INDIA’S OPPRESSION OF NON-HINDU
MINORITIES VALIDATES DIVISION ON THE BASIS OF RELIGION: HABIB YOUSAFZAI,
KASHMIR DIASPORA ALLIANCE
Assalam-o-Alaikum!
I recall that my professor Dr. Junaid
Ahmad used to say that people will always try to deceive you but naturally the
question should arise that why yield to their attempts? During the partition of
the subcontinent of India, thousands of Hindus emigrated from Muslim majority
areas to Hindu majority areas at their own. However, the Indian government in
collaboration with Maharaja Hari Singh, the last Hindu ruler of the State of
Jammu and Kashmir, carried out a Muslim genocide in the third week of August
1947. Just within a week of the formation of Pakistan, India killed more than
100,000 innocent people and sent out an explicit warning to other Muslims to be
prepared to die or leave Jammu all in an attempt to change the demographic
composition of the region. Many Kashmiris left to save their lives and migrated
all over Pakistan. The majority of them identify themselves as Pakistanis but
not Kashmiris. On the other hand, Kashmiris living in India in order to pursue
a career or education are treated as terrorists.
Since Indian Independence, its rulers
have been inconsistent in what they say and what they do. After depriving the
Sikhs from their Homeland of Punjab (Khalistan), it occupied Junagarh,
Manwadar, Hyderabad, and 42,000 square miles of the state of Jammu and Kashmir
generally known as Maqbooza Kashmir. The United Nations declared this region as
the Internationally Disputed Areas of Jammu and Kashmir (IDA: JK) giving its
citizens the right of plebiscite to choose to accede to Pakistan or India.
On one side, Indian forces were invading
and on the other side its leaders kept issuing sermons to create a wedge among
Muslims. On July 6, 1951, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru the then Prime minister of
India said that, “People seem to forget that Kashmir is
not a commodity for sale or to be bartered. It has an individual existence and
its people must be the final arbiters of their future.” Accordingly, Vithal
Mahadeo Tarkunde, a prominent Indian lawyer, civil rights activist and humanist
stated that, “A grant of plebiscite to the people
of Kashmir Valley is the obvious solution. If, as a third alternate Kashmiris becomes
an Independent Democratic and Secular State, its territorial integrity should
be guaranteed by India, Pakistan and the UN. That would end the hostility
between India and Pakistan and Kashmir will acquire the Status of the
Switzerland of Asia”.
But, the fact remains that Mr.
Tarkunde, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, and his successors purposefully forgot to
suggest the same solution for the Sikh Homeland of Punjab (Khalistan). To this
very day, the Kashmiris remain under illegal occupation of the Indian
government, and have been prevented from exercising their right of
self-determination. As a result of this occupation, more than 200,000 Kashmiris
of IDA: JK and 270,000 Sikhs of Khalistan have been mercilessly killed. The
Muslims who choose to live in India are treated as second class citizens and in
comparison to their population make a larger contribution to those that live a
precarious existence below the poverty line in India. The Honourable Justice A.
Qadri of the Gujarat High Court of India said, “Constitution and President”
have failed to protect the lives of the Muslims citizens during the “Genocide
of Muslims of Gujarat, 2002-2003”, under section A-14. The human rights
organizations such as United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Right Watch,
International Educational Development, International Tribunal on Kashmir and many
others indicate that espionage, persecution, gross human rights violations,
torture, terrorism, humiliation, dehumanization, fake encounter killings of
minorities are the ‘order of the day’ in India, the largest democracy so to
speak ever since its creation in August 15, 1947.
The irony of the Kashmiri nation is
that some have fallen victim to this Indian propaganda and are falsely adhering
to the idea that Kashmir does not fall under the scope of two nation theory. It
is time for India to cease its illegal occupation unconditionally over the
occupied territories which it initially invaded under the notion of maintaining
law and order and let the people decide their own future.
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