Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2002, page 49

Special Report

 

Are Kashmiris Fundamentalist, Secessionist Terrorists?

By Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai

The global campaign against terrorism must not degenerate into a campaign for the defense of tyrannies and illegal military occupations. There are many forces in the world which are salivating at the prospect of American power being used to prop up the brutal regimes they have foisted on peoples against the popular will. India, which is responsible for over 55,000 deaths and an untold number of acts of arson and rape, certainly is one among these. The world knows that the struggle of the people of Kashmir for restoration of their U.N.-recognized right to self-determination was and is in essence a nonviolent struggle. An incursion by unsavory elements into this struggle does not change its character and aim. India’s saber-rattling at this delicate moment on the subcontinent also is indicative of its design to reap as much advantage as it can toward diverting international attention from the realities of the Kashmir dispute and the principles of a healthy and viable international order which are involved in it.

The Kashmiri American Council (KAC) has expressed horror and revulsion at the dastardly terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on the American people and civilization in general. We call on every nation in the world to assist actively in identifying, apprehending, and punishing the culprits, including those who aided, abetted, or sheltered the guilty. These terrorists transcend all cultural affiliations and moral boundaries. They know no religion. They are all guilty of a crime against humanity that deserves the most unforgiving of punishments. We believe it should be made an international crime against humanity to provide succor in any way to any individual, group, organization, or state that promotes terrorism.

India is trying to engage the sympathy of the United States for its stand on Kashmir by making the argument that the movement in Kashmir is a terrorist movement; that Kashmir is an integral part of India; that Kashmiris are secessionist; and that the movement is driven by so-called fundamentalist groups.

How well-grounded these pleas are can be judged from the following well-established facts and considerations:

During the latest phase of the freedom struggle, virtually all the citizenry—men, women and children—of Srinagar, Kashmir’s capital city took to the streets numerous times to lodge a nonviolent protest against India’s continuing occupation. “According to one U.N. observer,” read a dispatch in the New York-based weekly India Abroad, “more than two million Kashmiris demonstrated during this period and the number of memorandums submitted exceeded 400.”

 

The entire population of Kashmir cannot consist of terrorists.

Certainly the entire populations of the major towns of Indian-occupied Kashmir cannot consist of terrorists. Nor can two million people be instigated and provoked via remote control. Two million people reflect the true nature of the peaceful Kashmiri resistance movement, not a movement of terrorism. Moreover, a terrorist does not spend time marching to the office of the U.N., presenting petitions and reminding the U.N. to fulfill its pledge toward Kashmir. On the other hand, if all the people of the Vale of Kashmir are Pakistani agents, then that by itself removes the ground from India’s claim to the territory.

Is Kashmir an integral part of India and are Kashmiris secessionists? Kashmir is not and cannot be regarded as an integral part of India because under all international agreements, agreed to by both India and Pakistan, negotiated by the United Nations, endorsed by the Security Council and accepted by the international community, Kashmir does not belong to any member state of the United Nations. If that is true, then the claim that Kashmir is an integral part of India does not stand. Therefore, how can Kashmiris secede from a country to which they have never acceded in the first place? Kashmiris, therefore, are not and cannot be called secessionists or separatists.

The term “fundamentalism” is strictly inapplicable to Kashmiri society. One of the proud distinctions of Kashmir has been the sustained tradition of tolerance, amity, good will and friendship among its different religious and cultural communities. Its culture does not generate extremism, and Kashmir has a long tradition of moderation and nonviolence. Only India’s brutal repression has caused the emergence of some elements that appear extremist but in fact are willing to accept a just and sensible solution. The Kashmiri Hindus, though a tiny minority, at less than 2 percent of the total population, flourished under the Kashmiri Muslim majority. In the 20th century, theirs was perhaps the only community outside Europe and North America which claimed 100 percent literacy. Because the Kashmir conflict was never a fight between Hindus and Muslims, they have always been a part of the freedom struggle in Kashmir. That struggle never was one between theocracy and secularism, nor was it a border dispute between India and Pakistan. It has always been about the destiny, future and lives of Kashmir’s 13 million people, be they Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists. Kashmiri Hindus believe equally with their Muslim compatriots that the resistance in Kashmir is against alien occupation and cannot and should not be communal. The demands of Kashmir’s history and of its future alike forbid religious conflict or sectarian strife.

 

Exodus of Kashmir’s Hindus

The mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley has been not only tragic but also wholly incompatible with Kashmiri aspirations. Only an impartial investigation under international auspices can determine whether or not it was initiated by Governor Jag Mohan—to clear the ground for the actions planned by the authorities. It is indisputable that the authorities provided Kashmir’s Hindus facilities for their mass migration.

The crucial question, of course, is what needs to be done? First, the option of doing nothing must be ruled out. Time is not on the side of Kashmiris. Rather than healing the problem, time has made the situation worse in Kashmir.

Some have suggested that the U.N. should broker a deal between India and Pakistan on Kashmir. The people of Kashmir, however, wish to stress that their land is not real estate which can be parceled out between two disputants, but the home of a nation with a history far more compact and coherent than India’s and far older than Pakistan’s. No settlement of their status will endure unless it is explicitly based on the principles of self-determination and erases the so-called line of control, which is in reality the line of conflict.

Others suggest an autonomy deal. This is a clear fallacy, relying as it does on a provision of Indian constitution. All the world’s constitutions are subject to amendment. If not today, if not tomorrow, if not even in the nearest future, this provision will be deleted from the Indian constitution—and it will not even need any debate.

It is being proposed that New Delhi and Islamabad resolve all conflicts, including the Kashmir issue, through peaceful bilateral negotiations. Kashmiris do not necessarily oppose such a move. However, they want these negotiations to be meaningful and purposeful. In order to make these talks fruitful, the following steps need to be taken by both India and Pakistan:

•There must be a cease-fire from all sides, to be followed by negotiations. Negotiations cannot be conducted when the parties are trying to kill each other;

•The time has come when there must be a third-party mediation to make sure that the talks between India and Pakistan are meaningful. The third-party mediator does not necessarily need to be the U.S. or the U.N. It could be a person of international standing, such as President Jimmy Carter or Nelson Mandela;

•The history of the past 54 years testifies to the fact that bilateral talks between India and Pakistan always have been fruitless. Given that fact, any attempt to strike a deal between any two parties without the association of the third party will fail to yield a credible settlement. The 1952 agreement between Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru; the 1975 pact between Sheikh Abdullah and Indira Gandhi; and an agreement between Farooq Abdullah and Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s sought to bypass Pakistan, leaving the basic issue of Kashmir unsettled. Likewise, the Tashkent Agreement of 1966 between India and Pakistan, the 1972 Simla Agreement, the Lahore Declaration of 1998 and the 2001 Agra Summit sought to bypass the people of Kashmir, and also resulted in failure.

The time has come, therefore, for tripartite talks, in recognition of the fact that the dispute primarily involves three parties—India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir. It is the 13 million people of Kashmir, however, who are the primary and principal party, because it is ultimately their future that is at stake.

The Irish peace process would not have been possible without the participation of the Sinn Fein. Indonesia could not have resolved the East Timor dispute without including East Timorese in the discussion. The Kosovo peace process would have been only a dream had the KLA not participated. Therefore, we believe that India and Pakistan cannot by themselves reach a settlement over Kashmir without including in the negotiations the genuine Kashmiri leadership—the All Parties Hurriyet Conference [APHC]. To do otherwise would be like staging “Hamlet” without the Prince of Denmark.

We hope that the United States and the international community will realize that what is at stake is not only the survival of the Kashmiri people but the peace and prosperity of all of South Asia.

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai is executive director of the Washington, DC-based Kashmiri American Council.

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