Muhammad Raza
Malik
Kashmiris on
both sides of the Line of Control and across the globe observe October 27 as
Black Day. It is the darkest day in the history of Kashmir as on this day in
1947 India had forcibly occupied Jammu and Kashmir by landing its army in
Srinagar against the will of the Kashmiri people and in total disregard to the
Indian Independence Act and Partition Plan. Every year, the day is marked by
complete shutdown in occupied Kashmir and rallies, seminars and demonstrations
in the occupied territory, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and world capitals.
To understand
the reasons behind the observance of the Black Day on October 27 by the
Kashmiris, one has to understand the historical background of the Kashmir
dispute. It is a fact that the dispute is closely linked to the Indian
Independence Act and Partition Plan of 1947, which had stated that the Indian
British Colony would be divided into two sovereign states, India - with
Hindu-majority areas - and Pakistan - with the Muslim-majority areas of Western
provinces and East Bengal.
According to
the Partition Plan, the then princely states were given the choice to accede
either to Pakistan or India on the basis of their geography and demography, but
New Delhi illegally occupied three States of Hyderabad, Junagarh and Jammu and
Kashmir. Hyderabad and Junagarh were Hindu-majority States but their rulers
were Muslims. Being a Muslim-majority state, with 87% Muslim population,
Kashmir had a natural tendency to accede to Pakistan. But, unfortunately, the
then Hindu ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, destroyed the
future of Kashmiri people by announcing its accession to India under a
controversial document, Instrument of Accession. Even the neutral observers
deny the existence of such a document. A prominent British historian, Alistair
Lamb, challenging the Indian invasion in Kashmir, in his book “The Birth of
Tragedy” wrote that the successive events after the partition of the united
India strongly suggested that Indian troops had invaded Kashmir prior to the
signing of the instrument of accession. He believed that the signed instrument
of accession did not exist at all as Maharaja was reluctant to sign it. He
argued that due to this reason the Indian government never made the so-called
document public either officially or at any international forum.
In a bid to
punish the Kashmiris for their aspiration to join Pakistan and with the
intention to change the demographic composition of the territory to turn the
results in favour of India in any referendum in future, Indian troops, the
forces of Dogra Maharaja, and Hindu extremists massacred over three hundred
thousand Kashmiri Muslims within a period of two months in Jammu division.
It is a
historical fact that if the partition had been done on the principles of
justice then India had no land route to enter into Jammu and Kashmir. But the
so-called Boundary Commission headed by British Barrister, Cyril Radcliff, that
demarcated partition line, under a conspiracy split Gurdaspur, a Muslim
majority area, and handed it over to India, providing it terrestrial access to
the territory.
Right from the
day one, the people of Kashmir rejected India’s illegal occupation and started
an armed struggle with total public support in 1947. They were able to free a
vast area now known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir on the world map. On seeing its
forces at the verge of a humiliating defeat, India approached the UN Security
Council on January 1, 1948, seeking its help to settle the Kashmir dispute.
Successive resolutions passed by the Security Council nullified Indian invasion
and occupation of Kashmir. Through the resolutions passed on August 13, 1948,
and January 5, 1949, the UN approved a ceasefire, demarcation of the ceasefire
line, demilitarization of the State and a free and impartial plebiscite to be
conducted under the supervision of the World Body. Although one part of these
resolutions (ceasefire and demarcation of ceasefire line) was implemented,
however, demilitarization of Jammu and Kashmir and holding of a plebiscite
still remain unimplemented.
The first
Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, promised before the international
community and later in the Parliament of India and at Srinagar’s historic Lal
Chowk to resolve the Kashmir dispute and give the Kashmiris an opportunity to
decide their fate by themselves. However, those commitments are yet to be
fulfilled, despite the passage of over six decades.
After the
failure of all peaceful means to settle the Kashmir dispute, the Kashmiris
started a massive uprising in 1989 to end the status quo and secure their right
to self-determination. This public movement gathered momentum with the passage
of time and forced India to come to the table of negotiations with Pakistan in
2004. The dialogue process between the two countries continued till the
occurrence of Mumbai attacks on November 26, 2008. After the incident India
wasted no time in putting the responsibility of these attacks on Pakistan and
its intelligence agencies without any substantive evidence. An officer of
Indian home ministry later revealed that India itself had orchestrated the
Parliament and Mumbai attacks to strengthen its anti-terror laws. The dialogue
process resumed in July 2009 and continued with hiccups and was once again
suspended after Narendra Modi-led Indian government called off the Foreign
Secretary-level talks scheduled in Islamabad on August 25, last year, on the
pretext of meetings between Pakistan High Commissioner, Abdul Basit, and
Kashmiri Hurriyet leaders in New Delhi, a few days before the scheduled talks.
The prospects
of resumption of the dialogue received a major blow this year as the proposed
talks between the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Advisor on National Security and
Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, and his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, in New
Delhi in August met the same fate after New Delhi’s objection on the meeting
between Hurriyet leaders and Sartaj Aziz and refusal to include the Kashmir
dispute in the agenda. The most lamentable side of the picture is that while
Pakistan demonstrated considerable flexibility in the dialogue process, India’s
intransigent approach continues to remain the biggest hurdle in the resolution
of the Kashmir dispute. The peace, security and stability of entire South Asia
is at stake because after the acquiring of nuclear capabilities by Islamabad
and New Delhi in May 1998, Kashmir has become a flashpoint.
The Kashmiris’
struggle to get rid of Indian bondage took a new turn in 2008. They started
taking to the streets in large numbers and expressing their anti-India and pro-liberation
sentiments in a peaceful manner. This mass uprising continued for three
consecutive years - at times the number of peaceful protesters thronging the
streets of Srinagar exceeding one-million mark. But most of the time these
peaceful demonstrators were dealt with excessive use of force by Indian troops
and police personnel. The occupation forces killed over 125 peaceful protesters
within a period of just few months in 2010 alone for challenging Indian rule on
their motherland and demanding freedom from the alien occupation.
Unfortunately, instead of taking these massive demonstrations as a referendum
against its illegal hold on Kashmir, New Delhi once again resorted to
dilly-dallying tactics like interlocution and sending different delegations to
Kashmir to buy time and pacify tempers in the occupied territory.
India has
exhausted all its resources during the past sixty-eight years but has miserably
failed to intimidate the people of Jammu and Kashmir into submission. During
the last 26 years only, Indian troops have martyred over ninety-three thousand
Kashmiris, widowed more than twenty-two thousand women, orphaned not less than
one hundred thousand children and molested or gang-raped around ten thousand
Kashmiri women. Thousands of innocent youth have been subjected to
disappearance in custody and their whereabouts remain untraced. The shocking
discovery of thousands of unmarked graves in the territory puts serious
question mark over the safety of the disappeared youth. Even the European Union
Parliament unanimously passed a resolution in its session in Strasbourg on July
10, 2008, asking India to conduct an independent and impartial investigation to
ascertain the identity of the people buried in these graves. This demand is yet
to be fulfilled.
History stands
testimony to the fact that Pakistani leadership and people have always
supported the Kashmiris’ just liberation struggle and the incumbent Prime
Minister, Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, and the Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif,
just like the father of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, have
termed Jammu and Kashmir as the jugular vein of Pakistan. Islamabad has always
been advocating peaceful settlement of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with
the Kashmiris’ aspirations. Mohammad Nawaz Sharif and General Raheel Sharif
have made it clear time and again that Pakistan would continue to support the
Kashmir cause till the Kashmir dispute was resolved to the satisfaction of the
people of Jammu and Kashmir. But unfortunately, Modi-led government’s
aggressive policies in occupied Kashmir showed its non-seriousness towards
resolution of the dispute.
This is the
context of the observance of October 27 as Black Day by the Kashmiris all
across the globe. The observance is aimed at sending a loud and clear message
to the international community to take stock of the miseries and plight of the
Kashmiri people and come forward in a big way to ensure a solution of the
lingering dispute in accordance with their wishes. It is also intended to send
a loud and clear message to New Delhi that the Kashmiris reject its illegal
occupation of their homeland and that they would continue their struggle till
they achieved their inalienable right to self-determination promised to them by
India and the world through several UN resolutions.
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(The writer is
a Senior News Editor at Kashmir Media Service and can be reached at razamalik849@yahoo.com)
