Daily Archives: August 9, 2019
India has not released the names of the political activists & leaders arrested in Kashmir–by some accounts 100 & by others 500 arrestees, 70 of whom were flown out of Kashmir to a prison in India. The Rafto Foundation has expressed public concern over the safety of leading human rights activists Parveena Ahangar, director of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, & Parvez Imroz, a human rights attorney & activist, who were both honored by Rafto in 2017 for their fearless & exemplary human rights work. Were they arrested? Was Khurram Parvez, the director of Jammu Kashmir Coalition for Civil Society (JKCCS) or any of the JKCCS investigative staff? He has played a leading role in the international fight against forcible disappearances. Were feminist activists hauled in for exposing the use of mass rape as a weapon of occupation? How many journalists have been arrested? Was 89-year-old Syed Ali Geelani dragged out of his home? How many stone pelters? This is alarming stuff. Terrifying that India would attempt to behead the political movement by arresting its leaders. They must be drawing lessons from the Assad regime or Stalin himself for how to deal with dissidence.
Our responsibility is to remain steadfast in denouncing these crimes & arrests & in demanding India immediately release all Kashmiri political prisoners.
#StandWithKashmir
(Photo of Parveena Ahangar & Parvez Imroz from 2017 by Rafto Foundation)
“Be human: stand against Indian occupation.
Seventy Kashmiris labelled as “terrorists” by the kangaroo-court counter-terrorist system (recently fortified with the UAPA terrorist-designation tool) have been flown out of Kashmir to an Agra jail. Prison, concentration camps, & demographic terrorism are the core of India’s ‘Kashmir solution’.”
#StandWithKashmir# #RedForKashmir”
–Indian activist Satyadeep Satya
Asian News International (ANI) reported that India beefed up its security “as a precautionary measure” at Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India when students announced a debate on scrapping Article 370. This is terrifying. India can’t call itself the largest democracy when it brings storm troopers & jackboots to universities to intimidate & bully students holding a debate. Whatever India is doing in Kashmir will be reproduced in every other state in India. Other governments are following events in order to develop their own tactics against civil unrest. Hold on to your hats cause this fight against barbarism is going to be a bumpy road.
(Photo from Aligarh Muslim University from ANI)
Young Kashmiris interviewed by BBC brilliantly sum up what this onslaught means: “We’ve been pushed back into medieval times.”
If there were ever a bolder expression of Indian democracy, it would be nearly a million occupying troops, razor wire in the streets, an entire population under house arrest & shot on sight if they attempt to leave their homes, the arrest of political activists & leaders, a complete telecommunications blackout, restrictions on traveling in or out of the country. In most lexicons, that’s called fascism.
#IndiaOutofKashmir #StandWithKashmir
(Photo of Kashmir from Al Jazeera)
As solidarity with the Kashmiri struggle grows, we will need to arm ourselves to respond to the accusations of Hindutva activists who are at least as rabid as Zionists & Assadists. Among their favorite weapons against Kashmiris is the history of conflict involving Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) in the 1990s. It’s an issue very difficult to get reliable information about & when I first studied it had the poorest resources, all of which claimed Pandits were the victims of a Kashmiri Muslim genocide. That would mean Muslims took time out from defending themselves against colonialism & occupation to carry out another genocide against Hindus. It’s been an effective propaganda, so effective that it was used against Rohingya in Arakan state, claiming they took time out from fighting the Burmese genocide to form death squads against Hindus in the state.
This interview by David Barsamian of Indian filmmaker Sanjay Kak, himself a Pandit, is one of the clearest & most politically astute elaborations of the conflict involving Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s:
“The Pandit exile is the single biggest and most important narrative tool used by India to delegitimise and undermine the Kashmir’s struggle for existence. This narrative has been so strongly ingrained that every Indian who knows nothing about Kashmir will ‘know’ that lakhs of Pandits were murdered, lakhs were raped and thousands of temples were destroyed by crazed Muslims. This has been the most successful rallying cry for aggression against Kashmir by India, robbing Kashmiris of even the natural human sympathy even an opponent would have on seeing our condition.
“The majority of Pandits have done nothing to counter this propaganda, but have nurtured it, keeping the pot of hatred and falsehood festering. When Hindu India seeks a Hindu resurgence and righting of wrongs ostensibly perpetrated by Muslims, the efficacy of this narrative has played a significant role in dehumanising us and, consequently, in our brutal destruction.
“I say, ‘Enough!’ Enough of apologising and placating. Pandits know what happened, who did what and how many died. If they don’t present this to the Indians hell-bent upon a genocide of Kashmiris, then they don’t deserve our apologising. An apology we can ill afford. They are as much our murderers as the soldiers holding the guns.”
–Shuja Kosher
“These posts about buying land and marrying Kashmiri girls.
Yes those are the fetishes the thugs in Indian parliament are playing to. They know their electorate well. Basic knuckle dragging animals with morals to match. The rest is window dressing.”
–Shuja Kosher