Release All Kashmiri Muslim Serving Life Sentences in Various Jails in the Subcontinent

No to Political Vendetta!  

Release Dr. Muhammad Qasim Faktoo immediately!

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23/04/2013
Dr. Muhammad Qasim: The Victim of Political Vendetta is a compilation of the case documents of Dr. Muhammad Qasim and articles written by various intellectuals and prominent citizens demanding an end to the 20 year long of his incarceration. At the occasion of the book release, CRPP would invite your attention to the long list of Kashmiri Muslims undergoing life imprisonment —around 45—in various jails such as Srinagar, Jammu, Udhampur, Tihar, Mumbai, Gujarat, Nagpur etc. At the outset it is a case of gross injustice reeking of political vendetta on Dr. Muhammad Qasim Faktoo who has spent twenty years of his life in prison. It is important to briefly look into the case of Dr. Muhammad Qasim to make sense of how political convictions, of being a Kashmiri Muslim sharing the political aspirations of the Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination itself is enough to earn the ire of the political establishment.
Dr. Muhammad Qasim was arrested on 5 February 1993 for his political views and to prolong his incarceration was booked under Sec.3 TADA, and Sec 302 read with 120-B CrPC. On 14 July 2001 the TADA Court in Jammu acquitted him citing that the prosecution had miserably failed to prove the case against Dr. Muhammad Qasim and the other accused. As the State of Jammu & Kashmir challenged the acquittal before the Supreme Court of India Dr. Muhammad Qasim was sentenced to life based solely on a confession statement made under section 15 of TADA. Even when the SC sentenced him to life it was mentioned that the “accused shall be given benefit of the period already undergone (undertrial period) by them”. After the completion of 14 years, the J & K High Court directed the Jail authorities to place Dr. Qasim’s case before the Review Board for consideration keeping in spirit with the observations of the SC. The Review Board recommended his premature release on 3 June 2008. Contrary to the recommendations of the Review Board the vindictive J & K government brought in the interpretation that the J & K Jail Manual Rule 54.1 debars TADA lifer convicts from release on completion of two thirds (14 years) of 20 years. (Govt. order No. Home-773(P) of 2009 dated 14.09.2009)
Amidst conflicting opinions in the High Court between a single bench judge which initially quashed the government order while a double bench upheld it taking refuge in the Rule 54.1 of the Jail Manual the long arm of political vendetta stood in between a forthright consideration of the outstanding situation and the release of Dr. Muhammad Qasim. On 31 May 2012, Dr. Muhammad Qasim completed 20 years of incarceration. It has been held unequivocally that despite the correspondence of Sec. 401 and 402 of the State Code of Criminal Procedure to Sections 432 and 433 of the Central Code the power of the executive is absolute and unfettered to remit sentence though it was willingly elusive in Dr. Muhammad Qasim’s case. As Dr. Muhammad Qasim has been sentenced to life under the J& K Manual which had made him ineligible to avail the provision of release after 14 years of imprisonment, then it logically follows that the same manual provides for putting a final end to his incarceration after the completion of 20 years. Without doubt what makes matters worse in Jammu & Kashmir is the overwhelming sense of vendetta vis-a-vis political prisoners.
The Indian State in the subcontinent and its counterpart in Jammu & Kashmir in particular have deliberately evaded the challenging question of evolving jurisprudence consistent with the question of political offences or offences the state deems are against the will of the State. The courts’ disquiet in developing jurisprudence towards dealing with political offences that are not borne out of individual interest of the alleged offender but of collective interest has resulted in adhocism and arbitrariness taking precedence over a possible judicial remedy in the ordinary law consistent with the already established precedence in international law. Perhaps for the first time the Calcutta High Court (CRR 463 of 2012 With CRR 1312 of 2012 With CRR 4000 of 211 on 8 August 2012) while recognising the right of the Maoist prisoners to be treated as Political Prisoners have brought in the question of the need to develop jurisprudence in dealing with political offences albeit the judgement confining its purview only till the rights of the political prisoner in the prison. Notwithstanding the fact that the above said judgment was based on the West Bengal Correctional Services Act 1992 and though there is yet to be a statutory recognition to political prisoners in Jammu & Kashmir, the Indian State has practically, to some extent, acknowledged the difference between political prisoners and other offenders. Since 1995 India allowed International Committee of Red Cross to visit these prisoners and ascertain their conditions within jails (though the distinction however remained confined to recognized jails and not detention centres like interrogation centres and police stations where the brutalities are perpetrated). CRPP is of the opinion that the need of the hour is to expand the ambit of the distinction of political prisoners from the domain of treatment of prisoners to the jurisprudence of conviction and penology.
Only in such a scenario can there be some safeguards, if not all, given the nature of the Indian State, to deal with such prolonged incarceration of prisoners for their political beliefs. Dr. Muhammad Qasim has undergone twenty years of incarceration. There are many more who might face the same fate if the democratic and freedom loving people of the subcontinent raise their voice against such inhuman and beastly face of the so-called democracy of the Indian State and its judiciary and executive. As in the case of Dr. Muhammad Qasim we need to demand the release of many of the 45 odd political prisoners serving life sentence in various prisons in the subcontinent. The list of the names many of these prisoners are provided as annexe though it is not an exhaustive one.
Putting Dr. Muhammad Qasim further behind bars goes against the very grain of all civil and political rights and freedoms assured by the Constitution of India as well as the International Law. The prolonged incarceration of Dr. Muhammad Qasim is testimony to the continuing repression and trampling of all freedoms of the people of Jammu & Kashmir for their political aspirations. As the State use every draconian law within its reach to the maximum (in Dr. Muhammad Qasim’s case the J & K Jail Manual, read with TADA) thousands of Kashmiri Muslims are kept behind bars in various prisons while hundreds languish in undisclosed torture and detention centres. CRPP appeals to every democratic and progressive sections in the subcontinent to raise their voice for the immediate release of Dr. Muhammad Qasim and his co-accused irrespective of his political convictions/beliefs as well as all the lifers most of whom have already finished ten years or more of the sentence.
Brief report about the proceedings of the Book Release Function: The book on Dr. Muhammad Qasmi was released at the Deputy Chairman Hall, Constitution Club, New Delhi jointly by Prof Jagmohan ( nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh) and Jeetan Marandi (people’s balladeer who got acquitted by the HC of Jharkhand from death sentence in a framed up case). Prof. Jagmohan in his address after the book release talked about the spirit that Jeetan had given to all of us after a prolonged people’s movement all over the subcontinent for his release. Both the speakers said it is a great victory for the people. Prof. Jagmohan pointed out that Bhagat Singh’s well known slogan of anti imperialism and revolution that he framed in 1917 correctly captured the dialectical relation between the two. Only the correct synthesis of this understanding can save us from these trying times of the growing fangs of fascist assault on the people on all fronts—socio-cultural, politico-economic. Besides he also talked about the need to take cue from the arduous struggle for the release of Jeetan Marandi that gives us strength and hope towards making it possible the release of all political prisoners including Dr. Muhammad Qasim. Thus while referring to the case of more than 40 odd lifers in J&K Prof. Jagmohan stressed the fact that when it comes to a political prisoner the system would always look for the convenient option ensuring that the notion of life imprisonment be for the entire natural life of the political prisoner and hence it becomes important that we demand for the release of all Kashmiri Muslim lifers lodged in different jails and have served around ten years in prison lest they be targets of political vendetta. It is important such books documenting the case and struggle for the release of political prisoners like Dr. Muhammad Qasim be taken to the wider sections of the people. This book release is a welcome step in that direction.
Jeetan Marandi while talking about his torturous experience on death row reminisced how his life from childhood facing abject poverty and forced to discontinue his school after 3rd division had to fight every moment to make his life worth living as a human being. The discerning mind of young Jeetan soon got attracted to the cultural group which used to visit villages and sing songs and act plays that depicted the everyday life of the villagers and the problems they faced. Soon Jeetan’s worldview transforms as he finds purpose in being part of the group and thus also being part of people’s initiatives to do away with their miseries. Sooner than later had he started singing for the people and their rights than he naturally became the target of state repression. In that context he identifies himself with the incarceration of Dr. Muhammad Qasim. The emotional and moving narrative of Jeetan proved beyond doubt how the struggle to keep one alive in the dungeons is as well the larger struggle to do away with all forms of oppression. He spoke about the need to dream even in adverse times and talk to oneself about the need to not give up hope even for a moment. To fight every minute, moment to keep the star beneath ones breast alive. The prisoner defines himself as well as the world around him in these moments of struggle to stay alive and that is what makes him and his convictions a cherishable dream. A dream worth dreaming in the isolated cell. In a dark cell (anda cell) where there is only some semblance of light at 12 noon every mosquito that sucks your blood, every lizard that creeps across, the spider and its cobweb, everything becomes your friend, as you struggle to make sense out such senseless creatures, meaning out of the life in isolation as you keep watching the lizard eat the insect for hours together. It is the desire to live even in that lifeless world that makes the political prisoner and his struggle inside the confines of the prisons a fight to keep one’s finest sensibilities alive and it the same that the mindless and violent state want him to lose forever. Jeetan feels that in this struggle always the news from outside of people protesting for his release, rallies and public meetings demanding his unconditional release all gave him hope and a strong faith in the strength of the people. And it is this united strength of the people and their struggle that can ensure that the terrible injustice of the kind of incarceration that Dr. Muhammad Qasim and his co-accused is going through can be done away with. The release of all such political prisoners in the subcontinent becomes the need of the hour as part of struggle to humanise ourselves.
Zahid a Kashmiri scholar talked about the need for a united struggle of the people of the subcontinent though their causes are different to defeat the designs of the Indian State to suppress all forms of political dissent. The political prisoners committee can be the right platform to realise that unity.
Prof. SAR Geelani, President CRPP, while presiding over the programme stressed the need for the struggle to unite for the release of all political prisoners in the subcontinent. There are thousands of Kashmiri political prisoners lodged in different jails in the Indian subcontinent though in the present programme we are raising only the case of life convicts in the context of Kashmir (more than 40 of them with many having completed more than 10 years)with specific reference to the continuing incarceration of Dr. Muhammad Qasim. The platform of CRPP is a definite step in the direction towards all forces fighting for the unconditional release of all political prisoners. While pointing out that the rights of the political prisoners has well been recognised in the international law he stressed that it is our duty to struggle to make the Indian State accept the category of political prisoners and their rights.

In Solidarity,

SAR Geelani Amit Bhattacharyya Prof. Jagmohan Singh
President Secretary General Vice President

Jeetan Marandi Rona Wilson
Secretary Secretary, Public Relations

List of Kashmiri Muslims Serving Life Sentence
1. AB Rashid, Udhampor was awarded Death but now changed into Life, Jammu District Amphala Jail
2. Aashiq Hussain Faktoo alias Dr Muhammad Qasim Faktoo Srinager Jail.
3. Ghulam Qadir Butt R/O Dooru Mir Maidan, Islamabad in Khutwa Jail now in Srinagar Jail.
4. Muhammad Ayoub Mir, Sadrabal Kot Bulwal Jail Jammu
5. Muhammad Ayoub Dar, Rawal Pora, Srinagar presently in Srinagar Jail, Life sentence by TADA court Jammu in 2009
6. Iqbal Jan, Bandipora Srinagar Jail
7. Mustaq Kaloo, Sopore co-accused with Iqbal Jan, Tihar jail, New Delhi
8. Mohammad Amin Wani, Banihal
9. Mehmood Toopiwal, Kangan
10. Abdul Waheed Thachi, Banihal
11. Jafar Umar Khanto
12. Javeed Khan, Nowpora, Srinagar Tihar Jai s/o M Shafi Khan Nowpora Srinagar 517-96 Lajpath Nagar Blast
13. M Shafi Khan @Prof Shafi Sharyati Hariwanun Khansahab in Sgr Jail.
14. Noor Muhammad Tantry, Tral, earlier in Tihar, now in Srinagar
15. Feroz Ahmad, Budgam Beerwa
16. Sh Raeis Delhi Tihar
17. Ishaq Pala s/o GH Rasool Tariq Shiekh, Manihal Shopian
18. Shabir Ahmad s/o M Abdullah Butt, Handwara Maratham
19. Mustaq Malik s/o Gh Muhammad Shah, Gund Handwara
20. Gh Muhammad Butt s/o Noor Muhammad Butt Koker Bagh Khag
21. Ab Hamid Teeli s/o GH Hasan Kokerhama, Kulgam
22. Nazir A Shiekh s/o Ab Rashid Batamaloo
23. Showkat A Khan Chotabazar present Nishat
24. Zakir Hussain alias Umar Faoorq, son of Ali Mohd of Malhar,
25. Fayaz Ahmad Shah of Babnad Shopian and Muhammad Syed Bhat of Dirhama Bijbehara.
26. Samiulla Sheikh R/O Patan Baramulla
27. Ghulam Nabi Soura, Srinagar, Kashmir Central Jail, Srinagar
28. Amin Dar Banihal, Jammu, Jammu Jail
29. Barkat Hussain S/O Neik Muhammad Pulwama, Kashmir Jammu Jail
30. Farooq Ahmad, Central Jail, Nagpur
31. Farooq Chopan, Central Jail, Mumbai
32. G. MuhammadWani, Jammu Jail
33. G. Qadir Butt Kupwara, Kashmir, Sub Jail, Kathua
34. Lala Hussain, Jammu Jail
35. Muhammad Akram Butt
36. Muhammad Aslam S/O Kamal Din, Jammu Jail
37. Muhammad Latif S/O Wali Muhammad, Jammu Jail
38. Muhammad Shafi S/O Abdal Karim, Jammu Jail
39. Muhammad Hussain R/ O Hadmat, Jammu Jail
40. Muhammad Shafi S/O Mohammad Abdullah, Jammu Jail
41. Muhammad Yousuf S/O Fetha Muhammad, Jammu Jail

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS
185/3, FOURTH FLOOR, ZAKIR NAGAR, NEW DELHI-110025

An Open Letter to Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah #Kashmir

pic courtesy- samvada
From the brother of Shaheed Tahir Sofi, Altaf Sofi:

Mr. Omar Abdullah,
My brother was killed by on the street by a bullet and this moved you to tears.
Even though 1 lakh Kashmiris have been sent to the grave so far, you have never cried in open but my brother’s death (finally) awakened your conscience so much so that you wept in openl…y in the Assembly.
Our eyes too weep, we do moan, our hearts too are broken. Our beloved has been snatched away from us. We weep for he has been taken away from us forever. We are not alone, the nation mourns with us just like it mourns Afzal’s and Mudasir’s cruel deaths.
As the Chief Minister since 2008, this is the first time you have wept the tears of repentance, which leads us believe that even stones could have hearts.
What crime had Tahir committed?
We do not understand this. We cannot still believe that he has left us all till we meet him on Day of Judgement. Tahir used to pray five times a day, his kindness and humility is not hidden from the people of Baramulla and Dehradun. He was dedicated to his studies.
Who is responsible for putting out the light from his life?
Is it the Trooper who shot him in the head? Or is it the system that condones every action and saying of these (Occupational) Forces? They send to the grave whoever they wish and send to the gallows whoever they wish. The Khaki-clad Trooper, today, is the Law, the Judiciary and the Executioner-all rolled into one.
The rulers are effeminates in front of this Khaki-Clad Trooper. So much so that a Senior Minister Ali Sagar has to publically appeal to the CRPF, “Do not use Pepper (spray) Guns, the CM has already made this clear to you.”
Mr.Omar, does anyone listen to you or to him? They won’t because (your) government itself is at the mercy of the (Occupational) Forces.

Mr. Omar, You don’t need to declare that Afzal Guru was hanged- as the Chief Justice of Indian Supreme Court already has- “to satisfy the collective conscience of the Indian Nation.”
I will not ask you: To satisfy whose “conscience” was my brother killed?
Or who called these enemies as “Tai’ran Ababeel*** and grandly welcomed them (to invade Kashmir)?
Who leads them (the Occupational Forces) in meetings of the Unified Command Committee (except you)?
Every kid in Kashmir is well aware of this.
Shedding these tears, did you ask yourself, why you shed these tears? Are these tears similar to the tears of Dr.Farooq Abdullah after he took the oath in ’96?
I leave all this to your conscience. But as a member of the bereaved family, I have the moral duty (and right) to inform you that a Minister from your government by announcing 5 Lakh Rupees (as ex-gratia relief), has rubbed salt into our wounds.
This announcement is equivalent to trampling upon our emotions.
You should know that no government can ever pay the price of the pure blood of our beloved and other Kashmiri youth. Your government tried to set a price even for the blood of Wamiq Farooq but his poor parents by rejecting this offer set an example worthy of being written in gold, though it may not appear so to your government. (Similarly), the father of Mudasir Kamran befittingly responded to your generous offer! We thank you since your generosity has finally lead to the price being set for a Kashmiri life at 5 lakh rupees! There was a time when Kashmir and Kashmiris were purchased for 75 Lakh Nanak Shahi (by the Dogras). This means that every Kashmiri life was worth just a few takkas.
Honorable Mr. Omar,
Quran and Hadeeth bear testimony that the person who aids the oprressor is equal in sin with oppressor. Who laid the foundations to the atrocities and cruelties perpetrated upon Kashmiris today?
You are well aware of this fact. I will not repeat from the dark pages of this terrible history in order not to hurt you!
Why do you take carry on this legacy of oppression and violence?
Take a guess. How many innocent lives were taken in 2008 and 2010? How many innocent and oppressed ones were left with nothing? How many parents lost their children?

How many families were destroyed? How many people were thrown into dungeons?
All this for holding on to a position that is temporary? How many burdens would you want to carry on your shoulders on the Day of Recompense? Are your shoulders strong enough (to bear these burdens)?
The intentions are but known to Allah only. Judging by your tears, it appears that your conscience is finally waking up. If indeed this true, this is the best time to free yourself from all the previous burdens (by repenting).
By kicking away this position you hold on to earlier rather than latter, abandon the ranks of the oppressors and join the crowd of the oppressed.
I am aware that politicians, in this age are not blessed enough to abandon position and power to embrace humanity. Fear of Allah and true faith in the hereafter are necessary to do this. You know quite well that many leaders have sold their honor and soul just to attain a Ministerial post. This is the reason that even when the blood of innocents is being spilt, chastity (of women) outraged, houses are set ablaze, youths are slaughtered, the politicians are not prepared to give up their addiction for power.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt is the reason, that I had the audacity to present to you my thoughts even in these moments of utter grief.
You have announced Relief of 5 lakh rupees to our family in exchange for the life of Tahir that was taken away. I will collect 6 lakh from my family and relatives, and I make the offer of presenting this amount to the Superiors of the Trooper who killed my brother with one condition alone: the trooper who killed my innocent brother, who was in a state of ritual ablution at the time, is hanged at the same spot where he bathed my brother in blood. So that my family and the Kashmiri people can get some relief from the fact that an oppressor was properly recompensed.
Honorable Mr.Umar,
Read the writing on the wall at the earliest. Assembly elections were held, then parliament elections and then Panchayat elections were held, Kashmiris couldn’t and cannot be subdued even if, God forbid, blood of many more Afzals, Mudasirs and Tahirs is shed

 

Kashmir’s new age of dissent

Dawn | Abbas Nasir | 16th February, 2013

WHETHER Afzal Guru’s execution was just is for the jurists and legal experts to debate and decide. But let’s look at some other issues.

Perhaps, a more significant matter it brought to light is that while India and Pakistan remain wedded to old positions, dissent in the Kashmir valley has taken a new turn.

The Kashmiri was convicted of being involved in the attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 based on circumstantial evidence and was hanged in considerable haste and interred in the grounds of Delhi’s Tihar jail last Saturday when even his family hadn’t been intimated.

Many observers have pointed out that while those convicted of murders much before the attack on Lok Sabha in 2001 such as those held responsible for Rajiv Gandhi’s murder in 1991 are still alive because of the judicial review process, Guru was denied such relief even if it were to be temporary.

This, coupled with the imposition of curfew in Srinagar and elsewhere in the valley and a media shutdown, was attributed to the Indian authorities’ mindset in dealing with Kashmiris where, simmering Kashmiris alleged, a different yardstick is being applied compared to Rajiv Gandhi’s Tamil killers whose ethnic group is seen as part of the Indian mainstream.

While the Indian government’s ‘muscular’ stance is consistent with its policies over the years, across the border Pakistan officially refrained from commenting on the judicial process though it ‘reaffirmed’ solidarity with the Kashmiri people.

It wasn’t a surprise that the more vocal response came from the ‘semi-official’ Jamaatud Dawa (banned militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba) leader Hafiz Saeed and a senior leader of the Jaish-i-Mohammad. Both of them condemned ‘martyr’ Guru’s execution and vowed to avenge it.

All these voices, of course, represented forces ‘external’ to Kashmir. External but not disinterested. However, these views, positions seemed caught in a time warp: the Indian state muscle, Pakistan’s ‘principled stance’ and the militant groups’ blood-curdling vendetta threats.

If you look at the valley itself you can see how the mood there has evolved over the past decade and how it has moved away from armed resistance to what writer Mirza Waheed, who won acclaim with The Collaborator, calls the “new age of dissent”.

The gun of the 1990s has been replaced by unarmed yet massive peaceful demonstrations and more so by the pen, with an explosion of writers, researchers, columnists dedicated to writing Kashmir’s history, documenting human rights abuses with a ‘we’ll not forget’ philosophy as the central theme.

Powerful fiction and non-fiction is emerging from the valley with Basharat Peer (Curfewed Night), Mirza Waheed, and Siddhartha Gigoo (Garden of Solitude) writing poignantly heartrending prose, informed as it is by their experiences of the bloodshed there in the 1990s in particular.

And the one common denominator which screams out to be seen, heard and acknowledged is that those representing this so-called new age of dissent, mainly through unarmed defiance, reject the mediation of Pakistan and Indian narratives.

A lawyer, Pervez Imroz, who has followed and documented cases of human rights abuses including disappearances and extra-judicial killings blamed on the state is seen as a hero. One writer says: “His unarmed defiance has done more for the Kashmir cause than all the attacks by armed groups.”

Imroz was the central figure in the British TV Channel 4’s chilling documentary, Kashmir’s Torture Trail, detailing cases of torture and other excesses against Kashmiri civilians suspected of involvement in militant activities. In December last year Imroz co-authored an eye-opening report.

The report, published under the aegis of People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in the Indian-Administered Kashmir (IRTK) and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), says it is based mostly on government documents and witness testimonies.

It names 500 ‘perpetrators’ including senior army and paramilitary as well as police officials in 214 specific cases. Such reports may not have caught the fancy of the mainstream Indian media but have been read by most Kashmiris who are able to and that cements their defiance.

The growth of the writing and new media has also given a substantial voice to these new age dissenters. There is a staggering array of bloggers and online writers. How this generation of writer-dissenters is coming of age is easily understood if one googles their names and sees their work.

Kashmir-based young lawyer and writer Arif Ayyaz Parrey who addresses the issue of beheadings; Ather Zia, PhD candidate at the University of California at Irvine, a poet and a telling short story writer; Wasim Bhat, who has written a significant book on the cultural and historical density of Srinagar.

Sameer Bhat, journalist and sharp satirist, who is currently with Khaleej Times; Parvaiz Bukhari, one of Kashmir’s finest journalist-writers and a great political thinker, is working on what is already being seen as a seminal book on the militarisation of Kashmir.

Then there is UK-based scholar-poet Nitasha Koul; and Mohamad Junaid, a Kashmiri anthropologist at City University of New York, whose essay Stone Wars on the uprising of 2001 is enough to give one a chill. The list goes on and on and this was by no means exhaustive.

Even a hurried read through a selection of their work leaves one with the distinct impression that their love of their land and their people is infinite; and that their Kashmiri identity shines through. They are writing their own distortion-free history and documenting how they have been wronged.

And this extends to all Kashmiris including Hindu Pandits on whose plight and exodus Gigoo was the first to write. Rahul Pandita’s recent book (Our Moon has Blood Clots) is also part of this effort, though many people in Kashmir disagree with his account.

One wishes Islamabad and Delhi’s civil and military establishments would take a leaf out of the Kashmiris’ new age struggle and genuinely abandon the quest for a solution by force. A historical wrong may be righted. Perhaps, it is time to revisit the formula of soft borders and demilitarisation again.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

 

Kashmir issue relegated to the back burner?

Tuesday, 15 Jan 2013 , http://www.risingkashmir.in

 Rashmi Talwar  

At the 8th Regional Conference of SAFMA (South Asian Free Media Association) held at Lahore, comprising media persons  from eight South Asian SAARC countries, Kashmir issue appeared to have dimmed and become almost a non-issue .SAFMA-2013  held its concluding session at Lahore, following its inaugural session in Amritsar wherein India’s external affairs minister Salman Khurshid floated the idea of  ‘breakfast in one country, lunch in another and dinner in yet another’ pushing forward for peace between the two neighbours.

However, in one of the most important panel discussions on the theme of ‘South Asian vision for an Economic Union’ in the presence of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, noted columnist and Editor-in-Chief of The Friday Times Najam Sethi,, Nusrat Javed, a famous Pakistani journalist and anchor for Aaj TV, besides Dr Ijaz Nabi Country Director, International Growth Centre, Pakistan, Kashmir issue took a back seat. It seemed that Kashmir was being clearly ditched by Pakistan!
For Kashmiris from India it came as big jolt to hear a Pak speaker say -“The totality of Indo-Pak relations cannot be linked to the single issue of Kashmir.” And further, to make their positions clearer, the speaker said–“We would like to see the welfare of Kashmiris by way of engaging in more trade between both Kashmirs, easing of visas for travel to each other’s places. However, at present, Pakistan has more pressing issues i.e. Indo-Pak trade, water and power generation, which we are greatly hopeful that peace between India and Pakistan is bound to bring in.” And all this time, Nawaz Sharif remained mum, clearly endorsing what was being said-and-missed, about Kashmir.
How would Kashmiris, who suffered for more than two decades aided by Pakistan to revolt against India, feel about this, I wondered. All this time, I had met many Indian Kashmiris, who came to Amritsar and looked longingly at Lahore, from the Indian side of the Attari-Wagha Indo-Pak border, during the beating retreat ceremony. Some, who sat glum during the retreat ceremony came close to grieving over being separated from Pakistan, lamenting that Kashmir on the Indian side, should have been a part of Pakistan.
One, who I met in Amritsar a few years ago, called the border an ‘unnatural divide’ and scoffed disgustedly –“if it were possible, India would station an army man in each Kashmiri kitchen”.
Numberless gullible Kashmiris, who ran the marathon to training camps across the border, were promised a glorious goal of Independence. They returned to fight, flush with money, arms and above all dreams of ‘holy war’ that would ensure a royal place in heavenly paradise for them in case they were ‘martyred’.
Many felt it was easy money and brain washed others to run their outfits in Kashmir with support from across the border. The more vitriolic ones became apples of the eyes of their masters as they fitted in their sinister plans.
There were others who fiercely wrote in newspapers about the atrocities on Kashmiris by security forces while ignoring or soft pedalling the atrocities by the militants. There were   those who, while conversing with their counterparts in rest of the country, referred to anything Indian as ‘yours’ and anything Kashmiri as ‘ours’.
All this while, they were filled with feeling of abhorrence for their present state. The army’s strong arm tactics aggravated the situation. Daily dirges and insults at the hands of the security forces had left them cold and concerned over their future and those of their children. Kashmiris found themselves on a cliff-hanger not knowing whether the militant or the army bullet would kill them.
When the initial itch over being freedom fighters faded and turned sore, the fallout of their actions spilled over. For some hardliners, a bleak future awaited so they tried to continue in their chosen destructive path, sure that their end would come painfully from either of the sides i.e. militants or army. It was a proverbial choice ‘from the frying pan into the fire’.
Others on the sidelines gave only lip service to their bravado and went on with their lives, availing all Indian government sponsored benefits and schemes while leaving them to struggle. Still, they hung on to their ally –Pakistan. Drawing strength and succor from the fact that Pakistan was still their well wisher.
Countless K-agendas raised at International forums by Pakistan had little impact although it endeared Pakistan to Kashmiris. However, Pakistan’s recent position on Kashmir was shared with Rising Kashmir by a senior Pak bureaucrat who said – ‘Kashmiris had played a double game with them’.
He contended that while Pakistani side had lost more lives than Kashmiris, even as they had pumped in money, men and material as also feted and felicitated them, Kashmiris  in turn joined the election process held by India, elected their leaders and lifted them on their shoulders. They availed all Indian government and army schemes.
‘They told us they are unable to offer Namaz in Indian side of Kashmir, but we have seen them freely doing so. They tell us their women are not safe, but their women are freely moving about, getting educated and showing no traces of fear’.
The Kargil misadventure in 1999, after nearly 10-years of turmoil in Kashmir, seemed like a shot in the arm for militants in Kashmir, who saw Pakistan as the saviour. Of course, the battle-end saw Pakistan faced with rebuke and reprimand, as also a royal ignore and the ultimate shaming by US – its funding ally that ultimately punctured its stature in global eyes. Alternately, under the leadership and statesmanship of Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Kargil won India kudos for its restraint in the face of a sly enemy.
Pakistan used Kashmir to save the multitude of high profile chairs, raising the bogey of Kashmir, every time a crisis on home ground erupted. Kashmir served as a diversionary tactics, to gloss over faults of omission and neglect in Pakistan.
US too saw it being used by Pakistan who was trying to fulfil its Kashmir agenda on the pretext of Afghanistan’s occupation by USSR. Therefore, in time, USA too pulled itself out of the mire of Pak mechanizations, cut down its funding and ditched Pakistan partially as the Frankenstein monster of terrorism that it had created sought to feed onto its creator –Pakistan.
Having lost its financial conduit and faced with rebellion and insurgency in its troubled corners, as well as from insurgents it had created, Pakistan today is  left with a choice to either save its own  or that of Kashmir.
Perturbed over this stand of Pakistan to shelve the Kashmir issue, Shujaat Bukhari Editor-in-Chief  of English daily, ‘Rising Kashmir’ raised a query to Pakistan panel and especially to Nawaz Sharif –as one of Kashmiri origin, asking  – “If Kashmir issue was to be sidelined thus,  why were 23-years and lakhs of lives lost for this cause?” To which he got a reply that welfare of Kashmiris could be in softening of the LoC (line of control) and “not in transfer of territory”.
The sidelining of Kashmir was complete when even in his personal address Nawaz Sharif gave a miss to the Kashmir issue and stated “If voted to power as next President of Pakistan I would bring the same relationship of bonhomie between India and Pakistan as I and PM Vajpayee had brought in February of 1999 by starting the Sada-e-Sarhad, Indo –Pak bus service.”
The present scenario in Kashmir is that Kashmiri households that drilled anti- India venom are left with an educated new generation, many of whom have flown the nest, to seek wider horizons to further their aspirations of a good life, while those who remain are left alone to tend to their festering wounds. Those who supported them from the neighbouring country have now their own hands-full, fighting internal battles, dousing the monster of terrorism that they had created.
Nusrat Javed, the panelist  when questioned on the sidelines of SAFMA to clarify the Pakistani stand on Kashmir, counter questioned  –“I have a child in Baluchistan crying in pain, should I tend to ‘my’ child or a Kashmiri child?” As a host for a popular programme  ‘Bolta Pakistan’ of Aaj TV, Nusrat said people in Pakistan are least interested in Kashmir issue and his programme’s TRPs drop every time a topic related to Kashmir issue is aired.
It is a fact that Kashmir is fast losing out in terms of media interest in India too. Many foreign media organizations have bid goodbye to Kashmir- a hotbed of news, for past two decades. Reuters, BBC radio and TV, German owned Deutsche Welle , AFP have wound up from Kashmir. Others like The New York Times, Al Jazeera, Time, and Guardian are granting fewer slots to news from Kashmir. It has therefore come as no surprise that Pakistan media too turned its face away to news emerging from Kashmir, which is being relegated to inner obscure corners of leading newspapers.
Mehmal Sarfarz a senior member of SAFMA said in clear terms that ‘Pakistan had decided to drop the issue of Kashmir long ago. If in 60 years, four wars could not solve it, what is the point in pursuing a lame dream, is what Pakistan has slowly realized. With internal problems becoming hard to handle who has the time or the money to fund Kashmir or Kashmiris?’
However there was one such who had the guts to say –“Only those who have been failures or those who set up shops on the ‘tears’ of Kashmir or accrued advantage from the Indo-Pak standoff on Kashmir are  banking on continued enmity between both countries. The army in Pakistan is the major beneficiary of Indo-Pak rivalry, he said, because it is only because of the enmity between the two countries that it can retain its hold on the politics and administration of the country. The terrorist outfits in Pakistan are the other beneficiaries who would lose their raison d’etre in case both countries come closer to each other. “They are the ones desperate to sabotage the peace process and stoke the fires of hostility”, he said.
I know Indo-Pak peace would soon be a reality. This statement is not merely a conjecture or hope or guess but based on study of wider spectrum of world affairs, in which US seeks to strengthen and embolden the south Asian region against the growing power of China.
The border clash, inhuman torture and beheading of an Indian army jawan and retaliatory killing of Pakistan army man, has come as the most recent example of covert mechanizations. The killing of Kashmiri sarpanches, including shooting a lady panch, are such incidents, which may slow down the peace process, but will not be able to derail it.
The author is an Amritsar based journalist and can be mailed at rashmitalwarno1@gmail.com

It is a fact that Kashmir is fast losing out in terms of media interest in India too. Many foreign media organizations have bid goodbye to Kashmir- a hotbed of news, for past two decades. Reuters, BBC radio and TV, German owned Deutsche Welle, AFP have wound up from Kashmir. Others like The New York Times, Al Jazeera, Time, and Guardian are granting fewer slots to news from Kashmir.

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Autumn finally comes to Mumbai – dont miss

Harud director on a film thats taken nine years to come to a theatre near you

Dhamini.Ratnam @timesgroup.com

Harud,Persian for autumn,is actor Aamir Bashirs first directorial venture,but it lacks the tentativeness of a first offering.The 100-minute film tells the story of Rafiq (played with remarkable stillness by Shahnawaz Bhat),a 19-year-old Srinagar resident whose brother has disappeared like thousands of other Kashmiri men.It seems to ask a simple question what effect does the ever-present spectre of death have on psyches made brittle by years of violence and very real oppression
Bashir,who left Kashmir in 1990 to study in New Delhi,felt the need to tell the story of Kashmir to right a wrong.Commercial cinema,says the actor of A Wednesday and Peepli (Live),has traditionally seen Kashmir as a location,but not as a receptacle of stories of people.I wanted to tell the story of those caught in the crossfire (of idealogues); those who dont have a choice, he says.
Bashir began thinking of this film in 2003,and finally shot it in 2009.It releases today under PVR Directors Cut,two years after it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival.

EXCERPTS OF THE INTERVIEW:

 

This story is unlike anything wed expect from an actor of commercial Hindi cinema.Was this intended

Absolutely.This film is an act of resistance against commercial cinema.Wherever we felt the film could be made more accessible,say a scene where we could have heightened the emotional quotient by adding a background score,we decided not to do it.We have grown to expect certain things from commercial Hindi cinema,and while making this film,we took an aesthetic decision to thwart all expectations of the audience.We wanted them to feel the same hopelessness and disappointment that the protagonist faces every day.This film was not made for the audience to understand the Kashmiri problem.I also wanted to tell a story that doesnt get told of people who know that they are not heroes,but dont have the choice to leave.

How long did it take for you to get a censor certificate

Three months.Thats how long it takes for you to get a visa if you are flagged.The examining committee said they didnt want to give it any certificate U,A,U/A given its topic.The revising committee suggested a few cuts in areas where they thought the film was promoting azaadi (independence),and then gave it a U/A certificate,after some back and forth.But the real problem this film faced was that of distribution.Harud doesnt fit into any label indie,crossover,parallel cinema.Of course,its a different thing that these labels are not well defined.For instance,how does Dhobi Ghat,financed by one of the most powerful people,get to be called indie cinema

What cuts were you asked to make

At the start of the film,weve used archival news footage of a demonstration.The board asked us to delete the slogan,Bharat se lenge azaadi,but it was okay with the English slogan,We want our freedom. At a later stage however,we were asked to delete that line too.They werent happy with hypothetical references to azaadi,either.

The mindscape is a central part of your film,too.

In Kashmir,if youve suffered violence once,the chances of facing it again are very high.The unfortunate thing is that no one pays attention to how it has affected people mentally.According to a survey conducted by the Medecins Sans Frontieres,nearly 40 per cent of the people in Kashmir are clinically depressed.My next film looks into this.Its about a mentally unstable woman,whose husband is a militant.

Harud will play at select PVR cinemas across the city from July 27 to August 2

Teen kills herself after gangrape by three teachers

 

HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times
Rajouri, July 25, 2012

16-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri districtcommitted suicide after she was allegedly gangraped by four persons. What’s more, three of the alleged rapists are her teachers. The police arrested all four on Wednesday, two days after the girl — daughter of an armyman — died

 after consuming poison.

Rajouri superintendent of police Mubassir Latief identified the accused as government schoolteacher Mohammad Zafar, his son Waseem and two others. “The medical examination has been conducted. We are awaiting the report to confirm the allegation of rape,” Latief said.

The police said Zafar also ran a private school in the girl’s village, Khagal, about 150km from Jammu city. His son was an administrator at the school. The two other accused are teacher Aurangzeb and part-time teacher Mohmmad Iftikhar.

The police have registered a case on basis of the complaint by the girl’s mother, who alleged that her daughter was gangraped on July 20.

According to her complaint, Waseem had asked the girl to come to the school, saying there was some important work to be done. When she reached the school, she was pushed into a car, taken to an isolated place and gangraped. The girl narrated her plight to her mother and later sunk into depression and consumed poison on Monday. She was rushed to a hospital and then shifted to the Government Medical College in Jammu but to no avail.

The teenager had studied in Zafar’s private school and appeared for her class 10 exams this year, but failed.

With inputs from agencies

 

An open letter to OPEN Magazine’s editor, Manu Joseph from Kindle’s editor #Kashmir

Sorry, Manu Joseph, but you are sad!

By Pritha Kejriwal

Oscar Wilde had once said that journalism is unreadable…I wouldn’t go into the merits of the sweeping statement, but it just so happens, that at times, one comes across instances of journalism, so grotesque, so misshapen, so utterly despicable, that one can’t but not agree…
‘Sorry, Kashmir is happy’ (Cover story, Open Magazine, 21 April 2012 by Manu Joseph) is one such apology for journalism, which makes me wonder, how on earth, did one become so delusional, so as to pass a judgment on an entire people’s state of mind, so as to make a pulp out of their past, present and future and sieve it through their utterly myopic vision and print it in bold yellow letters on their pompous publication, thinking they are the only ones, who can tell a story, as it should be told…well, I hate to say this, but one wouldn’t even throw a penny at such puny journalism, or at the lowly comedian who seems to be masquerading as a journalist.
We have been served lies by most media for a very long time now, but such shallow, easy and vulgar striking off, of decades of struggle, memory, pain, tears, songs and slogans of protest and replacing them with Café coffee day and KFC chatter, labeling people who have bled and cried and sang for a cause as “melancholy poets, facebook revolutionaries and a rapper who owns a hood”, ignoring decades of human rights violence which continues, Indian military exploits which continue, terror victims which continue to pile up and to paint a seemingly happy picture, is not just blatant falsification, but utter stupidity.
And even though its true, that Kashmir’s status as a conflict zone, has spun an industry of writers, seminar tourists, cause peddlers around it, it doesn’t negate the problems of the state, which continue to persist and haunt its people every single day. The fact that, for over six decades now, the Kashmiris have refused to take any sides and continue to assert their need for autonomy, and have prepared themselves for any eventuality, should be testament enough to the fact that we require new imaginations to deal with the continued crisis, rather than brushing an entire people and their sacrifices under the carpet.
And if all these arguments sound like the echoes bouncing off the walls of some old heritage building, let me also make some arguments, sitting at this mental health camp in Srinagar, set up by the state hospital’s department of psychiatry. Men, women and children of all ages have come pouring in, for an entire day…blank eyes, tearful eyes, angry eyes have narrated many stories, and almost half of them are suffering because of the onslaught of cell phones, (this particular article partly seemed to be advertising for Aircel), breaking up of families, breaking down of tradition, cultural alienation, loneliness and other such effects of globalization. The department’s report on the average Kashmiri’s mental health would soon be ready and one would know, a little more of the truth.
And if one could actually measure happiness, well there is an index out there, which makes Bhutan, the happiest place in the world, with least number of tourists and posh coffee shops.
If only, someone could tell Mr Joseph, who has fallen into a habit of writing mostly easy, simplified pieces for his NRI readers in New York Times, that Kashmir is a cause for which Kashmiris living in Kashmir have given their lives to, and has little to do with Kashmiris living in America, Dubai or Delhi.
Also, if someone could ask him, if electricity and roads are not about politics, then what is?
From Capitalism : a ghost story, to  Kashmir: a happy story, we seem to have lost an essential narrative somewhere in between.
As Manu’s neon lights blaze on, to scare away the ghosts perhaps, Kashmiris complain, that these lights are too bright and mis-leading.
Sadly, we still have to take back Kashmir’s night first, before we wait for the true light of the morning…
As Faiz had said, “ye woh sehar to nahin…”

Read Kindle Magazine here- http://kindlemag.in/

Rape is an outcome of treating Kashmiris as Slaves

By Saima Bhat, The Kashmirwalla, Magazine

Indian-held-Kashmir is a highly militarized zone where for every citizen- the armed forces are in ratio of 1:20, the highest soldier-to-civilian ratio in the world. Women are generally targeted, they are overpowered by the perpetrators in every society and same is the case here where women have been targeted socially, mentally as well as physically.

Indian forces are believed to be hyper masculine who just know how to abuse. They have always tried to attack psyche of the Kashmiri people and with the result they used Rape as a weapon of war to give a signal that ‘you can’t even protect your women and you are seeking Aazadi’! These things usually demoralize and incite a society in unnatural way. If society reacts, army further legitimizes the violence on people and same happened when ever Kashmiris came out on streets like in various rape and molestation cases- Kunan Poshpora mass rape, Bandipora, Wawoosa, Saidapora, Tangmarg, Badrapai, Banihal, Kulgam and the infamous Shopian case.

Women have been the worst victims of any conflict. In a study conducted by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), “Kashmir: Violence and Health”, the findings were, “11.6 percent of interviewees said they had been victims of sexual violence since 1989”. The study revealed that Kashmiri women were among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world. The figure is much higher than that of Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Most of the rape cases go unreported in the Valley. “Only 2-3 percent rape victims like to share their plight, otherwise many compromise with the situation and due to social stigma do not come forward,” says a human rights defender. But another study of an international NGO and local Human rights group revealed there are more than 7,000 cases of rapes and molestation cases in the valley among which only 300 have been reported so far.

Initially the reported rape victims were further victimized by threatening and by targeting their families to withdraw cases besides facing the social stigma. Khurram Parvez, Human Rights Activist and Programme coordinator Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) says that no women had dared to report it in the local Police Stations which had proved to be ‘hostile’ places. In those days police used to say they ‘can’t report against army’ and it has been like an unannounced order of not reporting against army. So in early 90’s there would have been rarely an FIR logged against rape. All these things ultimately contributed in not reporting the rape cases as they along with their families did not want to suffer further.

In the Kulgam area of Islamabad district, victim Ruqaiya reported rape by two army men on 21 July 2011. As the news came out the situation was tense for the family. Their house was under police custody; around 40 cops were on duty to make sure nobody could enter the house of the victim. Earlier Ruqaiya had filed a first investigation report with the concerned police station, which was put online on YouTube also. And she had stated the same to the politicians visiting her house but what happened after that nobody knows. Later police came with the statement that Ruqaiya is ‘mentally unfit’ and the case got buried.

“It was to demonize women and women themselves were also reluctant to report due to fear, social stigma as their photographs were published along with their names and overall reporting did not reveal any justice,” says Khurram. He also adds that primary reason behind not reporting rape cases was fear and secondary has been social stigma.

Rape cases can be found from every corner of the Valley but the victims do not share their information saying “we know we can’t get justice. Has Kunan poshpora women got any justice then how can we expect we will be given justice” shares a rape victim. Women have been raped in the age group of 60 and as small as 10-year-girl has also not been spared. Some among them are alive and some are dead but over all almost every rape allegation has met the same fate, justice delayed as well as denied also.

According to a report of Police, “Troops raped 51 women in last 6 years”, published in Rising Kashmir (April, 2, 2010). The report says, “A police statement said 38 rape cases allegedly by troops were reported from November 2002 to October 2005. From November 2005 to July 2008, 13 rape cases allegedly by troops were reported”.

The rural woman has been the worst sufferer. In the era of 90’s the rate of female dropouts in rural schools was higher as the schools had been at distance for which the girls had to pass through woods and in those isolated places they could have been targeted. Experts believe there were many cases when girls had faced eve teasing in front of their parents that was same in rural as well as in urban areas. In a similar case which happened in Qazigund where a girl of class 12 was regularly harassed verbally by the Central Reserve Police Forces (CRPF) men. One day she had took her brother along to her school where on way she was molested by the CRPF in front of her brother who was beaten to death by them. Later due to the intervention of locals those siblings were saved from the clenches of those uniformed law breakers.

Such attempts have not been done on road sides only but some women were even raped in front of their family members. In one unreported case, a woman was raped in local police station in front of her husband but the woman was second wife of her husband who then tried to dug up the issue due to other family problems but in the whole run a woman is the sufferer. Syed Adfar Shah, a sociology scholar in Jamia University says, “Militia has its frustrations while being far from home so their wrath falls on the target society”.

On the other hand when such incidents of rape and molestation cases come up, a woman is again targeted by raising fingers on her character. There have been a number of times when armed forces had blamed that ‘women themselves come in the camps’ but to this Khurram says, “Armed forces create such conditions like they arrest a male member of a family and then tell his mother or wife or sister to come in the camp where she is forced to do what ever they want and in return they release that male”. He also says that this is rape by all classification; they have been exploited because of vulnerability that their family member has been arrested or threatened. “Whenever Indian government wants to attack they do it by character assassination.”

Syed Adfar shares that rapes and murders of Women under mysterious circumstances reveal state government’s inability to protect the women folk. “State should take stringent measures to check armed forces from any such aberrations and army top brass must have known their areas of operation well; see people not as subjects but as citizens of a democratic system”.

Khurram adds, “Rape, exploitation and such cases where woman has been forcibly pressurized to do what ‘they’ (armed forces) want to do with them happen in power, when they keep and treat us like slaves”.

Other human rights activists say that Army is defeating their own discipline and credibility by saying women come to camps but “why don’t they say why they allow them to enter into their camps?” In Kunan Poshpora case, The Press Council of India, which was investigating the case said in its report the rape victims were lying and there have been no rapes. The women are doing so for money and to malign army. But then the same case was handled by the then Divisional Commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah who reported there have been gang rapes but till now no justice had been done with those at least 23 victims.

Till now if government of India has asked for conducting any sort of probe in rape cases by paramilitary forces they have just done it to bail out their men. In most of the rape allegations in Indian-held-Kashmir where Indian troops are allegedly involved none except one of the accused has been convicted so far. The civil society and legal experts in Indian-held-Kashmir call this lone conviction, “a shady trail”.

“There was no transparency in the case, we are not sure has it really happened or not, as the Court martial trials are not made public,” says Parvez Imroz, a human rights lawyer and a civil rights activist. “Still if we trust it has happened, the punishment was disproportionate to his crime. Dismissal from service is too little for raping a woman.”

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On Kashmir India acts as a police state, not as a democracy

Mirza Waheed, Sunday 29 May 2011, The Guardian
Delhi has been unwilling to solve this tragic and brutal conflict, and has scuttled any attempt at meaningful discourse

Many years ago, I met two journalists from India in London and we found ourselves talking about Kashmir. Mostly, they listened patiently to my impassioned tale of what goes on, but the moment I touched upon the brutal counter-insurgency methods employed by the Indian security apparatus in the disputed territory – among them notorious “catch-and-kill” operations to execute suspected militants – they looked incredulous, made a quick excuse and left. Later, I learned that at least one of them believed that Kashmiris liked to exaggerate the excesses of the Indian armed forces.

In the reaction of those two men, I had witnessed the frightening success of India’s policy of denial and misrepresentation on Kashmir. India’s decision to censor the Economist last week, following the publication of a map that shows the disputed borders of Kashmir, represents two unsurprising but ominous things: that the country’s age-old intransigence over Kashmir still runs deep; and its willingness to curb freedom of speech over what it sees as sensitive matters of national interest. On Kashmir India continues to behave as a police state, not as the champion of democracy and freedom that it intends to be.

There is nothing astonishing or new in this. For decades, India has not only been unwilling to solve one of the world’s most tragic conflicts but has scuttled any attempt at meaningful discourse on the issue, both internationally and within the country. The ultimately pointless attempt at censorship by asking the magazine to paste stickers on a representation of areas controlled by India, Pakistan and China is, sadly, in line with its inflexible and deeply flawed Kashmir policy. To come good on its insistence that “Kashmir is an integral part of India” – and it does lash out at any attempt to suggest otherwise – it maintains the world’s largest military presence in a single region, to suppress the revolt that erupted against its rule in 1989. An uprising that continues in the form of a civilian resistance.

Last year, in what we now remember as Kashmir’s bloody summer, its paramilitaries and police killed more than a hundred protesters, most of them young men and schoolchildren. Among those killed was Sameer Rah, a nine-year-old boy from Srinagar, who was bludgeoned to death and his body dumped by a kerb. The image of his bruised, purple body is now permanently etched in the collective consciousness of Kashmiris at home and across the world, and may haunt India’s political and intellectual elites for a long time. In response to this brutalisation of a people – the Kashmir valley remained in virtual siege for weeks – a cogent narrative of what I call “new dissent” began to evolve in Kashmir and India, scripted by Kashmiris themselves and by some of India’s bravest public intellectuals, writers and journalists.

However, both the central government and its clients in the state tried everything to suppress this new wave of dissent; they introduced draconian measures to silence the voice of Kashmiris and their supporters in Delhi. TV channels were forced off air, newspapers were not allowed to print for weeks, text messaging was banned, and later on, in India’s capital, a lower court even charged Arundhati Roy with sedition. But the urge to report to the world what was unfolding in Kashmir was ultimately unstoppable. Kashmiri youth turned to social media to get the word out.

And it did get out, aided by India’s fascinatingly diverse intelligentsia and those sections of the Indian media that have of late started to look at Kashmir with new understanding and empathy, and not through the disingenuous prism of national interest.

The Economist’s map on Kashmir – which must have received many more page views than had it not been declared contraband – contains nothing that contests historical facts or misrepresents ground reality. Essentially, the magazine has produced a graphical account of geopolitical status in the region – namely, Kashmir is a disputed territory, with India and Pakistan as the main contestants, but Kashmiris as the central party as it is their future that has been a point of dispute. A dispute that the UN recognises as such in its charter of 1948 – and in its maps. I have found maps produced by the UN to be the most accurate and impartial.

When, and why, do states censor maps? Mostly when the operating principle seems to be denial and obfuscation. For years, the Indian state has attempted to delegitimise people’s aspirations in Kashmir, either by raising the bogey of Islamism or lumping together the challenge to its authority in Kashmir with the US-led war on terror. For most of the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium it succeeded. Ironically, as a consequence of the emergence of “new India” and the burgeoning of the country’s affluent middle classes, the Economist – a magazine previously considered the preserve of business elites – is now selling more copies in India. It is seen as influential, and capable of altering opinion – hence the kneejerk reaction to the map. The Indian government is doing a huge disservice to its democratic credentials by trying to confiscate the truth about one of the world’s most tragic, intractable and dangerous conflicts.