This is the point from which I could never return,
And if I back down now then forever I burn.
This is the point from which I could never retreat,
Cause If I turn back now there can never be peace.
This is the point from which I will die and succeed,
Living the struggle, I know I'm alive when I bleed.
From now on it can never be the same as before,
Cause the place I'm from doesn't exist anymore
[Immortal Technique]
"Terrorist"
"Terrorist"
Just a Word...
'Terrorist' is just a word, one I wish I'd never heard...
When it's used to vilify, without the need to question why...
Only fools would swift condemn, that which has not befallen them...
Until you know what lies behind, the actions of a tortured mind...
Thank your God for sparing you, the suffering others have lived through...
Where are the cries of just demand, for Arabs driven from their land?...
Blame the victim, turn the cheek, praise the bully, kick the weak!...
Mock the man who truth does speak...
Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy, greed, corruption, torture, lies!...
Blair invasion, sly persuasion, annihilation, massacred nation...
Keep on running, karma's coming!...
Money talks, truth walks, oil spills, greed kills...
Tide is turning, London's burning!...
Bombs will fall and blood will flow, as sure as my own name I know...
Until corrupt dictators go, brutal, rotten, to the core...
Their day has come, they rule no more...
Show me the man who will not fight, to save his child, his home, his right!...
You can call him what you like, you're not in his sorry plight...
Cowards stay and Martyrs go, I know not where, but this I know...
Speak your truth and stand your ground, fight your corner...
When all around, point the finger, purse the lips, pin the label, 'Terrorist'!...
Just a word, but one that sticks, even when the cap don't fit...
But for the grace of God go I, remember that, before you cry...
False accusation, names of shame, at those who may not be to blame,...
Their crime, refused to play the game, of meek acceptance, dumbing down,...
Your life, your choice; Warrior / Clown...
The Dalai Lama: "Kashmiri people should live peacefully and if there is any problem, dialogue is the only way [to resolve issues]. Violence is in nobody's interest. A peaceful way is essential," he said in Jammu and Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar.
Kashmiri separatist leaders have said that the spiritual leader allowed this visit to be hijacked by the Indian government, as he overlooked the grim reality of human-rights abuses in the region.
"We respect the Dalai Lama ... However, peace cannot prevail till justice is done," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chairman of the Hurriyat Conference political front, told a local news agency. Faroog said that the spiritual leader's failure to meet local civil society members and mention Kashmiris killed by Indian security forces was a disappointment to many.
"He did not interact with people, neither did he meet civil society members, rights workers or different shades of political leadership. He did not talk about injustice, killings and human-rights violations," said Faroog.
Another Kashmiri leader, Syed Ali Gilani, said the Dalai Lama was being used as a tool by the Indian government. "He should have cleared the very basics about Kashmir and then talked to different sections of society. He is appeasing New Delhi. He should have cleared the very basics about Kashmir and then talked to different sections of society. He is appeasing New Delhi by his utterances."
Avoiding the separatist issue, the Dalai Lama spent much of his trip meeting high-ranking Indian officials, interacting with students at the Tibetan Public School and visiting Buddhist sites.
Some Kashmiris say that as a champion of Tibet's right to self-determination, the spiritual leader could have done more to highlight their plight.
"The Dalai Lama came to Kashmir and chose to remain silent; it was more like a tourist visit to the valley as he didn't speak of any politics. As he was kept away from the public eye in Kashmir, the people fighting the cause of Kashmiri freedom were not allowed to meet him just for the reason that they might persuade him to speak out the truth," said Basharat Ali, director of the Kashmir Centre for Peace and Reconciliation.
"The Dalai Lama did not make even a cursory mention of the abuses and oppression faced by the common Kashmiri. This caused a lot of heartbreak in the valley among those looking for a show of solidarity," said Dawar Dedmari, a young Kashmiri engineer.
Apparently, the Dalai Lama, a long-staying guest in India who once called himself a "son of India", did not want to irritate his host, which uses exiled Tibetans as a leverage against China. This is perhaps the fundamental reason for his caution on commenting on the Kashmir issue.
"No doubt today’s Kashmir conflict is part of British imperialistic legacies, spread from Kashmir to Sri Lanka in South Asia and other inflammatory disputes like Kurdistan and Palestine in Middle East; and Somalia, Cyprus, Yemen and Sudan, etc. In the recent past British Prime Minister David Cameron, referring the Kashmir conflict, has already admitted that ‘Britain caused many of the world's problems’. Now it is time for British leadership to correct their historical mistakes by protecting human rights and democracy in Kashmir."
By Zafar Iqbal (Monday, September 19, 2011) Courtesy Of "Media Monitors"
Since decolonization of sub continent, Kashmir has always been a central part of the string of most dangerous disputes of the world. Much has been reported by the media and academia about the human rights situation in Kashmir, but recent Amnesty International call for urgent action to probe existence of unmarked graves of disappeared persons in this region echoed Kashmir discourse to the corridors of power in the Westminster.
After suffering from over half century long turmoil, people of Kashmir expect that the West would pay similar attention to Kashmir conflict as it gives to contemporary resistance in the Arab world. Although, Indian rising economy, vast market of 1.21 billion people and robust trade and strategic partnership between India and UK; are few crucial factors which induce the later to turning a blind eye to human rights situation in Kashmir. But such alienation triggers the concerns of Muslim majority people of Kashmir who believe that the West has double standards over issues related to Muslim world.
Two major contestants of Kashmir conflict, Pakistan and India have been blaming each other for abuse of human rights in their respective controlled regions, however, ground realties prevailing in all three units of disputed State unquestionably held responsible both parties for exacerbating the human suffering in the region where poverty, unemployment, exploitation of natural resources, gross human rights violations are on the rise.
India and Pakistan have failed to address the grievances of local people suffered from some development projects aimed to extract and exploit natural resources from Kashmiri lands to benefit Indian and Pakistani populations. Campaigners’ complaint that besides abusing global environmental standards, rights of indigenous people are being brutally violated by Pakistani and Indian governments in some mega developmental projects being carried out in different regions in Kashmir,e.g. Diamer-Bhasha Dam (Gilgit Baltistan), Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project and Mangla Upraising Power project( Pakistan Administrated Kashmir) and Kishanganga Project( Indian administered Kashmir).
Hundreds of unidentified graves – believed to contain victims of alleged Indian state torture - have been found in Indian Kashmir where over 100 people are killed in recent uprising which remained distant from militancy. Amnesty International charges India for detaining of up to 20,000 people without trial under Public Safety Act (PSA) which gives powers officials to detain citizens without trial for up to two years. Additionally, ban on international and cellular calls and SMS service prevails to curb free speech.
On other side of region which lies under Pakistani control, over half a million population in border region in picturesque Neelum Valley lives without any basic communication system due to monopoly of a telephone firm- run by Pakistani army. Such baloney sanctions are fuelling anti-Pakistan and India sentiments among locals. People are also furious over Pakistani regime for mishandling £300m international aid donated for the rebuilding of quake ridden region of Kashmir.
In Pakistani part of Kashmir dozens of political activists have been barred to join June 26, 2011 local elections under Article 7(2) of the Constituent which also suffocates free speech and fundamental human right of access to public jobs for those Kashmiris who don’t believe on the ideology of “the State's accession to Pakistan.” Pakistan’s Ministry of Kashmir Affairs is publicly alleged for rigorous electoral rigging, misuse of power and promotion of political corruption.
Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan Kashmir, has no powers in media licensing as Islamabad controls all press regulations. Local rules for registration for charitable trusts and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) also restrict campaigning for human rights issues.
In Pakistani Gilgit Baltistan political activists are frequently arrested over expressing resentment showed against the constitutional reforms, which annexed the region with Pakistan.
Pakistan’s policy on ‘war on terror’ is questionable when it comes tackling Islamic insurgents in Kashmir. Pakistan-based devout Islamists like Jamaat ud-dawah (JuD) are freely operational in Pakistani Kashmir. The JuD which is believed to be a strategic asset of Pakistan for waging proxy war in Kashmir can endanger temporary peace agreement between India and Pakistan.
Four Indian and Pakistani troopers have been killed in this month when militants, most likely from the Jud, tried to cross the Line of Control (LoC). But, three powerful anti -militants’ processions held in two weeks after the reorganisation of militants in Pakistani Kashmir, indicate public mood has changed for militants who are losing public support, which they gained after starting militancy against India in 1989.
Similarly, a profound support from local traders has been expressed for Intra-Kashmir, an initiative started as part of Indo-Pak Confidence Building Measures (CBMs). Sadly, lack of bank and communication facilities; presence of barter trade system and excessive use of bureaucratic procedures make these peace initiatives meaningless. Also, undue security checks imposed on traders and travellers increase the woes of divided families. Simple and user friendly travel and business arrangements must be developed to strengthen human and business interaction.
No doubt today’s Kashmir conflict is part of British imperialistic legacies, spread from Kashmir to Sri Lanka in South Asia and other inflammatory disputes like Kurdistan and Palestine in Middle East; and Somalia, Cyprus, Yemen and Sudan, etc. In the recent past British Prime Minister David Cameron, referring the Kashmir conflict, has already admitted that ‘Britain caused many of the world's problems’. Now it is time for British leadership to correct their historical mistakes by protecting human rights and democracy in Kashmir.
Despite revived diplomatic efforts between India and Pakistan, many doubt real progress will be made unless the attitude of the military changes [Reuters]
The Trust Deficit Between India and Pakistan Is Not Only Toxic To Kashmir But Has Broader Ramifications In South Asia.
By Mujib Mashal Last Modified: 18 Aug 2011 12:53 Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"
In August 1998, about 70 US missiles landed in eastern Afghanistan, targeting former mujahideen training camps that had been handed over to al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden, in what his bodyguard later described as "divine intervention", was on his way to Kabul and survived. But many of the 34 people killed - 20 Afghans, seven Pakistanis and seven Arabs - were training to fight Indian troops in Indian-administered Kashmir.
"When Bill Clinton ordered missiles [attacks] on former Haqqani camps in Afghanistan, there were definitely Kashmiris killed there," says Wahid Muzhda, an Afghan political analyst and former mujahid who fought the Soviets during the 1980s.
After Pakistan was pressured to stop fighters advancing its cause in Kashmir during the 1990s, Muzhda says, it simply relocated their training camps to Afghanistan, where they slipped under the radar during the chaos of a bloody civil war.
Today, many analysts suggest that the continuing violence in Kashmir and Afghanistan remain pieces of the same puzzle.
"The Kashmir imbroglio is an unfortunate phenomenon whose obvious shadow has loomed over not just Indo-Pakistan relations but upon Afghanistan as well," says Mohammad Taqi, a columnist for Pakistan's Daily Times.
The trust deficit between archrivals Pakistan and India - a rivalry partly rooted in the unresolved Kashmir dispute - continues to fuel the two countries' struggle for regional influence. And as the US searches for a resolution in Afghanistan, many suggest Kashmir remains a crucial, but largely overlooked, factor in establishing stability in South Asia.
A US official aware of the US State Department's dealings with Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, who asked not to be named because he is not authorised to speak on the matter, told Al Jazeera that addressing tensions in Kashmir was not part of the US' immediate efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan.
"The US tries to use its bilateral relations with both India and Pakistan to encourage easing of tensions over Kashmir, but it does not introduce the issue into discussions over Afghanistan," he said.
However many fear that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan could, in the words of Nitin Pai, a fellow in geopolitics at the Indian Takshashila Institute, free up "thousands of armed, violent, radicalised" men who might find their way, once again, to Kashmir.
"With shattered, feudal economies and lack of skills that would make them employable, this pool of manpower will destabilise these countries and pose risks to the broader region," says Pai.
"The initial call to the holy war - jihad - in Kashmir was rather generic," Taqi says, referring to 1948, when the first war between Pakistan and India broke out over the disputed territory. "But the next decades saw the full-fledged use of highly indoctrinated and Wahabised proxies inducted into Kashmir, especially after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan."
The struggle for Kashmir developed more pronounced religious undertones in line with the increased religious fundamentalism in Pakistan during the rule of General Zia ul Haq in the 1970s and 1980s.
"Kashmiris' right of self-determination was jettisoned along the way," says Taqi. "Organisations that started demanding 'Kashmir for Kashmiris' - i.e. independence from both India and Pakistan - were abandoned by Pakistan, in favour of Islamist proxies, when they started moving away from the Pakistani position."
Even during the struggle against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Pakistan - pivotal to the then CIA-supported Afghan fighters - kept the two fronts close to each other to signal that, despite the USSR knocking on its door, Kashmir remained its biggest policy issue.
Muzhda, who, along with other Afghan mujahideen went to Pakistan for training, says the Kashmiri presence at the training camps was noticeable.
"The trainers were people who had ties to the ISI [Pakistan's intelligence agency] and some of them were even religious scholars," he says.
Many Afghans who received training at the camps were also deployed to Kashmir in subsequent years.
"I heard stories from fellow mujahideen who went to Kashmir for a stint. There was a feeling of pan-Islamism at the training camps and for many - including Afghans and Arabs fighting in Afghanistan - Kashmir was just another jihad around the corner," Muzhda says, adding that a share of machine gun and long range weapon shipments from China and Egypt also made its way to Kashmir.
As Pakistan came under international scrutiny over the expanding militant activities of groups like Lashkar-e Jangvi and Harakat-ul Ansar during the 1990s, their training camps were relocated to Afghanistan. "But the stage for the national-security-state paradigm becoming the cornerstone of Pakistan's domestic and foreign policies was set long ago - by the events of 1947 and 1948," says Taqi, referring to the years of partition.
"The involvement of the security apparatus in achieving Pakistan's foreign policy objectives at a time when the democratic institutions were in an embryonic state set the stage for a larger-than-life role the military assumed in the affairs."
While India and Pakistan have fought several wars over Kashmir, the battle has also raged through proxy groups and Afghanistan has historically been, and remains, a perfect battlefield for such a proxy war.
Davood Moradian, a professor of politics at the American University of Afghanistan and a former diplomat, however, believes the large disparity between Pakistan's military establishment and its democratic institutions is at the core of the issue. He says Kashmir is but one manifestation of this.
"As the separation of East Pakistan [now Bangladesh] and ongoing violence within Pakistan show, the underlying causes are the main issues for regional stability rather than the proximate one of Kashmir," Moradian explains. "Pakistan's military and political elite see Pakistan as a hegemonic country. A hegemon and regional power requires parity with India and domination over Afghanistan."
Proxy Warfare
"The proxy warfare that had started in Kashmir in 1947 remains the sheet-anchor of Pakistan's defence strategy. The quest for the so-called 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan is also a manifestation of this phenomenon," Taqi says.
Now that the US, facing economic troubles and war-fatigue at home, seems desperate for a resolution in Afghanistan, many fear the consequences will be felt in Kashmir.
"To the extent that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan frees up militants to fight elsewhere, there is a risk that some of them will find their way to Kashmir," Pai says.
Pakistan's history of reliance on proxy groups only adds to these fears, particularly among those who believe Pakistan has yet to completely sever its ties with armed groups that have had historical relations with the army over causes such as Kashmir.
"Because this diverts the militants from destabilising Pakistan's domestic politics, even civilian leaders are likely to encourage this, as we saw in the early 1990s," says Pai.
India, under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has assiduously pushed for better relations, considering a stable Pakistan crucial to its economic ambitions. It is a move that has been reciprocated by Pakistan's civilian administration.
"Prime Minister Singh's 'peace offensive' with Pakistan is guided by the fact that, if India wants to become an Asian power in the real sense, it has to extricate itself from contentious issues of South Asia," says Indian political analyst Luv Puri.
In her first visit to India, Pakistan's new foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, pushed for "purposeful and forward-looking" talks on Kashmir. In a move seen by some as a sign that she is genuine in her efforts to find a resolution, she also met with Kashmiri separatist leaders in New Delhi.
But many think that Pakistan's civilian government can only go so far on foreign policy and that it is the army that will ultimately have the final say.
"The perpetuation of the Kashmir problem remains in the interest of both such militant groups and the Pakistani military establishment," says Taqi.
"Any resolution of the problem would deprive the jihadists and military, which sired them, of their raison d'être.
"So, despite much trumpeted calls [for] Kashmiri freedom, the Pakistani army, which is addicted to its business ventures, would resist any resolution of the problem, especially an independent Kashmir."
A new generation of resistance has chosen stones instead of Kalashnikovs as its weapon of choice [GALLO/GETTY]
From Pro-Independence To Pro-Pakistani Militia, The New Generation Of Kashmiri Youth Abandoned Kalashnikovs For Stones.
By Sumantra Bose Last Modified: 02 Aug 2011 11:50 Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"
Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1991, the Kashmir Valley was in the grip of full-fledged insurrection.
Hordes of young, Kalashnikov-wielding men roamed the streets and neighbourhoods of Srinagar, the capital, and the valley's other towns like Baramulla, Anantnag and Sopore. The sound of gunfire and explosions mingled with chants of "azaadi" ["freedom"] emanating from demonstrations large and small. People from all strata of society took part in protests against Indian rule.
The organisation leading this movement was the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which believes in a sovereign Kashmir, independent from both India and Pakistan, and whose tricolour flag bears a significant resemblance to the Palestinian national colours.
Indian security forces, led by federal paramilitary police units flown in by the central government in New Delhi, fought a desperate battle to stem the tidal wave of insurgency and popular uprising sweeping the valley.
Fifteen years ago, in the summer of 1996, the situation on the ground was very different from what it had been just a few years previously. The insurrection had lost strength and momentum. The Indian security forces had regained control over Srinagar and other major towns. The JKLF, exhausted and broken as an organisation, had ceased to be active in the armed struggle.
Its position as the dominant group in the insurgency had been taken by the Hizb-ul Mujahideen (HM), an organisation with a pro-Pakistan ideology. The insurgency was in disarray - hundreds of young men active as insurgents during the first half of the 1990s were switching sides and joining with Indian security forces as valued auxiliaries in combating a significantly weaker insurgent campaign dominated by HM.
What happened to produce such a sea-change between 1991 and 1996?
The tenacity and ruthlessness of the Indian counter-insurgency campaign had taken a heavy toll on the insurgents' morale and capacities. Between 1990 and 1994, the peak years of the armed struggle, 5,119 were killed and thousands more captured.
The Kashmiri writer Agha Shahid Ali captured the essence of this period: "Srinagar hunches like a wild cat; lonely sentries, wretched in bunkers on the city's bridges, far from their homes in the plains, licenced to kill ... while the Jhelum [river] flows under them, sometimes with a dismembered body. On Zero Bridge the jeeps rush by ... guns shoot stars into the night, the storm ... rages on ... night after night ... son after son taken away, never to return from the night of torture."
The toll taken by the Indian counter-offensive was gravely exacerbated by disunity and infighting in the insurgent ranks. The two largest insurgent groups, JKLF and HM, subscribed to different and conflicting visions of Kashmiri "self-determination".
Kashmir: Independent Or Pakistani?
The JKLF's slogan, Kashmir banega khudmukhtar ['Kashmir will be sovereign'] stood in contradiction to the HM's -Kashmir banega Pakistan ["Kashmir will be part of Pakistan"]. The latent fissure in the azaadi movement steadily deepened and turned toxic.
Starting from 1991, the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) - which had been providing lethal weapons and training to the Kashmir insurgency since the its nascent phase in the late 1980s - cut off aid to the JKLF and engineered splits and defections in the pro-independence camp while building up the HM with a programme of all-out support.
"Srinagar hunches like a wild car; lonely sentries, wretched in bunkers on the city's bridges, far from their homes in the plains, licesnsed to kill...while the Jhelum [river] flows under them, sometimes with a dismembered body."
Agha Shahid Ali, Kashmiri writer
The HM then embarked on a campaign of killing pro-independence fighters and assassinating prominent pro-independence political and religious figures.
This strategy of bringing the Kashmir insurrection under Pakistani control boomeranged in India's favour. From the 1940s until today, pro-independence sentiments have been dominant among the Kashmir Valley's people, and the pro-Pakistan view has been the preserve of a small, though dedicated, minority.
In the mid-1990s a severe backlash developed in the valley against the HM and its Pakistani sponsors. By 1996, public disillusionment with the prospects of the uprising and the "gun culture" it had spawned was becoming widespread, and numerous erstwhile insurgents belonging to JKLF and other groups were either downing arms or seeking protection from and vengeance against HM, through active collaboration with the Indian counter-insurgency apparatus.
A lethal combination of Indian repression and Pakistani manipulation thus brought a close to the most spontaneous and popularly backed phase of the azaadi movement. But that did not signal an end to the cycle of strife and violence.
Ten years ago, in the summer of 2001, an atmosphere of acute tension and fear prevailed in the Kashmir Valley.
That year marked the high point of a concerted campaign of "fidayeen" attacks, targeting a variety of Indian official installations in the valley - mostly army and paramilitary camps and police headquarters - that began in 1999 and occurred frequently until 2003, and sporadically thereafter.
These were typically suicide raids carried out by two-man teams who would force their way into the premises concerned while firing assault rifles and lobbing grenades, and who would then engage in protracted stand-offs with the security forces until eliminated. In a few instances the attackers used cars packed with explosive, but usually they came on foot.
The Fidayeen Phase
Between mid-1999 and the end of 2002, at least 55 such attacks took place and 161 military, paramilitary and police personnel died, as did 90 perpetrators. The relatively small number of fatalities does not capture the psychological impact at the time of the fidayeen campaign, both on the Indian security establishment and the population at large. The single largest number of attacks - 29 - took place in 2001.
The fidayeen phase of the Kashmir insurgency was not the brainchild of Kashmiris. The large majority of fidayeenassaults were carried out by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an organisation of religious radicals founded and headquartered in Pakistan and led by Pakistanis. Almost all of the remainder were the work of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), a similar - albeit much smaller - Pakistani group.
The LeT entered the Kashmir war in the mid-1990s as part of an ISI strategy of having cadres of trusted Pakistani radical groups infiltrate the Kashmir theatre of operations. In the early through mid-1990s, the Kashmiri insurgent ranks consisted almost entirely of locals.
In 1991, for example, of the 844 insurgents killed, all but one were natives of Indian-administered Kashmir. By the late 1990s, the insurgency, active by that time mainly in rural areas with mountainous terrain or forest cover, consisted of a mix of locals and Pakistani religious radicals.
The fidayeen offensive commenced just after a limited military conflict in the summer of 1999 between India and Pakistan on a remote sector of the 742-kilometre Line of Control (LoC) dividing Jammu and Kashmir between the two countries, after Pakistani military units crossed the Indian side of the LoC near the town of Kargil in the high Himalayas - and were eventually forced to withdraw after fierce fighting and an international diplomatic crisis.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba did, over time, recruit a handful of local Kashmiris as a fidayeen cadre. But the large majority of those who executed these attacks were Pakistanis - most from Pakistan's Punjab province - who had crossed the de facto border between Pakistani-administered and Indian-administered Kashmir.
Violence Spills Into India
In December 2001, as fidayeen attacks peaked in Kashmir, five heavily armed gunmen attempted a similar assault on India's national parliament in New Delhi. They were only just prevented by vigilant security staff from entering the parliament building, where hundreds of parliamentarians and ministers were present, and were killed in the portico of the building after a 45-minute gunfight.
Had they succeeded in entering the building, carnage and crisis of unprecedented proportions would have resulted. The Indian government alleged that these five men were Pakistani extremists, and war clouds engulfed the subcontinent for most of 2002.
In November 2008, the LeT carried out the infamous attack on Mumbai, killing 166 people, using - in a more indiscriminate variant - the technique honed in Kashmir from 1999 onwards.
Five years ago, in the summer of 2006, the Kashmir Valley was calmer than it had been at any time during the previous fifteen years. During and after the India-Pakistan crisis of 2002, General Pervez Musharraf - chief architect of the 1999 Kargil conflict - came under pressure from the United States to curb the Pakistani military's support for Pakistani radical groups active in Kashmir, especially the LeT.
The Pakistani military's relationship with their country's radical Islamist spectrum also soured progressively after September 11, 2001, due to the renewed nexus between the military hierarchy and the United States.
The effect in Kashmir was significant.
Fidayeen attacks fell off steeply after 2003, and the influx of insurgents from the Pakistani side of the LoC also declined sharply. The LeT and smaller groups of "jihadi" persuasion retained a presence in Kashmir - as they still do - but the offensive posture of 1999-2003 yielded to a low profile.
Thousands join Kashmir protests
The Hizb-ul Mujahideen, a group much more indigenous to Kashmir than the LeT, has been steadily weakened since the mid-1990s by a long war of attrition with the Indian security forces as well as by internal divisions. Its capabilities drastically curtailed, the HM too adopted a low profile.
By 2006, the insurgency in Kashmir declined to a trickle of incidents, limited to the rare car bomb and an occasional ambush, and the somewhat more frequent raids by Indian security forces on hideouts. Violence has fallen to even more negligible levels since then.
This is a far cry from two decades or even a decade ago - in 2000, for example, 1,612 insurgents were killed in fighting with the security forces. The Indian security forces remain ubiquitous - paramilitary and police personnel patrol the streets of urban centres and hold bunkers in sensitive locations, while army camps dot the countryside, and military convoys are a frequent sight on the valley's roads.
But compared to the siege-like conditions of 1990-1995, or even the years of fidayeen warfare from 1999 to 2003, life in Srinagar is "normal" compared to twenty, fifteen or even ten years ago. But unrest simmers just under the surface.
A New Generation Of Resistance
The summer of 2008 saw the valley's largest demonstrations since 1994 against Indian authority, as hundreds of thousands joined rallies and marches.
Last summer, normal life in the valley ground to a halt from June through September, as tens of thousands of young stone-pelters confronted the security forces. More than one hundred were shot to death in the confrontations, and several thousand were injured.
The stone-pelters, some of whom used internet-based social media to organise, are predominantly teenage boys and young men in their twenties. In other words, they were either children or not yet born when Kashmir turned into a brutal warzone two decades ago, and have grown up in the environment described above.
Unlike their previous generation, who picked up the AK-47, this generation's weapon of choice is the stone, but the sense of grievance is equally intense. Anger towards Indian authority is deeply rooted in the Kashmir valley, but the credibility of Pakistan is at an all-time low among the population, fuelled as much by the experience of the malign Pakistani role in Kashmir - over more than two decades - as by Pakistan's precarious situation as a state.
Agha Shahid Ali expressed a hope for genuine peace in Kashmir: "We shall meet again, in Srinagar, by the gates of the villa of peace, our hands blossoming into fists, till the soldiers return the keys and disappear."
That remains a forlorn hope.
The people of the Kashmir Valley know that their fate is not in their hands; it is in the hands of those who wield power in New Delhi, and in Rawalpindi. And Jammu and Kashmir consists of much more than the valley - Indian-administered Kashmir also contains the regions of Jammu and Ladakh, where the majority of people identify with India, while Pakistani-administered Kashmir's population is vertically split between those who identify with Pakistan and those who aspire to independence.
Yet the sense of powerless born of this realisation is suffused with an enduring streak of defiance - a defiance fed by decades of suffering, trauma and tragedy.
Sumantra Bose is Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics. His books include Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, and Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace.
Kashmiris are getting tired of having their voices ignored [EPA]
Since The Partition Of India and Pakistan, Kashmir's Voice Has Been Largely Ignored.
By Parvaiz Bukhari Last Modified: 02 Aug 2011 11:18 Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"
In stampless envelopes, without an address
Dead letters at the post office are we- Zareef Ahmed Zareef, contemporary Kashmiri poet
What do the people of Indian-controlled Kashmir want?
It's a question as old as you want it to be, but one that it is alive today, six decades after the decolonisation of the Indian subcontinent left Kashmir divided between India and Pakistan, clearly suggesting that Kashmiris themselves have not even been asked. Or been offered a credible mechanism to determine their collective will.
Instead, the general experience in Kashmir has been that of a repressed subject population ruled by a coercive and militarised governing structure, mainly constituting a client political class cultivated by New Delhi, and which therefore cannot represent the dominant Kashmiri aspiration of an end to Indian rule.
One of the manifestations of that aspiration is a deep yearning among the people of Kashmir for freedom. For a social, political and moral order that is free from suspicion, from invasive state surveillance and the constant threat of incarceration and violent death. Attributes that stem from Indian military dominance of the disputed region.
Since the partition of the Indian subcontinent that aspiration has not remained unchanged. In the aftermath of decolonisation, and right up to the late 1980s, the yearning for freedom in Kashmir, in the main, meant being a part of Pakistan. But a significant educated political class has all along espoused an independent state of Jammu and Kashmir, free from both the rival claims of the two neighbouring countries.
The past two decades saw the political movement inside Kashmir transformed, from an armed militancy to intifada-style array of stone throwing street demonstrations - but accompanied within Kashmir by a consistent assessment of what freedom means for its people. The long experience of being a "part" of India, and a new understanding of the Pakistani state, has apparently led to a desire to be free from both.
Kashmir has a centuries-long history of struggle against rulers from outside the Himalayan region, the last being its subjugation by the Dogra rulers from the Punjab who had bought the people and their land from the British colonial authorities in 1846 with the Treaty of Amritsar.
When the British left the subcontinent in 1947, the people of Kashmir believed their moment in history had also arrived. But freedom from Dogra autocracy was soon to be replaced with India and Pakistan, both claiming the territory, and, after fighting a war over it that same year, dividing it between themselves. The Kashmiri nation, which had rallied against the Dogra regime for decades, often alongside the Indian freedom movement, was left wounded and undermined.
Resistance to the Indian rule of Kashmir has also transformed during the past six decades. After a brief five-year period of relative self-rule ended in 1952, the client Kashmiri ruling class ensured the political arm-twisting of those political groups who - in accordance with the principles of partition - wanted Kashmir to be a part of Pakistan. It paved the way for Al Fateh, an embryonic armed movement for freedom from India, but this was neutralised at an early stage during the 1970s.
This latest phase of the Kashmiri struggle to find its own place in the world turned militant in 1989, when thousands of Kashmiri Muslims - backed by Pakistan - took to arms against Indian rule. This phase also signalled the miserable failure of a several decades-long Indian attempt at emotionally integrating Kashmir with New Delhi. They fought for freedom from being misrepresented, and with the aspirations of a future outside Indian sovereignty.
Up until decolonisation of the Indian subcontinent, Kashmir's culture, language, economy, identity, religious and social order had been a continuum of major influences from western India - now Pakistan - from central Asia, and further afield, even from Persia. That immense civilisational backyard had significantly informed the Kashmiri people's worldview. But now Kashmir was amputated from that body and another dimension of spiritual suffering was added for its isolated inhabitants.
For generations, Kashmiris had journeyed for trade and spiritual gratification to the fabled Central Asian cities of Bukhara, Tashkent, Samarkand and Lhasa. All that suddenly came to an end. Kashmiris are struggling today in the hope of a chance to restore the nation to the world that had historically nurtured its identity and soul.
For the people, taking to arms meant a sharp surge in militarism by India, making Kashmir the world's most militarised zone. That armed conflict has - so far - left 70,000 people violently killed and an unending saga of humiliation, disappeared young men, orphans, widows - and silence from the outside world.
Two decades later, the armed rebellion has received a crushing blow, but the extreme militarisation of Kashmir remains unchanged. Official estimates suggest 627,000 Indian armed forces personnel, protected with impunity laws, are deployed to control an acutely alienated population of a little more than ten million.
Strategy For Independence
To regain self-rule, Kashmiri resistance groups had tried the electoral route that the Indian constitution held out, despite a long history of a lack of credibility of that process. Elections held ostensibly for administrative purposes had always been interpreted by New Delhi as repeated referendums in its favour. But all that changed in 1987 when elections to the state legislature were massively rigged in favour of the expressly pro-India parties. For many of those who later picked up arms, and others who would be called "separatists", that election meant the end of constitutionally permissible ways to determine political destiny, and marked the beginning of an armed uprising.
The heavy cost of two decades of this war, and the post 9/11 global "war on terror" have also forced Kashmiris to re-assess their strategy to avoid being branded as "terrorists". The armed rebellion has for the most part today metamorphosised into mass anti-India street protests, which, since 2008, challenges Indian rule in ways that are more acceptable internationally. But, like the harsh military response to armed militancy and the resultant militarised scenario, the government's response to street protests has been brutal. Two years before Tahrir Square, Kashmir had its own "million-man-march" against Indian rule. Government forces killed 60 unarmed protesters during the mass rally.
In 2010, during anti-India stone throwing street protests against Indian rule, government action added more than 100 youths to the body count in Kashmir. Enraged Kashmiri people responded by memorialising their loss, struggle and sacrifice - forcing New Delhi to change its approach, if only superficially.
Deeply resented by Kashmiris, the invasive presence of the incredibly high concentration of armed forces among them now seeks acceptance among the population as coercive partners for their future within India. The army and other federal paramilitary forces have started a new "hearts and minds" campaign in the hope of winning acceptability among the Kashmiri youth at the forefront of the new movement for freedom. It clearly indicates the absence of any intention to demilitarise Kashmir, even as it is becoming increasingly unbearable for everyone - except those among the pro-India political elite.
Harsh Indian Rule
For the immediate future, Kashmiris want an end to a situation that in the Indian perspective necessitates draconian laws such as the Public Safety Act (PSA) and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to keep its hold over the Kashmiri people. Under the PSA, described by Amnesty International as a "lawless law", a political dissenter can be jailed for up to two years without formal charges or a trial. Hundreds of protesters arrested on charges of throwing stones at government forces have also been slapped with PSA charges. The law is wantonly used as a revolving door to keep dissenting voices "out of circulation".
The AFSPA, on the other hand, grants sweeping powers and impunity to the federal armed forces deployed in Kashmir in their hundreds of thousands. Its provisions allow armed forces personnel to arrest or kill people and destroy private property on the mere suspicion that of actions against the state.
Armed forces' personnel accused of grave human rights violations such as custodial killings of civilians and rape cannot be tried in civilian courts unless specifically permitted by New Delhi. Human rights defenders and police themselves have established hundreds of such cases prima facie against army and paramilitary forces' personnel, but not a single prosecution has been possible since 1990 - for want of the mandatory sanction from New Delhi.
But demands for demilitarising Kashmir and the repeal of laws such as AFSPA have started coming from within Indian civil society as well. The Indian army has declined to operate in Kashmir without the cover of AFSPA by calling the impunity law its "holy book".
With the bitter national memory of loss and humiliation caused by the militarisation of Kashmir, New Delhi is unlikely to succeed in attempts to normalise this extreme situation.
Meanwhile, Kashmiris are feeling ever more politically choked after the mass upsurge of the summer of 2010 - which was followed by a massive security crackdown, large scale arrests of protesters and resistance leaders alike from across the region - including some who are charged with protesting on Facebook.
The renewed stifling conditions have pushed the new generation of youth to force open new spaces amid the enforced "surface calm" which prevails now, after three years of mass protests against Indian rule and retaliatory killings by government forces. They have begun representing themselves by writing about their condition using the internet and social media such as Facebook and Youtube to reach out to a wider world. However, there is yet no sign of any significant change visible on the horizon.
Status Quo
When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently hoped that "Pakistan will leave Kashmir alone" he also revealed the Indian state's will to maintain the status quo, in the face of a decades-old mass movement for the right to self-determination in the part India holds in the disputed region.
In the autumn of 2010, New Delhi also appointed three interlocutors to engage "all shades of political opinion" in Kashmir. They lack credibility in Kashmir, as the main resistance leadership continues to refuse to meet them - mainly because the interlocutors are working for a political solution to the issue of Kashmir within the Indian Constitution.
An approach to resolve the dispute without the participation of Kashmiri resistance leadership presents a cul-de-sac. The region remains a keg of bitter and unforgiving memory, likened by many observers now to a live bomb - connected to a fuse that is already lit. The military establishment is constantly trying to lengthen the fuse.
Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers recently resumed a bilateral dialogue, but nothing more than enhancing a few existing Kashmir-specific confidence-building measures between the nuclear-armed rivals was achieved. The Kashmiri demand of inclusion in that dialogue process has again been ignored.
While people in Kashmir are waiting for the two countries to agree to end their political and existential uncertainty, they continue a lonely journey - pushing for, and hoping to win, a chance to decide their own future.
Parvaiz Bukhari is an independent journalist reporting from Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The site of violent conflict since 1989, Indian Kashmir is seeing a period of relative calm. Peaceful demonstration seems to have replaced armed conflict, despite the continued presence of Indian troops in the region. Protests have become more democratic and artistic expression has become more prevalent.
Since 1949, India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir thrice. Between those conflicts began an armed resistance to Indian rule that sparked a counter-insurgency program from the Indian military. Between 1999 and 2003, suicide bombings against Indian military targets were carried out by various Kashmiri insurgency groups. In the last few years, however, this sort of violence in Kashmir has largely disappeared.
Not to say that dissent has disappeared in Indian Kashmir, however. On the contrary, it's still being expressed, and frequently - just through more peaceful means. Kashmiris take to the streets in mass rallies, often raising their hands in protest of Indian rule. Sometimes demonstrations result in clashes with security forces however, as some Kashmiris have begun to use the act of throwing stones at security forces as a symbolic form of protest.
The stone-throwing draws a parallel with the Palestinan conflict – a parallel cartoonist Malik Sajad is more than happy to highlight in his work as well. One of his cartoons features a Kashmiri stag facing down an Indian armoured holding a rock in an image reminiscent of the scenes from the Palestinian Territories. Sajad explains that the stag, a symbol of Kashmir, reminds the viewer that Kashmir's wildlife is affected by Indian rule just as its people are. As a part of the growing artistic expression of dissent, Sajad's cartoons and graphic novels visually narrate the collective experience of his community. In one cartoon, a tree labelled "Kashmiri Community" is shown being picked apart by woodpeckers, an image that Sajad says represents the self-destruction of the Kashmiri community.
Born and raised in Srinagar, Kashmir, Rapper MC Kash brings the protest movement to music. With a goal to bring attention to the situation in Kashmir, MC Kash raps in English to attract a wider international audience. His 2010 song, "I Protest (Remembrance)", was adopted as a protest anthem and garnered attention outside of Kashmir. Some of the song's lyrics included "these killings ain't random it's an organised genocide" and "when freedom of sppech is subjected to strangulation, flames of revolution engulfs the population." Despite his graphic, politically-charged lyrics, MC Kash insists he's not anti-Indian, only trying to raise awareness of what his community faces at home.
Kashmiris raise their hands at a rally against Indian rule in Srinagar in the summer of 2010. Protesters demanding an end to Indian rule held massive rallies in 2008 and 2010, leading to confrontations with the Indian army.
In this political cartoon by Malik Sajad, Indian Prime Minister Manmahon Singh is depicted as both school teacher and articulator of the narrative of Kashmiri history. The children depicted are international - note the blond hair - suggesting that the author believes the Indian narrative extends beyond domestic borders.
According to Sajad, this cartoon illustrates the self-destruction of the Kashmiri community as a result of the conflict. The woodpeckers represent self-interested Kashmiris using unrest as a pretext to further their own gains.
Kashmir Intifada Exlusive I PROTEST(RAP) BY MC KASH GFX and video by MT'n'MA Support the ongoing Quit Jammu & Kashmir Movement & ask Indian Occupational forces to go back home.Support valor of people on streets of Kashmir.
Zerobridge is a New York based indie band. The band's members include brothers Mubashir and Mohsin Mohi-ud-Din whose parents emigrated from Kashmir. The name Zerobridge comes from a bridge across the Jhelum river in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir's summer capital. Watch as the brothers perform their song "How Long" with the children of the CHINAR orphanage in Kashmir.
Just played our 1st zerobridge show in Kashmir. We are still in shock. A dream of so many years actually happened for us. With the backdrop of Kashmir's mountains, we played to 100s and 100s of Kashmiris both young and old; both boys and girls.
Zerobridge perform their song 'How Long' with the brilliant children of the CHINAR orphanage. Follow the music and film initiative with CHINAR @ www.dangerville.wordpress.com Support CHINAR : www.chinar.org Zerobridge: on facebook and music on itune www.myspace.com/zerobridge
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