Kashmir Struggle
A New Phase of Unprecedented Militant Mass Uprising
Kashmir, forcefully
occupied by Indian ruling class, has been witnessing a new phase of unparalleled
militant uprising of people from 8 July onwards. There is no end to people’s angst
which erupted after the killing of 22 year old militant youth Burhan Wani in an
encounter. To express their anger against Indian state and the army and to
express their aspiration for freedom, people are storming the streets again and
again. Blazed with self sacrificing spirit these people are facing the tanks
and the guns with bare hands or with stones in their hands, and laying down
their lives. Instead of beating down the spirit of Kashmiri youth the fire oozing
guns of Indian army are only adding fuel to the fire of their anger. Indian
soldiers fire pellet guns with precision. These pellets have robbed 60 youth of
their eyesight, 68 have lost their lives and thousands of injured are in
hospital. These are the official figures whereas the actual number of the
casualties is much more. Everyday a new tale of oppression and atrocities is
being scripted by the Indian army in Kashmir. Years of ongoing suppression has
neither been able to dampen the Kashmiri people’s longing for the freedom nor
has it been able to crush the rebel in them.
Murder of Young Militant Commander
A Turning Point towards the New Phase of Outrage
Kashmiri
youngster Burhan Wani was a popular militant among the youth of Kashmir valley.
He joined the Hizbul Mujahideen, an organization active in Kashmir, at the age
of mere 15-16 years. During his active life of 7-8 years in the organization,
he made abundant use of social media to counter the propaganda of Indian ruling
class and in the process propagating his motives as well as that of Kashmir struggle.
His videos and photos with armed comrades became widely popular in Kashmir.
Indian army killed him along with his three comrades in a house. The news of
his death spread like a jungle fire and about 40000 people joined his funeral
procession. This gathering became another declaration of pent up rage in the
hearts of Kashmiri people which is still echoing in every nook and corner of Kashmir. The extent of pent up fury in the minds of
people and the Wani’s popularity among the masses can be estimated from the
fact that the people first burned the house in which Wani was killed in
encounter and then destroyed the garden of the owner of the house because they
doubted that the owner of the house was the same person who informed the Indian
army about Wani’s presence in his house. The death of Burhan Wani proved to be
an event that triggered an explosive outburst of the smoldering anger of masses
of Kashmir and added another chapter of unparalleled militant uprising of
people to the many decades long struggle of Kashmiri people. The struggle of
Kashmiri people for right to self determination has witnessed many such phases.
The urge for freedom of the people of
Kashmir was expressed strongly some years back in 2008, 9 and 10, when
they clashed with troops of Indian army and hundreds of youth took bullets to
their chests. Such outbursts are caused every time by this or that act of
oppression of the security forces. Recently in April this year too an incident
in which Indian army personnel misbehaved with a young Kashmiri girl led to a
massive protest wave: people pelted stones on army bunkers and four Kashmiri
youth were gunned down by Indian soldiers. (Writing on this incident is
available in the previous May June edition).
The series
of occurrences of mass outbursts, which started from July 8 onwards, on the one
side, is an extraordinary display of fighting spirit and defiance of Kashmiri
people. And on the other side, atrocities by Indian army have also reached new
extremes. Every new phase represents a new and more violent conflict; such is
the intensity of clashes between the two sides in Kashmiri national struggle.
Even now “Freedom” is the slogan of the present wave of Kashmiri people. The
youth are on the forefront but the aged are also not staying behind. Women and
kids pour into streets with aspirations of freedom and liberation from the
oppression of Indian army. There is acute shortage of things of everyday use,
schools and colleges are closed for past one and half month, and there is long
strike of transporters and other businessmen. There is complete ban on
demonstrations, coming out on street means being shot at, but still people are
coming out. People are making trifle of the military bans. Pellet guns perforate
the upper body of people. According to information gathered from 10 districts
by The Hindu newspaper, in the first 45 days more than 3000 persons have been
injured by the pellet guns and total number of injured is more than 5800. Among
the injured 55% are from 4 districts of south Kashmir viz: Anantnag, Pulwama,
Kulgam, and Shopian. According to official data about 2600 personnel of
security forces are also injured. 972 people have been wounded in the eye and
cases have been registered against more than 500 persons. New cases are being
registered every day.
Policy of the Indian State: Keep on Oppressing
Till now
Indian state has occupied Kashmir by force. Since after the time of conditional
temporary accession, as the Indian ruling class has been continuously reneging
on their promise of referendum/plebiscite and as it has been increasing the
intensity of oppression, the demand for referendum has been raised again and
again; but the Indian state has been trampling this demand underneath army
boots. The Indian state has continued with the policy of crushing under
repression, the leaders and movements of people who raise the demand of freedom
or self determination. The leaders fighting for national sovereignty and
freedom were pushed to the corner through bribery or through every other possible
means. Those who did not bow have been hanged or jailed. Efforts have been made
to give the Kashmiri struggle communal colors and many times hue and cry has
been made about its connections with Pakistan. Of all these efforts the
mainstay has been the oppression. Oppressive military law of AFSPA has been
forcefully imposed in Kashmir valley which provides unlimited powers to armed
forces. Army possesses every nook and corner of the Kashmir and there are
military bunkers at every place. People are humiliated at every step, like all invaders
dishonoring women is a common weapon of Indian army. Thousands of youth have
been killed by police in fake encounters. At present there are about 7 lakh
security forces personnel stationed in Kashmir. There is a long list of disappeared
people. Under these circumstances even the right to protest has been snatched.
This
behavior of Indian state has engendered in Kashmiri people a deep rooted
feeling of estrangement from India. This is established fact that Kashmiri
people don’t want to be a part of India at all and that they want freedom. So
forceful is the feeling of freedom that the pro-Pakistan or those who support
merger with Pakistan do not dare to put up their agenda, instead they have to accept
freedom as their own demand. Indian ruling class knows it very well that
Kashmiri people would disdainfully reject India in a plebiscite. This is the
reason why they don’t remove AFSPA or decrease army; instead every phase in
Kashmir leads to increased number of the security forces. Now the BJP rule is
following the same strategy. Rulers are hopeful that Kashmiri people would tire
and break in front of the brute oppression. After all how long can they live a
life of strikes and bandhs. Daily wagers
cannot afford not working for long. Beware of this truth Modi has remained mute
in the first month of struggle. Arun Jaitely has brought out the truth about
Modi’s claim to find solution to Kashmir problem when Jaitely refused to hold
talks with the Kashmiri people and arrogantly declared to tackle the Kashmir
problem as is being done at present. That the Rajnath delegation to Kashmir and
talks of Kashmiri democracy is nothing but a farce is amply proven by the
bullets of Indian army and the poisonous statements of the BJP leaders. Sending
this type of delegations has been a common practice in the past. As all the
Indian rulers have advocated the policy to occupy Kashmir by brute force and as
BJP has always been more than aggressive to implement this policy. Now when BJP
is in power, it is following the same policy.
Right to
self-determination deserves unconditional support
The
struggle for self determination by the Kashmiri people is nothing but just.
Kashmiri nationality has never accepted the forceful occupation of Kashmir by
India. Kashmiri people have fiery passions to get them recognized as separate
nationality. No one else has the right to determine fate of Kashmiri
nationality except the Kashmiri people. The implementation of right to self
determination of a nationality by the people has precedence in the past in
various parts of the world. In this respect the right to self determination of
Kashmiri people is nothing new. Various nationalities exercised this right
during formation as well as during disintegration of USSR, and there was plebiscite
organized in Ireland too. That upon being free Kashmir would be occupied by Pakistan
or that it would succumb to Islamic forces are nothing but arguments of invader.
No one reserves the right to take in their hands the right of Kashmiri people for
self determination on the basis of the argument that the Kashmiri are too weak
to exercise this right. On the one hand there are nations and nationalities
smaller than Kashmir which are independent and on the other hand much bigger
nations are occupied by the imperialistic forces of invasion. Such arguments
are used only to legitimize the illegal occupation of Kashmir. There is no
doubt that Pakistani ruling class too wants to occupy Kashmir and in fact they
already have in their possession a part of Kashmir. But this right to self-determination
has equal importance for people of POK as it has for people of Kashmir under
India. The people of these two Kashmiris have to decide whether they want to join
India or Pakistan or they want to be a free and independent nation. The people
and the rulers of both India and Pakistan can inspire the people of Kashmir to
live with either of them or show them the benefits of doing so, but they cannot
force this wish on the masses of Kashmir. To respect whatever decision Kashmiri
people take is the only true democratic practice.
Based on
this democratic approach the people of India should take stand to oppose all
kinds of atrocities on Kashmiri people. Demands should be made to restore all
the democratic rights, to take action against the guilty officers, to remove
AFSPA, and to completely recall all Indian forces in Kashmir. A democratic
atmosphere must prevail in Kashmir to normalize the situation and to hold
plebiscite. There is no solution to the “Kashmir Issue” anything short of
guaranteed right to self-determination for the people of Kashmir.
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