First ever Pakistani 16 member media delegation visits Indian Occupied Kashmir and sees the fervor for independence among Kashmir's Muslims, Sikhs and Untouchables
Who would the Pakistanis prefer controlling the headwaters of Chenab, Jhelum and Indus rivers? An independent multi-ethnic democratic Kashmir or fascist India?
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, October 13, 2004 - The permission by the Indian government for the first ever visit to Indian Occupied Kashmir by a 16 member Pakistani Media delegation, (from October 04-09, 2004, as a corollary of an ongoing peace process between India and Pakistan of which 57 years old Kashmir dispute is an essential part) was an attempt by India's Channakiyan rulers to convince Pakistanis of the futility of their 'Kashmir' ambition. It seems the plot has boomeranged thanks to the resilience and true grit of the Kashmir independence movement which now encompass not only the Muslims but the Sikhs and 'Untouchables' of that unhappy misruled Indian colony too!The Pakistan government, on the other hand, agreed to the visit, as it's decision-makers are thinking of flexibility in their Kashmir policy to suit the current times. It is obvious that before the Pakistan government makes a move in that direction it wants to get to know the Indian occupied Kashmir area and its people and find out from them, firsthand, what the situation is like on the ground in that unhappy Indian colony and what would the Kashmiris want the outside world, including Pakistan, to do about it.
The Pakistani team of journalists arrived in India, through the Indo-Pak-Punjab land border at Wagah, on October 04, 2004. The tour of the 16 member team, which included two journalists from Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-held Kashmir, had been organised by SAFMA (South Asia Free Media Association) which organization was set up recently to improve relations, promote understanding and build confidence between South Asian countries. A team of Indian journalists will make a return visit to Pakistani-held Kashmir after attending the fourth SAFMA regional conference on ‘reconciliation processes in South Asia’ in Lahore, Pakistan, on November 20-21, which is expected to bring together more than 250 journalists from South Asia.
According to the leader of the 16 member delegation, senior Pakistani journalist Imtiaz Alam (Secretary General, SAFMA, Editor South Asian Journal, Editor Current Affairs, The News) the team met a cross-section of people and leaders in Indian occupied Kashmir during the five days visit - some very friendly, some hostile and suspicious. The delegation met "cadres of all political parties, including the ruling PDP-Congress combine, who were clamouring for independence when venting their feelings in private." Imtiaz Alam said he was overawed by the expectations of the Kashmiri people and demands put forth to him as a Pakistani. "I was sort of given a charter of demands as if I was the UN Secretary General....They forgot I am a mere journalist and not a politician who will address their problems." (Also see Jammu-based Kashmir Times headlined, "Kashmir militancy a civilian insurgency: SAFMA": http://kasmirtimes.com/archive/0410/041011/index.htm)
Earlier the formidable chief of Dukhtaran-e Millat, Ms. Asiya Andrabi, took exception to the visit to Jammu and Kashmir by a delegation of Pakistani journalists. Ms Andarabi described the visit as "politically motivated" and expressed the fear that Pakistan is preparing to make a secret deal with India on the Kashmir dispute and the visit is part of that "hidden" agenda.
During a free wheeling interaction with the Pakistani journalists, in Srinagar on October 06, the students and the faculty members of Kashmir university (KU) stressed that Kashmir issue needs to be resolved at the earliest so that the Kashmiri people can see the region developing socially, economically and in other respects as well. According to a report, (http://kasmirtimes.com/archive/0410/041007/index.htm) in the Jammu-based Kashmir Times by Athar Parvez, "hundreds of students managed to steal the show by putting across their view point in an assertive manner with pro-freedom and pro-Pakistan demonstrations outside the Gandhi Bhavan hall in the Kashmir University where the interaction was taking place. When asked if they were to choose between the various options for the solution of Kashmir issue, what solution would they prefer the most? All of them unanimously said that independence of a unified Kashmir suits the Kashmiris more than any other option." A Kashmir University professor said that, "Let the Kashmiris be allowed a freer atmosphere and see the possible solutions to emerge since every Kashmiri has a solution in his mind but he needs freedom to express that."
During the meeting with the 800-member Kashmir Bar Association - founded 1990 - with advocate Mian Abdul Qayoom presiding, the delegation heard, among others, a Sikh advocate Omkar Singh, supporting the Kashmir freedom movement and ridiculing the official line about the two brutal Sikh massacres, Chattisinghpora and Mahjoor Nagar, by saying that, "it comes easy to Indian government that the Sikhs were massacred by unknown gunmen". (/home/khalistancalling/2000/march28.aspx and /home/khalistancalling/2000/april11.aspx) Advocate Omkar Singh, like the Bar President, suggested that the Pakistani delegation extend their stay and witness the complete boycott of the elections being held in a few days. Bar President Mian Abdul Qayoom while referring to the Kashmiri Pandit migrants who have been living in various parts of India for 15 years now, said that, "they are most welcome to be back in valley. India wanted to give the freedom movement a communal colour that is why they stage-managed the exodus of Hindu families from the valley to Jammu and other parts of India in 1989".
Senior separatist leader and Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani told the Pakistani delegation in Srinager that, "accession with Pakistan is the only suitable solution of Kashmir issue". Geelani said that if India is really sincere in solving the Kashmir issue then it should remove Armed Forces Special Powers Act and accept the disputed nature of the Kashmir issue. During an interaction with visiting media persons of Pakistan at his residence here, he said an independent Jammu and Kashmir is not in the interests of people as this would provide ground for imperialistic forces like India and China.
During a meeting with the Pakistani delegation at the JKLF (Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front) headquarters at Maisuma, JKLF Chairman, Mohammad Yasin Malik said that, "India and Pakistan can not impose a solution on people of Jammu and Kashmir and the Pakistani delegation's visit has hurt the Kashmiris as it is seen as a compromise on the legal status of Kashmir dispute." He also said that government of India wants to change the demographic character of Jammu and Kashmir by arranging for the fall of the permanent resident (disqualification) bill in the Kashmir assembly.
National Conference president Omar Abdullah, grandson of legendry Kasmiri leader Shaikh Abdullah, referring to Kashmir issue told the Pakistani delegation that, "We do not question our accession with India, but favour autonomy and soft borders, but if any other solution that will emerge and is to the satisfaction of India, Pakistan and Kashmiris it is acceptable." Omar Abdullah favoured opening all roads to Kashmir from Pakistan and said that there is no need to have visas and passports for travel between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad. When asked about the human rights situation in Kashmir, N C President Omar Abdullah quoted the latest report of State Human Rights Commission which he said says that, "the worst abuses in last seven years are taking place now. Just opposing the POTA (Prevention of Terrorist Act) will not do as more draconian laws including AFSPA and PSA are already here which should be struck down"
Earlier in Jammu, on October 04, the Pakistani delegation was herded to a public interaction with the Kashmiri Pandit community (displaced from the Srinagar valley in 1989 by the then Governor of Kashmir, Jag Mohan) organised by the Action Committee for Return of Migrants in collaboration with J&K Institute for Peace, Justice and Democracy to a squalid migrant Pandit settlements at Muthi, ten kilometers from Jammu. The Pandits narrated their tale of woe to the Pakistani visitors. After that meet a few members of the Pakstani delegation slipped away from the Indian government 'minders', and secretly met with a joint delegation of Sikhs and Untouchables from Jammu, in a Jummu Sikh Gurdwara, who expressed their full support for the Kashmir independence movement after narrating how they were discrimnated against by upper caste Hindus in all matters.
Our sources in Indian occupied Kashmir report that there is now an overwhelming support for an independent Kashmir among the one million Kashmiri Untouchables and 750, 000 Kashmiri Sikhs, dissallusioned with over fifty years of Brahmin misrule which has only brought squalor, frustration and misery not only to the Muslims but Sikhs and Untouchables of Indian occupied Kashmir too.
The leader of the first ever 16 member Pakistani Media delegation allowed by India to visit Indian Occupied Kashmir in over half a century, senior Pakistani journalist Imtiaz Alam, told UNI (United News of India news agency) in an interview given in New Delhi, on Sunday October 10 - on conclusion of the Kashmir visit - that "the dominant opinion in Kashmir was for achieving 'Azadi' - freedom. However, Azadi does not mean accession of the Kashmir valley to Pakistan."
During his interview Mr. Imtiaz Alam told the UNI, "that the alienation of the people of the valley with New Delhi was complete as the judicial process and law and order machinery had broken down in the state. The entry of security forces and the Army has made the indigenous uprising a bloody conflict." Imtiaz Alam, who met a cross-section of people and leaders, including those from the Congress, the PDP and Hurriyat, during the five-day visit to the state, said, "unlike other states of India, justice was non-existent in Jammu and Kashmir. The delegation came across two distinct shades of opinion one represented by Dogras and displaced Kashmiri Pandits and the other by the majority Muslim community in the valley....There is division of opinion on ethnic lines."
Following the 5-day visit (Oct. 04-09) of the 16 Pakistani journalists to Indian held Kashmir, a two-day Conference of South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) was held in New Delhi, where the overwhelming view, according to Indian media reports, was that no lasting solution to the vexed Kashmir issue is possible without the active participation of the people of the state in any initiative or dialogue involving their future. A full session was devoted, at the New Delhi conference on October 10, to discuss Indo-Pak relations and the Kashmir problem.
Setting the tone for discussion at the New Delhi conference, Mr Ved Bhasin, the Hindu Chairman of the Jammu-based Kashmir Times group of publications (Kashmir Times: http://kasmirtimes.com/archive/0410/041011/index.htm) regretted that neither the January 2004 Islamabad joint statement, nor talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf later in New York, made any reference to the people of Kashmir for finding a solution of the long standing imbraglio. Mr Bhasin said, "Kashmir issue is not a border dispute and concerns the inalienable right of the Kashmiri people to self determintion which has been denied to them for the last 57 long year on one pretext or the other. Their expressed will has to be taken into account before it can be claimed that the issue has been closed. He said India & Pakistan may have interest in the state, but these must not have precedence over the will, political aspirations and interests of the people who live there and whose future is intimately inolved with the future of the state."
Pakistani journalist Ejaz Haider, News Editor of The Friday Times and Contributing Editor of Daily Times (both Lahore-based publications) and a member of the 16-member visiting delegation, in a special comment published in the Jammu-based Kashmir Times on October 09 wrote that, "The point of the visit simply is to get to know this area and its people and find out from them firsthand what the situation is like and what would they want the outside world, including Pakistan, to do about it. There is an ongoing peace process between India and Pakistan and the Kashmir dispute is an essential part of it. After 15 years of struggle marked by bloodshed, there is need to explore options that can allow Kashmiris to live in peace and with dignity and connect with the nationals of Azad Kashmir. The SAFMA initiative is merely an attempt to try and work towards that end by contributing towards creating the space essential for a resolution of the dispute to the satisfaction of all the parties."
In view of the overwhelming support to the Kashmir Independence movement by Kashmir's Sikhs and Untouchables we decided to look at the Kashmir dispute through Pakistani eyes. We therefore, turned to a wise and elderly Pakistani, a time tested Sikh friend, Mr. Ahmed Sheikh, to find out the details and how this Kashmir Gordian knot could be cut? According to the Pakistani nationalists point of view, he told us, "the heart of the Kashmir dispute, is control of the headwaters of the three Pakistani rivers, Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. These Western rivers, which flow from Indian-occupied Kashmir into Pakistan were allocated to Pakistan for its exclusive use under the unequal World Bank sponsored 1960 Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan. Under the same treaty India was given the exclusive use of the three Eastern rivers of undivided Punjab - Sutlej, Beas and Ravi - which flow through Sikh Punjab into Pakistan. It was assumed at that time, by all concerned, that the Indus Waters Treaty would form the basis of a future Kashmir settlement. Since then Pakistan has wanted to secure and control the hilly headwaters of the three Western rivers, Chenab, Jhelum and Indus, in order to build dams etc., as it has no suitable locations for such structures in the plains for the growing population of Pakistan. The issue therefore, has become a question of life and death for water-short Pakistan and the future generations of its people."
Mr. Sheikh further told us that, "India acquired the headwaters of these three Western Pakistani rivers in the Kashmir mountains (where the majority of the population happens to be Muslim the basis on which Pakistan was created in 1947 after an agreement was reached between the Hindu and Muslim communities and the British rulers) by a conspiratorial subterfuge. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, the then Indian Prime minister, and one of many paramours of insatiable Lady Edwina Mountbatten nee Ashley, used her cuckold husband, the British Viceroy, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, (1900-79) to dishonestly alter the Radcliffe Boundary Award, on August 16, 1947, as a result of which India was gifted land access into Kashmir, via the then Muslim majority Gurdaspur district of Punjab. Since then, for over half a century, India has refused, to negotiate a final and equitable settlement of the Kashmir dispute, still pending in the United Nations, as it does not want to part with the watershed area of the three Western rivers despite that hilly area being a financial, security and military burden for India. Caught in a similar situation Pakistan gave up the princely state of Junagadh (in present day Gujarat) despite the Nawab of Jungadh's legal accession to Pakistan, on August 15, 1947 the day Imperial Britain withdrew from the subcontinent. That, in the Pakistani point of view, is the crux of the Kashmir dispute!"
The Indian rulers have always been aware - and now the Pakistani journalists know it too - that the vast majority of Occupied Kashmir's over seven million Muslim population (6, 793, 240 Kashmiri Muslims according to India's 2001 census: > http://www.censusindia.net/religiondata/Summary%20Muslims.pdf <) now realizes that despite UN resolutions, the 1998 nuclearization of India and Pakistan has removed any possibility of merger of Indian occcupied Kashmir with Pakistan. As Pakistan CANNOT risk a nuclear war to free the Kashmiris from the unjust and oppressive Indian yoke, complete independence (a la the Christians of Portugese Timor) is the only way left for the oppressed and unhappy Kashmiris.
The Kashmiris have also discovered that out of the three million Hindus in Kashmir about 30 % are oppressed outcaste untouchables on whom subcastes have been foisted by the Brahmin-dominated social order and they have been listed under thirteen subcastes;- "(1) Barwala, (2) Basit, (3) Batwal, (4) Chura, (5) Chamar/Ramdasia, (6) Dhyar, (7) Doom/Mahasha, (8) Gardi, (9) Jolaha, (10) Meigh/Kabirpanthi, (11) Ratal, (12) Saryara, (13) Watal. Most of these outcaste subcastes are found in Jammu province (Jammu, Udhampur, Doda, Kathua, Rajouri and Poonch districts) only except for Ratal and Watal subcastes present in Kashmir.
These about one million outcaste Kashmiri Untouchables (listed incorrectly in the 2001 Census as Hindus) along with three quarters of a million Kashmiri Sikhs fully support the independence struggle of Kashmir's seven million Muslims. (To learn more about India's 190 million outcaste Untouchables slaves and how they are maltreated please click at: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0306/feature1/index.html) No wonder the Indian government is covertly padding the numbers of the less than two million Hindu population of Jammu & Kashmir (in contravention of the Constitutional guarantees against such activity in the state of Kashmir enshrined in the Indian Constitution - article 370) by importing Hindu labourers from the Cow belt (Bihar & UP) who are changing the demography of Indian occupied Kashmir. (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/877335.cms)
A similar government sponsored demographic exercise of importing unwashed labour from the UP/Bihar 'cow-belt' has been going on in Sikh Punjab where a 'statistical genocide' of the Sikhs has been in progress for the past twenty years eversince the Indian Army attacked the holiest Sikh shrine - Darbar Sahib complex - in Amritsar in June of 1984. (For details of the Sikh 'statistical genocide' in the 2001 Census please click at /home/khalistancalling/2004/september15.aspx)
In conclusion we would like to ask our Pakistani neighbours and friends a simple question. All the major rivers of Pakistan - Indus, Jhelum and Chenab - flow from Indian occupied Kashmir into Pakistan and the other two (Ravi and Sutlej) flow from Sikh Punjab, Khalistan into Pakistan. Who would the water-short Pakistanis prefer controlling the headwaters of Sutlej, Jhelum and Chenab rivers? The Kashmiris or the Indians? The answer is obvious.
Why then, would Pakistan reject the third option, independence, a la the Christians of Portugese East Timor - Timor-Leste (area 5, 794 sq. miles; population 778, 000; 90% Catholic) for Indian occupied Kashmir's about seven million (6, 793, 240) Muslims, about 3/4 million Sikhs and about one million outcaste Untouchables slaves who together make up over 80% of the population of that misruled Indian colony?