By Muhammad Hanif
For the last some years the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir observe the 15 August, India’s Independence Day, as a Black Day. For doing so the Kashmiris has very cogent reasons.
By observing India’s Independence Day as a Black Day, the people of Jammu and Kashmir want to highlight the cruel and unjust policies of the successive Indian governments, through which Jammu and Kashmir state was unjustly occupied by India in October 1947, India has violated the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir by denying the Kashmiris their right to self-determination, and the HR violations, atrocities,
and genocide carried out by the Indian security forces on the Kashmiris to crush their struggle to get their right of self-determination.
In other words, the Kashmiris observe 15 August as a Black Day to show to the world that the Indian rulers, especially the Modi-led BJP government, do not deserve to be given an independent country, like India to govern. By observing 15 August, India’s Independence Day as a Black the Kashmiris want to project that to keep Jammu and Kasmir as occupied state, India has crossed all limits of humanity by doing following excesses to the Kashmiris.
Whereas at the time of independence of Pakistan and India in August 1947, the people of Jammu and Kashmir wanted the state to join Pakistan as per the partition formula, India sent its army in Jammu and Kashmir on 27 October 1947 and captured a major part of the state, that resulted in a war with Pakistan.
On January 1, 1948, under Article 35 of the UN Charter, when India referred the Kashmir dispute to the UN Security Council, on 21 April 1948, the UNSC adopted Resolution 47, asked for the cease-fire, and decided that the accession of the state to Pakistan or India will be done through a free and impartial plebiscite, as was agreed by both, Pakistan and India.
The Resolution also instructed the UNCIP to visit the subcontinent and to mediate and facilitate both the countries to hold a plebiscite. In the later years, India foiled all the UNSC and UNCIP efforts to hold the plebiscite on one pretext or the other, as India knew that if an impartial plebiscite was held, then the Muslim majority population of Jammu and Kashmir will vote for accession to Pakistan.
Experiencing India’s long intransigence, since 1989, the people of Occupied Jammu and Kashmir have launched their peaceful freedom struggle and India has deployed above 700,000 security troops to crush the freedom struggle, and the security forces have committed rampant HR violations and genocide in the Kashmir valley with full impunity under the protection of draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Public Safety Act (PSA). India has converted a UNSC declared disputed territory between Pakistan and India, into its integral part, which is in total violation of the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir
As per Kashmir Media Service (KMS), since 1989, around 100,000 Kashmiris have been killed by Indian occupation forces in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK). Out of these, more than 7,120 persons have been killed in Indian custody. 109,200 structures have been destroyed. 22,896 women have been widowed, 107,754 children have been orphaned and more than 11,110 women have been raped and gang-raped by Indian occupation forces. As of January 2019, 8500 Kashmiri youth have been injured due to Pellet Gunshots. Of these, 207 have been blinded in one eye, while 130 have been made totally blind.
Crossing all the limits, on August 5, 2019, the Modi government abrogated Articles 35-A and 370 of India’s constitution and took away the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir; dividing the state into two Union territories. India has converted a UNSC declared disputed territory between Pakistan and India, into its integral part, which is in total violation of the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir. To preempt Kashmiris’ reaction, while India has increased its security forces number from 700,000 to above 1100,000, it had also clamped lockdown/curfew in the Kashmir valley, and internet services in Kashmir were also blocked. India has also apprehended/ jailed all the Kashmiri leaders/youth and the Indian forces are busy in carrying out genocide in the Kashmir valley.
In view of the above mentioned bleak scenario, it can be concluded that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are very right to observe India’s Independence Day as a black day as the Indian rulers, especially the Modi led BJP regime leaders, really do not deserve to rule such a large country, where they are keeping the Jammu and Kashmir state as occupied against the will of its people and also by trampling the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir.
To crush the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination, their autonomy has been finished, their state has been divided into two Indian union territories in utter violation of the UNSC resolutions and to crush the Kashmiris reaction, their genocide is being carried out. Even the rights of the minorities in the mainland India are being trampled through use of force, which is amply clear by the Delhi massacre of the Muslims by RSS led Hindu zealots fully supported by the BJP government, even the Christian churches are being attacked and the rights of the Hindus of lower castes are being usurped by the upper caste Hindus.
Note: The writer is a former Consultant and Research Fellow of Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), and Senior Research Fellow of Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), Islamabad.
