“Today, my mother was brought for a court hearing by Indian authorities. Court hearings are special for Kashmiri families, not because you expect your loved ones to be released but this is the only time when you see their faces, not through the bars of prison. However, as my uncle went to visit my mother today, and tried to hug her, the policeman held him back, saying it is “not allowed”. For how long will these strangers decide how we meet our own families? Not for long. Not for long.”
–Ahmed Bin Qasim whose mother & father are both political prisoners & whose family home was confiscated
“History shall surely record that when the fascist-brahminical RSS was disenfranchising and completely disempowering Muslims in India, Indian liberals and leftists were cursing Pakistan and demonizing Jinnah.”
Every time I write a post about Kashmir, I question what to call the current siege of Kashmir. Is the best word siege, lockdown, blockade? Or is genocide the only accurate word?
Speaking of the “Israeli model” for colonial occupation, India has barred Friday prayers in the Grand Mosque (Jamia Masjid) in Srinagar during the four months of the siege & lockdown just as Israel has long barred boys & men from praying in Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem. They are denied access by the apartheid walls or forced to pray in the streets. Actually, the forced closing down for Friday prayers at Jamia Masjid goes back months before the current siege, especially after the 2016 uprising against occupation. The Indian Army has also vandalized many other mosques. India’s plans to Hinduize & economically exploit Kashmir go back a long way.
Regarding the introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (which would eliminate rights for nearly 200 million Indian Muslims) by Amit Shah into the Indian Parliament, Indian journalist Vidya Krishnan tweeted yesterday:
“I spent the last 2 years reporting on the Rohingya genocide. What’s happened in the Indian Parliament today is exactly the same as Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, which gave full citizenship only to ‘national races’.
Genocide forecasters have already flagged Assam & Kashmir.”
Quite frankly, we should all be chary about human rights declarations coming from the US government, including from the US Congress which approves war appropriations, sanctions several wars, & bankrolls Israeli genocide of Palestinians. The congressional agency titled the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) just issued a statement denouncing the Citizenship Amendment Bill introduced into India’s parliament by Home Minister Amit Shah (a chief architect of the Kashmiri lockdown) which eliminates the rights & not just the religious rights of nearly 200 million Indian Muslims. The US Commission threatened sanctions against Amit Shah if the bill passes both houses of the Indian parliament.
Sanctions against Amit Shah are to be welcomed; prosecution & incarceration for genocide would be more appropriate. But the US Commission is stopping short of justice by a long shot when it focuses sanctions only on Shah & not on the entire Indian government responsible for the occupation of Kashmir & the increasing persecution & violence against Muslims. Those who object to sanctions that might affect Indian citizens can hardly object to the US imposing sanctions ending all US military sales to & deals with India. In 2016 under Obama, the US signed a joint military agreement with India for “increased strategic & regional cooperation, to deepen military-to-military exchanges, to expand collaboration on defense technology & innovation.” If the US government meant business on defending religious freedom or any rights for Muslims in India, it would trash that agreement & not just freeze the US bank accounts & investments of Amit Shah.
When India laid down the telecommunications blockade in Kashmir, its intention was primarily to cut off access of Kashmiri activists to social media in order to end their years of consistent education about their struggle which was creating supporters all over the world. The news blackout that had prevailed about the colonial occupation & all of its atrocities was undone by those activists. When the Indian government repeatedly snapped access to the internet, Kashmiris adept with electronic technology bypassed that by using VPS access on their mobile phones & continued communicating on social media.
In India’s frantic attempts to silence Kashmiri resistance, shut down the growth of solidarity, & accelerate its plans for expropriation & exploitation of Kashmiri resources, it was compelled to implement a complete telecommunications blackout. But in the process it is devastating the Kashmiri economy, creating healthcare crises, unspeakable human suffering, & making government transactions done on the internet like filing taxes & renewing drivers license impossible.
Satyadeep Satya is back from his second 30-day suspension. Jaina Maina is still locked out trying to prove she is a real person. Hundreds of Kashmiris, Palestinians, & their supporters are permanently locked out from social media just for protesting war, occupation, genocide.
This is a poetic prose protest by a Kashmiri against the occupation. What makes it so powerful is not just the poetic imagery but the defiance.
“Alright, hear this out: they have a saffron harbinger as their messiah now. He talks loud like that Italian fascist who is now an obscure figure of history. Nature suggests: what rises, has to set.”
Reporting on the ongoing siege & lockdown of Kashmir has been reduced to a trickle compared to the international media coverage of four months ago when it first began. That’s a problem because we have little idea of what is going on in terms of brutalization & resistance to it. It makes building the solidarity movement more difficult if others beyond Kashmiris & their supporters do not know the scale of violence & repression being endured by Kashmiris.
Indian media The Wire & The Print have consistent coverage but their editorial policies toward Kashmir are like the US Counterpunch journal which publishes extremist rightwing articles as well as liberal stuff. They take no consistent stance toward colonial occupation. Are they debating societies about occupation & genocide without any political commitments to justice or just playing both sides of the street?
This is one of the better articles in The Wire about torture in Kashmir but it’s from May 2019 before the current lockdown began in August. It references & draws from reports by the Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) which detail torture, forcible disappearances, mass graves, the militarization of Hindu pilgrimages to Kashmir, & other issues. They can be viewed on the JKCCS website under the ‘Publications & Reports’ menu: jkccs.net.