Solidarity with Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination

Mushtaq Lasharie and Kumar Sarkar with the panel

by New Worker correspondent 

 A seminar on the latest human rights situation in Kashmir was held at House of Commons last week, organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Third World Solidarity. Chaired by Dave Anderson of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Liz Twist MP, with historian Victoria Schofield, Khalid Mahmood MP, Shadow Minister for Europe and Russia, and Qurban Hussain as main speakers.

The appalling human rights violations by the Indian Government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) following the latest abrogation on 5th August 2019 of Article 370 of the Constitution of India were the central issue for the seminar. The article was inserted in the constitution in 1949, which gave extraordinary powers to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, lawfully authorising it to have limited autonomy via its own constitution. This was as part of an agreement between the then-ruler of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, and the Government of India as the condition of Kashmir joining independent India.

Victoria Schofield, author of Kashmir in the Crossfire and Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War, presented a graphic account of the complete lock-down, causing a shortage of food and medicines, and withdrawal of the Internet services. At the same time, students are unable to attend their schools and colleges.

Qurban Hussain, born in Pakistani-protected Free Kashmir (Azad Jammu and Kashmir), highlighted the indiscriminate use of the Armed Forces Special Act by the Indian Army in occupied Kashmir. The Army committed widespread raping of Kashmiri women, picking up young boys from their houses whose dead bodies were then found the following day. He added that some 30,000 Kashmiri people have been put behind bars.

Mushtaq Lasharie, Chair of Third World Solidarity, questioned the role of the United Nations on Kashmir. He drew attention to the fact that numerous resolutions on Kashmir from the Security Council are never implemented; but several participants commented on the non-binding nature of many UN resolutions.

Kumar Sarkar of the Britain South Asia Solidarity Forum, born in India of a Hindu family, speaking from the floor, dealt with the Kashmir struggle in the background of the Indian independence movement. He quoted from Prime Minister Nehru’s speech in the Indian Parliament in 1952 advocating a plebiscite in Kashmir and India’s unequivocal acceptance of the results irrespective of the “hurt we might feel”. The fact that this plebiscite never took place shows that the so-called liberal Indian nationalism advocated by Nehru’s Congress Party and the present sectarian Hindu nationalism of the BJP have deeper roots in the discriminatory nature of Hinduism, to which both were linked. Both existed in parallel all along in India's independence movement. The origin of the BJP’s anti-Muslim nationalism lies directly in the fascistic Hindu caste system; BJP is a proto-fascist force.

This seminar was no doubt useful because it focused on the issues around the lack of human rights in Kashmir and self-determination of the people of Kashmir. But such seminars cannot go beyond advising participants to pressurise their MPs. Serious consideration needs to be paid to the fact that apart from an excellent resolution by the Labour Party on Kashmir, there is no ongoing campaign of solidarity in Britain with the people of Kashmir.

Support the Kashmiri people!

 

Andy Brooks, Mushtaq Lasharie and Theo Russell at the meeting

by New Worker correspondent

Members of London’s Pakistani community joined New Worker supporters to call for justice for the Kashmiri people at a meeting in central London last week. They had come to the Cock Tavern in Euston to hear NCP leader Andy Brooks and Mushtaq Lasharie, who chairs the Third World Solidarity movement, demand the immediate and unconditional end to martial law in Indian-held Kashmir and support the Kashmiri people’s call for self-determination.

Mushtaq Lasharie summarised the plight of the Kashmiris under Indian occupation despite UN calls going back to 1947 that upheld their right to self-determination. This was supported by Andy Brooks, who talked about the pressing need to draw the broader labour movement behind the legitimate demands of the Kashmiri people whose cause is still largely only upheld by the British Pakistani and British Muslim population.

The meeting endorsed a motion that called on India to immediately and unconditionally restore the special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian constitution , release all the Kashmiri political prisoners and allow journalists, diplomats and human rights activists to enter and work unhindered in Indian-administered Kashmir

The motion noted that Pakistan and India are both nuclear powers, and another full-scale war could easily escalate into a nuclear exchange that would leave millions dead. It supported all efforts to ensure that this does not happen. The key demand is the end of partition and it upheld the original 1947 UN resolution and supported the just demand for a referendum to let the Kashmiri people decide if they want to be part of India, Pakistan, or in an independent state of Kashmir.

The motion has now been sent to all those who took part in the meeting for further amendments and it will later be sent round for endorsement in the broader labour and peace movement.

Kashmir, the forgotten struggle

Mushtaq Lasharie makes a point

by New Worker correspondent

KASHMIRIS living in London last Sunday held a protest march in Whitehall and the next day packed an evening meeting in Portcullis House to mark the 67th anniversary Kashmir’s “Black Day” and to publicise the fight for human rights in Kashmir.

The British Empire in August 1947, reluctantly and after a long and bitter campaign for independence, withdrew its rule from the Indian subcontinent, dividing it first into two nations, India and Pakistan.

India was mainly Hindu and Pakistan mainly Muslim – but thousands of people ended up on the wrong side of the boundaries, leading to bloody strife and refugees pouring across the borders in both directions.

Other than the areas directly under the British rule there were around 565 Princely States, whose lands comprised of two-fifths of the total area of India and a population of 99 million. These princely states were given the authority to decide which of the two newly formed states – India or Pakistan – to join, taking into account factors such as geographical proximity and the wishes of their people.

In the case of a dispute or when a particular state was unable to decide, the question of accession was to be determined by a plebiscite.

The Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir Hari Singh, whose state was situated between the two new countries, could not decide which country to join as he himself was Hindu but 77 per cent of the population of Kashmir consisted of Muslims.

Kashmir’s “Black Day” was 27th October 1947 when the Indian army marched in on the pretext of defending the population from being annexed by Pakistan which led to the first Indo-Pakistani war. It ended with a cease-fire agreement in 1948 that left three fifths of Kashmir in Indian hands.

India promised to hold a referendum to determine the will of the majority but after repeated promises that has never taken place and the Indian government has treated the parts of Kashmir it occupies as one of its own provinces and treats the Muslim community as hostile and dangerous separatists.

So far as it is possible to determine most of the people there would prefer a future as a state independent of both India and Pakistan.

At the meeting in Portcullis House, chaired by Dave Anderson MP and hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Third World Solidarity, speaker after speaker told of the long litany of killings, arbitrary arrests, torture and disappearances inflicted on the Kashmiri people by the Indian authorities.

Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Perry Barr, told the packed meeting room that people in Kashmir, when they leave their homes never know when, or if, they will ever return.

The Indian army is in illegal occupation of Kashmir, just as Israel is in illegal occupation of Palestine; United Nations resolutions have been ignored; promises and pledges for elections have come and gone.

He called for a formal agenda for progress, to raise awareness of the campaign to the same level as the campaign for justice for Palestine.

David Ward, Lib-Dem MP for Bradford East, referred to Kashmir as the forgotten conflict and said he was heartened by newcomers to the campaign. He said the conflict cannot be resolved by military means but must be resolved through a peaceful dialogue.

Abdul Rashid spoke of a litany of atrocities, of disappearances, of people arrested who turned up later dead in the river. And he spoke of India’s claim to be the biggest democracy on the planet. “Then let them behave like a democracy,” he said, “let the people of Kashmir have their civil rights and let them allow international inspectors in.”

Saundra Satterjee, who chairs Third World Solidarity, said the campaign was not anti-Indian but that throughout India Muslim communities were underrepresented at all levels of government.

Other speakers included Lord Hussain of Luton, His Excellency Syed Ibne Abbas, the Pakistani ambassador to Britain and Mushtaq Lasharie, the organiser for the All Party Group on Third World Solidarity.

There were many contributions from the floor from Kashmiris, refugees, with first-hand experience of life under oppression from the Indian army. One described his country as “the largest and most beautiful prison in the world”.