*Congress' Hindu Card Revives **Kashmir** Intifada*
*By Ameen Izzadeen** * * http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=25313 * ** The struggle for Kashmir's freedom is on the boil again. As the anger and frustration of the people in this disputed Muslim-majority territory rose to Himalayan heights, the Manmohan Singh government bungled, not knowing how to bring the situation under control. *By wooing Hindus or playing the Hindu card, the government was also responsible for igniting a second uprising involving a new generation of Kashmiri Muslims. The government, which is constitutionally committed to uphold secularism, ignored Muslim sentiments. It probably did so because it was emboldened by the relative calm in the region, which is the centre of two major wars between **India** and **Pakistan** in 1947 and 1965 and a near-nuclear war in 1999. Statistics showed that the yearly death toll in Kashmir had fallen to a mere 700 last year from a staggering 10,000 in the 1990s -- and the sharp decline in the number of violent incidents made the Indian leadership gloat over a false sense of victory. By 2001, the Indian government claimed that the insurgency, led by Jihadis or holy warriors, whom the Indian leadership called "terrorists", had been more or less crushed. * ** The use of the term terrorists to refer to Kashmir's pro-independence activists was intentional. It helped India to project the Kashmiri problem as a terrorist problem and win some international sympathy. The West backed and continues to back New Delhi's stance on Kashmir because of India's regional superpower stature and its immense value as a strategic partner in trade and military matters. The Western nations applied little or no pressure on India over human rights violations, which included the use of excessive force, disappearances and allegations of rape of Kashmiri women by Indian soldiers. India also banned international human rights activists from visiting Kashmir, in an apparent move to cover up atrocities allegedly committed by Indian soldiers. But, again, very little was spoken about these in the Western media or in the corridors of power in western capitals. *To some extent, the Indian government**'**s claim that it had crushed the Kashmiri struggle may have been true. But the events of the past few weeks in this scenic region, referred to as the paradise on earth, indicated that the government had not succeeded in eliminating the zeal or the dream of the people. It was naïve to assume that the issue of Muslim anger would not crop up when the Manmohan Singh government decided to hand over 100 acres of state land to the Amarnath shrine in **Jammu**, which is Hindu-dominated. Probably, the government thought that the Kashmiri Muslims could be beaten into submission by the use of excessive military power, a time-tested formula. * ** *The issue appears to be linked to the Congress Party**'**s political survival. The Congress government, which now depends on mercenary MPs for its survival after the departure of its communist allies, was apprehensive about its dwindling popularity, months before the general elections. So it did what was usually expected from a BJP government - wooing the Hindu voters. The Singh government**'**s land grant to the Amarnath cave shrine where a stalagmite formation in the shape of a Shiva phallus or lingam attracts hundreds of thousands of Hindus every July, was similar to a former Congress government**'**s tacit endorsement of Lal Krishna Advani**'**s Rath Yathra which led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992. * ** When Advani's fanatics marched to the Masjid, the then Congress government did not impose a curfew in Ayodhya or order the police or the army to use force to prevent the marchers from demolishing the 16th century mosque. *But the fire power came aplenty when the Kashmiri Muslims revolted against the government**'**s decision last month. Some 35 people were killed and more than a thousand wounded in weeks-long protests by the Kashmiri Muslims who suspected that the land grant was aimed at settling more Hindus in the Muslim-majority region. The protests then snowballed into a mammoth march for freedom and the authorities imposed a curfew and arrested Kashmiri leaders such as Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani while angry Hindus blockaded the main supply roads to the Muslim areas. Hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims braved the bullets and teargas canisters, shouting pro-Pakistan and pro-independence slogans in an emotion-filled exercise that helped them vent their spleen on the Indian government. * ** When the Kashmiri Muslims staged their first intifada, a people-led uprising for freedom, in 1990, it took the Indian military nearly 11 years and a more-than-half-a-million-strong force to suppress it. With more than 500,000 armed forces personnel being deployed to keep some 5 million Muslims out of Indian Kashmir's six million people under control, the territory has the heaviest military-to-civilian ratio in the world-12:1 or 10:1 if only Muslim population is counted. The people's power in Kashmir made headlines worldwide while the Indian government stood exposed and its claim that the majority of the Kashmiris back the union with India was proved wrong. *A highly confused Manmohan Singh government then withdrew the land grant. This prompted the Hindus in **Jammu** to protest. In its bewilderment, the government then came up with a compromise solution - to grant the 100-acre land to the shrine on a temporary basis. The Hindus were happy, but not the Muslims. The Muslims say the word "temporary" has a connotation of permanency in Kashmiri politics. They point out that the instrument of accession which Maharaja Hari Singh, Kashmir**'**s Hindu ruler, signed in 1947 granting India control over his Muslim-majority princely state, in the face of an invasion by Pakistani tribesmen, was also said to be temporary, but has now become well entrenched. * ** India's then Governor General Lord Mountbatten in his acceptance letter wrote that the instrument of accession was subject to an endorsement by the people. He wrote: *"Consistently with their policy that in the case of any State where the accession has been the subject of dispute, the question of accession should be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people of the State, it is my Government**'**s wish that, as soon as law and order have been restored in Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader, the question of the State**' **s accession should be settled by a reference to the people." * ** Even the UN Security Council resolutions adopted in 1948 and 1949 called for a plebiscite in Kashmir so that the dispute could be sorted out once and for all. But India reneged on its promise to the world community and permanently annexed the region in 1956 through a constitutional amendment, claiming suzerainty over the whole of Kashmir, including the part which is controlled by Pakistan. What do the Kashmiri Muslims in the Indian-held part of Kashmirwant? Going by the slogans that were defiantly on display at daily protests during the past several weeks, the people wanted freedom from Indian rule. India takes pride in the fact that it is the world's largest democracy. Since Independence, it has been holding democratic elections and the change of governments takes place in a peaceful manner, unlike in Pakistan where democracy is often at the mercy of the military. But democracy does not merely mean holding elections and holding on to secular values. It also means bowing to the majority will. If India had honoured its pledge to the world body or respected the Kashmiri people's demand for freedom, the dispute could have been settled long ago. Among the many articles that deal with the recent Kashmir uprising, Booker prize winner Arundhati Roy's essay stands out. She concludes her long and well-balanced article in the recent issue of Outlook magazine with these words: *"The Indian military occupation of **Kashmir** makes monsters of us all. It allows Hindu chauvinists to target and victimise Muslims in **India** by holding them hostage to the freedom struggle being waged by Muslims in ** Kashmir**. It**'**s all being stirred into a poisonous brew and administered intravenously, straight into our bloodstream. * ** *"At the heart of it all is a moral question. Does any government have the right to take away people**'**s liberty with military force? * ** *"**India** needs azadi (freedom) from **Kashmir** just as much-if not more-than **Kashmir** needs azadi from **India**."*
