RSS ideologue recommends autonomy for Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh be made separate states

RSS voice seeks separate Kashmir state
SANKARSHAN THAKUR

MG Vaidya
New Delhi, Oct. 2: A leading RSS ideologue has turned the stated position of the Sangh and the BJP on Kashmir on its head by floating radical corrective proposals that could trigger a new debate on the way forward in the troubled Valley.

In what’s a plunge against the tide, former RSS spokesperson M.G. Vaidya has recommended that Kashmir be cleaved from Jammu and Ladakh and granted pre-1953 levels of autonomy with a prime minister (Wazir-e-Azam) as head of government with powers over all subjects other than defence, currency, foreign affairs and telecommunications.

But unlike the pre-1953 status, there should be no separate president (Sadr-e-Riyasat) for the state because “we have only one President for the whole country”.

Insisting that the office of the governor appointed by the Centre be retained, Vaidya says: “During the British regime, there were many princely states that enjoyed complete autonomy on internal matters. But a British Resident used to be there to look after the interests of the empire and the geographic unity and integrity of the state was not damaged. So will it happen in the case of the new state. Our governor, like the British Resident, will have to be vigilant about the whole nation’s interest.”

He has also suggested that powers to impose governor’s rule under Article 356 should be retained in the interests of national integrity.

Jammu, according to the Vaidya plan, should become a separate state and Ladakh a Union territory in accordance with its distinct “geographical, religious, linguistic and cultural” identity.

In addition, he has said that in order to contain Kashmir’s drift towards separatism, Article 370, which grants special status to the state, be strengthened by making it a permanent feature of the Constitution rather than the “temporary and transitory” status it currently has. He has suggested that once Kashmir becomes a separate state, it should also be allowed to enact a separate criminal law.

The Centre should call a roundtable conference comprising all shades of opinion in the Valley to put in place the minutiae of the new framework to ensure that Kashmir remains an integral part of India, Vaidya has suggested.

Among the other issues the conference should discuss are the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the Election Commission over Kashmir as well as census operations and the appointment of IAS and IPS officers in the state.

He also believes that Kashmiri opinion should be sought on whether Parliament should continue to make laws for the state in accordance with Article 249 of the Constitution and whether central rules of excise, customs, civil aviation and post and telegraph should continue to apply to the new state of Kashmir.

The RSS senior has attached a few critical caveats, though. All Kashmiri Pandits forced into exile by a militant insurgency in the early 1990s should be rehabilitated in the Valley and elements that seek a merger with Pakistan should have no role in consultations over the new arrangement.

Vaidya’s sweeping and contentious reforms are part of a paper he circulated to scant notice following an all-party delegation’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir last month. His prescription not merely represents a drastic departure from the Sangh’s position, it also vastly exceeds what parties like the Congress are willing to concede at the moment.

The BJP rejects outright the trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir on regional lines, rejects autonomy, and remains theoretically committed to the abrogation of Article 370.

The Congress, which has been more accepting of Kashmiri demands than the BJP, too has pointedly ignored the autonomy resolution f the Assembly which is being foregrounded as a key demand by chief minister Omar Abdullah.

The autonomy proposals, Vaidya says, should not be “imposed” on the people of Jammu or Ladakh.

Speaking to The Telegraph from Nagpur, the 88-year-old Vaidya was keen to stress that the views were personal and did not represent the “official position” of the RSS. But that he has gone public with his note suggests that he is seeking a clean-slate debate on Kashmir within and outside the Sangh parivar.

The BJP, unsurprisingly, rejected the Vaidya remedy out of hand.

“The BJP has a clear, well-meditated position on Jammu and Kashmir,” chief party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said, reacting to the points made by Vaidya.

“Anything that becomes a facade for separatism or independence is totally unacceptable. Kashmir is and will remain an integral part of India.”

Without engaging with the specifics of Vaidya’s suggestions, Prasad said: “We must reach out to the people of the Valley, provide them relief and confidence and differentiate between them and separatists who only become important when there is violence. The current cycle of violence is the consequence of Omar Abdullah’s misrule; we believe his removal has to be the starting point of turning the Valley around.”

Another senior BJP leader sounded more dismissive of Vaidya and his Kashmir proposals. “Vaidya has always been a bit of a freelancer,” he said. “Often, even within the RSS and the Sangh parivar, his views are not taken seriously.”

Vaidya sounded unperturbed by either criticism or indifference from colleagues.

“Of course, these are ideas that many will find difficult to accept or even discuss,” he said. “Many of my friends have told me that the medicine I am prescribing is more dangerous than the disease. But I believe this should be debated…. In muddon par charcha honi chahiye kyonki Kashmir bahut mahatvapurna maamla hai (there should be a discussion on these matters because Kashmir is a very important issue).”

Three Muslims appointed to Amarnath panel, samiti objects

Samiti objects to three Muslims on Amarnath panel
Ishfaq-ul-Hassan / DNA Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir governor NN Vohra has appointed three Muslims to the 13-member Shri Amarnath Yatra Advisory Committee for a smooth conduction of the yatra. But the committee is yet to meet, as the Shri Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti (SASS) has objected to inclusion of Muslims in the committee.

The samiti, which spearheaded the agitation for restoration of 39.88 hectares of forestland to the board last year, called the move “undesirable and unnecessary”. “The SASB Act clearly states that if a governor is non-Hindu, he has to nominate a Hindu to head the board. Taking it as a premise, how can a non-Hindu be part of Hindu religious body? Similarly no non-Muslim should be part of Muslim body,” said samiti convener Brig (retd) Suchet Singh.

This is the first time that the governor, who is also the board chairman, has nominated Muslims to the committee ever since the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) Act was passed.

The three Muslims are namely Lateef Ahmad Bhat, Mohammed Jabbar Malik and Dr Mubeen Shah.

Lateef Ahmad Bhat heads the Kashmir Hotel and Restaurants Owners Federation while Dr Mubeen Shah is the chairman of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI). Mohammed Jabbar Malik represents the family of Buta Malik, a Muslim shepherd from Pahalgam credited with discovering the cave shrine in the mountains in 1850. Buta and his family were the shrine’s custodian till 2000 when the National Conference government formed the shrine board.

“We are looking forward to put across our views for conduct of the yatra. There have been no meetings of the committee so far,” said Dr Mubeen Shah, a member of the coordination committee that spearheaded the struggle against the economic blockade of Kashmir by radical elements in Jammu.

“There has been no meeting of the committee so far. We have heard that some people have raised objections in Jammu over our inclusion in the committee,” said Lateef.

The board’s additional CEO, Madan Mantoo, said the advisory committee members have met the divisional commissioner though there has been no formal meeting with the Board.

J & K police, relatives assault Muslim girl converted to Hinduism

“A court here on Friday asked the Delhi police to provide protection to a girl who was allegedly assaulted by Jammu and Kashmir police and her relatives at a shelter home here for marrying her Hindu neighbour. “

J&K girl in city gets cop cover
28 Mar 2009,

NEW DELHI: The drama surrounding a Muslim girl marrying a Hindu boy and the Jammu & Kashmir police looking for the boy on Friday reached a trial  court where the girl sought protection.

A trial court on Friday asked the Delhi Police to provide her protection after she moved an application stating she was allegedly assaulted by Jammu & Kashmir Police and her relatives at a shelter here for marrying her Hindu neighbour. Station house officer of Hauz Khas police station is directed to provide protection to the girl, metropolitan magistrate Saurabh Kulshreshtha said.

Anjum Hussain alias Bhavani, a resident of Jammu who had taken shelter in a hostel being run by V Mohini Giri, former chairperson of National Commission for Women, had alleged Jammu & Kashmir policemen M K Khatana and Mohd Arif and her relatives assaulted her and Giri on March 26.

The J&K Police, which had lodged a FIR against Khemraj for allegedly kidnapping the girl, had sent its personnel to arrest the man who recently married the girl.

The couple, fearing for their lives, had fled from their native place after her relatives came to know about their affair, V K Ohri, counsel appearing for the duo and Giri, told the court.

Earlier, metropolitan magistrate Ravinder Singh ordered that the statement of the girl be recorded by another magistrate under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code to ascertain the truth in the case. “The J&K policemen be arrested forth with as the girl, who is a major and Giri, chairperson of NGO Guild of Service, have identified them in the court,” S Ohri said.

An FIR was registered by Mohini Giri with the Hauz Khas police station against unnamed persons on March 26 under the IPC provisions relating to trespass, assault and outraging the modesty of women.

Bhawani, who converted to Hindusim, and married the boy, was sent to the shelter home by noted scribe Nalini Singh, the FIR said. However, the relatives and J&K Police knew their whereabouts after tracking their mobile phones and allegedly trespassed into the shelter home, assaulted and attempted to take them away. The court has fixed the matter for further hearing on Saturday.

Marriage against parents’ will, police to protect J&K girl
PTI Friday, March 27, 2009

New Delhi: A court here on Friday asked the Delhi police to provide protection to a girl who was allegedly assaulted by Jammu and Kashmir police and her relatives at a shelter home here for marrying her Hindu neighbour.

“Station house officer of Hauz Khas police station is directed to provide protection to the girl,” metropolitan magistrate Saurabh Kulshreshtha said.

Anjum Hussain alias Bhavani, a resident of Jammu who had taken shelter in a hostel being run by V Mohini Giri, former chairperson of National Commission for Women, had alleged Jammu and Kashmir policemen K Khatana and Mohd Arif and her
relatives assaulted her and Giri on March 26.

The Jammu and Kashmir police, which had lodged a FIR against Khemraj for allegedly kidnapping the girl, had sent its personnel to arrest the man who recently married the girl.The couple, fearing for their lives, had fled from their native place after her relatives came to know about their affair, VK Ohri, counsel appearing for the duo and Giri, told
the court.

Earlier, metropolitan magistrate Ravinder Singh ordered that the statement of the girl be recorded by another magistrate under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code to
ascertain the truth in the case.

“The Jammu and Kasmir policemen be arrested forth with as the girl, who is a major and Giri, chairperson of NGO Guild of Service, have identified them in the court,” Ohri said.

A FIR was registered by Mohini Giri with the Hauz Khas police station against unnamed persons on March 26 under the IPC provisions relating to trespass, assault and outraging the modesty of women. Bhawani, who converted to Hindusim, and married the boy, was sent to the shelter home by noted scribe Nalini Singh, the FIR said.

However, the relatives and Jammu and Kashmir Police knew their whereabouts after tracking their mobile phones and allegedly trespassed into the shelter home and assaulted, attempted to take them away.The court has fixed the matter for further hearing on Saturday.

India to be turned into Islamic Republic of Pakistan by 2020: ISI plan

ISI plans ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’ by 2020 in India
Tue, Jan 6 01:40 PM

New Delhi, Jan.6 (ANI): Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) apparently has plans to destabilize India by influencing developmentsin the north and west of the country, particularly in Mumbai, as part of its multi-pronged strategy.

Terrorists arrested in Jammu have made these revelations.

According to an article published in the latest issue of the Power Politics magazine, the ISI has circulated two maps to the Pakistan Army to boost troop morale by giving them a target to destabilize India by 2020.

One of the maps targets North India, and projects a desire to convert that region into ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’ by 2020. It mentions South India as disputed territory and treats Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal as its neighbouring countries. The other map indicates a drastic change of Mumbai’s topography, turning the metropolis into ‘Muslimabad’ by 2012.

The magazine carries the photographs of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) activist Ghulam Fareed, identified as Pakistani soldier, (Belt No 4319184, 10 Azad Kashmir Regiment) from Ruperi village in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s (PoK’s) Bhimber district and the other two–Mohammad Abdullah from North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Mohammad Imran from Dera Nawab in Pakistan’s Punjab–belonged to Harkat-ul-Jehad (HuD) terrorists group. They travelled from Karachi to Dhaka to enter India from Kolkata and they landed at Jammu from there.

The write up further states that according to the plan, ISI has been attempting to place India under seige both from the sea and land routes simultaneously.

Pakistan has moved its army to forward areas in Lahore strengthening international border and LOC with India to protect its vital installations.

The article, written by a Kashmir expert, carries both maps to substantiate the revelations. (ANI)

Why a jihad in Kashmir and why negotiations will not satisfy Muslims — must read

visit http://www.jihadwatch.org for more such useful articles.

April 28, 2006
Fitzgerald: Why a jihad in Jammu-Kashmir?
Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir, and on the subcontinent in general:

Why do Muslim terrorists attack in Jammu-Kashmir? Because they can. The Muslim claim to Kashmir differs from their claim to all of India (or for that matter to Spain (Al-Andalus), to Israel, to Sicily, to the Balkans, to Bulgaria, to Rumania, to Hungary, and to all the areas once dominated by Muslims) only in the ability to push that claim. Of course, in the jihadist view the entire world in the end must submit to Islam and be dominated by Islam — though non-Muslims may, should they accept what many Muslims continue to believe is perfectly just, live under those unambiguous conditions of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity whose sum is the status we now describe as “dhimmitude”.
Any land area, even within the Western countries where Muslims come to dominate, will by many of them be regarded as “Muslim land.” The claims made by various local Muslims may seem comical to us, such as that for the “Caliphate” in Cologne, or the insistence that certain areas in Malmo or Rotterdam or Muslim-populated towns in France are not to be treated as any longer under the control of representatives of the Infidel nation-state, but they are quite serious. That seriousness is being demonstrated even now both by Muslims and by the representatives (police, firemen, teachers) of that nation-state, who are often too afraid not to comply with the Muslim demands that they stay out of what is no longer their territory.

Jammu-Kashmir is part of India. It is not part of Pakistan. And the notion that any part of India in which there is to be found a Muslim-majority population is one where therefore Muslim claims have legitimacy is absurd. For what would follow, logically, would be a turning of all sorts of places within India into little Muslim-ruled areas. And given that the Muslim rate of population growth is always higher, in India and elsewhere, then the non-Muslim population, and given that Muslims have not hesitated to push out large numbers of non-Muslims (think of the 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits forced to flee when threatened with death), either one takes a firm stand and rejects Muslim demands or, by even hinting at “negotiating,” one emboldens the mujahedin. The Israelis have done the latter, to their own sorrow. In failing to make their own case, they have also failed to help Infidels in Europe understand that the siege against Israel, that Lesser Jihad, is hardly the only, or even the most important, of the local Jihads now being waged. And it will continue to be waged, using all the instruments now available, unless met with well-informed, implacable, and relentless opposition.

India should not be “negotiating” over Jammu-Kashmir. There is no possibility of such a negotiation satisfying Muslims permanently. Since India now possesses this part of Kashmir (Pakistan also controls part), any negotiation will only lead to further Indian concessions, possibly even the surrender of land. What Pakistan would offer — a grand agreement to cease support for cross-border terrorism — is no concession at all. Pakistan cannot offer up as a concession what it has a moral and legal duty to do anyway.

And the same is true elsewhere in the world. One suspects that the outside world will be unsympathetic to the Indians unless and until they all begin, at the same time, to talk about the belief-system of Islam, and why concessions here and there make no sense, given the ultimate unappeasable demands that Muslims must, if they are to be true Muslims, continue to make on all Infidels.

Doesn’t it make more sense for Infidels everywhere to recognize this and to discuss it openly? This would force Muslims to discuss their own ideology, and be embarrassed or chagrined by such discussion, so that not only will Infidels start supporting each other in their local conflicts, but so that some Muslims will have to cease the taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, and begin to admit that something in Islam, a good deal in Islam, must change if it is not to make Muslims permanently immiscible and un-integrable and regarded with permanent suspicion and hostility by Infidels everywhere.

Hindu civilization in Jammu-Kashmir should be defended. It is a pity that so many in India among those who are called, quite loosely and often quite comically, “intellectuals” — all shy away from anything that might conceivably be taken as a defense of Hindu (or Sikh) civilization, or culture. Above all, no thoroughly modern Indian will dare suggest that Islam has done great damage to Jammu and Kasmir, as well as to India as a whole, and to Indian civilization. No, there are exceptions — such as that cosmopolitan of Indian descent, V. S. Naipaul, who is not afraid of anyone. There are Indian-Americans (Hindu, Sikh, and even disaffected ex-Muslims) and their counterparts in Great Britain, who also know how silly it is not to make the case, to ignore history, or to shy away from the slightest hint of Hindutva, which is often mocked. Why, exactly? Is K. S. Lal to be mocked for “The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India”? Is Sir Jahundath Sarkar? Are all the other Hindu historians of India who have been unafraid to discuss what Muslim rule did to India?

Those of us who are not Indian should find out a good deal more about what happened on the subcontinent, and cease to so readily accept the “advanced” view which holds that anything smacking of “communalism” (a word used to indicate, of course, those who wish to show their sympathetic interest in, and identification with, Hindu India, and who refuse to play the game of sanitizing the history of Muslim rule) is ipso facto evil.

One hopes that those in the Western world who are articulate and aware, and of Indian (Hindu or Sikh descent, primarily) will help to educate others — but that can only be done once one has educated oneself. Lal and Sarkar should be household words. The two volumes in which Sita Ram Goel simply lists tens of thousands of Hindu sites destroyed should be better known. Those Indians who become internationally famous, and always — as a matter of course — are quick to demonstrate that they have absolutely nothing to do with “communalism” (i.e., Hindu causes, Hindu history, Hindu interests) — one thinks here of Amartya Sen — would do better to study their own history, and not to assume that intelligent Hindus and Sikhs who show a bit of that supposedly terrible “communalism” must be wrong. They aren’t.

But it is difficult for them to make their voices heard, given the received ideas, and cliches, of the day — both those concerning Jammu-Kashmir, and those concerning the Jihad in general.

Posted by Robert at April 28, 2006 6:01 AM

Kashmir’s azaadi demand is about Islam

Kashmir’s ‘azaadi’ demand is about religion
Yogi Sikand

August 28, 2008
Many Kashmiri Muslims vociferously insist that the demand for independence of Kashmir has nothing to do with religion. Instead, they argue that the conflict in and over Kashmir is essentially ‘political’. What is conveniently ignored by those who make this claim is that religion and politics, particularly in the case of the Kashmir dispute, involving as it does the rival claims of Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-dominated India, can hardly be separated.
As the current spate of violence in both the Hindu-dominated Jammu division and the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, triggered off by a controversial decision of the state government to allot a piece of land to a Hindu temple trust, so starkly indicates, religion and communal identities defined essentially in religious terms have everything to do with the basic issue of Jammu and Kashmir [Images] and its still unsettled political status.

Kashmiri nationalists, in contrast to hardcore Islamists and the Hindutva brigade, quickly dismiss this point, finding it, perhaps, too embarrassing, afraid of being labelled as religious chauvinists or ‘communal’. But, no longer, it seems, can the crucial role of religion in shaping the contours of the ongoing conflict in and over Kashmir be denied.

That the ongoing Bharatiya Janata Party-inspired agitation in Jammu has marshalled considerable support among the Hindus of Jammu clearly indicates that the political project of Kashmiri nationalists — of a separate, independent state of Jammu and Kashmir — has absolutely no takers among the Hindus (and other non-Muslims) of the state.

Kashmiri nationalists insist that in the independent Jammu and Kashmir of their dreams, religious minorities — Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists — who would account for almost a fourth of the population, would have equal rights and no cause for complaint. Some even boast, without adducing any evidence, of commanding the support of the non-Muslims of the state for their project.

At the same time as they roundly berate the Dogra Raj as a long spell of slavery for the state’s Muslims, they insist that the boundaries of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, as constructed by the same Dogras, against the will of the Kashmiri Muslims, be considered as sacrosanct, as setting the borders of the independent country that they demand.

If, as they argue, Dogra Raj was illegitimate, then surely there is nothing holy about the state boundaries as laid down by the Dogras, bringing Jammu and the vastly different Kashmir valley in a forced union.

If, as they rightly insist, Kashmir was conquered against its will by the Dogras of Jammu, there is no reason why the forced union of the two should continue in the independent Jammu and Kashmir that Kashmiri nationalists dream of, particularly given the Jammu Hindus’ resentment of alleged Kashmiri hegemony, a sentiment shared even by many Jammu Muslims.

Kashmiri nationalists, however, would refuse to recognise this basic contradiction in their argument. The reason is obvious: To do so, to recognise that Jammu’s Hindus (and Leh’s Buddhists) would resist, even to the point of violence, the agenda of an independent Jammu and Kashmir would clearly indicate the obvious but embarrassing fact, that this agenda represents the aspirations and interests largely of Kashmiri Muslims, and is a means to legitimise Kashmir Muslim control over the rest of the state.

The analogy with pre-Partition India is useful. The Muslim League insisted that because the Hindus of India were in a numerical majority, a united, independent India, no matter what safeguards it gave and promises of equality it made to the Muslims, would be dominated by the Hindus, and would, for all its secular and democratic claims, be untrammelled Hindu Raj. Hence their demand for a separate Pakistan.

The Hindus of Jammu and the Buddhists of Leh find themselves in precisely the same position as did supporters of the Muslim League in pre-Partition India, only now the actors have reversed their roles.

Kashmiri nationalists insist they want an independent, united Jammu and Kashmir, just as the Congress did when it talked of a united and free India. And, like the Congress did with the Muslims, they promise the non-Muslim minorities of Jammu and Leh that their rights would be fully protected in this state of their dreams.

Yet, just as many Muslims refused to accept the promises of the Congress, fearing that they would never be honoured, the non-Muslim minorities in Jammu and Kashmir refuse to buy the arguments of the Kashmiri nationalists, which they rightly see as a thinly-veiled guise to justify Kashmiri hegemony.

I have heard Kashmiris, including some of my closest friends, come up with the most ingenious arguments to counter the above point.

‘Kashmiriyat, the teachings of love and peace of our Sufis, unite us all and would ensure that non-Muslim minorities will be safe and protected in a free Jammu and Kashmir,’ some of them say. A laughable claim, unless all Kashmiris suddenly decide to shun the world and trod the mystical path, an unlikely prospect. Sufism is in a rapid state of decline in Kashmir and elsewhere, as is the case with all other forms of mysticism.

Then there is another bizarre argument, which I heard, among others, from none less than one of the chief ideologues of the Jamaat e Islami in Kashmir and a fervent backer of Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan, which runs like this: Islam lays down the rights of non-Muslims and insists that Muslims should respect them. The Prophet Muhammad himself did so. So, if Jammu and Kashmir gets freedom and becomes a truly Islamic State, the non-Muslim minorities will have full freedom and equality.

That the Islamists whom he led had hardly done anything to promote anything even remotely approaching that sort of confidence among the state’s minorities — in fact doing almost everything to completely alienate them — did not even cross his mind.

The late Sadullah Tantrey, once head of the Jammu branch of the Jamaat e Islami, even went on to insist, in all seriousness, that ‘Indeed, so happy will the non-Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir be in this independent Islamic state that even Hindus from India would line up to settle in the state.’ I squirmed in my seat as he went on, stunned at his evident ignorance or hypocrisy or, as seemed more likely, both.

I itched to tell him, as I sat before him in his house in Gath, up in the mountains of Doda, that the ‘Islamic State’ hardly outlived the Prophet Mohammed and has been completely extinct ever since; that the fate of minorities in scores of Muslim countries, even those like Saudi Arabia that claim to be ‘Islamic’, was deplorable; that even Mohammed Ali Jinnah had promised full equality to the non-Muslim citizens of Pakistan but that had not prevented them from being reduced to virtual second-class citizens; and that, simply put, he was lying or else living in a fool’s paradise. I kept my mouth shut, however. After all, I was there to learn what his views were, not to preach.

Clearly, any forced union of the disparate nationalities in Jammu and Kashmir in the form of a separate, independent state that Kashmiri nationalists champion (as now do even some Kashmiri Islamists, former passionate advocates for union with Pakistan who, flowing with the tide, have realised that their earlier stance has increasingly few takers among Kashmiris, given their mounting disenchantment with Pakistan) would be a sure recipe for civil war. The current agitation in Jammu is ample evidence of that. It is time, therefore, that pro-‘Azadi’ Kashmiri leaders admit this publicly.

This is not, however, to plead the case for the division of the state, as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has been advocating, for surely that would further harden communal boundaries and rivalries in just the same way as would the project of an independent Jammu and Kashmir. Rather, it is to recognise and publicly acknowledge the very plural character of Jammu and Kashmir, and the concerns and sensitivities of all its peoples, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others.

Dr Yogi Sikand is the editor of Qalandar, an electronic magazine on Islam-related issues, and also the author of several books on the subject.

Does the Indian state have the courage to defend India from breaking up?

J&K divide: diplomacy versus democracy
Tavleen Singh Posted online: Sunday, August 24, 2008

As an ‘argumentative Indian’ it pleases me when someone starts an argument with me. It pleases me even more when the challenger is a respected intellectual with more years of journalistic experience than little old me. So I was flattered that Prem Shankar Jha should consider it worthwhile to write a long, thoughtful piece in this newspaper last week to disagree with what I said on the current situation in Kashmir. What I said in this space was that it was disturbing not to hear Kashmir’s supposedly moderate leaders speak in a moderate voice at a time when sensible voices were so badly needed.

Mr Jha accused me of being “both simplistic and unjust”. In his critique of my piece he gave a lengthy account of the history of the Amarnath Yatra but ended up half agreeing with me: “Ms Singh is right when she says that (Yasin) Malik, the Mirwaiz, Geelani and even Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti fanned the agitation by joining it. But had they not done so they would have written their own epitaphs in Kashmiri politics.”

My answer is they should have. Kashmir needs leaders not politicians in its present crisis. If all that the ‘moderates’ can give us is politics and political expediency it would be better if they wrote their epitaphs quickly. It would make it easier for us to deal with the secessionists and jihadis who should under Indian law be tried for treason. Ten years ago I wrote a book that blamed the Government of India squarely for denying Kashmiris their democratic rights, thereby driving them towards armed insurgency. I believe this gives me the right to say that this time the Kashmiris have no cause. No country could have dealt with a secessionist movement more gently than India has after those initial mistakes in the early nineties. The movement for azadi turned into Islamist terrorism and India did nothing. Kashmiri Hindus were ethnically cleansed from the Valley and India did nothing. Jihadis came across our borders and turned Kashmiri Islam into a Saudi facsimile and India did nothing.

This is why when something as absurd as the Amarnath land row should have brought thousands of Kashmiris into the streets carrying Pakistani flags and shouting jihadi slogans the reaction from Indians has been: get out. Enough is enough. In Delhi’s liberal drawing rooms they put it diplomatically. We should have a referendum, they say, and if the Kashmiris want to go to Pakistan then it’s time to let them go because, poor dears, they have suffered so much for their azadi.

As a reporter who prefers to listen to what ordinary people say let me tell you what I hear when I put my ear to the ground. I hear people say that anyone who wants to go to Pakistan must be allowed to leave and never allowed back into Kashmir. I hear people say that they are not prepared to surrender another inch of Indian territory.  If Kashmiri Muslims have a problem living with us let them emigrate to that Islamic country across the border. Whoever wants to go must be helped to go. But, there will be no more changing of India’s borders. The more belligerent say let the Kashmir Valley go to Pakistan but then there will be no room in India for Muslims.

What I also hear is huge support for the movement in Jammu. So when our political leaders and politically correct TV anchors equate the two agitations they make a serious mistake. The way ordinary Indians see it is that we have one set of protesters who carry Indian flags and are ready to die for Bharat Mata and they cannot be equated with those who openly state their allegiance to Pakistan.

It is no longer about the Amarnath Yatra. It is about whether the Indian state has the courage to defend India from breaking up. And, defend the values India stands for. We stand for democracy, secularism and fundamental human freedoms that include the freedom of worship. These are good values and we must defend them against those who would have us make compromises with religious fanatics and traitors.

Those who do not share our values have every right to leave and find a country more suited to their way of thinking and their beliefs. But, if they choose to stay in India they must abide by the values of this land. In the name of ‘secularism’ Dr Manmohan Singh’s Government has made too many concessions to jihadis and other lowlifes. This is being seen as a sign of weakness by those who have no compunction about waving Pakistani flags on Indian soil. If this is a ‘simplistic and unjust’ assessment of the situation in Kashmir so be it.

Jammu hostage crisis ends; all three Islamic terrorists killed

Jammu hostage crisis ends; all three terrorists killed
Zaffar Iqbal
Wednesday, August 27, 2008, (Jammu)The 16-hour long encounter in Jammu is over. All three militants have been killed by security forces.

The militants got in by cutting the fence at the international border on Monday and then surfaced on Wednesday morning on the outskirts of Jammu.

They had first opened fire and killed four people and then got into an auto and headed into a residential area where they broke into the house and took seven people hostage, four among them were children, the youngest one was only two years old.

Firing went on for hours before the guns felt silent, but the militant didn’t let the hostages go. The Army even got maulvis to appeal to the militanst to let the hostages go but that too didn’t work.

At daybreak, the militants had entered the house when the owner, Billo Ram, was away.

One of the militants was shot dead but two others took the women and children of the family hostage.

On Monday night, the militants cut open the border fence in Akhnoor, about 20 km from Jammu, and headed for the city.

On Wednesday morning, they surfaced on the outskirts of Jammu, at Mishriwala, and opened fire. Three civilians and a jawan were killed. The terrorists then got into an auto-rickshaw and headed towards the densely populated Bantalab area. Finally, they broke into Billo Ram’s house.

“We were able to move to a safer place. We don’t know what is happening inside,” said a neighbour.

Soon, the Army and police arrived and a gunbattle started. Firing went on for hours before the guns fell silent and the Army finally declared a hostage situation.

“The Army is taking services of maulvis and appealing to the militants to release the hostages,” said Major General D L Choudhary, GoC, Tiger Division.

Appeasement is never good for a nation

Appeasement is never good for a nation
Lalit Koul, August 06, 2008
10,000 forest trees are chopped down to build the Mughal road in Kashmir. No one makes a noise.
Acres of land in the Kashmir valley are given to install mobile phone towers. No one screams.
Acres and acres of land in the Kashmir valley are allotted to lay sewage and drinking water pipes. No one objects.

But when 40 hectares of uninhabitable land is handed over to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board to provide better facilities to the Amarnath Yatra [Images] pilgrims, all hell breaks loose.

Why? Because the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board caters to Hindu pilgrims who want to visit the Amarnath shrine in the valley of Kashmir. It is as simple as that.

Politically correct politicians, policy-makers and administrators might try to tell you that it is not about religion, but the fact of the matter is that it is all about religion. It is a design by communal forces within the valley to completely Islamicise the valley by removing every symbol of Hinduism and other faiths from the valley.

Today, these communal forces are preventing the setting up of facilities for the yatra, tomorrow they will even go to the extent of banning the yatra altogether.

The land transfer fiasco has already consumed the Ghulam [Images] Nabi Azad-led Congress government and is on its way to now adversely damage the state’s economy. The fear psychosis has already resulted in a sharp decline of tourists to the valley. Counter-strikes and bandhs announced by the pro-land-transfer parties within the Jammu province have paralysed the life in that part of the state as well.

So far it has been a win-lose situation in favour of communal forces in the valley.

Let us take a hard look at the arguments presented by the locals who opposed the transfer of land:

1. The allotment would have adversely affected the environment around the area. One wonders where these tree-hugging environmentalists were when the same government allowed the felling of 10,000 forest trees to build the 89 km-long Mughal road.

40 hectares of land that was going to be used to provide temporary shelters and night-time facilities to pilgrims was in fact going to help in proper maintenance of the current day waste that actually pollutes the environment. But who can argue with senseless politicians who instigate people to come out on the streets?

2. The allotment is the government’s ploy to settle Hindus from outside the state to change the demographics of the valley. Look, who is talking! One has to only go back 18 years in the history and check who changed the demographics of the valley.

Islamic terrorists changed the demographics of the valley by ethnically cleansing Kashmiri Hindus from the valley. I wonder where these we-do-not-want-to-change-demographics-folks were when Kashmiri Hindus were slaughtered and the valley’s demographics were altered.

One would like to ask a few questions: a. Is 40 hectares of land enough to settle so many Hindus that it would change the demographics of the valley?

b. By putting this argument of demographic change, are the valley’s Muslims implying that Hindus are not welcome in the valley anymore? And I do not mean the Hindus from outside Kashmir. I mean the Hindus from the state of Jammu & Kashmir itself.

What if the Hindus, who hold the state subject certificate of J&K state and are legally allowed to purchase land in any part of the state want to purchase land in the area around the Holy Amarnath? Are the valley’s Muslims saying that those Hindus cannot buy the land there and settle down? Is that what they are implying? Are they trying to protect the environment by preventing the Hindus from settling in the valley?

Another argument Kashmiri Muslims present is that the land cannot be allotted to the Shrine Board because Article 370 does not allow anyone outside of J&K to own land. Their argument is that since the J&K governor is the chairman of the board and he is an outsider, this transfer of land is illegal.

How dumb does one have to be to understand that the land is transferred to the Shrine Board which is an institution based in the state of J&K and created by the J&K government. The land is not transferred to the chairman or the CEO of the board per se.

Having touched upon the outlandish arguments of those who oppose the allotment of land, let us look at some facts and the real story:

It was during the first three years of the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-Ghulam Nabi Azad coalition government that the original proposal of land transfer was initiated and cleared. It was under Mufti Sayeed’s leadership that his forest minister Qazi Mohammad Afzal and law minister Muzzafar Hussain Baig originally cleared the proposal. It just so happened that due to red tape, the proposal was finally approved by the cabinet when Azad had taken over as chief minister during the second three-year part of the six-year term.

The same PDP led by Mufti Sayeed was originally okay with this proposal. But as soon as the PDP smelt that terrorist outfits like the Hizbul Mujahideen [Images] were not in favour of the allotment of land and realised that it could become a polarising issue to whip up sentiments to garner votes in the upcoming assembly election, it backtracked.

Since it is an election year, the National Conference and other smaller political parties would not let the PDP cash in on this opportunity alone. They jumped into the fray and whipped up sentiments by fooling the local Kashmiri Muslims. And that leaves the Congress. How could the Congress not try to cash in on this polarising issue in an election year?

Azad did not waste any time and revoked his cabinet’s decision to appease the Kashmiri Muslim vote bank. He did not just stop there. In addition to revoking his own order, he also effectively disbanded the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board. Now that is some level of appeasement! That is the real story behind the story.

It is an issue created by Mufti Sayeed to polarise the vote banks. It is his design of playing politics with the religious sentiments of lakhs of Hindus from all over the country.

Now that we know the real story behind the story, how about the Hindu pilgrims who want to visit the shrine and what about their fundamental rights to practice their religion with complete security, dignity and honour?

Isn’t it a shame that Hindus living in India, where 80 per cent of population is Hindu, cannot freely visit the shrine and expect better facilities? It is only in India that the majority community has to make all the sacrifices in favour of minorities because our politicians believe in appeasing Muslims at the cost of Hindus.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on a television debate on this issue asked why there is a need for land and new facilities when the pilgrimage has been going on for many years.

Does Omar Abdullah mean to say that there is no need to improve the facilities provided during the treacherous pilgrimage? Is he implying that if the yatris were okay for so many hundred years, then why change and improve the facilities?

I have never heard him say such things with regards to the Haj pilgrimage. Every year Muslims from Kashmir and the rest of the country want better facilities and subsidies for Haj pilgrims. But when it comes to providing better facilities to Shri Amarnath pilgrims, it becomes a sore point for Kashmiri Muslims and their leaders.

Heavy rains, snowstorms, landslides and hostile environment took away 256 lives during the yatra in 1996. And Omar Abdullah has the audacity to promote the status quo!

Some of you might argue that it was not the valley’s Muslims, but the political parties and terrorists who opposed the land transfer order and forced people to come out on the streets.

I can buy that argument, but that does not absolve the valley’s people from their responsibility? They cannot always support these fundamentalist forces and then at the same time claim innocence.

They did the same in 1989 and in the early 1990s when they either stood as mute spectators or as vocal supporters while Kashmiri Hindus were ethnically cleansed. As a good citizen, it is incumbent upon them to raise their voice against these dreaded forces and stop this madness.

If they sincerely believe in peace, then they need to stand up and reject these terrorist outfits and their masters. Conversely, if they don’t, then they are as much party to the madness as the principals and thus need to be held accountable.

Appeasement policies are never good for a nation, particularly for a nation like India that is so diverse in ethnicity and culture. Whether it is amending the Constitution during the Shah Bano case, releasing terrorists during the Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping case, freeing dreaded terrorists during the IC-814 hijacking or continuing the temporary Constitutional provision of Article 370, all such policies will one day result in the nation’s doom.

It is incumbent upon the leaders of the nation as well as the citizenry to be on guard and not allow such appeasement policies to take effect in a nation that is based on the concept of secularism, democracy and fairness to one and all.

Lalit Koul is the President, Indo-American Kashmir Forum, a US-based advocacy group. He can be reached at editor@kashmirherald.com

Islamic terrorists eyeing Jammu for infiltration

Terrorists eyeing Jammu for infiltration
Zaffar Iqbal
Wednesday, August 27, 2008, (Kanachak) With the Army successfully blocking large-scale infiltration along the Line of Control, terrorists are now shifting their attention to the International border manned by the Border Security Force. They are now eyeing the Jammu sector to get into India.

Militants cut a fence on the India-Pakistan international border in Kanachak twenty kilometres from Jammu to enter into Indian Territory early on Tuesday morning.

About 30 heavily armed men opened fire at the Border Security Force observation posts. Few of them have managed to enter Indian Territory. A hunt is now on to get them. This is the second infiltration attempt in Jammu in three months.

“Two to three militants managed to infiltrate into the Indian territory, they were at a distance of 150 metres, so we could not target them,” said G S Virk, DIG, BSF.

In May, a large group of militants infiltrated into Indian Territory in a similar fashion by cutting the border fence near Samba. The BSF suspects the infiltrators have the Pakistan army’s support.

“There is a sensitive situation in our neighboring country, I think they are taking advantage of all that, and creating an atmosphere of distrust so that peace process and dialogue are delayed,” said G S Virk, DIG, BSF.

There have been many cases of ceasefire violations since it was declared in November 2003. On Monday, five BSF jawans were injured in firing in the Poonch district.

Clearly, stopping infiltration still continues to remain the biggest challenge before the security forces.