Thank you for having me here again and As-Salaam-Alaikum.
As the last time, I will not be speaking about past human rights violations in Kashmir which of course have been horrific and have remained unpunished to this day. There is much literature on the subject, and thankfully many activists continue to highlight these atrocities in many international forums, making sure the victims are not forgotten. Just last spring I spoke at the University of Muzaffarabad about what I personally witnessed in Kashmir.
Today again I would like to describe the current situation and the complete absence of CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS in the Valley which has dehumanized and traumatized Kashmiris to such a degree that they are now mere shadows of themselves. A Valley of Zombies it has become. The changes in Kashmir have left people in deep distress, dilemma, disempowered and completely dispossessed. As Anuradha Basin describes it in her book “The Dismantled State,” Kashmir has been turned into a “giant prison” with people trapped inside like “mice in mousetraps”. She explains in detail the use of harassment, intimidation, detention, humiliation, raids, molestations, and psychological traumatization to prevent a law-and-order situation. The institutionalization of fear, she writes, makes protesting or any other form of dissent impossible.
Consider this:
• Since the illegal annexation of Kashmir on August 5 of 2019, the Indian State has assumed complete control over all information, absolute control over the internet, total control over media, control over internal propaganda and all external disinformation campaigns.
• It has placed even larger numbers of security forces and local informants in every nook and corner of the Valley, making it impossible for Kashmiris to trust anybody and forcing them to stay at home even without curfew, out of fear for saying the wrong thing anywhere to somebody who might turn them in to the authorities. Prisons are filled to the brim and people across ideologies, parties and classes are made to sign a bond to walk out on a promise of good behavior. The pro Freedom leadership stands arrested and the Hurriyat office has just been repossessed by the state.
• The Indian State is all powerful and cannot be resisted because it has the gun and the power to arrest anybody under draconian laws. Like in Nazi Germany in the 30s and 40s, these are the semantics of total speech control, total thought control and ultimately total behavior control. And in many ways, it is much worse than the human rights violations committed in the past. Many of them were part of a civil war like struggle, and the people were expressing their will while fighting. Now the control over the people is so absolute that this will has been crushed and with it their ability to resist.
• On Indian media, there is constant force-feeding of a steady diet of lies presented to the world at large. Normalcy has returned to the Valley and Kashmiris are liking it, India says. To support this claim, it has hired smart propagandists, some even foreign, to paint the wrong picture of the situation. It has produced films like “The Kashmir Files,” which portray Kashmiris as blood- thirsty Islamist terrorists killing all others and especially non-Muslims in their way with the help of Pakistan. There was a much circulated article by a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute about the “new normalcy” in Kashmir, and how Kashmiris are enjoying their new path to peace and development and total integration with India. While researching his piece, he was housed by the Indian army in Srinagar, and his local guides were collaborators trained and funded by Indian agencies.
• Meanwhile, all other journalists or visitors who might be able to report the truth are being kept out, and visas are no longer possible to obtain by any outsider planning to assess the real situation. Much of the Kashmiri diaspora has been silenced for fear of their relatives at home being harassed or arrested by the police. This happened to Danielle Khan who has been working with me. Her Kashmiri husband’s Indian passport has now been reported as “lost,” which is one way for the authorities to make travel impossible for Kashmiris. He does not have his American citizenship yet and is now stuck without being able to visit his family back home. There are more reports of passports of many local journalists being canceled as a time-tested draconian measure to stop them from talking and writing. Last week at least 10 Kashmiris, including academics, students, and journalists, were notified their passports had been suspended. This includes a close friend and former journalist who has been pursuing a master’s in creative writing at Cornell and now cannot finish his program. The list is expected to grow in the coming days.
• In February , a close journalist friend from the Valley called me after having spent several days in detention for simply knowing me! It followed a new dossier that the JK Police and the Indian State produced against some of us because of our links to Pakistan. They labeled us Pakistan sponsored “handlers” of terrorists in the Valley and directing violence by militants. My friend used to run an online news portal which I helped edit. It was a vehicle for the young to write their hearts out about their resistance to India. Fortunately, he was released but he no longer believes that anybody outside is willing to come to the aid of Kashmiris. I have never heard him being so despondent.
- This week there is a report in The Wire that Ajit Doval, the Indian NSA, is seeking support from the rulers of the UAE to exert pressure on Pakistan not to retaliate when Indian troops enter Azad Kashmir. A temporary stay is planned, with the aim of achieving another electoral victory for Modi in 2024. This report is based on a statement of the former Governor of IIOJK, a member of the BJP who was in charge of Kashmir on August 5, 2019. It is something I have been warning about for many months.
- In addition to the bogus redistricting of constituencies that was completed early this year and heavily favors Hindu majority Jammu, Delhi is now planning to map Azad Kashmir and GB for legislative representation on the Indian side! It will also include seats in the Indian Parliament for those regions. RAW supported activists from AJK are helping with the process.
- Demographic changes are in full swing under the guise of poverty alleviation for landless Indians who are being settled in Kashmir.
All of the above is of course only Act 1 in a sordid play in which India was seen hosting the tourism segment of the G20 meeting in Srinagar earlier this year. That was a perfectly choreographed chapter of Indian occupation pornography possible only after the place was completely sanitized of ordinary Kashmiris who were forced to stay indoors. The next and perhaps final act will be occupying Azad Kashmir and GB.
And this is why I am speaking to you today. I am speaking to ask you again to help us raise awareness about the real situation in the Valley and urge lawmakers to stop turning a blind eye to the dangers India’s settler colonial actions are presenting for the entire region. To that end:
• The diaspora must get the message out about the inhuman conditions under which Kashmiris are forced to live. They must talk about the total absence of civil and political rights of any kind, and the continued human rights violations if anybody dares to speak up or resist.
• The US in particular cares about civil rights, much more than human rights. It is a language they understand from their own history. It is why our appeals to hold hearings about Kashmir succeeded in the fall of 2019.
• Help us point out how the Kashmir dispute is still an international one, a recognized legal dispute involving Pakistan and the Kashmiri people. The dispute has not been solved and normalcy has not returned and no amount of Indian propaganda will make it so.
• Help us explain how an already intolerable situation has become even worse and foreign diplomats brought in by India will not experience the real conditions.. During every high-level visit to Kashmir, frisking and arrests begin weeks before and people are harassed both inside and outside their houses and their movements are severely restricted. The upcoming Independence Day in IIOJK will trigger the same lockdown again while people are being forced to fly the Indian flag from their homes.
• Organize seminars around the issues so people can talk about Pakistan’s and the Kashmiris’ legal position in-depth and how the positions have not changed.
• Help us sustain an effective social media campaign. Tag lawmakers, the State Department, Human Rights Organizations, and Foreign Ministries.
• Do anything except be silent. We can speak up, organize, mobilize, and demand truth and justice for IIOJK unlike Kashmiris who no longer have the opportunity to do so. They depend on us to be their voice.
And one more thing:
- Some have been likening the current political instability in Pakistan to what has happened in IIOJK. This really offends me! There is no genocide in the making in Pakistan! Over 100,000 Kashmiris have been killed since 1989. There were mass rapes, mass disappearances and mass graves. Thousands and thousands have been in jail with no possibility of being released. And now nobody can say anything any longer about anything or go on YouTube or Twitter to express dissent. It does not compare at all! One issue is really about human rights. The other about civil and political rights which can be restored through elections. Know the difference! In Kashmir, elections are not the objective and justice may never come!
Thank you very much!
Writings from the Abyss 