Kashmir is not merely an important strategic location but a state of a people who live a disturbed life
ISLAMABAD: Jawaharlal Nehru once claimed, “I want to stress that it is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir. It is not that we merely just said that to the United Nations and to the people of Kashmir; it is our conviction and one that is borne out by the policy that we have pursued, not only in Kashmir but everywhere.” It does not matter how long the Government of India delays this democratic solution to the Kashmir issue. This solution will always remain the just solution.
India has been dodging this solution promised by its former prime minister using several social, legal and political strategies but refusing democratic rights won’t solve the issue. With the combined effort of the whole world to deny Kashmiris their right to democracy, India won’t be able to suppress the demands for self-determination by the Kashmiri people. India, with the help of a former Kashmiri prince and other collaborators, has tried everything in a tyrant’s book to suppress the people of Kashmir but the brave Kashmir people do not let their dreams of self-determination die because their dream is their right. This means that as long as the world exists and democracies function in this world, this dream won’t die.
India and the last Kashmiri prince have inflicted all kind of injustices upon the Kashmiri people. They have been killing them for a long time. The dispute started with robbery and murder and according to a British team of observers, around 70,000 Kashmiris were killed by Indians and Dogra forces in the earliest phase of the dispute. The current use of live ammunition against protesters is just another episode in a long series of murders of a population which only demands its right to self-determination. They have suffered suspension of their rights, torture, abuse, murder, discrimination, exile, refugee crises and denial of basic humanity throughout their history after 1947. Their state has been divided in many parts among Pakistan, India and China. These regional powers must work for a united Kashmir. Kashmir could join India or Pakistan, or go its own way.
All this confusion about legality, strategic designs and status of the Kashmiri people is a false construction for the comfort and pleasure of policymakers who refuse to honour a people’s democratic rights.
If India and Pakistan realised that Kashmir is not merely an important strategic location but a state of a people who live a disturbed life, they would adopt the solution promised by Nehru. It is time for all of us to realise the struggle of the Kashmiri people.
We have succeeded many times in eradicating catastrophes when we begin to call a spade a spade. We don’t fight over the chapters of UN resolutions, we speak up for the most important democratic right of a people. That is exactly how we could put Kashmir out of its misery.
Naseer Ahmed
Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2016.
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