorious in the Afghan war of attrition.

Monotheists believe that God Almighty is not only omnipotent but also omniscient and omnipresent. Therefore the votaries and zealots of monotheism have a strong intuitional urge to develop close nexus with their creator, Allah. They believe that Allah, who governs the whole universe, has power to solve their problems in the twinkling of an eye under “Kun Fayakoon” order. That is the logical conclusion and culmination of their meditation and introspection. Such monotheistic ideologues find themselves always poised to face impediments and hardships with insurmountable courage and determination. They assert and exert with confidence in the arena of their struggle for prominence and power. As against monotheistic introverts the agnostic extroverts have a limited and vague metaphysical comprehension of the realities pertaining to life and universe. Agnosticism, paganism, polytheism and communism are the isms which cannot necessarily guarantee the enlightenment of vision and refinement of soul. So confusion in intuitional perception will simply embroil and complicate life and performance of the votaries of these isms. Despite their large number their will to face the onslaught of the

warriors of monotheism staggers and founders in a miserable way. Soviet agnostics would brag and boast that no power on earth could dislodge them from Afghanistan. Ultimately they were forced to quit Afghanistan leaving behind the myth of their invincible power and potential. Afghanistan was, in fact, an arena of the battle between Muslim metaphysics and temporal politics of Soviet atheists. The metaphysics which we discuss and uphold in this article is the one which is characteristic of Muslim monotheists only. It is this metaphysics which is facing the onslaught of temporal politics all over the globe. Resistance movements of Kashmir, Palestine, Bosnia and Chechnia are a few living examples of Muslim metaphysics.

Metaphysics of Kashmiris is based on mysticism and monotheism. That is why they have exuberant love and respect for the great saints and sages of Kashmir like Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali, Sheikh Makhdoom Hamza. The desecration and destruction of Chrar-e-Sharif shrine, a bolt from the blue, bruised the religious sentiments of the Sufi Muslims of Kashmir. Kashmiri Muslims who are now in a state of trauma quite ineffable, believe that Kashmir war is in essence a war between Sufi metaphysics and Indian atheism-based secularism; it is a battle between believers and non-believers. In the Kashmir resistance movement, therefore, Kashmiri warriors are deriving inspiration and strength from their belief in omnipotent Allah. Their metaphysical nexus with Allah instills confidence into them. It rejuvenates their benumbed feelings. It invigorates them to face the challenge of rival forces. Hence the innate propensity of Kashmiri freedom fighters for untiring struggle for emancipation from foreign yoke will constitute the indispensable ingredient of the dynamics of Kashmir revolution. Martyrdom of sixty thousand freedom fighters, persecution and victimization of women and desecration of sacred places of worship is all that has forced the committed warriors of Kashmir to think in terms of a decisive war against the alien forces of onslaught and aggression. As such even the slight tendency of retreat or reconciliation on the part of a Kashmiri militant will be tantamount to apostasy, which, in Islamic jurisprudence, is a cognizable offence punishable with death. Sufi warriors of Kashmir resistance movement appear to have resolved to continue their struggle till victory. And this is how they want to assuage their wounded feelings and sentiments. Would that good sense prevailed on the people at the helm of affairs in Delhi! No ostrich optimism can save you from the wrath which will follow if Indian state terrorism continues here unabated.

Pro-azadi stance of the overwhelming majority of the people in Kashmir valley can be attributed to their disillusionment caused by the indecisiveness of Muslim world in taking an initiative to launch a diplomatic offensive against India to prevent her from perpetrating atrocities and repression in Kashmir. In case India fails in visualizing how honourably she can bail herself out of the Kashmir embroilment and imbroglio in a politically congenial atmosphere of growing Kashmiriyat, uncertainty in Kashmir may continue for a few years more till our Sufi sentiments, out of mere compulsion, will toe the line of the reckless warriors of Peshawar, Balochistan and Afghanistan. Kashmiri moderates, who enjoy some sort of sway over the young militants, may become irrelevant and redundant within the next decade if the rulers in New Delhi fail in realizing that protracted war in Kashmir will mean the surrender of Kashmiriyat to nomadic militancy which will obliterate all that may appear thwarting its way to power and preponderance. It is for India to understand that obsessive myopic approach to Kashmir issue will eventually prove detrimental to her own sovereignty. Obsessive neuroticism in Kashmir case will certainly destabilise the whole of South Asia. It is, therefore, incumbent on all the parties concerned to seek a practicable solution of Kashmir issue without inviting further trouble in Kashmir, Karachi, Punjab, Nagaland and Assam. Remember that a policy to contain militancy in Kashmir through a strategy of fake encounters will prove counter-productive. Your acts of barbarism, custodial killing, humiliation of fair sex and sacrilege of shrines has already infuriated the self-respecting freedom zealots of Kashmir.

US “befriend all, offend none” policy in South Asia suits her economic interests in the region. Mr. Wisner, US ambassador to India, during his recent visit to Kashmir conveyed, through his expediency-based diplomatic language, that he was an honest guardian of this US policy in south Asia. Pity the power which, in the name of theism and philanthropy, mobilized the whole globe including the Muslim and Christian countries to ensure the dismemberment of agnostic Soviet Union, but now remains holed up in the cocoon of parochialism and bigotry simply because its temporal politics does not see eye to eye with the metaphysics of the eastern countries which believe that only the materialistic approach to life cannot guarantee global peace. On the one hand western countries are raising hue and cry against the human rights abuse and violation in Kashmir and on the other hand they do not

fully assess the dimensions of the threat to peace in South Asia due to the perpetuation of turmoil in Kashmir. War in South Asia can break out by an accident. Nobody can guarantee détente in South Asia if Kashmir question remains unresolved indefinitely. If USA does not come up to the expectations of the victimized and humiliated people of Kashmir, Palestine, Bosnia and Chechnia it will, as per the law of retribution, meet the same fate as arrogant and sadistic Soviet Union met due to her wrong subjective approach to global politics. In the war between metaphysical realism and temporal idealism the modest mystic forces of Kashmir, Palestine, Bosnia and Chechnia will emerge victorious to the astonishment of the exponents of skepticism and cynicism. The day is not far when Allah, the omnipotent creator of the universe, will pronounce His decree in favour of the helpless enslaved people tormented and tortured by the relentless forces of vandalism and imperialism.

[Greater Kashmir – July 3, 1995]

World conscience on trial

ears involuntarily coursed down the eyes of the mourners who had sentimental attachment with Chrar-re-Sharif shrine.

Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali (RA) the great saint of Kashmir is revered as spiritual father (Murshid) by overwhelming majority of Kashmiris having love and respect for the mystic culture of their motherland. Chrar-e-Sharif shrine, now a debris inspiring awe and grief, was a source of metaphysical inspiration and strength. The sacred shrine was the proud spiritual Sufi heritage of all those who would derive inward bliss and solace from the exquisite mosaic which was a part of the glamour and glory of the shrine complex. The mute mourners with wounded heart and bruised soul find themselves crestfallen. The dejection and despondency caused by the desecration and destruction of the centuries old sacred shrine is, in fact, ineffable. The episode has left indelible

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imprint on the hearts now in a state of trauma. The dimensions of the grief and distress are beyond the comprehension of those who have no interest in the philosophy of mystic life. What did India achieve by desecrating and demolishing the spiritual monument of our beloved saint at Char-e-Sharif? You wanted to break our will to struggle for freedom. You have miserably failed in your endeavour to psychologically unhinge the resolute and chivalrous warriors and votaries of Kashmir freedom struggle. Your dastardly act has, indeed, boomeranged. It directly added to the indomitable will and valour of the committed freedom zealots of Kashmir. It invited diatribe of the countries interested in seeking an early settlement of Kashmir issue. Ironically speaking, your adept yet naïve generals inadvertently facilitated the process of global disillusionment vis-à-vis Indian secularism and democracy.

They say might is right. It is rightly the underlying principle of the Indian system, because contradiction and hypocrisy is the pith and marrow of the Indian politics. Pilots of the planes which brought Indian troops from Delhi to Srinagar on the 27th of October 1947 had been advised to avoid landing if they apprehended a resistance of the “raiders” who were keen to capture the Srinagar airport. This was the nature of the cautious approach of Indian rulers to Kashmir problem in the beginning. After ensuring their military presence in Kashmir the Indian rulers shifted from cautious approach to aggressive posture and stance. Indian rulers started clamouring that Kashmir was an integral part of India. This was in contravention of the commitment of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian Prime Minister, that with the restoration of law and order in Kashmir the Kashmiri people would be allowed to determine their political future for themselves through a free and fair referendum to be conducted under UN auspices. With the passage of time India accumulated military strength and with that she became obdurate and intransigent in her stand and stance vis-à-vis Kashmir. Her aggressive subjectivity and national aggrandizement did not allow her to see reason in Kashmir case. Military power and potential intoxicated her so much so that Kashmiris’ modest appeal for the implementation of UN resolution on Kashmir infuriated and exasperated the people at the helm of affairs. They brutalized the people who demanded plebiscite in Kashmir. Protagonists of Kashmir cause were subjected to psychological and physical torture in the interrogation centres and jails. Kashmiri third generation in teens

and twenties resolved to give a rebuttal to the expansionistic designs of India in Kashmir. It was, therefore, Indian repression and oppression in Kashmir which forced the Kashmiri youth to rise in revolt against Indian onslaught here.

During the last seven years of active resistance movement in Kashmir about sixty thousand freedom fighters were mercilessly martyred, maimed and mutilated by ruthless Indian forces. About thirty thousand freedom fighters, especially the youth, have been languishing in the interrogation centres of India. After having failed in containing the resolve of the Kashmiri warriors Indian forces started to desecrate the holy places of worship here. Is it not a fact that about fifty thousand Mujahideen are engaged in the guerrilla activities in various parts of Kashmir? What was, therefore, the rationale for besieging a few militants in Chrar-re-Sharif for a period of two months? In the militant ‘hide and seek’ game the few militants you wanted to liquidate ultimately succeeded in getting your troops entangled in an adventure which resulted in the sacrilege and destruction of the holy shrine. The discomfiture and embarrassment you are confronted with cannot be concealed in the hue and cry of so-called election process in Kashmir. Indian subterfuge and prevarications to hoodwink the free world cannot succeed. You have to concede to Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. Azadi is our cherished goal. We will continue to struggle for its accomplishment no matter what price we shall have to pay. Kashmiris will face the impediments and trials and tribulations with fortitude and courage. Chrar-e-Sharif flames vindicate that you have lost the war in Kashmir. Your every effort in frustration and desperation to defeat the militants here will prove counter-productive. In the protracted war of attrition Kashmiri Mujahideen will eventually succeed in dislodging you from Kashmir. You have no moral moorings in Kashmir case. Your betrayal and breach of promise has already tarnished the image of India in the free world. You cannot befool all the people at all times. It is, therefore, high time to rise to the occasion to make amends for your failure in keeping your word. You have to seek an honourable and practicable solution of Kashmir issue. Procrastination will simply complicate the already vexed Kashmir problem. We know you have learnt to turn a deaf ear to our political sermons. It is time and time alone which will decide whether ‘might is right’ or that right is the real might.

How long will the Muslim countries continue to wobble and vacillate between professed ostentatious philanthropy for poor victimized Kashmiris and indolence in taking an initiative to launch a serious diplomatic offensive against India to compel her to stop large-scale human rights abuse and violations in Kashmir? Are the trade and economic interests of Muslim countries more precious than the blood which enslaved Kashmiris are shedding for freedom, honour and dignity? Can’t you sever your trade relations with India for a few days? Despite our repeated appeal for help you continue to strengthen your trade relations with India. Are your material interests really paramount as against your obligation to come to our rescue? Temporal interests have certainly suppressed the metaphysical approach to life. How can, therefore, the hardened hearts take cognizance of the ghastly and appalling situation in Kashmir? Alas! The Muslim conscience is dead.

How long will the western countries continue to dither on Kashmir front? Their apathy and indifference has certainly emboldened India in Kashmir. If you are really interested in safeguarding the global peace and tranquility you have to assert right now to redeem the poor victimized Kashmiris from the state of servitude and helplessness. You have to retrieve the situation in Kashmir to avert a nuclear holocaust in South Asia. You have to help both India and Pakistan in finding a way out of Kashmir tangle and quagmire. Turmoil in Kashmir cannot be contained unless India and Pakistan concede our right to be free like free people of any sovereign country. So Kashmir issue cannot be left in limbo for an indefinite period. Situation in Kashmir is quite explosive. Uncertainty is the permanent feature of life here. The brew of anti-India hatred, acrimony and rancor can give birth to an upheaval not conceived by the western countries till now. Whither world conscience? Does not free world realize that dereliction on Kashmir front will be tantamount to approving the nefarious designs of our enemies to annihilate a generation rather a race in Kashmir? It does not behoove you to sit still like mute spectators enjoying the panorama of mountains, forests and foliage. Don’t you discern the palpable agony of the people here groaning in distress and grief. If, notwithstanding your ostensible concern about human rights abuse in Kashmir, you fail in mitigating the suffering of the people here, we will be led to

assume that the sadistic world wants to live on our misery. Hence conscience of the civilized world is on trial.

India should not overtax the patience of Kashmiris. Indian rulers should fully assess the dimensions of the inveterate bitterness caused by the reign of terror let loose by her forces in Kashmir. Atrocities perpetrated by ruthless forces cannot cow down the committed warriors of freedom movement. Kashmiris have courage and stamina to negotiate the obstacles thwarting their way to freedom and independence. Kashmiris have learnt to live with Indian truculence and onslaught. How can you browbeat the valiant people whose 1500 houses and 200 shops were set ablaze at Chrar-e-Sharif? Kashmiris with insurmountable freedom resolve and aspiration cannot afford to think in terms of reconciliation and retreat. They will continue to march towards their cherished goal of freedom from foreign yoke. However, the Chrar-e-Sharif fait accompli should persuade both India and Pakistan to deal with Kashmir problem with meticulous care, flexibility and finesse. Subjective and obsessive approach to Kashmir issue will further complicate it thereby aggravating the already deteriorating situation in Kashmir, which due to arson, rampage and carnage presents the look of a veritable hell. How long will this massacre, mayhem and desecration of holy places continue here? Just visualize the aftermath of the recent happenings here. Prudence demands cautious reappraisal of the realities on ground; hence the political will to resolve Kashmir issue peacefully and amicably.

[Greater Kashmir – May 20, 1995]

From idealism to realism

few years back Iranian revolution insinuated that Iran would never reconcile to the realities now accepted by her with

acumen and magnanimity characteristic of a genuine modern state having firm ideological base at home. Iranian leader, late Ayatullah Khumeni, who extricated his nation from the abyss of anarchy-based monarchy, resisted the physical and psychological onslaught of the alien forces of aggrandizement with courage and determination. He did not bother about the forces which tried to intimidate him. He was certainly a political genius with extraordinary metaphysical potency and potentialities to take on his any adversary in and outside his country. He continued to adhere to his policy of assertion as a true monotheist having indomitable faith in the supremacy of Allah. For Iranian nation, therefore, he was a symbol of self-confidence and unshakable commitment to the cause of glorification of his country as a

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modern ideological state ambitious to vie with the contemporary developing countries in neighbourhood in the field of science and technology. In Hashmi Rafsangani Iran discovered a moderate ideologue eager to juxtapose his religious bent of mind with the aspiration of his nation to thrive in the scientific world. During his visit to India Mr. Rafsangani found it quite expedient to befriend India through the policy of appeasement. The memorandum of understanding signed by Iran, India and Turkmanistan for trade and transit facilities is a testimony to the fact that temporal aspirations of Iran are gradually becoming paramount as against the vexed problems like Kashmir or Palestine. This is the cautious realism of ideologically conscious Iran which persuades her to be a bit pragmatically magnanimous in recognizing what she was averse to a few years back. Iranian President, through various gestures, conveyed that he was no more allergic to a reference to the word ‘secularism’. His traditional support to Kashmir cause in euphemistic tone and accent indeed ostensibly sanctified his ‘progressive’ line in determining the nature of his foreign policy. Is it a transition from vulnerable idealism to impregnable realism? Rafsangani’s offer to mediate in Kashmir case is looked upon as an attempt to camouflage his failure to espouse the Kashmiris’ cause of freedom with assertion.

Leaders condescend where their resolve to struggle for a sacred cause staggers. Indra-Abdullah accord of 1975 depicted the political somersault of Sheikh Abdullah. What was the rationale for his surrender to cynicism when the posterity was poised to rise in revolt against the Indian onslaught in Kashmir? His decision to disband Plebiscite Front was irrational. Basically he lacked commitment to the cause of freedom. He remained oscillating between self-centred idealism and professed stance of sacrifice. His sentimentalism led him astray. His subjective idealism did not allow him to be objective in his approach to Kashmir issue. So he proved an utter failure. Had he been a genuine ideologue he would have never reconciled to the disappointing situation caused by Dacca fall episode. He ought to have reposed absolute trust in God Almighty. Sheikh Abdullah, for glory and self-aggrandizement, propounded the theory of secular nationalism saying that the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists of Kashmir had a common goal to live as distinct cultural unit of the global community. His “Aadarish” stand foundered like a house of cards when his friends in Jammu launched a campaign against what

they regarded as his pro-Muslim politics. Sheikh’s pro-India stance could not save him from the wrath of his offended non-Muslim friends in Srinagar, Jammu and Delhi. About fifteen hundred Muslims, not Pandits or Dogras, were killed when Abdullah was dethroned and arrested in 1953. It was the Kashmiri Muslim who shared his grief and suffering through thick and thin. His frequent visits to Vishnovdevi cave could not appease his annoyed mentors he was once proud of. So his “Aadarish” idealism could not stand the test. It had to yield to the stark reality that only a section of his compatriots was ready to cooperate. Eventually idealism gave way to realism.

Late General Zia-ul-Haq, the ruler of Pakistan, was perhaps the first Muslim leader to concede that Israel too had a right to live as a state. Present stand and stance of Arab countries vis-à-vis Israel vindicates that Zial-ul-Haq’s disillusionment was a part of his rationalism and realism. Arabs could not throw Israel into Mediterranean ocean. They accepted the dogma of peaceful co-existence and mutual recognition. The principle of mutualism will ultimately force the protagonists of ‘Akhand Bharat’ movement to shift from neuroticism-based idealism to objectivity and realism. They will soon realize that Muslims of India have a right to live like respectable first class citizens. They will also recognize Pakistan’s right to live as a self-respecting sovereign country. They will ultimately concede to Kashmiris’ right to self-determination as promised by late Pt Nehru, the proud son of India. The idealism that Kashmir is the ‘Atoot-Ang’ of India or the ‘Shah-Rag’ of Pakistan cannot help us seek a possible and practicable solution of Kashmir issue. We all have to be dispassionately realistic in seeking a way out of Kashmir tangle, impasse and imbroglio. Please do not aggravate the already deteriorating situation in Kashmir by laying stress on romanticism-based political idealism in Kashmir case. How long will you continue to live on our misery? The enslaved and humiliated people of Kashmir find themselves sandwiched between belligerent India and Pakistan. please have pity on us. Allow us to determine our political future for ourselves. We are not mesmerized cattle to be left unheard indefinitely. Free world has to respond to our call for help. Dereliction on Kashmir front will simply foster the forces of destabilization in South Asia thereby endangering the global peace and tranquility. So we have to find a peaceful and pragmatic solution of Kashmir issue.

At home, Kashmiris have to be equally realistic in reappraising the realities on ground. No benevolent Kashmiri protagonist of freedom movement can afford to be romantic in his approach to Kashmir problem. Well, sadists cannot be vanquished through sermons of philanthropy. They have their own line of thinking. Sadism has facilitated the ways and means for many Muslim countries to develop better trade relations with India notwithstanding our repeated demand and appeal to impose economic sanctions against India to compel her to see reason in Kashmir case. Answering a question of a Pakistani journalist in Rawalpindi Amanullah Khan, JKLF leader, says: “there are some disappointed people in Kashmir who feel that great sacrifices were made during the seven long years of struggle. I think this is only the twentieth part of the sacrifices offered by the people of Algeria. You have yet to offer nineteen parts of sacrifice. Then and only then you will be able to achieve freedom. The freedom which you will achieve with less sacrifices than mentioned will not be viable”. (Weekly Zindagee, Lahore, Feb. 10, 1995 –page 19). Indian forces martyred fifty thousand Kashmiris during the last seven years. It, therefore, means that you have yet to offer the sacrifices of nine hundred and fifty thousand people over a period of 133 years to come. What does this typical cathexis smack of? Yes, it certainly smacks of sadism so characteristic of a person not necessarily having unflinching faith in Allah, the omnipotent creator capable of changing the fate of a nation in the twinkling of an eye. Who destroyed the well-pitched tents of the twelve thousand soldiers of anti-Islamic forces of Arabian Peninsula who had besieged Madina in the battle (Gazwa) of “Khandak”. We are perhaps oblivious of our heroic past when faith and faith alone would work wonders. So it is not the despondency but the humility in the court of Almighty Allah which makes us ponder over the various aspects of our great resistance movement. We are not pessimists. Our optimism is based on our faith in Allah. He will not leave us in the lurch. He will certainly come to our rescue. Our dedicated efforts will be soon crowned with success. Please recite the last verses of “Surah Bakra” day in and day out. Here you are taught to make an appeal to Allah to lessen your burden of responsibilities. This is the spirit and essence of mysticism we Kashmiris are proud of.

To crave for independence of the whole state of Jammu and Kashmir without actually ensuring the active involvement of all the zones, which constitute the state, in the freedom struggle of Kashmir is nothing but utopianism and romanticism. Please have a realistic and objective approach to Kashmir issue. People abroad should not live on our misery. Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars. We will soon emerge victorious in the war of attrition we have waged against the forces which are bent upon subjugating us through all the overt and covert means of coercion and repression. Azadi is our cherished goal. By the grace of Almighty Allah we will achieve it before long.

O God, grant us serenity To accept the things we cannot change,Courage to change the things we can.

[Greater Kashmir – April 21, 1995]

Repercussions of protracted Kashmir war

ut for the bewitching panorama of mountains, forests, cascades, orchards, lakes and fragrant Mughal gardens of

Kashmir the neighbouring countries would not have felt allured and enticed to fall in love with her. The beauty of Kashmir is, therefore, the source of our perpetual misery and suffering. India clamours that Kashmir is her integral part (Atoot-Ang). Likewise Pakistan believes that Kashmir is her jugular vein (“Shah-Rag”). Much to the embarrassment of these countries we declare that

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Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris. Poor Kashmiris’ assertion that Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris has, therefore, become a “sin” which instigates the neighbouring lovers to wreak sadistic vengeance on them. Kashmir has become more important and valuable than Kashmiris. Kashmir, the bone of contention, has entangled India and Pakistan in a protracted “proxy war” of nerves. Now since both the countries India and Pakistan are equipped with nuclear weapons it will be quite expedient for them to avert a full-fledged conventional war through a mere reference to their nuclear capability. However, efforts to get the better of each other through “proxy war” will continue till the ground realities force the two countries to adopt a dispassionate and realistic approach to Kashmir issue. Realities have already changed in Kashmir. Moderates of the state, irrespective of caste or creed, are still optimistic about a practicable solution of Kashmir issue; whereas the extremists are bent upon destabilizing the whole of South Asia for the materialization of their cherished dreams of freedom, emancipation, Islamisation or expansion of India as “Akhand Bharat”. Fanaticism derives inspiration from an activist’s will to assert for the cause he is proud to profess. Precisely speaking South Asia has become an arena of the battle between idealism and realism. Hitherto there is an ambivalence between the two. Rationalism is juxtaposed to extremism. That is why the political elite and military top brass of South Asia has successfully managed the containment of trends of emotional outburst on a large scale. Well, commotion does exist in Kashmir, Karachi, Assam, Nagaland and Punjab. India and Pakistan have now learnt to live with turmoil and upheaval in these areas. Although the men at the helm of affairs are satisfied with the status quo, yet the revolutionaries are seriously thinking in terms of undoing this status quo of events.

The scenario of the fast changing realities on ground suggests that both India and Pakistan should rise to the occasion to have a scientific and pragmatic reappraisal of the problems which have bedeviled and embittered their relations. While paying tribute to Dr. Qazi Nisar, martyred by the votaries of intolerance a year back, in a public meeting in Anantnag on the 8th of June 1995 I, in my modest but assertive tone and accent, tried to bring home to the political and military strategists of India that they should not underestimate the resolve of Kashmiris to struggle for freedom. It is a folly on their part to think that militancy in Kashmir can be

controlled and contained through a policy of genocide and massacre. If India succeeds in annihilating the young men of Kashmir the surviving sisters and daughters of martyrs will be forced to invite young Muslim warriors of Azad Kashmir, Balochistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey to join their freedom struggle in a big way. The original incoming warriors will eventually become a part and parcel of the population here. The principle of polygamy will facilitate and ensure their presence in Kashmir. These original, born-warriors and militants will remain strolling in the forests and mountains of Kishtwar, Bhaderwah and Himachal Pradesh to manage successful militant operations in the densely populated cities of India. The nature of the militancy, twenty years hence, will be quite different from that of the one existing at present. Remember the prevalent modest militancy of Kashmir is still under partial control of the political moderates who are quite particular about seeking an early peaceful and honourable settlement of Kashmir issue.Protracted guerrilla war in Kashmir will mean fractional annihilation of the local fighting force of Kashmir, incentive for the large scale induction of foreign militants and hence a change in the gene character of Kashmiris. Kashmiris, modest and meek by nature, would not be happy with a change in their ethnic character. Onslaught of Indian forces will, however, compel them to recast their ideas about life, society and state. They will be forced to express their solidarity with the reckless warriors who will come to their rescue from neighbouring Muslim countries. They will finally, with the passage of time, get adapted to the concept of unification of geographically contiguous Muslim countries. Nobody will, then, feel allergic to the theory of accession to and annexation with Muslim countries in neighbourhood. This is how they will safeguard their proud legacy of sacrifices made for a supreme cause of freedom and glorification of Islam. If erstwhile Soviet Union, with all her nuclear arsenal, could not subjugate the poor Afghanis how can India, with her modest military potential, vanquish the warriors who will be all fire and fury in the northern Himalayan mountains of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Remember that protracted Kashmir war will give birth to terrorism of the worst order. It will paralyse life in the cosmopolitan cities of India. Fear, uncertainty and upheaval will be the permanent feature of Indian towns and villages. Communal polarization will be another unwholesome dividend of the protracted guerrilla war of Kashmir. Indian

Muslims, who have been already pushed to the wall through anti-Muslim communal riots, will feel cajoled and enticed to join the militant struggle of the Himalayan hawks. Thus the multi-social, multi-religious and multi-linguistic India will get disintegrated under the weight of the problems she is voluntarily creating due to her intransigence and obsessive stand and stance vis-à-vis Kashmir. Is it not a fact that the vast empire of Soviet Union became a victim of her own imperialism and expansionism? It got disintegrated into fifteen fragments.

It is for Indian elite and intelligentsia to decide whether rationalism and pragmatism be allowed to replace parochialism and myopic approach in politics or not. The Agni missiles, tanks and artillery cannot withstand the militant hurricane which will follow the present Indian onslaught which is consuming our youth the way fire consumes dry wood. Just visualize the aftermath and serious repercussions of the long-drawn war in Kashmir. How can Altaf Hussain, the momentarily offended MQM leader, save you from the somersault and debacle you shall feel confronted with within a decade hence? How long will you continue to exploit the helplessness of Kashmiri Pandits who were instigated by your imprudent friends to betray and stab the Kashmir resistance movement in the back? Sedate and sober Pandit brethren should understand that the role of a stooge or quisling is always disdainful and condemnable. Their decision to join the fray in Kashmir can pave a way for their honourable return to their home and hearth in Kashmir valley; or else their indifference can add to the process of communal polarization already set forth by the chauvinistic approach of Indian army which desecrated and destroyed the Chrar-e-Sharif shrine.

Protracted war in Kashmir can have a serious impact on the system in Pakistan as well. The deeply religious minded people in Pakistan have already started feeling disillusioned with what they call the secular government there. If Ms Benazir Bhuttoo fails in seeking an early settlement of Kashmir issue without further deteriorating the home affairs of Pakistan the volatile forces believing in religious supremacy will have no option except rising in revolt against the establishment there. Government of Pakistan shall have to enter into meaningful negotiations with India to find a way out of Kashmir tangle and impasse keeping, of course, the ground realities of Kashmir in view. This is how the PPP

government of Pakistan can ensure its present tenure and future popularity. Kashmiris cannot be taken for granted always. Kashmiris do realize that ideologically weak Pakistan cannot assert in a decisive way while expressing her solidarity with the valiant and heroic struggling forces of Kashmir. Pakistan’s indecisiveness will benefit neither the present establishment in Pakistan nor the ongoing movement of Kashmir.

Seasoned moderates who are very particular about safeguarding peace and prosperity in South Asia should realize that western countries are never sincere in the concern they ostensibly show while referring to Kashmir. Is it not a fact that it were the British rulers of India who proved instrumental in creating what is now known as ‘Kashmir problem’? Who gave birth to Israel? Who is living on the misery of the people in Bosnia and Chechnia? Who battered Iraq a few years back? Who is allergic to a concept of self-reliant East? Who is interested in perpetuating the monopoly in nuclear technical know-how? In fact, sadism and apathy of the western countries will never help resolve the complicated and vexed Kashmir problem. It is for the leaders of India, Pakistan and Kashmir to facilitate serious negotiations on Kashmir for the permanent settlement of the issue which triggered off three wars in South Asia. You have to understand the implications of obduracy-based obsessive stance which has already reduced Kashmir to shambles. Please be objective in your approach to Kashmir issue to mitigate the suffering of the poor Kashmiris and also to avert total political cataclysm and upheaval in South Asia.

[Greater Kashmir – June 13, 1995]

Dismemberment of Kashmir

ashmir, during the golden era of emperor Lalitaditya about eleven hundred years back, was a vast empire with its

boundaries adjoining present Sri Lanka in the South and Central Asia in the North. The process of dismemberment of this great Kashmir Empire passed through various phases of permutation and combination of borders during the centuries preceding the local Muslim rule in Kashmir. Before the advent of Mughal rule in Kashmir local Kashmiri Muslims had already ruled over Kashmir for a period of about 250 years. During the exemplary rule of Sultan Sikandar the empire of Kashmir comprised the parts now known as Pakistan, northern India, Afghanistan etc. Kashmir, during Dogra rule, consisted of Kashmir valley, Jammu, Ladakh,

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Aqsai Chin, Gilgit, Baltistan and the areas now known as Azad Kashmir. Dogra Kashmir was an empire spread over an area of 85,000 sq. miles. According to the partition plan of 1947 the princely state of Kashmir, like other 564 princely states, was supposed to accede to Pakistan or India or remain independent. Independence of Kashmir was the priority option of Maharaja Hari Singh, the autocratic ruler of Kashmir; but the concept of independence option was frustrated and jeopardized by British rulers of India and the politicians of the Subcontinent. But for the national aggrandizement of India and Pakistan and also the sadistic politics of Lord Mountbatten, the last British Viceroy of India, the boundaries of Kashmir of 1947 would have been intact. Alas! Kashmir could not retain its sovereignty and independence. She fell a prey to the forces of onslaught and assimilation.

With the formation of Ladakh Hill Council the government of India formally inaugurated the process of disintegration and dismemberment of the already mutilated state of Jammu and Kashmir. Who inspired India to do so? Who instigated her to embark upon this perilous task? The people who have capability to answer these questions maintain cautious and calculated silence simply to avoid the risk of being vulnerable to the diatribe of the imprudent and impetuous hawkish activists of Kashmir resistance movement. However, some of the innocent young men and a few worried politicians did react to the Indian declaration of constitutional aggression in Kashmir. By and large the conscious and courageous political activists thought it quite expedient to insinuate through their meaningful silence that the countries which surround Kashmir have agreement of interests and as such they are steadily and gradually implementing the partition plan which has sanctified all their decisions to mutilate Kashmir and humiliate Kashmiris. Still respected Sofi Ghulam Mohammad, one of the senior and elderly journalists of Kashmir, grumbles in his modest way saying: “…. (Kashmiri) leaders have become helpless and inert. It is their inertness which emboldened India to form Ladakh Hill Council as a part of her Kashmir partition plan.” (Editorial, Srinagar Times: Aug. 17, 1995). Again Sofi Sahib, while commenting on the party politics of the politicians of India and Pakistan, complains in a patriotic way saying: “… Kashmiri youth are being slaughtered, butchered and martyred; hamlets are destroyed and houses burnt to ashes. Everything is ruined. Yet the leaders of Kashmir are listless. They have become dummies. They

have no politics, policy or strategy of their own to present a solution (of Kashmir issue)”. (Editorial, Srinagar Times: Aug. 25, 1995). These words, prima facie attributed to a seasoned journalist, depict, in fact, the mode of thinking of the common people of Kashmir who have made unprecedented sacrifices during the past seven years for the cause of freedom, honour and dignity. In order to dispel the doubt inadvertently created by the ostensibly sincere editorial comments of the daily Srinagar Times we hereby find an occasion to narrate, in a precise way, the story of steadfastness and assertive patriotic subjectivity of a few freedom zealots of Kashmir resistance movement.

Pakistan, under an agreement with Jammu Kashmir Muslim Conference, acquired the possession of Gilgit and Baltistan on April 28, 1949. These northern areas of Kashmir are, therefore, lying under the direct control of Pakistan. Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir cannot visit these areas without the formal permission of Pakistan. K. H. Khursheed, as a brilliant and conscientious Kashmiri leader, suggested in 1962, under the banner of his organization JK Liberation League, that Gilgit and Baltistan should be allowed to merge with Azad Kashmir and the latter should be recognized as the genuine independent and sovereign part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. This suggestion and demand was turned down by Pakistan. Mr. Khursheed felt embarrassed. Eventually the ruler of Azad Kashmir and former secretary to Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was dethroned, arrested and lodged in an interrogation centre where he was kept languishing for months together alongwith his colleagues. Similarly Mohammad Maqbool Butt, advocate Abdul Khaliq Ansari, G. M. Mir and Gh. Mustafa Alvi launched a campaign in Azad Kashmir, under the banner of JK Plebiscite Front, for the cause of independent Kashmir. All these leaders alongwith their hundreds of colleagues were arrested and subjected to torture in various interrogation centres including Dulai Camp and Shahi Fort of Lahore. Pakistan always felt allergic to an idea of independent Kashmir. That is why Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, despite his power and authority as the president of Pakistan, kept mum when India decided to hang Maqbool Butt on Feb. 11, 1984. It is the same allergy and aversion of Pakistan to the concept of independent Kashmir which coaxes and cajoles the Pak politicians to insult and abuse the votaries of independent Kashmir movement. A few days back Sardar Asif Ali, the foreign minister

of Pakistan, while commenting on Al-Faran drama said that the drama was reminiscent of the one staged by India in 1971 in the form of Ganga hijacking. Ashraf Qureshi, one of the heroes of Ganga hijacking adventure, gave a rebuttal to Sardar Asif in his BBC interview explaining how the supreme court of Pakistan had declared in its verdict on Ganga hijacking case that all the accused of the case, including Mohd. Maqbool Butt, were genuine freedom fighters of Kashmir. One fails to fathom why the politicians of Pakistan abuse the lovers of independent Kashmir despite the Supreme Court verdict. In the presence of the scenario of these realities Pakistan and her friends here in Kashmir cannot afford to offer tough resistance to an Indian decision to annex Ladakh with New Delhi through Ladakh Hill Council drama and gimmick. Sane and sober people know that it was Pakistan who, by annexing Gilgit Baltistan with Islamabad, provided an incentive to New Delhi to do something similar here. Does it, therefore, mean that the parties to Kashmir issue have to facilitate the dismemberment of Kashmir. It is, perhaps, a paradox for those who think and a message for those who decide. They say weak must go to the wall. Pity the poor country, Kashmir, which has become a scapegoat in the love and hatred game of her detractors. Perhaps we have to learn to live with the inevitable disaster of dismemberment. Well, the die-hard protagonists of Kashmir resistance movement may not feel like condescending to approve what can finally uproot them from their very home and hearth.

Our detractors and denigrators get infuriated when we suggest and stress the reunification of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Only a few people know that Pakistan, by way of friendship and appeasement, ceded an area of 2500 sq. miles to China in 1963 under a provisional agreement which envisages its reappraisal when parties to Kashmir issue will negotiate for a final settlement of the issue. Remember that China has already occupied an area of 14,000 sq. miles of Aqsai Chin in 1962 Indo-China war. It is, therefore, the national aggrandizement of the countries in our neighbourhood which allures them to overlook the expansionistic designs of one another. Our protest demonstration, condemnation and agitation against the expansionistic designs of our sadistic detractors in neighbourhood cannot dislodge them from the areas occupied by them. Hats off to the valiant militants who mean business. We, the moderates of Kashmir resistance movement, remained struggling in a peaceful and democratic way for decades

together for the peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue, but in vain. Youngsters of the third generation succeeded in asserting in a militant way against the stranglehold and onslaught of India in Kashmir. They know how to carry the movement to its logical end. They are the harbingers of freedom and independence of Kashmir.

Stressing simultaneous demilitarization of the whole state of Kashmir including the areas held by China, Pakistan and India will be tantamount to waging a war against all these countries which constitute half of the globe. Countries of the remaining half will be indifferent for their own national interests. Does it, therefore, mean that it is quite expedient to suggest what has been copiously explained in Mir Abdul Aziz’s article “ Dixon Plan for Kashmir” published in the daily Greater Kashmir on Aug. 23, 1995? People who know the constitutional and political history of Kashmir understand that a reference to UN resolutions on Kashmir by Pakistan is more a stunt than a stand based on will to dislodge India from Kashmir through a plebiscite to be conducted under UN auspices. Some technical loopholes in UN resolutions have made the position of Pakistan quite grotesque and vulnerable. Negotiated settlement of Kashmir tangle is, therefore, a possibility to be stressed. Intellectual interaction between the parties to Kashmir issue will form the basis of the debate to be held for the final honourable, peaceful and practicable solution of Kashmir problem. Tripartite talks between India, Pakistan and Kashmiris will certainly pave the way for peace and prosperity in South Asia. Let our neighbours be happy and prosperous but not at the cost of our freedom and solace.

One cannot but denounce the deplorable demeanour of India and Pakistan which are hell-bent on destroying each other through ‘proxy-war’. The virus of turmoil existing in Kashmir, Punjab, Sindh, Karachi, Assam and Nagaland can engulf the whole of the Subcontinent thereby endangering sovereignty, peace and prosperity of the two countries. What is the rationale for spending billions of rupees on a war which will result in the debacle and discomfiture of both the countries which want to dislodge each other from Kashmir? Please set Kashmir free to guarantee your emancipation from the state of helplessness, indecisiveness, obscurantism and romanticism you are ostentatiously displaying on Kashmir front.

[Greater Kashmir – Aug. 28, 1995]

The last odyssey

“O God! Forgive me for my lapses;crown my efforts with success; andmake my journey secure and safe.”

ith these words I boarded the small boat which could not accommodate more than five or six people. Since we were

only three including the rower the journey was, therefore, expected to be safe. Immediately after dusk the boat started

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moving towards the destination – Sopore. From Banyair (Hajin) it took us about an hour to reach the heart of Vular Lake just opposite the shrine Baba Shukr-deen. All of us remained rowing the boat with full vigour. Slight movement in the air would have turned the boat turtle thereby consigning the zealous adventurers to the turbulent tides of the lake for good. After about six hours we reached Sopore wherefrom it took us several days to reach Kandi forest. Through the forest I, alongwith my young colleagues including the group leader Tariq, reached the beautiful vale and dale of Lolab where a few more courageous young men joined our group. From Lolab the group marched towards the border mountain Tehjin. So, while negotiating the precipitous rocks of Khumriyal mountains, dense forests and frightening camouflaged fortifications of Indian security forces, we reached the ridge of mountain Tehjin. We kept walking day and night despite inclement weather – rain, thunder and clouds. The elderly guide heading the group of nine adventurers stopped and, while pointing towards a distant mountain peak covered by snow, said, “ that is Qasim Post of Pak army.”

“Yes, the sacred destination”, “the young companions exclaimed with joy. The idea of proximity of the destination made them a bit sentimental. All of them involuntarily burst into tears and prayed for the safe journey. The tired and exhausted adventurers felt inspired and we started moving forward with added resolve. At night we, from a height of 14000 feet, gradually climbed down the snow-clad mountain till we reached the roaring stream. The starving adventurers with benumbed limbs had to be extremely cautious while embarking upon the tedious task to cross the improvised bridge – a long dressed tree lying horizontal across the furious stream. By the grace of Allah we succeeded in what was no less than an acrobatic feat to be performed by almost dozing mountaineers. There was an apprehension that three or four members of the group including this humble self would collapse due to cold, hunger, fatigue and wet clothes. So I ordered the young companions to collect dry wood. Two heaps of wood were set on fire. We sat around the fire for three hours till we felt invigorated and relaxed. Recklessly ignoring the fear of ambush of the security forces or the minefields we started ascending the next mountain. We were only two or three kilometers away from Qasim Post but our weariness was an obstacle in the accomplishment of the task – the conquest of Qasim Peak.

Resolute Tariq, accompanied by the elderly but stout guide, decided to fetch a few loaves of bread from the Qasim Post. Pak soldiers were kind enough to spare four ‘chapatis’ but they did not allow Tariq to return to the spot where we were waiting for the succour. After three hours of wait for the relief we did succeed in partaking of a piece of bread. The sumptuous lunch imparted psychological strength to us to recommence the journey. Thus the month long expedition culminated in our tryst with the Qasim peak – the awe-inspiring peak excelling the panoramic mountain peaks around. We heaved a sigh of relief. This was my last odyssey which ended on Oct. 21, 1990 at Qasim rendezvous. In fact this ninth odyssey too was a success from the security point of view.

Commander Shahid-ul-Islam was prompt in receiving me at Muzaffarabad. He gave an incentive for forging an alliance of militant organizations. All other commanders were ready to cooperate. Thus United Jihad Council (UJC) came into being in Nov. 1990. I was elected the first chief of the Council. The militant outfits like Hizbul Mujahideen, JKLF, MJF, Al-Umar, Operation Balakot, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Jamiat-ul-Mujahidden constituted the Jihad Council. In fact it was an alliance of eighteen militant organizations. After three months the UJC split into two factions due to ideological confrontation between pro-independence and pro-Pakistan groups. The faction headed by this humble self was pro-independence and as such it had to suffer and face hardships. The pro-Pak faction of UJC comprising about a dozen groups succeeded in mustering the support, moral and material. I decided to hold a protest rally against the discrimination. About four thousand militants joined the procession which intended to cross the cease-fire-line unarmed. At Gaddi the aggrieved militants assembled in a school compound where Amanullah Khan, JKLF Chief tried to pacify the volatile gathering but in vain. I too failed in bringing the young warriors round. Commander Tariq Kashmiri of Operation Balakot did succeed in pacifying the young militants. …… A delegation including Amanullah Khan and this author had a meeting with those who matter in the higher echelons of power. Ultimately after a protracted battle of ideas and sentiments I decided to distance myself from militancy and work on political and diplomatic front. The quarrel did not end there. For several years pro-independence and pro-Pakistan militants frittered away their strength and

stamina in group-clashes in Kashmir valley. And today’s renegade culture is just an offshoot of that fratricidal battle.

Assassination of Maqbool Malik, the senior leader of Mahaz-e-Azadi, forced me to do something concrete on the diplomatic front to save Kashmir resistance movement from internal chaos and confusion. On Dec. 12, 1992 I entered Great Britain and spent complete seven months in addressing important conferences there. I launched Save Kashmir Movement in England. I emphasized the exigency of an early peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue to save Kashmiris from extinction. But for my scathing diatribe and vehement condemnation of religious bigotry and political parochialism the pro-independence activists would have been on the receiving end even today. I launched a complete crusade against the aggrandizement and group particularism of pro-Pak forces on both sides of the cease-fire-line. It was my rationalism, pragmatism and humanism which conquered the hearts in dissent. Well, it is equally true that I was ruthlessly vocal in my assertion. Today pro-independence movement is a force to be reckoned with.

In the year 1994 M. Yasin Malik, the JKLF leader declared unilateral cease-fire just to save the Kashmir resistance movement from internal anarchy. Pakistani papers called him traitor and Mir Jaffar. I and martyr Ghulam Qadir Wani staged a dharna against this campaign of vilification in front of the office of Urdu daily Jang in Rawalpindi. Pakistani papers castigated Shabbir Ahmad Shah when he adopted, ostensibly, a nationalistic line after his release from jail in 1994. I seized the opportunity and returned to Kashmir valley in Jan 1995 to assert as a senior political activist for the peaceful solution of Kashmir issue. In 1997 G. M. Butt, the Jamaat-e-Islami chief adopted the policy of peace and pacifism for an early settlement of Kashmir issue. In doing so the historical resistance forces of Kashmir saved about 200,000 youth of Kashmir from extinction. We succeeded in reviving the political culture where freedom of expression has given a new dimension to the resistance movement here. We extricated the print media from the abyss of suffocation and helplessness. People are no more averse to constructive activities.

Today Muhammad-bin-Qasim, my spiritual disciple at Muzaffarabad, is sixteen years old. He is poised to play his heroic

role. He is watching the developments with meticulous care. He may feel constrained to join the fray if Quomi Mushawarti Council (QMC) and Hurriyat Conference become redundant due to obsessive and imprudent approach of New Delhi and Islamabad. Indian rulers have already failed in understanding the dynamics of Kashmir resistance movement which survived notwithstanding the onslaught of Mughal, Afghan, Sikh and Dogra rulers. Even the “fourth army of the globe” could not break the will and resolve of self-respecting Kashmiris. Kashmir is certainly a “fuse in the tinder-box of South Asia”. So it is high time to address the long-standing dispute to save a situation in South Asia. Political will, acumen, prudence and intellectual honesty are the prerequisites of a genuine peace process and dialogue on Kashmir. And remember that tripartite talks between the parties to Kashmir issue are indispensable to guarantee peace in South Asia. Why defer solution of a problem which has, indeed, given birth to multi-faceted problems in South Asia, viz. polarization, impoverishment, hunger, disease and hallucinatory megalomania? I, as a modest protagonist of the cause which claimed about 800,000 Kashmiris, would like to make an appeal to OIC (an apology for alliance as they call it) to shun hypocrisy and do something meaningful to mitigate the sufferings of poor Kashmiris who have become scapegoats in the arena of confrontation between India and Pakistan. Other world fora too should cease to be indifferent to our plight.

[Kashmir Monitor – Aug. 5, 2000]

Pragmatic approach to

Kashmir issue

In the perspective of some salient features ofKashmir history

1) Kashmir, over four centuries ago, enjoyed the status of an absolutely sovereign and independent country. Eleven hundred years back Kashmir, during the reign of Hindu ruler Laltaditya, was an empire with boundaries adjoining the southern parts of India in the South and Tibet and Samarkand in the North. In Muslim era of sway the local Muslim rulers, especially Shahab-ud-din and Zainul-Aabdeen (Budshah), commanded respect as powerful sovereign rulers from Sirhind to Sindh and Tibet to Samarkand. Local Muslim rule in Kashmir lasted for two and a half centuries. Kashmir valley always served the purpose of a hub of power and prominence. It was in 1586 A.D. that Mughal rulers of India, through a treacherous political manoeuvre and blatant military onslaught brought Kashmir under their control. Mughal rule in Kashmir lasted for 166 years. Next came Afghans who ruled over Kashmir for 70 years. Afghan rule was followed by Sikh rule which lasted for 27 years. With the advent of Dogra rule in Kashmir after the Treaty of Amritsar in March 1846 A.D. Kashmiris faced an agony of forced labour (Bei-gaar) for a period of hundred years. In an environment of general upheaval and revolt against the British rule in South Asia Kashmiris found it quite convenient and expedient to rise in revolt against the autocratic Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh in 1931. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Moulvi Mohammad Yousuf Shah, the Kashmiri leaders, spearheaded the resistance movement which culminated in the fall of Dogra rule in 1947.

2) With the partition of Indian subcontinent in 1947 and thereby the emergence of two sovereign and independent countries, Bharat and Pakistan, Kashmir became a bone of contention between the two neighbouring countries. The cautious but clandestine political manoeuvre of India to seduce the Dogra ruler of Kashmir provoked Pakistan to instigate the local insurgents of Kashmir against the autocratic ruler. This is how Pakistan tried to give a rebuff to India on Kashmir front. However, her pre-emptive indirect action aborted when Maharaja Hari Singh decided to accede to India ostensibly on Oct. 26, 1947. Maharaja’s decision infuriated Pakistan to the extent that she ordered her army to join the fray in Kashmir, notwithstanding the delaying tactics of Pak Christian commander-in-chief, general Grassy, who pretended obedience to his supreme commander, field marshal Auchinleck who was hell-bent on dissuading Pakistan from militarily intervening in Kashmir. The ensuing

battle between India and Pakistan in Kashmir was followed by a debate on Kashmir issue in UN Security Council. Eventually the United Nations Commission on India and Pakistan (UNCIP) in its resolutions of Aug. 13, 1948 and Jan. 5, 1949 recommended cease-fire, demilitarization and plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir. Alas! The UN resolutions on Kashmir could not be implemented despite three wars between the two contending countries, India and Pakistan; thus the Kashmir issue remains unresolved till now. A pertinent question haunts our mind here. Who is responsible for the stalemate and Kashmir impasse – India, Pakistan or the powers which profess humanism and philanthropy?

3) UNCIP resolution of Aug 13, 1948 envisages a recommendation for the withdrawal of all Pakistan troops from Kashmir; whereas India has been asked to withdraw bulk (not all) of her forces from the parts of Kashmir occupied by her. Implicitly it means that India has been accepted as custodian of law and order in Kashmir. This is a position which is never acceptable to Pakistan for times to come. Un resolutions on Kashmir do support our right to self-determination and freedom. Pakistan, we agree, is a passionate supporter of our cause. However, the Kashmir problem became more complicated and confounded due to the intransigence of India on the one hand and obsessive approach of Pakistan on the other. We, Kashmiris, have a bit different approach to the issue. There were no UN resolutions for the vivisection of India in 1947, there were no UN resolutions for the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971, and there were no UN resolutions for the emergence of East Timor as a sovereign country. It is the people who opt for a change; they rise in revolt and the world community intervenes for pacification and pacifism. We Kashmiris, have a genuine cause. We have been struggling for freedom for the last four hundred years in general and 52 years in particular. Why should Kashmiris become a scapegoat in the arena of Indo-Pak confrontation and brawn-assertion? Why should we get sandwiched between the two belligerent countries which refuse to recognize our right to freedom and independence? Why should Kashmiris be forced to become an appendage to the cult of expansionism when we understand that you have already failed in mitigating the sufferings of crores of people who have been gasping in impoverishment, disease and hunger.

4) The Kashmir resistance movement, which started about four hundred years ago against the onslaught of alien ruler, is replete with events when a few intractable revolutionaries of Kashmir, while trying to dislodge the despot in power, were overpowered and skinned alive just to frighten the poor Kashmiris who had already been languishing in subjugation and servitude. Mughals, Afghans, Sikhs, Dogras and now Indians – all tried to persecute and humiliate Kashmiris. The people of Jammu and Kashmir, irrespective of cast and creed, had to face untold sufferings during and after the partition of Indian subcontinent. The epidemic and virus of communalism afflicted this state as well. Lakhs of people were brutalized, killed and exiled. The misery and suffering of internally displaced compatriots is equally horrifying and ineffable. During the decade-long insurgency in Kashmir about seventy thousand Kashmiris were martyred by Indian security forces. An equal number of people got maimed and mutilated. Thousands of houses were set ablaze. Thousands of Kashmiri youth have been languishing in jails and concentration camps of India since 1990. The modesty of women is at stake here. How deplorable and regrettable it is that the scenario of death and destruction in Kashmir is watched by the free world with sentiments of sadism! The ghastly look of the wailing vale of Kashmir cannot move the hardened hearts of the people around. Insensitiveness is hallmark of the present global politics. Some people perish and others live on their misery. Still the clamour and glamour of humanism remains unimpaired. This is something ticklish for the highbrows who matter in the higher echelons of power.

5) The nuclear explosion of India and Pakistan in May 1998 changed the very complexion of politics in South Asia. The concept of numerical superiority of India over Pakistan has become irrelevant and preposterous. Now Pakistan is at par with India in nuclear capability and missile technology. Both the contending neighbouring countries, despite differences have to behave like responsible nations just to ensure global peace. It is incumbent on both the countries to resolve their outstanding disputes amicably and peacefully. Priority should be given to early settlement of Kashmir issue. You cannot afford to perpetuate the state of confrontation in Kashmir for an indefinite period of time. You have to manage food, clothing and shelter for crores of people who are living a life of destitution and penury. It is

imperative for the western powers too to foster the trends of détente, reconciliation and rapprochement in south Asia. This is how they can safeguard their economic interests here. Resolution of the long-standing dispute between India and Pakistan is indispensable prerequisite for a genuine peace process in South Asia. Dereliction will be tantamount to promoting the danger of a nuclear holocaust in this region. Hope the global powers – USA, China, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and Japan – will leave no stone unturned in facilitating a trilateral settlement of Kashmir issue through tripartite talks between India, Pakistan and Kashmiris. Please have pity on helpless, humiliated and victimized Kashmiris who find themselves on the receiving end due to the perennial bellicosity between India and Pakistan. We want peace, but with justice. And delay in justice is injustice. So it is high time for the free world to respond to our call for help.

6) Kashmiri freedom activists who are wedded to the cause of independence of their motherland can, through an emphasis on patriotic subjectivity so characteristic of a genuine freedom fighter, create a situation, political in nature, where India and Pakistan will be forced to divest themselves of the obsessive stand and stance vis-à-vis Kashmir. So the subjective resistance movement can serve the purpose of a bridge of understanding between the two countries. In the background of this philosophical and psychological aspect of Kashmir issue we, the pro-freedom activists of Kashmir, have decided to strengthen independence movement through a battle of logic and rationalism. Nevertheless, we will try to be modest, sedate and dispassionate in our approach of emphasis on our viewpoint.

7) Kashmir issue is, in fact, the unresolved legacy of British rule in undivided India. Therefore, the onus of the early peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue lies primarily on Britain. You have to shoulder this moral responsibility if at all you believe in ethics in politics. Kashmir is not a border dispute between India and Pakistan. Well, the national aggrandizement of the major contending parties of the issue may not allow them to recognize it as a humanitarian problem. Politics may supersede pity and pathos. It is, therefore the responsibility of the countries like USA, UK, France, Germany and Japan to help the two nuclear powers of South Asia in finding an honourable way out of the Kashmir tangle. Our impassioned plea for peace should be construed not

only as a desire for the de-escalation of tension in the region but also as our urge for coexistence with the countries surrounding Kashmir.

8) The Jammu and Kashmir Quomi Mushawarti Council (JK National Consultative Council) is an alliance of pro-independence organizations which have been struggling for the objective of an independent and sovereign Kashmir for several decades. The forum, QMC, came into being in June 1998 in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. It is a forum of moderates who believe in peace and pacifism. No doubt, ‘peace with justice’ is our slogan. We are neither chauvinists nor fascists. We are humanists who feel aggrieved with the sufferings of their compatriots, irrespective of their caste or creed. Some people want to live on the misery of Kashmiris, whereas we want to mitigate their misery and suffering. Some people want to perpetuate the state of uncertainty in Kashmir just to ensure polarization in South Asia in the name of religion and politics. As against that we are the people who want to eradicate hatred, religious bigotry, fanaticism, exploitation and imperviousness. Kashmir seeks attention. An attitude of indifference and apathy should be shunned and condemned. Beleaguered Kashmir is facing a threat of extinction. How can the global custodians of peace and human dignity afford to be mere spectators to the onslaught in Kashmir. If, in the presence of global powers which matter, Kashmiris continue to be strangulated, butchered, maimed and mutilated, then, under the law of retribution, Nature will certainly intervene to stem the rot. Enough is enough. It is time to save Kashmir from carnage, rampage, arson, desecration and devastation. So QMC stresses an early peaceful and honourable solution of Kashmir issue. And our freedom aspirations should be paramount while addressing the festering Kashmir problem. The renowned human rights activist Tapan Bose pragmatises his ideas about Kashmir issue saying: “Peace in Kashmir is not an option. It is imperative for the survival and progress of South Asia…….”

[Kashmir Monitor – Feb. 26, 2000]

Jammu and KashmirQUOMI MUSHAWARTI COUNCIL

Memorandum

Brother Bill Clinton,The honourable President of USA

Compliments!

In a volatile situation where India and Pakistan, the two nuclear powers of South Asia, are steadily, but involuntarily, heading towards a full-fledged armed conflict due to their obsession and mindset about Kashmir as the prisoners of the past the threat of a nuclear holocaust continues to loom over this region. The state of uncertainty in South Asia has not only added to the misery of already overtaxed poor masses of this region but also created a

fear psychosis all over the globe. Today Kashmir is a nuclear flashpoint and Subcontinent ‘ the most dangerous place’. Kashmir issue is certainly a fuse in the tinder-box of South Asia. Kashmir issue can trigger off a war which can completely shatter global peace. Is the crisis in South Asia really ineluctable and unresolvable due to the hallucinatory grandeur and intractability of India and Pakistan? Can’t you, as chief executive of the sole superpower, assert as a genuine global pacifist to force the two contending nations of South Asia to adopt an objective and realistic approach to Kashmir issue? Why should over a billion people of South Asia be held as hostage to Kashmir issue and that too at the cost of world peace? Are 12 million people of Jammu and Kashmir a non-entity to be thrown into a dustbin? Is Kashmir an expendable pawn in the arena of global politics?

Kashmiris, the highly conscious self-respecting people, have been struggling for their freedom and honour for the last 52 years. About half a million people got consumed in the violence which engulfed the J&K state intermittently. During the past decade-long resistance movement over seventy thousand Kashmiris, including women and children, were mercilessly butchered by the Indian security forces. The tale of human rights abuse and violations is really ineffable. Carnage, arson, loot, molestation of women and custodial killing is all that forms a permanent feature of the military onslaught in Kashmir. The ruins of Kashmir present a ghastly look of the scenario of death and destruction. Kashmiris, who are sandwiched between two inveterately hostile neighbouring countries, find themselves completely helpless and benumbed. Protracted conflict and crisis in Kashmir is something which hawkish jingoists alone can approve of. Humanists of the world should rise to the occasion to plead peace and pacifism. This is the only way to retrieve the already deteriorating situation in Kashmir. Agonized and brutalized Kashmiris are crying hoarse for help.

You, as the powerful statesman, should take cognizance of the human rights abuse in Kashmir and force India and Pakistan to seek a peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue through meaningful and substantive dialogue. Durable peace in South Asia can be ensured only by recognizing Kashmiris’ right to self-determination and independence. The objective of a trilateral negotiated settlement of Kashmir problem can be achieved through tripartite talks between the parties concerned. So, while avoiding platitude and diplomatic verbiage insinuating mere expediency, USA should intervene to extricate Kashmir from the vortex of uncertainty, chaos, violence and threat of extinction.

J&K Quomi Musharwarati Council (QMC), an alliance of pro-independence organizations of Kashmir, is determined to strengthen a peace process aimed at seeking an honourable, viable and practicable solution of the vexed Kashmir issue. Your sincere efforts for rapprochement and reconciliation between India and Pakistan and also a campaign to alleviate the misery and sufferings of Kashmiris will certainly elevate you to the highest position of prominence in the contemporary history of this strife-torn world.

Wish you success

Yours brotherly

Feb. 26, 2000Srinagar, Kashmir (Azam Inqilabi)

ChairmanJ&K Q.M.C.

Epilogue

As a Kashmiri patriot I love my country Kashmir for its natural beauty and mystic culture. Alas!, the alien forces have enslaved my abode. For any metaphysical exercise to develop union with God peace is indispensable requirement. Unfortunately peace is a casualty here. So peace of mind a distant dream in the presence of alien forces. I am sure that the heroic struggle of brave and conscious Kashmiris for their cherished goal of Azadi will come to a logical end before long. Let us repose trust in God Almighty and pray, with

concentration, for our emancipation from the state of helplessness. For a modest revolutionary like me it is really heartening to understand that youngsters of the third generation are more resolute and vigorous than their predecessors. However the future revolutionaries will certainly take pride in the heroic deeds of their ancestors. Every patriot finds it convenient to identify himself with those who had and who have the capability to take on their adversaries with indomitable courage and unflinching faith in Allah. Hope this book will inspire the future generations of Kashmir and guide them in hour of crisis. Kashmiris will continue to tread the path of defiance unless and until their inalienable right of self-determination is recognized and conceded to.