Kashmir,missing sons,mass graves and Justice

On a pleasant September morning, Mohammad Sidiq, a sand-digger in his early 30s, pushes his long wooden boat out onto the River Jhelum, which cuts through the heart of Srinagar, the biggest city in the province of Kashmir. As the sun rises over the blue-gray pines and bleached snows of the Himalayas circling the city, Sidiq paddles out with his partner, using long-handled shovels and corkscrews to draw sand from the riverbed. It's slow, hard work, but a day's labor nets a boat full of sand, which sells for $50. While describing the modest economy of his work, Sidiq speaks of his relationship to the Jhelum, a wide green river that flows quietly through the Kashmir Valley, across the disputed, mountainous border, known as the Line of Control, and into Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. "No man can bear what this river has witnessed," he says, staring across water.

Sidiq has been working on the river for 12 years now. Every week or two, as he hoists a shovel full of sand from the riverbed, he finds himself staring at a skull, a broken skeleton, or a shattered femur. "Most of the dead were young men. You could see their shiny teeth; you could tell from the skull, he was very, very young. One day I found a young man.... He had been badly tortured. Both his hands and feet had been chopped off," says Sidiq as he sits beneath the majestic maple trees lining the riverbank.

A fellow sand-digger in his early 40s, Naseer Ahmed, found a skull in March. "It was a small skull. It would have been a 16- or 17-year-old boy. The other day, it was a thigh with flesh still on it," Ahmed said. "It is a haunted river."

Basharat Peer in Foreign Policy. Here

China surpasses India in building railways to Himalayas

India's struggle to build a railway to troubled Kashmir has become a symbol of the infrastructure gap with neighbouring China, whose speed in building road and rail links is giving it a strategic edge on the mountainous frontier.

Nearly quarter of a century after work began on the project aimed at integrating the revolt-torn territory and bolstering the supply route for troops deployed there, barely a quarter of the 345-km (215-mile) Kashmir track has been laid.

Tunnels collapsed, funds dried up and, faced with the challenge of laying tracks over the 11,000 foot (3,352 metre) Pir Panjal range, railway officials and geologists bickered over the route, with some saying it was just too risky.

The proposed train, which will run not far from the heavily militarised border with Pakistan, has also faced threats from militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed region, with engineers kidnapped in the early days of the project.

China's rail system has been plagued by scandal. A bullet train crash in July killed 40 people and triggered a freeze on new rail project approvals, but the country managed to build the 1,140-km (710-mile) Qinghai-Tibet line, which crosses permanently frozen ground and climbs to more than 5,000 metres above sea level, in five years flat.

It has also built bitumen roads throughout its side of the frontier, making it easier for Chinese troops to move around -- and mass there, if confrontation ever escalates.

Indians have long fretted about the economic advantages that China gains from its infrastructure expertise. But the tale of India's hardships in building the railway line also shows how China's mastery of infrastructure could matter in the territorial disputes that still dog relations.

Sanjeev Miglani at Reuters. Here

Who is afraid of Arundhati Roy?

What is a society without its dreamers, its intellectuals and artistes? It’s like a body without soul, an individual without conscience. Writers and artistes are not just the cream of any society; they are our hearts and minds and the voice of our collective conscience. They do not just defend us and stand up for the vulnerable and voiceless amongst us, they also hold out the mirror to us when necessary from time to time, helping us see our warts and all.

Mature and tolerant societies accept the occasional reality check from their artistes and intellectuals with magnanimity and dignity it deserves. Because they are essentially a part of us — a more sensitive and caring part of our existence. And when instead of paying attention to this voice of our collective conscience, we try to stifle it, we in effect commit a moral hara-kiri. 

Men and women like Arundhati Roy aren’t born every day, even in a billion plus country like India. They are God’s gift to humanity. We should love, value and cherish them. We may not always find ourselves agreeing with them on many issues and it’s only natural. But turning on them in fury the moment they try to walk apart from the crowd or muster the courage to speak out against what they believe to be wrong is not only unfair to them but an affront to civil societies everywhere.

What has the celebrated author and activist done to earn the wrath of India’s increasingly intolerant chattering classes and some of its shrill, Fox News-like media? After all, as Roy argued in her dispassionate rejoinder this week in some newspapers, she has only said and recounted on Kashmir what the Indian government, especially the charismatic first Prime Minister Pandit Nehru and other leaders had repeatedly promised the Kashmiris and the world community in crucial months and years after the partition.

In his address to the nation over All India Radio on Nov. 2, 1947, Nehru said, “We are anxious not to finalize anything in a moment of crisis and without the fullest opportunity to be given to the people of Kashmir to have their say. It is for them ultimately to decide. And let me make it clear that it has been our policy that where there is a dispute about the accession of a state to either Dominion (of India and Pakistan), the accession must be made by the people of that state.”

In another broadcast the next day, the prime minister said, “We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given not only to the people of Kashmir and to the world. We will not and cannot back out of it.” In a letter on Nov. 21 1947 addressed to Pakistan Prime Minister Liyaqat Ali Khan, Nehru said, “I have repeatedly stated that as soon as peace and order have been established, Kashmir should decide accession by plebiscite or referendum under international auspices such as those of United Nations.”

Four days later, in a statement in the Constituent Assembly, on Nov. 25, 1947, Nehru declared, “In order to establish our bona fide, we have suggested that when the people are given the chance to decide their future, this should be done under the supervision of an impartial tribunal such as the UN. The issue in Kashmir is whether violence and naked force should decide the future or the will of the people.” Again in Constituent Assembly on March 5, 1948, the premier said, “Even at the moment of accession, we went out of our way to make a unilateral declaration that we would abide by the will of the people of Kashmir as declared in a plebiscite or referendum. We have adhered to that position throughout and we are prepared to have a plebiscite with every protection of fair voting and to abide by the decision of the people of Kashmir.”
Commenting on the bitter war of words between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, Nehru warned in Parliament on March 31, 1955, “Kashmir is perhaps the most difficult of problems between India and Pakistan. We should also remember that Kashmir is not a thing to be bandied between India and Pakistan but it has a soul of its own and an individuality of its own. Nothing can be done without the goodwill and consent of the people of Kashmir!”

There are dozens of such assurances in Nehru’s speeches and statements — and those of other leaders — promising the Kashmiris a fair deal. So this whole circus of prosecuting Roy and others on the charges of “sedition” is not just absurd but is a poor reflection on our maturity as a proud nation. Instead of celebrating our truly courageous, selfless artistes and intellectuals such as Roy and respecting their right to dissent and have their say, we are rushing to burn them at the stake.

India is not just the world’s largest democracy; it is without doubt its greatest and most colorful. We do it great disservice by heckling and attacking dissenting voices. As literary pundit George Steiner would argue, shooting a man because one disagrees with his interpretation of Darwin or Hegel is a sinister tribute to the supremacy of ideas in human affairs.

Whether we like it or not, Kashmir has always been a complex and thorny question and there will always be as many points of view on the issue as is possible.

Personally speaking, as an Indian Muslim, I would want nothing better than have this “paradise on earth” and its charming and refined people stay with India. In fact, this whole idea of “Muslim Kashmiris” going with “Muslim Pakistan” makes my generation of the post-partition, post-Ayodhya Muslims terribly uneasy. But it’s not for me or you to determine that question, is it? Ultimately, as Nehru repeatedly emphasized, it’s for the Kashmiris to decide.

Be it India or Pakistan, no one can force that decision on the Kashmiris on either side of the Line of Control at gunpoint. The battle for Kashmiri hearts and minds cannot be won with 700,000 soldiers constantly breathing down the Kashmiris’ neck. 

From Dubai based columnist  Aijaz Zaka Syed's write-up in Arab News. More Here

...while communal killers, mass murderers and rapists roam free!

 

"I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning's papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. 

I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state.

Yesterday I traveled to Shopian, the apple-town in South Kashmir which had remained closed for 47 days last year in protest against the brutal rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofer, the young women whose bodies were found in a shallow stream near their homes and whose murderers have still not been brought to justice. I met Shakeel, who is Nilofer's husband and Asiya's brother. We sat in a circle of people crazed with grief and anger who had lost hope that they would ever get 'insaf'—justice—from India, and now believed that Azadi—freedom— was their only hope. I met young stone pelters who had been shot through their eyes. I traveled with a young man who told me how three of his friends, teenagers in Anantnag district, had been taken into custody and had their finger-nails pulled out as punishment for throwing stones.

In the papers some have accused me of giving 'hate-speeches', of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. 

 

Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free."

Arundhati Roy's statement in Times of India. More Here

கொதிப்பின் கடைசிப் புள்ளி

காஷ்மீரில் நடப்பது பயங்கரவாதக் கலவரம் போலவும், மதரீதியான பதற்றமாகவுமே, காஷ்மீர் அல்லாத இந்தியப் பகுதிகளில் தோற்றங்கள் உருவாக்கப்படுகின்றன. அப்படித்தான் என்பதாகவும் பெரும்பான்மையோர் நினைக்கின்றனர். “தொடர்ச்சியான கடையடைப்புகள் நடந்த வண்ணம் இருக்கின்றன. அரசு நிர்வாகம் அறிவிக்கும் ஊரடங்கு உத்தரவுகளை மக்கள் மறுத்து வெளியே வருகிறார்கள் காவல்துறையினரின் துப்பாக்கிக் குண்டுகளை நேருக்கு நேர் எதிர்கொள்கிறார்கள். பெண்களும், குழந்தைகளும் தெருவில் வந்து போராட்டத்தில் ஈடுபடுகிறார்கள். இதனை நீங்கள் எப்படி விளக்குவீர்கள்?” என கேட்கிறார் முகமது யூசுப் தாரிகாமி (சி.பி.எம் மாநிலச் செயலாளர்). குமுறி, கொந்தளித்துப் போயிருக்கின்றனர் அங்குள்ள மக்கள் என்பதை இந்த தேசத்தின் அரசும், அனைத்து மக்களும் இப்போதாவது புரிந்துகொண்டாக வேண்டும். ‘தூண்டுதல்கள்’ என வசதியான ஒரு சொல்லாடலுக்குள் ஒளிந்துகொண்டு அரசு ‘திருவிளையாடல்களை’ செய்துகொண்டு இனியும் காலத்தைத் தள்ள முடியாது. ‘எப்போதும் போல’ இப்பிரச்சினையை குரங்கின் அப்பமாகக்  கையாண்டால் நிலைமைகள் மேலும் மோசமடையவேச் செய்யும்.

காஷ்மீரின் வரலாறு குறித்துப் பேசும்போது, அந்த மண்ணின் மக்களுக்கு இழைக்கப்பட்ட துரோகங்களே முக்கிய அத்தியாயங்களாய் இடம்பெறும். மாறி, மாறி வந்த ஆட்சிகளால், அந்த மக்கள் வஞ்சிக்கப்பட்ட கதைகளை வெளியே பெரிதாய் இங்கு பேசுவதில்லை. இந்தியா, பாகிஸ்தானின் அரசியலுக்குள் அந்த காஷ்மீர் மக்களின் வாழ்க்கை சிதைந்து போனதைக் காட்டுவதில்லை.  ஒரு சில சம்பவங்களை பெரிது பெரிதாய் காட்டி, அங்கிருக்கும் முஸ்லீம்கள் அனைவருமே தீவீரவாதிகள் போலவும், பயங்கரவாதிகள் போலவும் இந்திய ஊடகங்களால் வெற்றிகரமாக சித்தரிக்கப்பட்டு வருகின்றனர். இந்திய பாதுகாப்புப் படையின் வரம்பற்ற அதிகாரத்தின் கீழ் அவர்கள் கண்காணிக்கப்படுகின்றனர். அவர்கள் அனைவருமே சந்தேகத்துக்குரிய பிரஜைகளாகி இருக்கின்றனர். அந்த சாதாரண மக்களின் உணர்வுகளும், உரிமைகளும் ‘மதம்’, ’பயங்கரவாதம்’, ‘தேசப் பாதுகாப்பு’ என்று சொல்லிச் சொல்லியே தட்டிக் கழிக்கப்பட்டன. அவைகள்தாம் இன்று பெருங்கோபமாய் கிளர்ந்து நிற்கிறது.

மூன்று அப்பாவி இளைஞர்களை பாதுகாப்புப் படையினர் விசாரணைக்கு அழைத்துச் சென்று  கொல்லப்பட்டதைத் தொடர்ந்தே இந்த வன்முறை வெடித்தது. கொதிப்பின் கடைசிப் புள்ளி இது. இத்தனை நாளும் அவர்கள் எப்படி உள்ளுக்குள் பொங்கிப் போயிருந்தார்கள் என்பது வெளிச்சத்திற்கு வந்திருக்கிறது. அதன் ஒரு பகுதியை அறிய, இந்த ஆவணப்படத்தைப் பாருங்கள்.

From Madhavraj's gripping narration in  தீராத பக்கங்கள்

To view the documentary film "Waiting..." by Atul Gupta on Kashmir's half widows click here.