IKA conclave extols
Maharaja's state subject law
No
to violence, division; yes to dialogue, peace
From Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
TORONTO,
Dec 4: With
different speakers expressing diverse opinions with
regard to the resolution of the Kashmir crisis, the
second International Kashmir Conference of the
International Kashmir Alliance (IKA) dismissed all
solutions based on division of the State on communal,
linguistic and regional lines. It also rejected all kinds
of violence and military solutions to the problem.
IKA’s Kashmir
conference, which had about two dozen speakers from
India, Pakistan and other countries, concluded in this
North American metropolis with a comprehensive political
resolution. IKA is a conglomerate of Kashmiri
organisations constituted at Geneva in 2003 with a
pioneering role by London-based JKCHR chairman Dr Syed
Nazir Gilani, Geneva-based Showkat Ali Kashmiri and
Toronto-based Mumtaz Khan.
The resolution passed at
the end of the conference described the whole of Jammu
and Kashmir State as "one political entity" and
observed that division of the State on communal,
linguistic and regional lines would not provide "a
just and lasting solution". It apprehended that
suggestions of the division of the State would
immediately lead to deterioration of the situation and
the same would only provide oxygen to the evils of
communalism, sectarianism and hatred.
The resolution said that
Maharaja Hari Singh’s notification of the State
subject law in 1927 did not only define as to who was a
Kashmiri but it also protected the rights of the State
subjects. In his thoughtful speech, Chairman of the State
Human Rights Commission and a former judge of Jammu and
Kashmir High Court, Mr Justice Ali Mohammad Mir, said it
without ambiguity that Maharaja Hari Singh was revered to
him much more than the "great Kashmiri leader"
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and other politicians. In the
first IKA conference, held in London in May this year,
former Chief Justice of ‘Azad Kashmir’ High
Court, Justice Majeed Malik, had also explained the
relevance and utility of the State subject law.
Today’s IKA
resolution impressed upon the Government of Pakistan to
withdraw all non-Kashmiri settlers from the Northern
Areas of Gilgit and Baltistan. It also made an appeal to
the Government of India to rehabilitate the displaced
population in the Valley of Kashmir "with dignity
and appropriate compensation". It called for an end
to violence in Jammu and Kashmir and said that insurgency
and military solutions would not help reach a permanent
settlement of the issue. It also demanded an impartial
and transparent investigation to determine the exact
number of the people killed since 1989. "Those
responsible must be made accountable", said the
resolution without a specific reference to security
forces or militants.
Describing the right to
life as a fundamental right of the Kashmiris, the IKA
resolution asked the armed forces to exercise restraint
and move back to the barracks. It simultaneously called
upon the foreign militants to leave the State and
requested the Kashmiri militants to reconsider their
policy and give a chance to peace. It added: "In
order to support the dialogue and peace process, politics
of gun, fear and intimidation must end".
The IKA resolution,
affirmed unanimously by all speakers and participants,
called for involvement of the people of Jammu and Kashmir
in the current peace process between India and Pakistan
as "the principal party to this dispute". It
observed that the problem of Jammu and Kashmir was not
simply a "territorial dispute" between the two
countries.
Earlier speaking at the
conference, general secretary of the ruling Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in the Indian-administered Jammu
and Kashmir, Mr Sadiq Ali, said that the people of
all regions in the State were actually residents of only
one region and their mark of identification was
"secular ethos". "We can’t remove
mountains, but we can lift the barriers", Sadiq Ali
said while emphasising softening of the borders and
opening of all communication links to foster a people to
people contact across the LoC.
Senior National Conference
leader Abdur Rahim Rather, who is the Leader of
the Opposition in Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly,
also stressed on a meaningful people to people contact
between the people of all regions of the State. He too
advocated softening of the borders and believed that such
confidence building measures could facilitate such an
interaction. He called for an exemplary punishment to
"all killers" and asserted that any kind of
violence should not be tolerated. Rather contended that
under the present dispensation in the Indian-administered
territories, article 370 of the Constitution of India was
a vital instrument to protect the rights and dignity of
the Kashmiri people.
Member of the Canadian
Parliament, Jim Kerry, who claimed to have visited India
and Pakistan a many times, drew parallels between
Kashmir’s and Canada’s multi-cultural society.
He said that difference of opinion was the essence of a
democratic system. Jim said that the Canadians differed
with one another on anything other than sex, race, colour
and religion. "Colours of faces can vary, but the
colour of blood is everywhere red. It’s the blood
which matters, not the face", Jim illustrated. He
displayed the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom and
argued that "Respect", "Accept",
"Celebrate" and "Embrace" were the
tenets of multi-culturalism enshrined in his
country’s Constitution.
Hailing from Athens and
grown up at a refugee camp, Jim believed that democracy
had been conceived in Greece but best practised in
Canada. He, however, asserted that a sound economy was a
must for a sound democracy. Jim said that India and
Pakistan must open the doors of trade and economy for
each other. He pointed out that there was tremendous
potential of trade between the two South Asian countries.
He asked both to learn lessons from China and Canada who
had lately emerged as potential partners of trade. He
argued that addressing political economy in the
under-developed regions would create a better atmosphere
of understanding and agreement.
Veteran Pakistani
politician Mir Hasil Bizinjoo, however, asked the
people of Jammu and Kashmir State to accept the reality
of the divide and the Partition. "Forget about Azaadi
and protect your identity. You’ll have to take your
decisions in view of today’s ground realities. Fact
of the matter is that India can entangle Pakistan in
Kashmir for the next 50 years but it can not leave an
inch of the soil under its control. It’s all the
more helpless to part with its territory as it’s a
multi-religious country", Hasil told the Kashmiris.
He noticed that the Kashmiris were awaiting Pakistan to
fetch them Azaadi while as the Mullahs in
Pakistan considered Islam incomplete until Kashmir’s
accession to Pakistan.
"Intelligent nations
must always behave intelligently. There’re
separatist movements in Baluchistan and Kurdistan since
decades. The fact is that one continues to be halved
between Pakistan and Afghanistan and another between
Iran, Iraq and Turki. Half of Punjab is with Pakistan and
another half with India. Half of Bengal is with India and
another half with Bangla Desh", Mir Hasil
illustrated to bring home the realities of division to
the Kashmiris.
Asking further not to
nourish high hopes, Hasil said that Pakistan had been
getting all of its natural gas from Balushistan since
1974 but the gas producing State was still burning the
woods. He believed that it were the people of Kashmir
alone who could put an end to the gun culture. He argued
that the intelligence agencies of the two countries would
otherwise never let the gun silence.
President of BJP in Jammu
and Kashmir, Dr Nirmal Singh, described it as
"a good indication" that the Kashmiris
everywhere had begun to condemn the cult of violence. He
stressed that in any dispensation, the final solution to
the Kashmir problem should be "essentially
secular". Dr Singh realised the need of continued
intra-Kashmiri dialogue. He said that not only
Srinagar-Muzaffarabad but all roads—including
Mendhar-Chillas and Suchetgarh-Sialkote—be opened
between two parts of the State.
Dr Singh argued that the
"misnomer" of calling the Kashmiri as only the
Kashmiri speaking residents of Kashmir valley must go. He
claimed that 80% of the state’s population was
non-Kashmiri speaking as only 20% of the Kashmiris spoke
the Kashmiri language. He said that there was "an
impression" that post-1947 political and
socio-economic system in Jammu and Kashmir had been
"biased in favour of the Valley" and Jammu and
Ladakh had been reeling under injustice in all spheres of
development. He demanded that the aspirations of the
people of Jammu and Ladakh regions should not be
underplayed or ignored in any resolution of the political
crisis.
Writer activist Zaffar
Iqbal asked all shades of violence to vanish as the
Kashmiris’ survival itself had been endangered in
the armed movement for Azaadi. He said it was high
time to realise what exactly was "desirable,
feasible and achievable".
Ashok Kaul, who is
heading Ottawa Business Council in Indo-Canada Chamber of
Commerce, Indo-Canadian Kashmiri Forum and Kashmiris
Overseas Association of Canada, claimed that the
"instinct of usurping everything around" in
certain people from Islamabad to Srinagar had led to the
present catastrophe of the Kashmiri Pandits. He alleged
that in order to suppress and fail a minority community,
the political executive in Jammu and Kashmir changed the
boundaries of all five Pandit-dominated Assembly segments
in 1971. "It was only to ensure that a Pandit was
never returned in the Assembly".
Kaul said that the
displaced Kashmiri Pandits, who were fragmented in camps
from Udhampur and Jammu to Delhi and Toronto, would never
return to their home and hearth until their rights and
security were protected in letter and spirit by the
Constitutions of Jammu and Kashmir and India.
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