Kashmir Truth Be Told Blog

No more comment moderation

2010-03-07T10:21:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

I will be away for a few months because of some issues that need my attention. I have therefore removed the requirement for comment moderation. All posts will appear instantaneously. The only difference is that "anonymous" posts are not possible now. Any registered user (Gmail, Google, OpenID, facebook, wordpress, blogger etc) will be able to post instantaneously. Only anonymous posts are disallowed to prevent spam and hate filled posts.

I am aware that Hindutva and Panun Kashmir fanatics will abuse this privilege and start to spew hate filled comments, but that is a price we are willing to pay to showcase Kashmiri tolerance.

In solidarity,

Yousuf

I recommend you also visit the following blogs while I am away:

>>Chinaar's blog
>>Kashmir Center's blog

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One year since Indian Occupation Forces murdered Javid and Amin

2010-02-23T06:22:00.000-08:00

On the right column of this blog, there is a topic highlighted in red. Read that. The post was made exactly a year back on Feb 23, 2009, in response to the murder of Javid and Amin of Sopur by the Indian Occupation Army.

The puppet CM, Omar Abdullah, had promised "exemplary punishment" within fifteen days for the Indian slumdogs involved--just as he has done so in all subsequent murders by the Occupation forces since then.

After hearing the news that day, I was so incensed by the hypocrisy and spin that we have come to expect from successive puppet regimes that I decided to call their bluff and started counting down the days within which they said they would apprehend the culprits. A year has passed since, and to no one's surprise, absolutely nothing happened.

Now we know what became of that investigation. The murderers are still free even though their own departmental investigation deemed them guilty. What a pathetic excuse of a country India is.

To mark the one year aniversary, people in Sopur peacefully protested and demanded that the murderers be punished--as though a peaceful protest has any bearings on a military occupation.
[Read about how the people of Sopur marked the one year anniversary of the murders]

There have been tens of thousands of similar murders by the Indian Occupation forces in Kashmir, and not a single soldier has been punished. This is a fact: not a single Indian soldier has ever been punished in Kashmir.

To put this claim in perspective, many US soldiers in Iraq were convicted and jailed for similar crimes comitted against Iraqis. Atleast one faces the death penalty. That is the difference between a real democracy and respect for the rule of law, and a fascist, farcical, pathetic excuse of a country like India.

One more reason why there is just a puppet administration in Kashmir

2010-02-21T17:53:00.000-08:00

To Kashmiris, there was never any doubt that the current so-called "elected" administration of Omar Abdullah is a fake, propped-up puppet of New Delhi. They have been imposed upon Kashmir just to save face for India at international levels when in reality all the strings are pulled in New Delhi. For all practical purposes, Kashmiris have always been in a perpetual "Governor-Raj." Every decision, right down to the most trivial detail of the daily functioning of civic amenities, is made by RAW policy makers. I will elaborate on the reason for this later in this post.

Omar Abdullah's job is to merely collect his monthly remuneration and to look forward eagerly to his daily pat on the back for being a good Indian apologist in Kashmir. (Read what other bloggers have to say about Mr. Omar)

Is there any one significant achievement of Omar Abdullah's that he could point to and say with confidence that he has accomplished that? The answer is a definite no. Every aspect of Kashmir's already crumbling infrastructure, dilapidated civic amenities, medieval healthcare, and human rights atrocities by the occupation forces have only become worse during his regime.

When asked by a GK reporter about his most successful accomplishment for the year 2009, Omar Abdullah giddily and enthusiastically replied that his one, true, spirit-uplifting accomplishment was that he got the army base in Bomai shifted. So, getting an occupied base shifted for the deaths of two innocent Kashmiris, while the killers roam freely is supposed to be a great accomplishment? Only in Omar Abdullah's world. (Read Omar's interview here)

Today I will concentrate on a news item in Greater Kashmir that caught my eye. The news story accurately portrays the state of callousness of the SMC, the good-for-nothing corporation run by Omar Abdullah's most trusted and brightest "shining stars" of National Conference. If these are the best and brightest "young rising stars" of the NC, who are being groomed to take the reins of the puppet administration later after their fathers meet the creator, then our job of proving that all NC people are imbeciles becomes that much easier. (Read the news here)

The news story states that there were more than two thousand cases of dog-bites in 2009 in Srinagar City alone. That means an average of six cases of dog-bites a day in the city. (Read the news here)

We all are aware that the menace of stray dogs is not limited to Srinagar alone; in fact, they have infested the whole valley--their uncontrolled breeding encouraged by the Occupation Troops. If there were an average of six dog bites in Srinagar alone, do the math yourself and take a guess at what the numbers would be for the whole valley. Even though a puppet regime, are we to assume that the so-called CM of J&K has never been privy to those numbers--which could easily reach 20 dog-bites per day for the whole valley? Or should we believe the cartoons running in GK that depict Omar engrossed in playing video games while the valley is burning?

It is also no secret that the CRPF, BSF, and the Indian Army all encourage these stray dogs and frown upon any plans to eradicate the dogs. The reason is that the dogs protect the Occupation Troop bunkers and checkpoints at night and alarm their cousins--the slumdogs--should anyone walk nearby at night.

These stray dogs therefore are like free sentries for the Indian Occupation troops and that is the reason why the Indian government has prevented any policy to be formulated to protect the general public from this menace.

Any other country in the world would have been alarmed at the report of two thousand dog-bites a year--but not the puppet Kashmir regime, for whom the well being and comfort of the occupation troops trumps the "trivial" issue of the health and safety of ordinary Kashmiris.

For more info:
GK news story

Teen protesters charged with "Insult to national honour"

2010-02-17T02:49:00.000-08:00

I don't have a clue why the western media does not report on the fascist tactics used by the Indian occupiers in Kashmir. For instance, a few days ago, 14 teenaged protesters were rounded up from around Srinagar and charged with--I wish I were making this up--"Insult to National Honour" and "Waging a war against the state."

The teens, aged between 13 and 18 years old, were led in handcuffs to the court where the charges were announced. (Click here for news)

Only in Israel are teens similarly arrested and incarcerated. Perhaps, these recent arrests of Kashmiri teens are a result of Israeli traning of the Indian Occupation Force. (Click here to read about similar Israeli arrests of Palestinian kids)

The teens are not charged with militancy related incidents, and their only crime is to shout anti-India slogans and allegedly pelt stones at the Indian Occupation troops. Which gets me to think that perhaps their alleged stone pelting attracted the "Waging a war against the state" charge, and therefore the "Insult to National Honour" charge is for shouting anti-India slogans.

So, my question is that if these innocent teen sloganeers can be charged with "insulting the national honour" for anti-India sloganeering, what charges await bloggers such as myself who openly advocate the disintegration and break-up of India into thirty smaller countries? After all, how is that different than anti-India sloganeering?

To establish my anti-India credentials, I would like to remind the Indian fascist occupiers that I regularly write about India being the most digusting and pathetic country in the world. I have a long list of reasons why I feel this way--readers only need to browse through this blog to read those reasons. I wonder when the fascist Indians will show up at my door to charge me with "insulting the national honour"?

Thankfully I am not alone. There are hundreds of Kashmiri bloggers--some of whom I have linked on the right column of this blog--who also remind readers that our grudge with the pathetic and fascist country of India is for genuine events that happen regularly. For instance, just yesterday, the Indian occupation slumdogs opened indiscriminate fire on mourners in a Kashmiri village called Kulgam. (Click here for news)

It is worthwhile to note here that there is not a single pro-India blogger from Kashmir. So much for India's claims that Kashmiris are pro-India! Even Omar Abdullah and his stooges gave up blogging when they ran out of lies to continue to justify India's occupation.

Why some comments are rejected

2010-02-15T20:51:00.000-08:00

Many posters here have been upset that their comments are rejected. The reason why their comments were rejected is simple: because they were either abusive, off topic, repetitive, or sheer Hindutva Panun Kashmir propaganda.

Many posters have also pointed out that those objectionable comments be allowed so readers can judge for themselves whether the propaganda is just that or whether it carries any merit.

The whole point of this blog is to present the truth from the point of view of the victims of India's terrorist onslaught in Kashmir, and not to act as an outlet for Hindutva Panun Kashmir propaganda. For this reason, I will continue to filter any comments that I deem even remotely tries to spew Panun Kashmir lies and misinformation.

Just this once, I have saved all the rejected comments on the Kashmir Forum. I will let you readers decide whether my decision to disallow some comments has been appropriate or whether the comments should have been allowed.

The rejected comments are here.

Terrorist attack in Pune

2010-02-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

All Kashmiris condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack on innocent people at the German Bakery in Pune yesterday. Nothing justifies these barbaric actions by criminals and enemies of all humanity. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims killed, and we hope for a speedy and complete recovery for those injured. Kashmiris stand behind you in this time of grief.

Kashmiris have been victims of similar terrorist barbarity unleashed upon us by the Indian Occupation forces and we have experienced similar terror many times. Just last week saw the murder of two innocent Kashmiri teens by the Indian Occupation forces who consider Kashmir their killing fields and use Kashmiris for target practice.

All terrorist acts must be condemned, no matter by whom they are carried out.

Once again, our hopes and prayers are with the victims of the Pune terrorist attack.

Suited justice by "Mother Kashmir" against Indian Occupation Troops

2010-02-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

Seventeen Indian slumdog occupation troops have been killed after being buried alive in an avalanche near Khilanmarg.

It's a time to celebrate, to offer prayers of thanks, to hand out treats, to hug our fellow Kashmiris for this joyful news. If you are really keen, let's also light up some loud firecrackers.

What appropriate justice this is. After all, this is the least we could have hoped for after these slumdogs brutally murdered four innocent Kashmiri civilians in the last few weeks.

I am not the one to rejoice at the loss of any human life. But when we talk of the Indian slumdog occupation troops, we are talking of inhuman, conscience-less lowlifes. They cannot be considered human and do not deserve any sympathy. They have killed far too many innocent Kashmiri unarmed protesters to garner any sympathy from Kashmiris.

Kashmiris are inherently a gentle, non-violent race, and we have been known for our practice of non-violence over the course of history. This trait of our's has been used against us time and again to occupy our nation and subjugate us. But not anymore. It is time to show the Indians how much they are loathed in Kashmir.

The joy all Kashmiris feel today upon hearing this news is very similar to the joy that Indians feel when their news channels report the deaths of "Kashmiri terrorists" or "Kashmiri atankwadi" or "Kashmiri jihadis" or "Kashmiri ugarwadi" or "Kashmiri separatists" or even the joy that Indians feel when innocent unarmed Kashmiri protesters are killed. That is the same joy that Kashmiris feel today, when for a change, justice was served--not by some "terrorist" or "militant", but by nature itself.

To Kashmiris, the Indian Occupation Troops are the terrorists.

We hope and pray that nature repeats itself more often and kills more and more of these terrorist Indian slumdog soldiers for the sake of peace in Kashmir.

Let us celebrate with fervour this rare occasion for us to be happy.

Update: Another Indian slumdog died yesterday in yet another avalanche in Tangdar near Kupwor. (Details here). More reasons to celebrate.

Click here to read more on my blog

Click here to read more at BBC

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Ten most evil-minded, sinister and despicable individuals in Kashmir

2009-12-29T01:09:00.000-08:00

Compiling the list of despicable Kashmiris was easier than I thought, but sorting ten of the worse of the worst was a bit challenging. Eventually, however, a combination of the culprit's past actions and present known beliefs helped me to finalise the list.

The list is in the order of most evil and heinous to slightly less evil and heinous. In other words, the list is decreasing order: 1 is worse of the worst.

1. Ali Mohammad Sagar
The most criminal minded, hideously pathetic, and corrupt individual of Kashmir today is Ali Mohammed Sagar. Anyone who even alludes to the most unimaginable theory that Kashmiris are lying and exaggerating that their loved ones are missing has to be seriously demented. Sagar happens to be this seriously demented individual. Referring to the unmarked mass graves around Kashmir, this treasonous crook told a reporter that Kashmiris are lying and greatly exaggerating that their loved ones are missing. (Click here for news pertaining to this)

Further, this disgraceful scoundrel blamed the Hurriyat for the hundreds of graveyards of martyrs around Kashmir, instead of placing the blame where it belongs: the Indian occupation troops. Ofcourse this is an attempt to appease his masters, the Indian Occupation Troops, without whose protection, he wouldnt even be able to take a leak. This Indian stooge was the Home Minister during the NC government in the 90's and perhaps oversaw the arrest, interrogation and murders of thousands of missing Kashmiris. Is that why he is discrediting families looking for their loved ones? (Click here for news pertaining to this)

In addition to all that, Sagar is an ardent advocate of continuing to apply AFSPA in Kashmir. (Click here for news pertaining to this )

Ali Mohammad Sagar's chances of redemption: He can redeem himself by just going away. Kashmiris might perhaps forget him if he denounces NC, quits politics, and moves away from Kashmir and migrates to his beloved India. Just go away, we don't want you here.

Ali Mohammad Sagar's fate after Kashmir becomes independent: After independence, he is most likely to be charged with treason and war crimes for his role during the time he was Home Minister.

2. Farooq Abdullah
The only reason this gasbag is not in the #1 slot is that I haven't read any more ramblings from him lately about pre-emptive airstrikes by his "Bharat Mata" against Kashmiri refugee camps in AJK. This unforgivable douche bag is perhaps personally responsible for thousands of deaths in Kashmir. He can singularly be considered the most corrupt politician ever to have stepped on the soil of Kashmir. I don't need to elaborate any further because there is not a Kashmiri who doesn't know about the treachery of this wretch.

Farooq Abdullah's chances of redemption: He can redeem himself by asking for forgiveness, divulging the truth about his backroom deals with Indian intelligentsia about violently crushing the peaceful freedom struggle in Kashmir, rigging the 80's election to defeat the MUF, and returning the crores upon crores of rupees he has stolen from Kashmir. Further, he should move to his "Bharat Mata" and never return again.

Farooq Abdullah's fate after Kashmir becomes independent: He will most likely be the first to stand trial for treason. He will also be tried for war crimes for the thousands who died while he was Chief Minister.

3. Moulvi Iftikhar Husain Ansari
This corrupt moulvi is the manifestation of the cliched "corrupt moulvis." He has changed so many political parties that I lost count after three. The main reason he is in the #3 slot right after Farooq and Sagar is that he is taking undue advantage of the religious faith of his followers by making them vote for him even though they might not be pro-India. He is deliberately keeping them ignorant and backwards by denying them opportunities in education and advancement for fear they might get enlightened and thus get away from his clutches.

His pious followers innocently follow his every diktat because they consider it a religious duty as prescribed by Shia Islam. This mean-spirited moulvi is therefore a fraud because he is using his religious powers for his personal and political gain. That is a despicable and unforgivable thing to do: taking undue advantage of one's religious power for personal and political gains. For this reason, Moulvi Iftikhar Ansari is the 3rd worst treacherous person in Kashmir.

Moulvi Iftikhar Husain Ansari's chances of redemption: He can redeem himself by asking for forgiveness from all his gullible and innocent followers and most of all from Allah (SWT) for committing fraud with Kashmir. Further, he should quit politics and permanently move to Lucknow, and relearn his moulvi lessons--but stay there, no need to return to Kashmir.

Moulvi Iftikhar Husain Ansari's fate after Kashmir becomes independent: He is most likely to face charges of corruption, embezzlement and treason.

4. Mufti Syed
Maybe his corruption is second only to Farooq Abdullah and Iftikhar Ansari. This man, whose party sheds crocodile tears for the AFSPA, is the reason why AFSPA is applicable to Kashmir in the first place. He was the Home Minster of India during the culmination of the freedom struggle during the 80's. If there ever was a law of treason for any country, then it will most certainly be applicable for him. He is responsible for sending Jagmohan as Governor.

His PDP is most likely the creation of India's intelligence agencies. They created another one of these Kashmir based "muslim" pro-India party to counter-balance their other stooges, the NC. Divide and rule policy always works.

Mufti Syed's chances of redemption: He has so much to answer for, but asking for forgiveness is always a noble thing to do, especially when a person is in their prime age and only a small window of opportunity. He could start by admitting all he knows about India's machinations in Kashmir, which he must know since he was the Home Minister of India.

Mufti Syed's fate after Kashmir becomes independent: Because he was India's Home Minister when some of the most egregious atrocities occurred against Kashmiris, he will most likely be the among the first few to answer the war crimes tribunal.

5. Omar Abdullah
A clean slate no more. Although his name might not have been here had I compiled this list last year--being the son of a corrupt, treasonous, war criminal doesn't make the offspring guilty as well. But since assuming the title of head-puppet, Omar has raked in his own reasons for infamy.

Knowing that the new CM was one of their own, the Occupation Troops got emboldened to brazenly engage in beatings, murders, rapes, kidnappings, and arrests. The AFSPA protects them from prosecution, so no one has been punished. Omar did not know how the AFSPA works, so naively promised "exemplary punishment" for the troops who committed the murders. The Occupation Troops gave him the finger because no power can prosecute them while in Kashmir.

The reason Omar is the 5th worst unworthy individual in Kashmir is that instead of resigning when the troopers, who killed Amin and Javed of Bomai, were not punished, he should have resigned; but because he stayed in his position, he indirectly condoned the action of the murdering Troops. Why did he resign when he was accused of being involved in the sex scandal and not when the murderers were not punished? Is an accusation more important than seeking justice for the lives of two innocent Kashmiris?

Omar Abdullah's chances of redemption: He can still resign and ask for forgiveness from the people of Kashmir. He has lost too much credibility, so if he starts singing the tunes of pro-freedom, people will not buy it. Therefore, it is best if he left Kashmir for better pasture in his "Bharat."

Omar Abdullah's fate after Kashmir becomes independent: He will most certainly be charged with treason for preventing peaceful protests over the rape and murder of Neelofar and Asiya. He will also face treason charges for the unjustified arrest of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and other pro-freedom activists. He will be investigated for war crimes to see if he had any prior knowledge of shooting deaths of unarmed protestors.

6. Mehbooba Mufti
If I had a rupee for every time this hypocrite opened her mouth, I'd already be a millionaire. Complaining about atrocities now for which she kept her mouth shut during the time her party was propped up to power makes her a hypocrite and for that reason, she is the 6th worst corrupt individual and enemy of Kashmir.

Mehbooba Mufti's chances of redemption: She is one of only a few treasonous pro-India persons who can be tolerated if she genuinely asks for forgiveness for her anti-Kashmir activities. But she has to come clean and be genuine while asking for forgiveness from the people of Kashmir.

Mehbooba Mufti's fate after Kashmir becomes independent: She will most likely be banned from ever participating in politics and be investigated whether she had any involvement or prior knowledge of disapperances, torture, or illegal police activities.

Check later why I feel the following deserve to be #7 - #10 on the list...

7. Mustafa Kamal

8. Muzaffar Husain Beg

9. Mian Altaf

10. Sheikh Nazir

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Psyc Ops and the "Autonomy Report"

2009-12-24T20:48:00.000-08:00

A State Government that cannot be dismissed at a whim by the Centre; a Prime Minsiter instead of the Chief Minister, and a "Sadr-e-Riyasat" (President) instead of the Indian appointed Governor--these would be some of the consequences of the "autonomy" report presented by the recent Centre-State relations Working Group, if the recommendations were ever implemented. NC says that its version of autonomy advocates going back to the pre-1953 status, which only hands over sovereignty in areas of Defence, Communications and Currency to the State of India--all other areas remain under Kashmiri control.

While I am at it, should I also mention that the report notes that horses can fly and it will snow in July? That is because India is just as likely to grant autonomy to Kashmir as it is likely that horses will begin to fly anytime soon.

For those familiar with my blog, remember how I have relentlessly pursued the murders of Amin and Javed and continually keep referring back to the hollow claim made by Omar Abdullah that the culprits will be handed "exemplary punishments"? (For the uninitiated, those are the posts on the right hand column of this blog titled "15 Days to jusice .......1 Day to justice. Read them and you'll know what I am talking about) Similarly, I will also pursue and call the bluff of pro-India parties because of their bogus claims to seek autonomy for Kashmir. Their claims are another "Psyc Ops" ploy to fool Kashmiris. And neither the NC nor New Delhi has any intention to go through with Kashmir's autonomy or anything even close to it.

Therefore, this is an open challenge to all pro-India political parties to proceed further with this Autonomy Report if they dare. I very much doubt they will, because they know very well that this is just another drama played between them and New Delhi: just another act to beguile people. I can see through this sleazy politics--anyone can.

I personally have no problem with the essence of the autonomy idea. It is one step closer to independence. People seeking independence, like myself, will not suddenly forget about independence and settle for autonomy. But for now, I am not adverse to the idea. The rampant Indianization taking place in heaps and bounds for the past 40 years will somewhat be mitigated, and that is something to look forward to. Indians also know this and are well aware that all their efforts at Indianizing Kashmiris will be undone should Kashmiris have control over their everyday lives. Therefore, take it from me that this report will never be implemented.

Further, the question arises, why release the report now and why hand it over to Omar Abdullah instead of the PM? To answer this, rewind back to the earlier attempt at seeking autonomy and how it was rejected by the then BJP government. The result was that NC gained an alibi that they could take back to the people and fool them during election campaigns: "We passed the autonomy bill, but the evil Delhi government rejected it."

More importantly for the BJP, rejecting the Autonomy Bill at the time reaped them immense benefits in Jammu. Similarly, we can be assured that the current Congress government will also ignore this report. NC will once again mint an excuse that will last them till the next set of elections. The front-page photo-op covered by most major newspapers that showed Omar accepting the report from Mr Sagir gave him an opportunity to make himself the champion of "autonomy"--even though he knows very well what happens next.

The Centre also created a clever excuse for themselves that will allow them to reject or ignore this report. By manufacturing serious doubt about the Working Group, they now have an excuse to reject the Group's recommendations entirely. All other opposition parties in Kashmir clamied surprise that they were not consulted before the report was finalized. A common whine is that the final draft didn't consider the input from the representatives of Jammu and Ladakh and even Panun Kashmir. This seriously puts the credibilty of the report in jeopardy, which precisely is what New Delhi desires--to discredit the report.

Eventually, New Delhi will reconstitute the Working Group, which will take its own sweet time of another 3-4 years, thus giving plenty of time for the NC to play the victim card once again and befool the people for the umpteenth time. And of course Sonia Gandhi will reap the benefits from Jammu and Ladakh and even Panun Kashmir for rejecting the report.

Thus the game works well for both sides in this drama: all the pro-India parties as well as New Delhi. A symbiotic relationship between the two most cunning enemies of the people of Kashmir.

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India must disintegrate for the sake of world peace

2009-12-20T19:28:00.000-08:00

After former Yugoslavia, it is India's turn to naturally disintegrate (I cannot wait until the day when we can finally refer to India as "former India"). Just imagine, had the former unnatural federation of balkan states, called Yugoslavia, not unravelled, we would still be witnessing the grotesque bloodshed that the Serbs perpetrated during the 80's and 90's.

The war in former Yugoslavia resulted in a genocide perpetrated by the Serbs against Bosnians, which parallels what the Nazis did to minorities. In one instance, Serbs sequestered 5000 Bosnian Muslim men, and shot them execution style--all the while, the world stood by silently.

In comparison, India has massacred ten times more Kashmiris, and the same--if not worse--horrors are being unleashed by them on Kashmiris and yet the world is again standing by silently.

Over a 100,000 martyred Kashmiris, mass graves, mass rapes, kidnapping, murders, torture--all perpetrated by India; what else do the Kashmiri have to suffer through to get the world's attention?

Not only must the world censure India for it's heinous acts in Kashmir, the world must also move toward policies that call for India's disintegration. They should do this to ensure world peace. The Balkans is a peaceful region now only because Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo are independent of each other, instead of being hobbled together to form an unnatural federation called Yugoslavia. Allowing Yugoslavia to function as a federation of unwilling states would have been a crime against democratic principles and a crime against humanity--and we would have witnessed hundreds of thousands more deaths. The world community took decisive action, and thus prevented more horrors. Similarly, each state that seeks secession from India must be allowed to declare independence in order for there to be peace in South Asia. The similarities between former Yugoslavia and the forced union of states called India are self evident.

India is a country that should never have come into existence in the first place. It is an amalgamation of states with entirely different ethnicities, religions, languages and cultures that would have never come together naturally, freely, in a democratic way. The only reason why it exists within its current borders is that first the Mughals and later the British conquered successive smaller nations to create this monolith called India--held together then and even now by sheer military power and untenable repression.

Currently, India is a federation of unwilling states--an unnatural entity which will crumble under its own weight of repressive policies. A country standing on the might of its illiterate, poverty stricken, ignorant, and gullible population to subjugate Kashmir and other states seeking freedom is a crime against all humanity. The Indians are using their only source of power--the sheer number of their military, whom they recruit straight out of slums--to subjugate secessionist states, and also to occupy and invade neighbouring states such as Kashmir.

Assam, Jharkand, Punjab, Sikkim, Hyderabad, Maharashtra: just to name a few states where there are strong secessionist sentiments and active groups seeking secession for their respective states. This unnatural amalgamation of ethnically disparate regions would never have come together to form any sort of federation that would require them to relenquish the sovereignty of their states.

This unnatural imperial leftover of a mess called India has caused millions of deaths if we add up the casualties of India's suppression of all the secessionist movements in Assam, Punjab, Jharkand, and Kashmir combined. Is it worth to let this exercise in modern day imperialism to survive without threat of more deaths, more misery, and more subjugation of peaceful freedom seeking people? Above all, is it humane to witness India's grotesque tactic of befooling their gullible, poverty stricken population by spending billions upon billions on their military when a majority of Indians cannot even get a decent meal or clean drinking water?

India must disintegrate for the sake of world peace and humanity. Any more "wait and see" approach chosen by the world community will only result in more deaths, mass graves, mass rapes, and torture perpetrated by the most hideous of all countries in the world--India.

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History of a nation is written by its occupiers

2009-12-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

I could've opened this post with an expression such as "I am outraged" or "This is presposterous," but that would only be in case I was surprised. The Indian CBI report that ruled the rape and murder of Neelofar and Asiya as a mere case of drowning was no surprise to me or any Kashmiri for that matter.

We had already predicted this tactic long time back. What else would you expect when perpetrators investigate their own crimes?

It is quite well known that history is always written in a version that suits the victors. Currently, just because of military personnel--the slumdogs--, and unfortunately for us Kashmiris, the Indian occupiers have the upper hand in this battle just because of sheer numbers of criminal Indian soldiers who don't even think twice before pulling the trigger on unarmed Kashmiris. Therefore, Kashmir's history is what the Indians want it to be, even though most of it is imaginary spin. Kashmiris have little power to influence the version of events that the Indian propaganda machine wants to be believed as fact.

Many years from now, there are two possibilities for Kashmir's future. If Kashmir is independent, our history books will tell the truth about the rape and murder of Neelofar and Asiya. The story of these two young women, who were victim of the Indian Army, will find a place in our history books just like the stories of the rapes in Kunan Poshpora, and other murders, brutalities and mass graves that India similarly dismisses as concocted stories will. If we unfortunately are still under Indian occupation, then we know the history will be what the occupiers want it to be.

Interestingly enough, using the same tactics, the Indians had labeled the Kunan Poshpora mass rapes as a concocted story as well.

If the world media has any concern for truth, justice, and human rights, they will call for an international inquiry into the Kunan Poshpora and the Shopian rapes.

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The dead are the lucky ones

2009-12-12T19:27:00.000-08:00

You did not bear the humiliation that we living Kashmiris bear everyday

You stood up to the Indian dogs and resisted like brave men and women do

Sacrificing your lives for freedom, justice and honour

Amin, Javed, Mohiuddin, Neelofar, Asiya, and Sajad Ganayie: these are just a few names of martyred Kashmiris in the past months, of whom I have written and I know of--out of the hundreds of thousands of fallen Kashmiris whose stories will never reach the world.

I will not attempt to justify my absence. The injustice of it all is so overwhelming that it pains to express it in words. How can the world let the Indian dogs get away with so much horror, bloodshed, and brutality on Kashmiris?

Just when we were coming to grips with the murder of Amin and Javed by the Indian Army, and the subsequent murder of Mohiuddin by the Indian CRPF troops, shortly after, we were subsequently made to suffer through the agonizing ordeal of rape and murder by the Indian Army of Neelofar and Asiya and numerous other murders of unarmed protesters--the numbers for this year alone surpass 2000. And then came the murder of Sajad Ganayie of Langate by the Indian occupation troops. No one was punished for the murders of Amin and Javed; no one was punished for the murder of Mohiuddin; no one was punished for the rapes and murders of Neelofar and Asiya; and no one was punished for the murder of Sajad.

The Indian-appointed puppet-administration's bluff of "exemplary punishment" for the culprits involved in the murder of Amin and Javed was turned up on its head by the puppet administration's Delhi based masters, the merchants of death in Delhi, headed by the mercenary-of-death named Sonia Gandhi, who dances devilishly like a "Kali Mata" on the freshly shed blood of innocent Kashmiris and who is personally responsible for their murders, since she is the de facto head of state of India--Manmohan being her other lapdog, whose sole purpose apart from sycophancy is to be her "Indian face" to her illiterate and ignoramus populace.

The puppets were shown their proper place--by the feet of their Indian masters, like obedient dogs that they are--and retaught that of all those who speak against the Indian occupation troops, the least of all who will be tolerated by the Indian despots are the weasels running the show currently for India in Kashmir. One weasel is just as good as another weasel. Weasels have no character or conscience and will sell their souls just to cling on to the title of head-weasel. Lest Muftis take the coveted spot of the head-weasel.

And hence, no more barkings of "exemplary punishment" are heard from them as they has learnt to obey his Delhi masters, and therefore have adopted the more acceptable terminology of "It's being looked into" as his predecessors had done for decades. That's what was told to Tim Sullivan when asked about the murders taking place in Kashmir.

Thank you Mr Tim Sullivan of Associated Press for writing about this. Read Mr Sullivan's article here.

Old books and documents on Kashmir

2009-10-13T10:03:00.000-07:00

Some old books and documents about Kashmir

Travels in Kashmir by Moorcroft in 1819

Baron Von Hugel visit to Kashmir in 1836

Original copy of UN resolution for plebiscite in Kashmir 1

Original copy of UN resolution for plebiscite in Kashmir 2

When perpetrators investigate themselves

2009-08-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

If anyone ever believes that the Indians will ever prosecute their troops responsible for the rape and massacre of Neelofar and Asiya, then I would like to inform them that they are about to be disappointed. The precedent of the past two decades proves that; the tactics of the occupiers in the past few months reinforces this statement. All the Indians ever want is more time and distraction to drag this for as long as they can so that evetnually people are simply fatigued to do anything about it. Eventually, the incident will be shoved under the carpet and will rest just like other cases such as the murder of Javid and Amin of Bomai.

The newspapers yesterday carried news that there was commotion in the Assembly about reports of "fudging" the DNA samples of Neelofar and Asiya. As though we are even the least bit surprised about this news. It is clear from the outset that the Indians wanted the case to go away by whatever means necessary.

I challenge the PDP or other so called "representatives" to call for an international inquiry into the incident. This was called by various Hurriyat leaders early on after the tragedy, but it is clear that the Indians will never agree to that because then the truth will definintely be out, much to their embarrassment.

I challenge the PDP and other pro-India parties to demand an international investigation into this incident if they have any shred of sympathy for the victims or any sincerety to seek justice for them.

Calling for a CBI inquiry is no different than calling the perpetrators to investigate their own crimes.

Just what Sonia Gandhi had wished for

2009-08-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

The Indian intelligence has succeeded in shattering the non-violent phase of our struggle with the militant attack at Regal Chowk and Batmallu today.

I had written about this recently and my argument was that the Indian government is provoking Kashmiris into a renewed armed struggle as it suits their propaganda machinery overseas. We have made many good strides by using a political approach and educating western leaders and the western public about our genuine and peaceful independence struggle.

Today's attack could very well have been orchestrated by the Indians themselves. As you can see from the news report of the incident, it seems very convenient that the Indian troops got just lightly injured in the attack but a Kashmiri policeman died moments later in a different attack. Both attacks were obviously well coordinated to take place at the same time. So it seems obvious that for the Indian agents who carried out this attack, Kashmiri lives are expendible as long as no harm comes to their own slumdog troops.

After all, what can we expect from a disgusting country which harbours murderers and rapists of innocent Kashmiris. For the Indian intelligence agents, provoking chaos and hatred seems to be the current modus operandi. It is clearly in their interest to place the blame for the rape and murder of Neelofar and Asiya on the local police and not the real culpits: the Indian troops. The police in Shopian might very well have been involved in the heinous incident, but what about the Indian troops stationed there within shouting distance from where the bodies were found? A respected human-rights watch group has squarely implicated both the police as well the Indian troops in the heinous crime. Yet, why is it that the Indian staged-justice system is hell bent on prosecuting the police and turns a blind eye to investigate the involvement of their own troops?

The Indian justice system is a mockery and its not that we should expect anything better from these bottom feeding slumdogs. It has been six months since Javed and Amin of Bomai were murdered by the Indian army. Separate inquiries conducted by the state as well as the Indians implicated the Indian Army in the murders. The killers have perhaps been promoted by now because no one even knows their names or what the consequence of both the damning inquiries was. Omar Abdullah had promised an examplary punishment for the culprits. Just hot-air it seems!

Same has been the fate of every single murder committed by the Indian occupation troops here--the inquiries found them guilty but the culprits remain unpunished.

If someone were to ask me, these are clearly provocative tactics. They murder, rape, humiliate, and then conduct an inquiry, confirm that yes indeed they committed those heinous crimes but then show us the finger, that we cannot do a thing about it. Clearly, it is bound to provoke some people to commit violence against the occupation troops--which is indeed what suits the Indians.

Shame on Sonia Gandhi and her disgusting country.

Diversion tactics

2009-07-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

It is well known that oppressive and belligerent governments use all means at their disposal to create a diversion while they engage in their unlawful acts. Take for instance the most hideously racist regimes of our time: Netanyahu's Israel; Sonia Ghandi's India; the former US vice-president Dick Cheney and his subordinate, former president George Bush. It is well known that they will try to rake up other issues to take the heat off their racist and oppressive agendas.

Israel has all along tried to divert attention from its unlawful occupation and building construction in Jerusalem by raking up the Iranian nuclear issue. Now that President Obama has put his foot down and remained steadfast that no construction will be allowed in Jerusalem, Israel has countered by diverting attention from this and bringing up the Iranian nuclear issue: diversion techniques!

We saw how Cheney and Bush tried to divert attention from their failures in Afghanistan by invading Iraq: again diversion techniques!

It will not be an overstatement by claiming that Cheney and Bush were entirely under the influence of Israeli advisors. Likewise, we are aware of the influence of Israeli Mossad on the current Sonia Gandhi government.

The Indian intelligentsia will try their best to divert attention from the Bomai, Khaigam, Sopore killings, as well as the Shopian rapes and murders. Therefore, it suited them perfectly to bring the moot point of Omar Abdullah's name on a mysterious list prepared by the CBI (another intelligence organisation), and then the very next minute, the same CBI states that Omar is not under investigation. As you can see, drama was created thus diverting attention from the real issues at hand: the Bomai murder of two innocent friends by the Indian army; the Khaigam murder of an innocent carpenter by the CRPF troops; the Sopore murder of four innocent unarmed protesters by a CRPF officer; and the Shopian murder and rape of Neelofar and Asiya by the Indian troops.

The diversion techniques taught by the Israeli Mossad to the Indian intelligence community are unfortunately effective. We saw that in all the excitement about Omar Abdullah's staged resignation, attention of the public withdrew from the gruesome murders by the Indian occupation troops to the ensuing drama in the Assembly.

For more info on above:

-Analysis of news about Kashmir

When slumdogs attempt writing about Kashmir

2009-07-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

They end up embarrassing themselves.

Take the case of a dimwit who wrote this mindless drivel (click here to read article).

I knew we had a pretentious poodle on our hands the moment I read his first few sentences: "..[plebiscite] excites the cerebral neurons of a libertarian...[self-determination will have] deleterious consequences for its protagonists and antagonists..", he writes.

You perhaps already have an idea what a conceited slumdog we are dealing with here as soon as you read that sentence. When someone has to resort to the use of such needless pompous words to attempt concealing a weak argument, you know they must have lost their bearings. It reminds me of a great English professor in university, Mr. Noor-ul-Hassan, who once bestowed us with this simple advice: "Never use heavy-sounding words where simple ones will suffice: readers will figure out your attempt to cover-up a poor argument regardless, " he cautioned us. This gem of an advice holds true at all times, and is very apparent while reading our slumdog friend's blurts!

Let me attempt to see what else this clown has in store for us.

"Do Kashmiri Muslim aspirations qualify for legitimate independence or is this brouhaha nothing more than a devious design by a majority to establish its hegemony.", he writes.

He seems to have a fetish for the childish word "brouhaha" for some reason and has used it in some his previous write-ups as well. This is clearly an indication of his limited slumdog vocabulary, and evidence of a cut/paste job of words from an online thesaurus. Nowhere is this more evident than in the next sentence where he attempts to paint the recent protests against the murder of Neelofar and Asiya as mere tactics of Hurriyat to remain relevant in Kashmiri politics, and not the genuine outburst of an oppressed people: "..the Hurriyat is in a tizzy, resorting to obfuscatory tactics to remain relevant.", he foolishly attempts to explain.

Even novice writers can figure out that his pretentious use of "big" words such as "obfuscatory" is to conceal his naivety. In the same sentence, his use of other childish and immature words such as "tizzy" clearly expose his naivety when it comes to the use of English language. In reality, the word "tizzy" would more likely suit adolescent girls than in this pretentious writer's article--not that his article is any better than a child's rant. The writer attempts to appear as though using such words will cover for his laughable argument.

Will continue later...

Desperate enemy: Sonia Gandhi

2009-07-11T19:19:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt the Indian intelligentsia have stooped very low this time--not that we ever doubted that the slum-dogs couldn't stoop any lower--maligning the reputation of two innocent girls who were raped and murdered when they are not alive to defend themselves certainly exposes the desperation of the Indian Intelligence Bureau. As though their operatives here have no sisters and mothers of their own.

Accusing the poor victims of immorality when they are not alive to defend their reputation is such a repugnant accusation, it only serves to display the delinquency of the Indians running the show.

As if we have not witnessed such tactics before. We all saw how they tried to use these same antics when they murdered Javed and Amin of Bomai and tried to claim that the innocent students were "terrorists." How those claims fell by the wayside later!

Then they tried to paint Mohiuddin Malik of Pakherpoor as a militant who was killed in an "encounter." It was proven that he infact was killed in cold blood by the Indian troops.

In both these cases, we saw how the Indian officials as well as their propaganda machinery tried unsuccessfully to paint the innocent victims as anything but innocent. And the culprits are still unpunished and maybe even have been rewarded.

Who is responsible for all this mayhem? Certainly we cannot keep blaming Indian Intelligence pawns or operatives for these repugnant crimes; they are only following orders--But the question is, whose orders? Is Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, and their other henchmen privy to all this mayhem, which without a doubt the Indian Intelligentsia is perpetrating on our streets in Kashmir? I hold Sonia Gandhi personally responsible for all the deaths in Kashmir: This is my conclusion from my analysis of all the events of the past few months since Kashmiris came out in unison, peacefully protesting against Indian rule.

It suits Sonia Gandhi's families' hegemony as future rulers of India to keep Kashmir as an Indian possession. Anything else would make her family fortunes doubtful as the opposition would pounce on her perceived weakness were Kashmir to secede under her watch. Therefore, for her, it's a choice between innocent Kashmiri lives, or the future Prime Ministerial job for her son. Her choice seems to have been obvious with the recent events.

I do not make this accusation lightly. Ever since Kashmiris starting protesting peacefully, all subsequent murders have an uncanny similarity. All victims have been innocent Kashmiris who were falsely accused of being something else: clearly an attempt to enrage Kashmiris to either take up arms against the Indians or simply take other drastic steps. Anything to justify the presence of Indian troops here. These events seem to have taken the most sinister turn since the Kashmiri people took to the streets in silent protests as opposed to taking up arms. It does seem that the Indians prefer that Kashmiris would rather take up arms. After all, it becomes easier for them to paint us as raged up Islamic fanatics with AK-47's by our side. They fear that the world will see the truth about them suppressing an unarmed resistance. As it is evident, it is easy to paint themselves as fighting an armed insurgency rather than being seen as oppressors.

This is also evident from the recent statements from their top officials, who keep repeating the concocted fable of "fighting insurgency" as a reason to keep the million Indian troops on the streets of Kashmir.

We will call their bluff and bring the truth out to the world: this I promise.

Underestimating the power of your voice

2009-07-01T17:18:00.000-07:00

An ocean is but a mass of individual droplets of water. Each droplet, a harmless little sparkling sphere, is insignificant when looked at on its own, but when it becomes part of the ocean, its power is unmatched; its fury unforgiving.

The above sentence is my attempt at paraphrasing that age old saying.

All Kashmiris, whether in Kashmir or living overseas, have to do their part in voicing their opposition to India and its crimes in Kashmir. Our collective voices will resonate so the world will take notice, like people take notice of a tsunami even though it is formed by individual, insignificant droplets of harmless water. You might think that your's is but an insignificant voice, or that it doesn't matter what you have to say because no one is listening anyway; but please take time to think for a moment. It is this resigned outlook about our freedom aspirations that our voices have not been heard till now. Every drop counts! Every email that goes to the US embassy or to your local MP's in western countries adds to the effort. It is not only your duty toward your motherland, but also the right thing to do.

It is our duty to tell the story of how Amin and Javed of Bomai were murdered by the RR in February of this year, and how the government established that infact they were murdered in cold blood. And yet the murderers are still free: free to terrorize innocent Kashmiris. Maybe they were the same Indian army personnel who raped and murdered Neelofar and Asiya; after all, punishment for one murder or mulitple murders is the same. Or in the case of Indian occupation troops in Kashmir, the punishment is a pat on the back - for a job well done of subjugating Kashmiris. Not a single Indian trooper has been prosecuted for any human rights violation even though inquiry after inquiry concluded that the Indian forces were at fault.

Is it not our duty as Kashmiris to bring this to the attention of the world? The world media is hypocritical and under the influence of zionists to have the conscience of bringing this absurdity to the attention of their viewers and readers. How absurd it is that two inquiries set up by the government so far this year have implicated the Indian forces and not a single Indian personnel has been punished. Any responsible news organization would have reported about this, but only if they weren't prejudiced.

Is it not our duty to to tell the story of Mohuiddin Malik, an innocent carpenter from Pakherpoor who was shot dead in cold blood at his home in the presence of his young family? Is it not our duty to inform the world that Kashmiris are still awaiting justice for his death even though the murderers have been known all along and yet are still free, patrolling the streets of Kashmir - free to commit more crimes?

If you can use email, you can help bring the plight of Kashmiris to the world attention. Four innocent unarmed protesters have been killed within the past week and the world is still unaware that Kashmiris are being denied even the most basic of rights: the right to protest. The world is still unaware that these four Kashmiri youth were killed while protesting peacefully against India. We are not a "bilateral issue" between India and Pakistan - as the hypocritical world media projects us as. It is up to us to flood the inbox of all leaders of western countries with our story, and relate our yearning for freedom and an escape from Indian tyranny. It is our responsibility to bring the protests from the streets of Kashmiri to the attention of the world leaders.

Please do not shy away from writing a few sentences to the most powerful man on this planet and let him know about what you as a Kashmiri want. Let him know about the crimes that the Indians have committed and how we are being denied the same rights that he has been a proponent of for citizens of other counttries. Just last week, President Obama, commenting on the protests in Iran, had this to say, "The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights." Then why is he silent on the Kashmiris being denied the same rights? Why have four innocent lives been lost when criminal Indian troopers deny us the right to protest, and not a word of sympathy from the Whitehouse? Why does President Obama similarly not chastise the Indian government? Is it because our voices have not reached him?

Please write to him about this and let him know in your own words.

(Click here to visit President Obama's website)

Zulum (Tyranny)

2009-06-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

One day, many years ago, on my way back from hiking a mountain along the eastern edges of Kashmir, I met a friendly farmer along the way and we started talking. Our discussion inadvertently veered toward the presence of the loathsome Indian Army, and their occupation of Kashmir, and I inquired whether his village has been affected by their presence. His words still ring in my head. That is because they were spoken in the most painful, broken-down, and distressed way. He simply mentioned that "yimav hassa che zulum karmeth" (They have committed unspeakable tyrannies).

How can one even write anything?

What do I even write about?

Writing about so much misery, and at the same time witnessing the hypocrisy of the world media is even more distressing.

The Indian maggots raped two young Kashmiri women - one of them only 14 years old. Then brutally murdered them and dumped their bodies in a river. The Indian Army cowardly swines who committed these crimes are still roaming freely in Kashmir perhaps staking out their next victims.

The world media didn't even bother to mention the ensuing protests, and how they were brutally suppressed by the Indian forces - let alone highlight these heinous crimes like they are highlighting the events in Iran. As though the world were coming to an end just because a few Iranian teens are venting their frustration that their candidate lost the elections. The protests against the rapes in Shopian were a thousand times more larger than those currently being held in Iran. Then why is the world media mute on reporting the truth about Kashmir? Even when they are tripping over each other trying to report about a handful protests in Tehran. They keep calling Iran a dictatorship, even when the whole of Kashmir has been turned into a barbed wire cage by the Indian occupiers. I wonder why the double standards? Iran is labelled a "tyrannical dictatorship" and yet Iranians protested for over a week, even when Kashmiris dont even have the basic right of protesting.

They are the biggest hypocrites. Especially the British media.

Let me compare some basic facts about the right of protesting in Iran and Kashmir, and which has more democracy.

Mousavi is the leader of the opposition and is largely seen as being responsible for the current protests. The Iranian authorities have not arrested him. In contrast, Geelani has been jailed for over three weeks now, and for what? For demanding the universal right of peaceful protest over the rape and murder of two innocent Kashmiris. Similarly, Aasiya Andrabi has been jailed for peacefully protesting as well. Somehow I do not see either her or Geelani pelting stones at the slum dogs. Aasiya Andrabi has been imprisoned in a small jail cell in Jammu and placed with petty criminals. Why this unusual punishment, if not to break her spirit and will? In contrast, no political leaders of the opposition have been arrested in Iran. The only protestors arrested there were responsible for arson, vandalism, and violence. Does that mean Iran has more democratic values and the world media is simply turning a blind eye when peaceful Kashmiri political leaders are arrested by the Indian occupation forces and subjected to unusual punishment?

Even worse dictatorships show political prisoners more respect. The Indians should learn some common decency about jailing political prisoners. Even seeking dictatorship lessons from Burma would be a good start because atleast the Burmese have the decency of housing political prisoners separate from petty criminals.

The Prime Minister of India promised that those responsible for the rapes will be punished. These words will appease the gullible and naive. But what would he and his henchmen have to say to those Kashmiris who are keeping tabs of all the previous promises? Promises such as punishing the loathsome Indian Army dogs who murdered two innocent Kashmiris in Bomai? And that was just three months ago. Does anyone even know the names of those criminal army soldiers, let alone anything about criminal proceedings about them. How about the case against the CRPF dogs who murdered a carpenter in Khaigam?

There are no words that could describe my disgust for India and everything associated with it.

Kashmir: 2029

2009-04-28T22:42:00.000-07:00

This post spawned it own blog site! Click here to visit the site

3 Edits since April 29

This is a draft. Keep visiting back as I complete this. Even better option is to help me write it..

It is the year 2029. Five years since Kashmir gained its independence from India and Pakistan. What a joyous day it was exactly six years to the day when the results of the plebiscite were announced and Kashmiris came out in throngs to cast their votes for which they had yearned for over 80 years. The plebiscite was monitored by the UN and never before had an election been so closely monitored. All polling booths had 24 hour monitoring by security cameras. Although both India as well Pakistan still had a sizable military presence in the few bases they still occupied; however, the troops were barred from leaving their bases during the polling days without prior UN approval.

People had the option of advance voting for upto six days before the main day of plebiscite which was on May 15. The plebiscite was being undertaken by the UN. All together more than 120 countries volunteered their resources for this plebiscite. The majority of the peacekeeping force consisted of EU forces and the military operations were supervised by a Turkish commander General Mustafa Sairgul.

Voting started at 7 A.M and people had started lining up outside the booths from the night before. The last vote could be cast until 10 P.M the same day. As per UN directions, the results had to be declared within 12 hours. No one could sleep on that day. People had seen elections for the state assembly under India, but none had the legitimacy as this plebiscite. This would decide the fate of an entire nation. How could anyone sleep that night.

With people still camping out in the streets in the cool night in the month of May, and people dancing and singing traditional songs, Vanvun as Kashmiris call it, everyone was awaiting the results, how could anyone sleep on this night.

The UN appointed commissioner of elections, Mr Schwartzkopff, finally appeared on TV just after midnight and started to give a brief explanation of how the voting results were tallied and the procedure he had to follow. He explained that although there was regional variance in the results; however as per UN guidelines the former state of J&K would not be divided and he would therefore congratulate the people of Kashmir who have chosen independence.

There was not a happier day in Kashmir. There were loud noises of music blaring through loudspeakers and fireworks that lit the sky. At one moment there were so many firecrackers in the sky that it seemed it was daylight.

Both India and Pakistan had earlier withdrawn a majority of their troops from all areas of Kashmir but still maintained a few bases in Srinagar and Muzaffarabad. Shortly after the results of the plebiscite was declared, both countries had been ordered by a UN sanction to vacate all remaining forces within 12 months. Thereafter May --, 2024 was declared as Kashmir's Indepedence Day.

As was aniticipated, there was widespread violence in Jammu city and Leh. Kashmir was still under UN supervision and the EU Commander in charge of all security in Kashmir , Gen. Sairgul requested more international assisstance in maintaining law and order in Jammu city and Leh.

It was agreed upon that there will be a transition period whilst India and Pakistan remove all their troops from Kashmir. Kashmir will be supervised by a UN military mission while a democratically elected government is in place. This way no single political party could manipulate the outcome in their favour. All parties, including the pro-India and Pro-Pakistan, as well as pro-Independence parties could participate in these elections.

Miscreants in Jammu city and Leh had called for a complete boycott of all elections as they claimed that they had voted to join India in the plebiscite therefore all subsequent elections for the Kashmir parliament or for regional councils are meaningless. All political leaders had promised more autonomy to the Jammu and Ladakh regions and promised them complete autonomy and guaranteed representation in the governance of Kashmir.

The resolution to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir was put forth by a special UN committee, which was formed on the recommendation of the UN Security Council in August 2018. That resolution was subsequently debated in the UN General Assembly the following year. "This is a direct assault on the integrity of a sovereign nation, and it is only a matter of time before other sovereign countries will be asked to hold plebiscites in their own troubled regions.", the Indian envoy to the UN, Mr. Prashant Mishra, had warned other member states in his deliberation to the UN General Assembly. The American Ambassador to the UN, Ms Marianne Klassen argued in favour of the plebiscite and noted that, "...the people of Kashmir had been promised a plebiscite by the UN Assembly eighty years ago. It is time to live up to that promise and grant them the basic right of freedom of choice. It is imperative that democracy prevail. That is the least we can do for these beleaguered people.", she had said. The resolution was put to vote in April 2020 and passed with majority of the members voting in favour and only a few abstentions. India was the lone opposer. The security council subsequently held a series of meetings and ratified the resolution. Earlier, China and Russia were rumored to have promised India that they would use their veto power to halt the resolution. Chinese concerns were primarily affixed to the spillover this resolution might have in Tibet. And the Russians were wary of the parallelism that the Kashmir issue had with their troubled region of Chechnya. Inspite of these hurdles, the US had given assurances to both veto wielding powers that a plebiscite in Kashmir would not cascade into demands for plebiscites in Chechnya or Tibet. This seemed to have worked and with US backing, Kashmir was guaranteed a plebiscite.

Immediately after the resolution was passed, there were widespread riots in most states of India. The opposition BJP had threatened a mass procession right upto Srinagar where they had warned they would set up tent colonies in parks and roadsides to assert Indian dominance. "Kashmir is an integral part of our country and an inseparable limb of mother India. You cannot behead our mother and expect us not to react. We give little importance to the UN resolutions. We dare them to even lay a finger on Kashmir", an ailing L.K. Advani had warned from his bedside in Delhi's Apollo hospital. A mammoth procession of close to a fifty thousand heavily armed hindu fundamentalist supporters of Indian Member of Parliament from Pilibhit, UP, Varun Gandhi, were stopped while making their way to Delhi. Police had to use tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowds. He had warned that he would lead the procession to Srinagar within weeks as buses would become available. He never made it - the UN forces were here before.

"A new era of peace and prosperity will usher in South Asia", declared President Christina Williams in reference to the impending plebiscite in Kashmir. She was the first female US president and had served in the Obama administration as Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia under Hillary Clinton. She was later appointed as the Secretary of State during President Obama's second term. Her lasting legacy in her role as Secretary of State was bringing peace to the Middle-East and resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict. This made her an immediate favourite in the US as well as the rest of the world, and she easily cruised to victory in the 2016 US Presidential election. No other previous Democratic candidate in US history had won by a 73% popular vote.

She was determined to resolve the longest unresolved conflict in the world. In 2016, during the last few months of President Obama's presidency, both India and Pakistan had successfully tested laser guided missiles capable of carrying nuclear payloads with a range of over ten thousand miles. The world was horrified at the prospect of yet another war, and none doubted that the Kashmir conflict needed to be resolved to eliminate the only remaining nuclear flashpoint in the world. Kashmir was the most urgent agenda at the Whitehouse.

Click here to read the rest of the chapters of this post

Debating the Taliban doctrine

2009-04-27T23:27:00.001-07:00

This post is in continuation to the previous one where I had some harsh words against the Taliban murder of a young couple in Swat, Pakistan. Many of my fellow bloggers had advised that we should not jump to conclusions before all details of the event are fully known. While I agree that jumping to conclusions is not something I should do because at stake is the reputation of our great religion, and our society as a whole. But, at the same time, it is important to debate this issue, and I will be the first to happily tender an apology should it turn out that the news story was inaccurate.

It is without doubt our society has lost its moral bearings and immorality is sinking in, but defending these thugs as a knee jerk reaction to fighting immorality is also not an appropriate response from our society. It is important that we not shy away and have this debate prior to us being granting our independence, and not after the fact, as some Hurriyat leaders have suggested in the past. What kind of society do we envision ourselves living in? We clearly have several options before us, and the Taliban route is certainly one of them.

We need to debate this option very rigorously so there is no doubt what the people of Kashmir truly aspire. I have absolutely no personal interest in politics. This blog, even though political, is my contribution to my motherland for her freedom, because I feel everyone should give back to their motherland. But that does not mean I am a politician. I can be considered an academic, a researcher, a writer - but absolutely not a politician. I am able to write this blog because I am currently in Srinagar, working at a popular bookshop for a salary of Rs 1700 a month and will be here for about another year before moving back to my village and taking care of family and responsibilities such as taking care of trees. Therefore, once I move back to my village, I doubt I will be able to contribute here anymore. That is the reason I am very particular in not revealing my identity because I still have to get married, settle down, and exposing oneself as a separatist tends to be a good way of scaring away good families who might see you as a potential groom for their daughter because then they are afraid their daughter will likely live the life of a half-widow just like thousands of other young Kashmiri girls are.

The reason for the digression and the above tale is that I write what I truly feel and I have no hidden agenda in that one day I will finally reveal who I am and jump into the separatist political camp or contest elections once we are independent. That is not going to happen because politics as a career is not my idea of a satisfied life. I somehow do not think that life as a politician would be very attractive with people constantly judging you and also the fellow crop of people that call themselves politicians is pitiful. The only reason for this blog is that I like to write and through my writing I am adding my drop of water into the ocean of the freedom struggle of Kashmir.

But, if that freedom translates into trading one form of Slumdog oppression for another Taliban style government as we saw in Swat, then I am already calling foul. Not only do people of Kashmir deserve to know what options will be present before them while deciding the final solution to the Kashmir conflict, but we also deserve to know what sort of government our nation will form and the freedom parties need to disclose this in no uncertain terms to the Kashmiri public. This is important because the enemies of the freedom struggle will most certainly feed stories from Swat and mislead the Kashmiri people that after independence they will be heading straight that way. To be honest, as a Kashmiri, I am also in doubt as to where exactly does Hurriyat stand in terms of what sort of government will an independent Kashmir have.

Letter to Taliban

2009-04-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago a video was making its way on youtube showing the public flogging of a 17 year girl by the Taliban. Today there is another video making rounds on the internet which shows a young woman with the most petrified look on her face and running for her life, before being shot to death along with a male acquaintance of her's in the Swat region of Pakistan, which has been overtaken by the Taliban recently.

They say this is because Sharia Law is in place now.

This is an open letter to Taliban from Kashmir.

There is no place for criminals and thugs like you people in Kashmir. Don't even think of crossing over and expect us to show any mercy just because you claim to preach your twisted version of whatever religion you practice. It most certainly is not Islam and you people definitely are not muslims. You hideous criminals are in fact Devil worshippers because only those who belong to the creed of Satan can commit murders in such cold blood without even a pang of conscience. We have seen the creed of Devil worshippers first hand here in the form of the Indian Slumdog Army who also commit murder with similar brutality, so we know Devil worshippers when we see them.

You criminals do not belong in Islam. It is not our Islam. Do not claim to be muslims, because your criminal actions are giving our great religion a bad name. This barbarity and criminal mindset has no place in Islam. Should you ever make the error of judgement to tread the waters of Kashmir and start preaching your hateful teachings here, be forewarned that your fate will be no different to how we treat the Indians.

Our hearts go out to the people of Swat and Buner. May you succeed in defeating these thugs and criminals and reclaim your cities.

For more info..

-Couple shot by Taliban

Slumdog Soldiers

2009-04-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

I have been pondering how best to characterize the Indian occupation forces here. And then it dawned on me that calling them "Slumdog Soldiers" would best convey what Kashmiris truly feel about them. It is no secret what Kashmiris call the Indian soldiers and whisper to each other every time we see these criminals on our streets. But for benefit of keeping this blog free of name-calling and obscene terms, "Slumdog Soldiers" seems an appropriate term because it accurately portrays the irony that the occupation is.

Most Indian soldiers join the army straight out of India's slums. The movie, Slumdog Millionaire, accurately portrayed the miserable lives of India's slum dwellers and one can only imagine what kind of professionalism to expect once you hand these slumdog soldiers a rifle and ask them to patrol the streets of Kashmir.

I have mentioned it before and I will repeat it again that Indians need to get out of their self-imposed mental barrier and see that they are wasting their precious little resources on occupying a neighbouring country when they can be using the same resources to feed their starving millions and truly develop their country so they dont become the laughing stock of the world again with similar movies that will be made in the future.

India recently launched an Israeli made satellite to monitor the Kashmir border with Pakistan. This satellite cost no less than a few hundred million dollars of Indian tax-payer money. (Read the news story here) What is more important to the illiterate, miserable, and unfortunate Indian slum-dwellers? Their hopes of getting that night's meal or that their government is spending the meagre resources of their nation in useless spending on military technology sold to them by the world's most racist and hated country? If anyone had any doubts the most racist hated country in the world is of course Israel (Read relevant context here).

How long can they sustain this false rhetoric of "atoot ang" politics and demonizing Pakistan to distract their gullible populace from real day-to-day issues like those portrayed in the Slumdog movie? All they have to do is grant Kashmiris freedom, and there will be peace in South-Asia the very next day. Israel will not be getting rich off the poor slum-dweller's lunch money.

EDIT:

Please read "Slumdog Army" instead of Slumdog Soldiers as aptly explained by Kashmir Center.

Sajad Lone

2009-04-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

I was watching Sajad Lone's interview on the local channel here a few minutes ago, and was going to write something altogether different, and favourable after reading an article about him in an overseas paper (read the article here) but watching his interview changed my views.

In his interview, he repeatedly mentioned his stand of not speaking against the NC or PDP during his bid for the Lok Sabha seat. Yet he did not mince any words while speaking against Dukhtaran-e-Millet chief Aasiya Andrabi. He called her an "obnoxious" person.

In order to discredit Aasiya Andrabi, he repeatedly questioned the interviewer who gave Ms Andrabi the authority to speak her views. In the same breath he called himself a Kashmiri leader. Then could someone not ask the same question to Mr Lone who made him a Kashmiri leader?

Ms Aasiya Andrabi has been a women's rights activist for longer than I can remember. I may not approve of many of her tactics to get her message across and may even disagree with a lot of her messages, but I would not question the fact that she represents the might of Kashmiri women and has a large following among Kashmiri women. To call her names on a television interview, like Mr Sajad Lone did is absolutely reaching a new low.

Psychological price

2009-04-14T00:53:00.001-07:00

Sometime back I asked a fellow blogger of the ~Kashmir~ blog why he is not as regular in posting new blogs as he used to. He replied at the time that writing about Indian oppression on a regular basis just wears you out after a while. What he said is accurate, and anyone being unfortunate enough to suffer through a continuos barrage of bad news one after the other can empathize. It is like receiving shocking news of the death of a loved-one day after day, everyday. Consider how harrowing that experience would be. Kashmiris consider themselves part of one big family; therefore, the murders, torture, rapes and kidnapping by the Indian occupation forces are in fact like receiving news of the death of a loved-one day after day, everyday. While most Kashmiris are directly affected by Indian oppression in one way or other, some are better able to cope with the occupation than others. Those who are incapable of desensitizing themselves to this deluge of news about atrocities, humiliation, killings, rapes, and the terror unleashed by the Indians here unfortunately take the extreme step of ending their own lives.

Pick up any newspaper and the only news making headlines these days is about who the pro-India parties decided to give their mandate to contest in the upcoming elections for the Indian Parliament . Who cares?

A few days back there was commotion in the news world when Sajjad Lone decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections. The Hurriyet Conference has called for a complete boycott of these elections. I could not get motivated enough to write about Sajad Lone's decision to contest these elections. Therefore I will leave it at that.

How am I supposed to be motivated about writing about another set of these farcical elections when people, unable to cope with Indian oppression, are resorting to suicide. Last year, I had written about this pandemic ravaging through the valley which seems to be more prevalent among females. Why this steep increase in suicide rates in Kashmir? And why is it more prevalent among females? (click here to read last year's post)

I mentioned earlier that reading about stories such as these just robs a person of all creativity. You can decide for yourself which story deserves more attention. Click here to read the news story.

Biased Indian media

2009-03-30T04:11:00.000-07:00

I have very high regard for most Kashmiri reporters. I admire their courage to report honestly in such dangerous circumstances. I cannot even imagine the psychological anguish they must have to bear while visiting victims' families and having to sit down and write about it. They are in fact one of the pillars of Kashmiri brotherhood. I mentioned earlier that Kashmiris consider themselves a part of one big family; reporting by Kashmiri reporters is one good example of that. Only a fellow Kashmiri can feel the pain shared by their fellow citizens, and this is evident when we read about their reporting of events in Kashmir. This is also primarily the reason why the Indians ban the local media from reporting every once in a while.

Indian reporters on the other hand are still not mature enough to come out of their prejudices against the Kashmiri freedom movement. This is evident in some of their reporting, which are outright lies in some instances, and in some others, the reporters choose to be too vague in what they mean because they lack the courage to be forthright. It would be a travesty not to mention rare exceptions such as Arundhati Roy. She writes magnificently, and we can only wish that more Indian journalists show similar courage to report honestly. (Click here to read Arundhati Roy's article)

I exposed the blatant lies of PTI in one of my earlier posts while they were reporting about the inquiry of Bomai murders. Seems like the racist and communal minded reporters at PTI are hell bent on inventing facts as it suits the Indian propaganda machine rather than being true to the journalism profession. Everyone knows the person murdered by the CRPF in Khaigam recently was an innocent carpenter who had nothing to do with militancy. But not according to India's "trusted" news organization PTI. They declared he was a militant even before full details of the incident were known. This is what the PTI reported, "Man suspected to be militant killed in CRPF firing in J and K". According to the PTI, there were no reasons to doubt their trusted CRPF. No benefit of doubt to the innocent victim, and no reason to believe the eye witnesses in the village. For them, the press release of the CRPF is the undisputed truth - some investigative journalism this is!

Similarly, other Indian reporters, who project themselves as being unbiased and objective, still have their underlying prejudices against Kashmir and their writing exemplifies this. They are never critical of the criminal actions of their soldiers occupying Kashmir, and find ways to be ambiguous so as not to be overtly critical of their countries' Kashmir policy. For instance, Barkha Dutt recently wrote an opinion article for the fundamentalist Indian newspaper, the Hindustan Times, in which she tries to applaud the courage of Pakistani reporters who report fearlessly, sometimes at the peril of being physically harmed by either some hardline Pakistani religious groups or even the Pakistani government. While I agree the courage of Pakistani reporters is commendable, the irony is that Ms Dutt herself falls into the appeaser category when it is her turn to be critical of criminal actions of Indian soldiers. I guess it is easy to pontificate about Pakistani journalists by writing with an aura of false superiority, but her efforts would have been more worthwhile had she been more critical of Indian journalism practices instead of mere token mentioning of their inherent biases.

She attempts to have the moral high ground by mentioning that, "Our young colleagues in Jammu and Kashmir carry scars that are both emotional and physical". This lone and vague sentence alluding to Kashmir epitomizes Indian reporting of the Kashmir conflict because it perfectly illustrates how Indian reporters try to play it safe, when in fact, it is in Kashmir that their honesty is most required. It begs the question whether she is referring to Indian reporters stationed in Kashmir or the local Kashmiri reporters. She also tries to have her way both ways because she never alludes to who is responsible for those scars. She could have been more forthright and blamed the Indian forces who routinely beat up and harass Kashmiri journalists, but she chose to remain ambiguous, and hence the irony, because that is what her article was about. (Click here to read her article)

Accolades and laurels for what?

2009-03-22T05:20:00.000-07:00

Seems like everyone's going out of their way in showering the newly relevant government of Kashmir with oratory garlands. It is not as if the Indian government presented Kashmir with a piece of the moon. Even though the developments of recent days, in which the army implicated three soldiers in the murder of Javed and Amin of Bomai is a step in the right direction, and would not have happened had Omar Abdullah not held his ground, I feel it is too early to come to the conclusion that this indictment and implication by a mere inquiry will transform into the murderers being brought before the court of law.

But if we were to compare Omar to previous heads of the Kashmir government, then certainly there is a marked difference from the past. Of all the previous Kashmir governments, the distinction of being a hallmark of notoriety lies with the Jagmohan government. Therefore, if I were to gauge the brutality of any government, I would compare it to that era. Clearly, in comparison to Jagmohan, the present government comes off with flying colors. The main reason that underpins my assessment is the stand Omar took in response to the killings, and pursued justice. But is that enough. Coming off with flying colors in comparison with Jagmohan is not a compliment. It`s like comparing someone with the meanest, ugliest creature and exclaiming, "you are better than that." Kashmiris deserve better. If the only good thing we can say is that a government does not condone brutality, I dont think that is something to be proud of, because brutalities are still taking place - the only difference is that the present government is not condoning it.

The recent events in which the Indian government caved in and admitted that their soldiers murdered innocent Kashmiris only helped in bringing back the Kashmir government some relevance. What will turn things around is if the soldiers were infact brought before the courts and tried like any other criminals. As far as I know, the death penalty is still handed for murder, and these soldiers should not receive any special treatment.

Dark clouds of death roll over Kashmir

2009-03-19T00:33:00.000-07:00

Yet another innocent Kashmiri became the victim of Indian terror last night. Mohiuddin Malik, a carpenter, was murdered by soldiers of the Indian occupation force, CRPF, when they barged into his house and shot him dead at Khaigam, Pakharpoor. "He is survived by his wife and four minor children" reads the news story. (read the dreadful news here)

How can I even do justice to this story and truly express how I feel. How can anyone even fathom what the family of Mohiuddin must be feeling at this moment. How can anyone predict what miseries lay ahead for his widow and orphaned children. How the criminal acts of Indian soldiers turned their whole life upside down in a matter of a few minutes. How can we block emotions from overwhelming us knowing that his wife and kids will be crying themselves to sleep from now on and can never get an answer to why this had to happen to them. Thinking about this just tears you from the inside. Knowing that the murderers will go scott free just makes it that much more bitter to swallow. And the most atrocious fact is that perhaps a few days from now I will probably be here trying to express my sorrow for yet another innocent Kashmiri who will have become the target of some other criminal Indian soldier's ire in a different part of Kashmir.

Are these unprovoked murders of innocent Kashmiris a payback for raising our voices against the Bomai Killings? Is it to provoke another wave of armed insurgency so the criminal Indian forces are not stripped of the AFSPA?

Nobody has the answers. Why now? Why all of a sudden this renewed terror by the Indians?

This story is very personal because my village is not very far from Khaigam. On our walk to Yusmarg, we used to pass through Khaigam. Many of my childhood friends are from Khaigam. I perhaps had personally known Mohiuddin.

I guess what this murder proves is that we all have to wait for our turns to become targets of Indian terrorist soldiers.

I also will not be surprised that yet another inquiry will be called; a murder case will be filed against the personnel involved; a lot of lip service will be provided by politicians, and that's as far as it will go.

The murderers will never be punished. That is the fact of life in Kashmir.

Indian army mocks inquiry report

2009-03-16T00:06:00.000-07:00

Shame on the biased Indian media

The occupation forces showed their true colors today and inadvertently divulged the truth about all inquiries that have ever been called by the so-called government of Kashmir.

The following statement of the army has been reported by most dailies,"...the army’s Brigade command has informed the government that such an inquiry was not valid under the Army Act". Although this attitude of the occupation army does not surprise Kashmiris at all because we have known their colonial attitude all along. What is evident from this statement is that it exposes the fact that all previous inquiries were in fact shams. We have known this since the first Kashmiri fell prey to the bullets of the criminal Indian Army, and the first ever inquiry, that still has not been concluded, was called many decades ago. This statement just reinforces what we had known all along - that the inquiries are a mere lip service to pacify an agitated population.

The present inquiry into the deaths of Javed and Amin of Bomai was an anomaly in the long list of inquiries because it was infact concluded and submitted within the promised time. Another big anomaly was that it implicated the army in this crime, which the occupation forces had not anticipated, and caught them off-guard. So the Indian occupation forces have improvised their approach and started to backpaddle.

The Army act!

Delayed reflexes of the occupiers - that's how I characterize this latest antic. And because the inquiry officer, Baseer Ahmad Khan, did not succumb to Indian pressure to alter his report, and surprisingly Omar Abdullah is holding his ground, the Indian occupation forces have changed tactics and started feeding the media that they "will not participate in the inquiry". Too late for that. One thing about criminal minds is that their reflexes are usually slow. The world already knows that the Indian army officers testified before the inquiry officer and had even tried to pressurize him to alter the inquiry report in their favour. And now that the inquiry report has already been concluded and has indicted the Indian army, they want to give the impression that their officers never testified before the inquiry officer. But it is too late for that, unless they can destroy all news reports of February 26, 2009, when the commandants of that base camp testified before the commisioner, then their attempts to backpaddle are futile. (click here to read the news report of that day).

Now that things did not go as they had planned, they want to spin it the other way and invoke some "Army act" to discredit the inquiry report, which fortunately they will not succeed in because Kashmiris are a million times smarter then these petty criminal Indian officers.

Guess who bought this line of their newest nonsense? The biased, communal minded and illogical Indian media.

Here is what a reporter named Sumir Kaul reported for the Press Trust of India (PTI) "Army refuses to be part of govt probe into J&K killings" was the headline, and this is how the story starts, "Army has refused to participate in the inquiry being conducted by the Jammu and Kashmir government...." (click here to read this biased reporting). It is very unlikely that a news organisation like PTI would be unaware that the army had already testified in the inquiry and that the inquiry has already been concluded and submitted to the government. The fact that they chose to report this story as though the inquiry was still ongoing, clearly exposes their bias and malicious intentions.

If people are not able to see through this mockery as a spin and an attempt to rewrite the outcome of the inquiry, then they need to pay a bit more attention. The Indian media is too biased and blinded by their hatred against Kashmiris to have the ethics to report honestly.

Contrast the above biased reporting with how Greater Kashmir, a Kashmiri newspaper, accurately reported the same story:

Here is what GK reported, "ARMY ‘REJECTS’ BOMAI PROBE", was the headline, and this is how they developed the main part of the story, "The inquiry report is reported to have blamed the army personnel for not verifying the claims of their informers before shooting down the innocent civilians." (click here to read the full article)

I will leave it to the readers to decide for themselves whether they feel the Indian media is infact biased and unreliable.

Shame on Indian democracy and their biased media.

No justice - Now at least I know

2009-03-10T23:14:00.000-07:00

Despotism

Definition [des-puh-tiz-uhm]

–noun
1. the exercise of absolute authority.
2. absolute power or control; tyranny.
3. an absolute or autocratic government.

The despots I am referring to are the Delhi masters of our ineffective administration here. What a waste of time in writing all those posts thinking the current government really had the intention and more importantly, the means and power to implement changes.

I am a very straightforward person and weigh most things with the evidence at hand. The current evidence that I have in regards to the events surrounding the murder of Javed Ahmad and Muhammad Amin is that the current administration called for an inquiry which was concluded ahead of the deadline, five days ago, and indicted the Indian army soldiers in that murder. Since that time, the original deadline came and passed with us not even knowing the names of the culprits, let alone any indications of them being brought to justice. There is absolute silence from Omar Abdullah regarding this matter even though he had promised "exemplary" punishment if the soldiers were indicted.

In reality though, those soldiers are probably enjoying life here at their base in an occupied school in Bomai, getting drunk every night and laughing and sharing stories of this conquest with their cohorts knowing very well no power in Kashmir can lay a hand on them; the paper-tiger that the Kashmir government has always been, with the real power residing in Delhi.

The inquiry report is not even worth the eleven pages it was written on. However, simply for the sake of curiosity, I am really interested to find out what "exemplary punishment" Omar Abdullah had in mind while trying to pacify Kashmiris.

I feel that the evidence clearly points to the fact that Omar Abdullah wanted the killers punished; therefore, I will not accuse him of being a cohort or insinuate that he is responsible for the deaths. At the same time, I have to emphasize that the facts prove what Mirwaiz Umer and other Hurriyat leaders have all along advised Kashmiris - that the Kashmir government is merely a "puppet regime", with the strings infact being pulled in Delhi. The events surrounding this inquiry proves this beyond any reasonable doubt. It is clear that Omar Abdullah wanted the soldiers punished; a majority of the members of the Assembly wanted them punished, and yet no action was taken against the Indian soldiers; therefore, any reasonable person will come to the conclusion that the Indian masters in Delhi did not approve of this action of Omar Abdullah and his administration had no choice but to comply with the orders from Delhi.

As a result, it makes no sense in me wasting my precious time in writing about a government which is incapable of taking action even though it agrees with what you are saying but comes up with an excuse that the "boss upstairs disagrees".

I have better things to write about. I would rather use the same time and energy in writing about strengthening the Hurriyat and other more important topics. The deaths in Sopur really affected my writing plans. People outside of Kashmir cannot even fathom how these attrocities by the Indian forces affect our lives. These crimes thwart our creativity. Our thinking is blinded by grief, sorrow, and anger. How are people supposed to sit down, have a clear chain of thought and jot down their ideas when their minds are preoccupied by thinking about survival techniques when encountering barbaric Indian soldiers. When we know that these criminals do not need a reason to shoot us dead, and when they do, they wont even get punished. Such are the thoughts that go through our minds, and therefore I can be forgiven if I decide not to write about other trivial things, and just concentrate on using my talent in exposing the brutality of the Indian occupation of Kashmir.

1 day for justice - Serfs and bank tellers

2009-03-10T00:15:00.000-07:00

Day to Justice

I am sure most readers must be wondering why I am counting down the days even though it has been proven beyond a doubt that the current Kashmir government could literally be thought of as serfs of their lords in Delhi. By analogy, the present government can be considered as bank tellers, who are tasked with dealing with irate customers but have absolutely no say on setting bank policies.

I remember one of the commenters while back advising me that I am wasting my time because the current government doesn't even have the power to move a CRP bunker let alone arrest Indian army soldiers.

I have decided to stick to my imposed deadline because I am a man of my word, and will wait for one more day to see if the murderers are arrested. Failing which, this blog atleast, will give up on cooperating with the Omar Abdullah government on developmental issues.

2 days to justice - The snub

2009-03-09T23:07:00.000-07:00

Days to Justice

Two days left and the killers are just as free as they were on the day they decided to snatch away two precious Kashmiri lives. The lack of power of the current government could not have been more conspicuous as it is now. It is clear that Omar Abdullah wanted to punish the murderers but looks like he got a taste of the colonial attitude of the occupation Indian forces first hand. The Indians would never charge their soldiers for the murder of two insignificant Kashmiri lives.

The snub for Omar Abdullah could not have been more embarrassing. However, India's colonial attitude has been known for a long time, and I hope it opened his eyes.

Some of his supporters had been pandering the "excellent relations" that Omar has with the so-called "central" government, and that we should therefore "lend him a helping hand" for developing Kashmir. I would like to respectfully ask what they have to say about this snub now, and whether they will keep touting the "excellent relations" that Omar has with the "Centre"?

3 days to justice - Case in point

2009-03-08T22:52:00.000-07:00

Days to Justice

As we look forward to some action against the murderers, the incapacity of the current government was truly uncovered yesterday. When one of Omar Abdullah's ministers, Abdul Rahim Rather, was asked why the state government is not taking much more stringent action against the out of control Indian armed forces, who have killed six people in cold blood since the NC government assumed power, instead of calling for yet more inquiries, his answer was, "what more can we do".

Enough said, Mr. Rather. This one sentence eloquently characterizes the purpose and function of the current imposed government of Kashmir.

"What more can we do"

4 days to justice - Their thirst for blood

2009-03-07T01:21:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

There are still no visible efforts by the state government to arrest the Indian army troops who murdered Javed Ahmad and Muhammad Amin in Bomai; there are four more days for the deadline.

Yesterday, yet another young Kashmiri was shot dead for the crime of protesting peacefully. Another was crushed to death by CRPF personnel when they ran over him with their Jeep.

If anyone had the slightest doubt about the vested interests of Indian forces to keep Kashmir in turmoil, I hope those doubts are cleared with the recent actions of these ruthless Indian armed forces. Their thirst for the blood of innocent Kashmiris seems insatiable.

5 days to justice - Culprits still free

2009-03-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

The inquiry report is already out and the culprits who have been indicted are still free roaming the streets of Kashmir with loaded guns. No word yet on what action government is taking.

The state government promises to remove the Indian army from a school they have been occupying in Bomai, Sopur within twelve days.

6 days to justice - Inquiry is concluded

2009-03-05T01:17:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

Although there are reports that the inquiry officer has indicted the Indian army personnel in the murder of Javed Ahmad and Muhammad Amin, I will not be the one felicitating the government for this outcome until the guilty personnel are tried in a court for their crimes.

In the same breath I would like to commend the inquiry officer, Baseer Ahmad Khan for not succumbing to pressure by altering his report as the the army had pressured him to. His report is based on facts and for that Mr Baseer Khan has earned my highest respect.

While I appreciate the remarks of Omar Abdullah when he reiterated that the guilty will be given "exemplary punishment"; however, we are a bit wary of what he means. "Exemplary punishments" given by governments are usually dismissal, dishonourable discharge, forfeit of pay, or demotion. If the government is contemplating any of these in lieu of trying these army men for murder, then they can forget about gaining trust with Kashmiris ever again. I would suggest that Omar Abdullah leave it upto the courts what "exemplary punishment" these Indian army men deserve.

Let it be known very clearly that Kashmiris want nothing short of the murderers being tried in a court of law. Let the judge decide what punishment they deserve. This crime was committed on Kashmiri soil therefore these accused should stand trial in Kashmiri courts.

7 days to justice - Government acknowledges army occupation

2009-03-04T08:29:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

Government acknowledges army occupation of public buildings, schools and agriculture land. People of Bomai refuse to attend school unless army vacates the schools occupied by them.

8 days to justice - More excuses

2009-03-03T00:26:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

9 days to justice - World media pays attention

2009-03-01T23:11:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

10 days to justice - When Ikhwanis become eye witnesses

2009-02-28T21:20:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

11 days to justice - What's that smell? Indian democracy!

2009-02-27T22:57:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

If I were to describe the following situation to Europeans or persons from a non-Asian country and quiz them whether the place I am describing is a dictatorship or not; in your opinion, what would their reply be?

This is the scenario I would present:

1. People are prevented from participating in peaceful protests to show their anger at the killing of two innocent youth by the army.

2. Political leaders are kept under house arrest for weeks so they are not able to organize these peaceful marches.

3. The towns and cities have barbed-wire checkpoints every half-a-kilometer to prevent the movement of people.

4. Army, police and other armed forces are given special powers to enter any home at anytime of day or night without a search warrant; detain anyone for an indefinite period of time; and are seldom charged or convicted when they commit crimes.

5. The friday prayers are obstructed.

Just by mentioning these few points, the person will definitely answer that I am referring to a dictatorship. The last point will probably give away that it is a muslim country.

12 Days to justice - PDP shedding crocodile tears

2009-02-26T23:08:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

Yesterday, the killings of our two brothers was discussed in the Kashmir assembly and the CM restated that the findings of the inquiry will be made public when the report is presented to him. He reiterated that the inquiry has a deadline, and that means that it should be out by March 7th - eleven more days. There were some promising developments regarding the inquiry and then there were some that anyone can figure were mere politicking.

I will label them as 'positive' or 'negative'

Positive: Omar Abdullah`s statement when referring to the killings of Javed and Mohammad Amin in the assembly. “I assure you the perpetrators, whosoever they are, will be punished and it will be a kind of a punishment that will set an example so that no such incidents take place in future”, he said.

Negative: Omar Abdullah`s argument for not repealing the AFSPA right away. He argues that he will consider repealing the draconian law if the, “situation continues to improve the way it has been improving.” Maybe Omar and I live in different parts of the world. The only hinderance to normalcy are the unprovoked killings, random beatings, and intolerable harassment by the Indian forces. There has`nt been a single militancy related incident for over six months. I am unsure what kind of normalcy he is referring to. I think he is just looking for an excuse and grasping at straws.

Negative: PDP`s dramatic overtures. They think they can pull the wool over people`s eyes. They think that by shedding crocodile tears now people will overlook their incompetence when they were in power. How many Indian Army, CRPF, or BSF personnel were punished for crimes during PDP`s reign? How many inquiries were called and how many of them were concluded? The answer is none, many, and none respectively.

13 days to justice - They have done it before

2009-02-25T23:02:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

Thirteen days till the criminals will be brought to justice.

While focusing on war crimes by the Indian army, and the subsequent bogus inquiries called by the state government, let me recall some savage atrocities of the Indian forces against Kashmiris where no action has been taken against them, and the victims still await justice. Although were in excess of 7613 cases of rape registered against the Indian army by 2002 (Source: New York Times), I will focus on a few that have been acsertained by international agencies.

Rapes are used as a weapon of war by the Indian army because that is something that will haunt our memories for ever. Although the cases that drew international attention were perpetrated by the Indian Army in Kunan Poshpoor, Shopian and even in Srinagar; for Kashmiris, these memories are like a thousand wounds combined together and bandaged with stinging nettle, because there are thousands of other similar incidents and yet the world community witnessed them as mute spectators.

This is what Amnesty International has recorded, "... There is strong evidence that members of the Indian security forces have used rape as a tactic in an increasingly violent suppression of the campaign for Kashmiri independence. Around midnight on 10 October 1992, an Indian army unit raided the village of Chak Saidapora, near Shopian. They carried out a house-to-house search, in the course of which at least six women were raped. Among them were a woman of 60 and an 11-year-old girl called Ziatoon.That incident was just one in a continuing pattern. Over a year later, on 22 November 1993, Indian soldiers entered the village of Warapora. Sara, a young woman, was out collecting firewood. Eye-witnesses saw five soldiers approaching her. They found her dead body later that day. Her clothes had been torn off and the post-mortem revealed '... marks of violence on neck, breasts, left knee ... and extensive vaginal tear'. The Indian Government has denied many allegations of rape by its forces, claiming that they are 'trumped up ... to malign the reputation of the security forces'." (Click here for source)

How can anyone not have heard of the Kunan Poshpora war crimes committed by the Indian Army. Canadian government officials investigating human rights violations in Kashmir reported that, "..... the authorities' response to the rape of 23 women in Kunan Poshpora in Kashmir during a search operation by security forces indicated that the authorities 'have been more interested in shielding the army from charges of abuse' than in investigating (HRW 1992, 412). Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights state that generally the military courts are incapable of dealing with serious human rights abuses perpetrated by security forces and are used to cover up evidence and protect the officers involved ( Asia Watch and PHR 9 May 1993, 6). They add that although there is no evidence that rape is sanctioned as a matter of government policy in Kashmir, by failing to prosecute and punish those responsible, or make known any action taken against security forces charged with rape, the Indian authorities have signalled that the practice of rape is tolerated, if not condoned ( ibid., 4)..." (Source: Canadian report)

What is more horrifying is the fact that journalists representing the Press Council of India had visited Kunan Poshpur on the invitation of the Indian Army to "investigate" the incident there and after interviewing the victims, those unconscionable reporters concluded that the village females are lying and that the rape charges are baseless. Although their prejudiced opinion doesn't surprise me one bit considering the utterly biased and anti-Kashmir sentiments of the majority of India's reporters, what is disgusting is the fact that the police themselves have never investigated this incident! (Source: New York Times)

Another news item in the New York Times reported that, "A survey by Doctors Without Borders in 2005 found that Muslim women in Kashmir, prey to the Indian troops and paramilitaries, suffered some of the most pervasive sexual violence in the world..". (Source)

14 days to justice - Target practice

2009-02-24T18:13:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

Fourteen days till we find out the results of the inquiry.

It is surreal to even think that my fellow Kashmiris Javed Ahmad, and Mohammed Amin of Bomai, Sopur, were alive and well just four days ago and today are part of the grisly statistics of Kashmir according to which over 90,000 Kashmiris have become victims of Indian terror.

I am just as uncertain as any other Kashmiri about the seriousness of the inquiry that has been called to ascertain the facts surrounding these murders. As if eye witness accounts are themselves not grounds enough to arrest the Indian army personnel and charge them. The longer their arrests are delayed, the more time they will have to cook up a story which they will then feed to the media later. Already, we had some buffoon of an Indian army commander claim that these youth were killed by "terrorists"; in another two weeks we'll find out what other whoppers they have in store for us.

I wish we had scrutinized previous inquiries that were called for similar incidents in the past. For instance, in February 2006 in a small hamlet called Dodhpur, in Kupwara, four young Kashmiris including an eight year old were playing cricket in their local playground when they were surrounded by Indian soldiers and were gunned down mercilessly for no reason. Readers can make up their own mind as to what hatred could cause the Indian army to extinguish young precious lives. (Read the news report here) Reading through eye witness reports of that incident, I conclude that the hatred of Kashmiris blinded those criminal Indian army soldiers so much that they decided to play target practice with those young souls. We have read about similar war crimes in other occupied places such as the Haditha incident in Iraq; therefore no one should doubt the veracity of the eyewitnesses.

The government response was predictable and they surprised no one by initiating an inquiry to pacify the protestors and wash their hands off that incident. Not very different from what I suspect the motive was when the current inquiry about the Bomai killings was called. But I hope I am wrong; we'll find out in 14 days.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, the chief minister at the time had appointed a high ranking officer to conduct the inquiry. According to the GK report about this, 24 villagers religiously presented themselves before the inquiry officer to record their statements whenever they were summoned before him. Yet two years since that inquiry was called, no report has been published, and not a single person has been charged for the deaths of those four young Kashmiris. We now find out that the Indian army never cooperated with the inquiry. The whole process is a sham; a whitewash; a waste of time to hoodwink the people. (Click here to read more about this)

15 days to justice - Cheap shots

2009-02-23T23:16:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice

As per the deadline set for the inquiry, we should expect the magistrate's report by the 8th of March. I am therefore counting down the days Omar Abdullah has remaining to call for the arrest of the murderers of our two Kashmiri brothers.

Although I am certain that just as has happened in the past, the results of this inquiry will either never see the light of day, or if by some divine intervention, the inquiry is actually concluded, they will lay the blame entirely on the victims for being in the cross hairs of the Indian army personnel's rifle. If the outcome 15 days from now does not fit either of the preceding two scenarios, then the army will likely blame it all on imaginary "Kashmiri terrorists" who like to wear army camoflouge dresses and shoot innocent Kashmiri bystanders. Is that the reason that ordinary Kashmiris refer to these "terrorists" as martyrs and bury them at Mazari-Shohada?

Since I am on the same chain of thought, I might as well mention that it is a shame that day before, on the day of the murder of our two Kashmiri brothers, Omar Abdullah took a cheap shot at militants instead of reserving his condemnation solely for the perpetrators of the heinous murders. Anyone sincerely moved by the abhorrent murders would have expressed their disgust by blaming the army personnel instead of spinning this occasion to take cheap shots at the militants like Omar Abdullah did just to appear balanced to his Indian audience. It is a fact that the militants have maintained an undeclared cease fire and there hasn't been a single case of militant action in the past few months. The only time a story about militants was reported in the media was when they were being pursued by the police and military and arrested at their homes, even though they were laying low.

This is what Omar Abdullah had to say while apparently condemning the army actions in Sopur, "Men in uniform or in khakis are bound to uphold the human rights of civilians. I can't expect this from the militants coming from across the border because they enter into the Valley with an aim of disruption...". In other words, Omar is saying that militants are all goons and terrorists with no regard for human rights, and people should infact be afraid of the militants and look up to the killers, the RR, for protection because it is only the militants from across the border who have killed 90,000 people in the past few decades!

And it is also a fact that apart from a small fraction of militants, who indulged in criminal activity, the overwhelming majority of militants were people of faith and honour. Contrast this with the Indian army and paramilitary forces. It is no secret that the more uncertainty and disturbance in Kashmir there is, the higher their probability of continuing their reign of terror in Kashmir. All analysts agree that the Indian army and paramilitary forces do not want Kashmir to become peaceful and they have a vested interest in keeping Kashmir in an atmosphere of fear.

16 days to justice - Ultimatum

2009-02-22T23:31:00.000-08:00

Days to Justice
I write this post with a heavy heart. No words can express the anger, rage and sadness that I feel about the murders by the Indian army yesterday. No words can also express how helpless Kashmiris feel at the moment. Sopur is under curfew so people don't even have the liberty to grieve.

How barbaric, uncivilized and fanatic islamist thinking of ours is it to demand that the RR army barbarians who murdered those young Kashmiris be arrested and brought to justice?

I am willing to give Omar Abdullah the benefit of the doubt that he sincerely will bring the murderers to justice.

In loss for words myself I looked around to read how others expressed their grief:

Editorial in GK
"... There have not been any major or minor militant incidents of any consequences after the new government took over. It would not be an overstatement to say that the situation in the state is near normal. But what has been surprising that this normalcy is yet to be accepted by law and order authorities. Notwithstanding there is no move from the government for consolidating this near-normal situation by reducing the troops-civilian ratio in cities, towns and urban areas and removing barracks and bunkers from the civilian areas calm seems returning faster to the state. The incident at Sopore and other places killing innocent unarmed people for a sport suggest that the directions of the new government are yet to be recognized as command by the security agencies in the state...."

The editor further elaborates
"...The murder of innocent in Sopore, Bandipora and Kupwara constrains one to believe that some of the security agencies in the state are wittingly or unwittingly working as agent provocateurs. Such incidents can trigger a mob fury thereby causing very serious law and order situation that can undo whatever good done after majority of militant organizations have called unilateral undeclared ceasefire. Of course, the government immediately ordered an administrative inquiry into these three incidents but it is a hard reality that the administrative inquires hold no credibility. There is hardly any administrative inquiry commission that has published its findings or the government having made action taken on any inquiry reports public. Most of the administrative inquires ordered have been cosmetic..." (click here to read full article)

This would be a good reality check for the current government that people are well aware of the deceptive methods employed by them to make a bad incident go away by calling for these deceptive inquiries.

This is what Omar Abdullah had to say:

"....The 38-year-old Chief Minister said he had ordered a magisterial enquiry into the Sopore incident which would be completed within a fortnight's time. "Whatever comes out in the report will be implemented at the earliest and those guilty will be punished," Omar said, adding that he was personally monitoring the case..." (source: The Hindu)

Rising Kashmir reported that the CM has set a time frame of 15 days for the submission of this "magesterial" report.

"...the chief minister ordered magisterial inquiry into the incident with instructions that the Inquiry Officer will submit report within 15 days. He assured that exemplary punishment will be given to those found guilty...." (source: Rising Kashmir)

I am willing to give him 16 days to present the killers before the Kashmiri court of law to face murder charges. Failing which, even the ancients have preached that the pen is mightier than the sword.

Downward spiral

2009-02-21T23:19:00.000-08:00

Kashmir mourns the murder of two innocent young men by the Indian army yesterday in Sopur. Mohammad Amin Tantray, and Javed Ahmad Dar were travelling in a car when the infamous 'Rashtriya Rifles' (India's regular army) opened unprovoked fire on them, killing them on the spot.

A pointless inquiry has been called, but we already know these inquiries are no more than a hogwash.

I will reserve my judgement of Omar Abdullah's response (or lack thereof) to this incident for one more day. I will wait and see whether he unconditionally condemns these murders and orders the army to handover the culprits to the local police so that they can be tried in the local courts here, or maintains his silent support of the actions of the Indian army present here.

If he fails to condemn this incident, then we know the downward spiral of his reputation has just started, and the TRC was simply an election ploy. In that case, he should start preparing himself to get acquainted with a new label that people will slap on him which was reserved for Jagmohan till now.

Watch out Indians

2009-02-21T01:07:00.000-08:00

I wish Indians would realize that they are an artificial amalgamation of states pretending to be a homogenous country. They are destined to fall apart and break up into smaller countries similar to what happened to USSR. Occupation of Kashmir will just hasten their disintegration because although Obama might not express it publicly, he favours an independent Kashmir. And the more India oppresses Kashmiris, the more the public outcry in the US for Obama to take action. His supporters are the left leaning American population, who are against the Indian occupation of Kashmir .

An Independent Kashmir will work in his favour in the long run. That will be his legacy, just as Bush's legacy was an independent Kosovo, who will remember him forever, and have a street named after him.

The American interest in Kashmir's independence from both India as well as Pakistan is bound to heighten given the fact that Kyrgyzstan has asked them to vacate their bases there (click here to view story). Kashmir could fill in that shoe perfectly and according to my sources, the Kashmir American Council has been lobbying to this effect very rigorously.

As far as I or any other Kashmiri is concerned, nothing can be worse than the Indian occupation, tyranny and oppression that we have been subjected to in the past 20 years. So if my freedom comes at a price of having a permanent US base at Badami Bagh, then I would welcome that with open arms!

For more info

-Kyrgyzstan US bases

Arguing against pay raise for government employees

2009-02-16T09:16:00.000-08:00

The strike that is underway by the 4.5 lakh government employees is unhelpful. If we sit down and crunch the numbers, anyone can see that Kashmir does not have the resources to pay the arrears and increase the salary of these 4.5 lakh employees overnight.

I like to do my research before forming an opinion on an issue, and these are the numbers I found about the state's finances and figures pertaining to employee salaries. The government is already spending Rs 4771 crores every year in paying these salaries (click here for source). If the pay commission recomendations were implemented, the government would have to divert Rs 3800 crores from other areas, such as infrastructure development, to immediately pay the arrears that have accrued since 2006. Furthermore, they will need an additional 1700 crores each year to sustain this rise in salary expenditures (click here for source). Therefore, should the pay raise be approved, the salary expenses would increase to Rs 6471 crores every year (simple math: 4771 + 1700 = 6471). This is unsustainable considering Kashmir's total revenue from all sources is Rs 15,316 crores and our total expenses are Rs 18,443 crores. As is evident, the numbers do not add up. We are already in the hole with a deficit of 2330 crores (Click here for source). We are spending more than we have and therefore in the interest of Kashmir, our financial situation does not justify this pay raise for the government employees.

And why should these employees be getting a raise to begin with? We are supposed to reward them for a job 'not-so-well' done? They have some nerves to demand a pay raise! These employees include the engineers, pathwaris, tehsildars, teachers, municipal workers, LAWDA employees, pollution control staff, medical staff, and other good-for-nothing employees who were tasked with improving the living conditions of Kashmiris. They have failed miserably; have performed a deplorable job and now have the audacity to demand a raise!

If the government takes my advice, they would cut the gargantuan government workforce and slash it to a bare minimum, so that the salary expenses are around Rs 1000 crores per annum. The rest of the money saved (almost Rs 4000 crores every year!) should be spent on development of Kashmir. Improvements on infrastructure such as better roads, civic amenities, hospitals, and cleaning up the lakes and rivers. A few good employees with the right tools will be able to perform the same job. At present we have too many slackers who are robbing Kashmir.

We are looking at 4.5 lakh useless government employees against 12 million Kashmiris who want better living conditions.

A special sandwich for Omar Abdullah

2009-02-14T01:18:00.000-08:00

Be the change you want to see in the world..

They robbed two hours of my life, and other observations

2009-02-12T23:55:00.000-08:00

A few stories caught my attention these past few days, and therefore this post is to express my views on those issues. This also reminds me that if any reader would like to have my views on any particular event or story, just send me a link of that story and I'll post my views on that. I usually read my paper early in the morning after I go to the local Kandur, and get my fresh lavass, and on my way back, find the newspapers lying at my door step. I prefer the real 'paper variety' of the newspapers but usually browse the internet for other sources of news as well. The friendly 'Akhbar wolle" drops three papers at my door step each morning: Greater Kashmir, Rising Kashmir, and Etalaat.

Although the main news items are usually repeated in all these papers, I skim through the opinion articles as well, and feel quite proud that there are some very good writers with whom I share similar views about the issues they are writing about. This week I saw many issues being discussed that I feel just as strongly about; one article that particularly stood out was a write-up by Samreen Mushtaq who wrote in the GK about private coaching being unethically transformed by teachers into money making avenues (click here to read the article).

There was another article that caught my eye, although it was an unconventional one. It was an article by Ghulam Nabi Khayal about a movie that he had seen in Delhi and had liked so much that he was persuaded to write an article about it. The movie is called 'Troy''. Based on Mr. Khayal's strong recommendation, which was even more emphasised by the title of his article, "If you haven’t seen TROY, You haven’t seen a Movie", I went out and bought a copy of the movie for 45 Rupees from Lambert Lane. Not only do I feel that Mr. Khayal owes me the 45 Rupees that I spent for purchasing the movie, I also hold him responsible for the two hours that were robbed from my life while watching the most useless movie ever made in the history of mankind! I cannot fathom what Mr. Khayal saw in that movie. It was horrible! But I guess movies are a matter of personal tastes; it's like some people like Lavass, and some like Csott; some prefer Csochwoor, whereas others prefer Kulche! (click here to read the article)

On a more serious note however, Ms Samreen Mushtaq's article brought an important issue to the forefront, and I wish the government would take these concerns of citizens seriously and act upon them. Before I go ahead and repeat what Ms Mushtaq eloquently explained in her article, I would like to pose a very rhetorical question: what is the most basic and fundamental responsibility of any government? A good answer to this question would most probably include: "to protect its citizens". I won't go off on a tangent and start off on an unrelated topic of human rights violations in Kashmir, which certainly is the most important crisis in Kashmir at the moment, but is the topic of another post coming up shortly. Therefore, for this post, I would like to stay on topic and argue that it is the responsibilty of the goverment to protect Kashmiris from unscrupulous people trying to profit from something which is a necessity - education.

We are all aware that the government regulates the prices of essential commodities such as meat, food items, milk and so on and so forth. This is done to prevent unscrupulous people from profiteering by hording these items and monopolizing their prices because the public has no choice but to purchase these items for everyday living. The key word here is "no choice"; and hence these are labelled essential commodities. Similarly, education is a necessity that young Kashmiris do not have a choice but to achieve by all means possible. Why should'nt similar laws be applied to education as well?

I propose that a law be enacted to completely ban private tuitions by all teachers. If these unscrupulous and unethical teachers and professors are unable to teach their subjects during regular class hours, then they have no right to teach that subject at all. If at all extra time is needed, then the school premises should be used and private coaching be done free of charge there during school hours. We are well aware how these teachers employ substandard teaching practices while at school just so the students have no choice but to seek private coaching with that teacher at his residence or coaching center, which ends up being on an average between 1000 - 1500 Rupees per subject. If students approach these petty teachers during school hours to seek help with a problem or understanding a concept, there are usually subliminal inferences from that teacher that the student should attend private tuitions that are offered by him.

There can be no justification that the teachers can provide to let them get away with this travesty.This is absolute robbery. The youth, who simply want to gain an education are witnessing a grotesque example of unethical behaviour by those who are supposed to impart them with values so these youth become responsible and steadfast citizens of Kashmir. On the contrary, these unscrupulous teachers and professors are setting a bad example of "money talks" behaviour, which the youth themselves might replicate later on in the future while practicing their own professions.

For more info

-Article by Samreen Mushtaq

Vent it out of my system

2009-02-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

This is going to be the most ridiculous of my posts that I have ever written, but as the title suggests, I want to get it out of my system and vent it out. It also is not going to be in the PG-13 category that I strive to keep most of posts as, but most likely in the 18+ section, with recommendation for strong language. (If you read movie labels, you probably figured what I am talking about). Therefore, if you're a kid under the age of 18, then swiftly cover your eyes with both your hands and slowly step away from the computer and yell for your mother. Ask her to read this post for you and translate it for you in a version suitable for seedlings - sorry, I meant school kids.

I could not get my snuggle with filthy waters out of my head easily therefore here's one more rant about it. I began to think that Kashmir has ample natural beauty to charm even the most sceptical of tourists. I doubt we need any self-centered bureaucrats trying to adulterate the gorgeous views of the hariparbat fort or the Takht-e-suleiman hills with unsightly cables and monstrous steel structures poking their ugly head out in the middle of Dal Lake.

Here's a message for the bonehead who thought of this lunatic idea! Lay your hands off our Kashmir! and don't mess with its natural scenery. There seems to be no limits to the insatiable greed of these spineless officials who simply see this asinine idea as just another opportunity to rob the state yet again. As if they havent done enough already to turn Kashmir into a cesspool and now want to destroy the natural scenery by turning it into a tangled mess of steel cables and towers sticking out in the horizon.

This insane idea of having the gondola in srinagar stands right up there with the moronic idea of turning Kashmir into a maze of ugly billboards placed on every corner and the brilliant mockery of our collective intelligence by bringing up the idea of tearing down the Ghanta-ghar that some nincompoop brought up last year as if that is the most pressing crisis facing Kashmir or as if that would have any bearing on the civic problems facing Kashmir!

These brain-dead officials want to seem like they are doing something by suggesting these asinine projects; how about they lay off the cheap whisky they buy from the CRP in badami bagh, and think about something that would really ease the hardships facing Kashmiris and maybe make the place a bit more pleasant to live, which might just attract tourists to really think about visiting this hell-hole. Maybe they could do the unthinkable and pool in all resources to get rid of all surface drains in Kashmir. No, ofcourse not! that would be too lowly a development project for the "upright" officials because they can't hog up enough public cash to be worth their while. Or how about they do the ultimate sin a Kashmiri useless bureaucrat can do and research the idea of bringing in electric buses or the metro train. Of course not! How would these practical ideas that have solved the miseries of most major cities apply to Kashmir! The best these good-for-nothing officials could think of is the gondola!

Bringing in an electric metro train is just too cumbersome for them to even consider with too much engineering and innovative thinking involved on the useless-engineers' part! How could they even bother to think that it will solve the traffic congestion, the daily problems the commuters face, or even help tourism; because the tourists might think that there are actual civilzed people living in Kashmir who have functioning brains to solve problems such as traffic. No! the best these morons could come up with is the gondola!

Alright! it's out of my system! have a good day!

Misplaced priorities of myopic Kashmiri officials

2009-02-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

Although I had intended to write about the proposed gondola project last month, I could not find enough motivation to sit down and write about it till now. Today, my everyday commute gave me the motivation to finally sit down and jot down my rant about it and protest that the government has its priorities all mixed up. My daily routine of walking upto the bus stop made me traverse through small islands of rotting garbage floating in puddles of melting slush that could be considered small lakes by themselves. I had to slug through these mini-ponds by trying to hop on small rocks and bricks while struggling to balance myself so I didn't fall into the filthy mess, which was a mix of raw sewage and freshly melted snow - the result of a clogged-up drain.

There I was trying to hop and balance while crossing this puddle in my freshly washed and ironed clothes on my way to the university when I lost my balance attempting to make the final leap. The last brick was not firmly in place, and I fell nose-down into this nasty concoction of human waste and freshly melted snow; all the while being stared by the omnipresent stray dogs who were reclining under the awnings of the nearby shops, only to get annoyed and scurry away because my fall splashed them with freezing water and interrupted their morning siesta, and how can I not mention the ubiquitous watchful eyes of the CRP personnel entertaining themselves by listening to Indian songs being played on their cheap radios in their bukhari-warmed bunkers and giggling away like little school kids while witnessing my predicament.

This made me realize, does anybody in the government have functioning brains?

How would a cable-car gondola project over the Dal Lake, which is going to cost no less than a few hundred crores from start to finish, be a tourist attraction when the dilapidated civic conditions in Kashmir will perhaps make these tourists tread through filth and cesspools? The only thing the gondola might assist the tourists in is that they'll be able to see the heaps of garbage and puddles of sewage from a much higher elevation!

If the government's sole aim is to attract tourists such as yatris; then they need not worry. The yatris will be here whether the government left Kashmir to the dogs or not (pun intended). However; if the government wishes to attract paying tourists who spend their holidays in Switzerland, Scotland, Ireland, or Goa, then they have to use common sense and clean up Kashmir. There is no secret science to the fact that people who have money and want to spend it wisely will prefer travelling to a clean and hygienic city, and definitely not somewhere where they'll spend their short vacation just to be able to see Kashmir's garbage, filth and a selection of the world's finest breeds of stray-dogs while sitting in a gondola cruising over the old-city!

For more info...

1. Gondola project over Dal

A fringe minority of Pandit community

2009-02-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

No words can reflect my condemnation and denouncement of the tragic 250 deaths of Pandits that took place during the start of the insurgency in Kashmir. But it seems some unscrupulous members of the Pandit community want to copy the "success" of the zionist propaganda relating to the holocaust according to which they transformed the sad and tragic deaths of 300,000 Jews (alongwith the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Romas and other minorities in Nazi Germany) into a figure of six million Jews killed (Click here for context); which they use to justify their occupation of Palestine and ward off any criticism for their treatment of Palestinians. Similarly, some dishonest and unprincipled members of the Pandit community want to reinvent facts by not only claiming that a "genocide" had taken place in Kashmir against the Pandits, but one Mr. Raina writing in the Asian Tribune even deceives his readers by claiming that five lakh Pandits were killed in this "genocide". These are his exact words:

"If Omar has a proposal to set up a “ Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to investigate custodial killings, torture etc, he must also probe the circumstances which led to the genocide of five lakh Kashmiri Hindus and forced them to leave their ancestral land of birth. No government can survive if it continues to be Kashmir-specific." Click here to read the whole article

This sort of propaganda does not help anyone. I have nothing but the highest respect and regard for the Pandit brothers and sisters, and am fully aware that unconscientious reporters such as Mr. J.N Raina are a fringe minority in the Pandit community. I hope other people from the Pandit community speak out against these lies being propagated on their behalf.

Here is the defnition of the word 'genocide' according to the webster's dictionary:
[genocide: noun
systematic killing of a racial or cultural group]

It would be very unlikely that Mr. Raina is ignorant of the meaning of the word genocide to use it so recklessly. Everyone keeping abreast of the news knows that the first images that come to mind when someone refers to the word genocide are the killing fields of Rwanda, or the Serbian extermination of Bosnian muslims; therefore, first of all, to thoughtlessly use this word for the 250 Pandit deaths is unjustifiable (which are sad and tragic nontheless); secondly, to brazenly lie that five lakh Pandits were killed is unforgivable by any standards, given that in reality 200,000 Kashmiri muslims have been killed, tortured, maimed and victimised by the Indian troops thus far.

For more info..
1. Debate about Pandit exodus
2. Asian Tribune article

Fragmented voices of Kashmir

2009-02-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

It is very disheartening to see so many different voices of freedom in Kashmir seeming to convey the same message and yet frgamented in their choice of path to reach that goal. Take Hurriyat for instance. I believe they have very noble intentions and yet because of internal disagreements within the constituents, they are a fragmented party with different ideologies trying to compete with each other to gain an upper hand. I also believe that all different organisations who think they best represent the aspirations of the people of Kashmir should learn to get along. This, they can achieve by learning how other parties function in different parts of the world. Inspite of all the bad things that can be said about American democracy, we can all learn a thing or two from them about unity, loyalty and sacrificing personal ambitions for the greater good.

The most publicized presidential campaign in history taught us something about how the political parties work in the US. There are so many different ideologies and different political views represented in each of the two parties that rule America. Yet, members and leaders of both parties learn to get along and sacrifice their own political ambitions for the furture of their respective parties. Take for instance Hillary Clinton who spared no effort in painting Obama as a muslim closet-terrorist, and yet after she lost to Obama in her bid to lead the Democrat party, she conceded and offered him her full backing and support. She even advised her supporter to do the same. Contrast this with how politicians work in Kashmir. Had the same thing happened in Kashmir and Hillary were a Kashmiri politician with ambitions to lead a party, and had lost in a similar fashion, not only would she have showered her opponent with the choicest insults, she would have split the pary, rebelled, and formed her own faction of the party called Decomcrats(H) - in typical Kashmiri style. Everyone of us knows this is true with the obvious example of Hurriyat (G) and Hurriyat (M). Only time will tell whether we will have other Hurriyat factions in the future with yet more suffixes attached to them so we can tell them apart.

What I do not understand is why we need multitudes of different parties with as many different ideologies when each and every one seems to be working towards the same goal? Why not just have an election, a debate and let members of each little party choose who is the best person to lead the movement. After this election, all opposition leaders who lost should keep their views to themselves and support the leader who is chosen.

Here are some synonyms of unity: consensus; solidarity; unification; agreement and alliance. All these words seem like alien while describing the different organizations vying for the support of the people of Kashmir, even though in reality each has a small segment of population backing them up. It seems we never learnt from childhood fables about the bunch of sticks which are harder to break when you tie them togther.

More edits later ...keep checking back

Omar Abdullah's other blog discovered

2009-02-01T13:45:00.000-08:00

I just learnt that Omar Abdullah had started another blog after he quit the one on the NC website. (Click here to visit the blog) The blog is called "A voice from Kashmir".

To be honest, the only reason to have a post regarding this erstwhile unknown blog of Omar is - curiosity. No matter how much we try to ignore Omar Abdullah, he remains the most powerful man in Kashmir with the power to have either direct or indirect influence on the lives of each and everyone of us by a mere stroke of his pen. Aspects of our life such as dealing with the trigger and baton happy CRPF on our streets, beating the omnipresent traffic chaos, settling in with the heaps of garbage, litter and packs of stray dogs lining our streets or even coping with the most corrupt petty officials the state has ever witnessed.

This blog is about my observations of day to day life in Kashmir, and I cannot think of any aspect of a Kashmiri's life at present which is not affected in one way or the other by bad government policies. Bad policies that have resulted in filthy surroundings, pollution, traffic chaos, corruption, unemployment, and even oppression and torture. All these are either the burden or responsibiliy of the government of the day to rectify. This government is currently headed by Omar Abdullah, and granted Omar has inherited these problems and cannot be blamed for causing them; but he has taken it upon himself to succeed where his predecessors failed; therefore any information about the person who has such a profound effect on our daily lives and how he intends to rectify these wrongdoings by his predecessors is soaked up by people like a dry towel soaks up moisture - I am no different.

The reason for being curios about information reminds me of a saying by a wise person: "Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you: you must acquire it."

Thankyou Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan

2009-01-30T12:33:00.000-08:00

All leaders of muslim countries could take a few lessons on how to build up courage and stand up for what is just and right. The prime minister of Turkey Mr Tayyip Erdogan is a brave man for speaking up for the Palestinian people and storming out of the Davos' World Economic Forum, Gaza session. At the session, the Israeli president Shimon Peres was allowed 25 minutes to spew his justifications for slaughtering 1200 Palestinians; whereas, when it was Mr Erdogan's turn to speak, he was asked to stop after a mere 12 minutes because he spoke the truth, which the moderator did not like. The moderator is a pro-Israeli correspondent based in the US.

In his own words, Mr. Erdogan said to Peres, "When it comes to killing you know very well how to kill. I know very well how you killed children on the beaches." (Watch the video here)After the moderator cut off his mike and insisted that the Prime minister's time is up, Mr Erdogan did the right thing and stormed out of the session - stunning everyone present there.

This is remarkarble considering Turkey is one of the most moderate of the muslim nations. The condemnation of Israeli genocide against Palestinians runs deep there as well. I wish the pro-India parties take a clue from all this and start speaking against Israel whenever they pretend to represent Kashmiris anywhere.

For More info..
-Video of the event
-Hurriyet News Turkey

Petition to UK parliament

2009-01-29T08:39:00.000-08:00

As we know, the recent statements by Mr Miliband has brought the Kashmir issue at the forefront of Indo-British relations. India tried to whine its way out of being held accountable for its misdeeds in Kashmir by yelling and shouting but Mr Miliband stood firm and restated his correct belief that the Kashmir issue needs to be resolved for political stability in South Asia. We should not lose this opportunity to keep the momentum going in bringing the Kashmir issue on the table of discussions of all major powers in the world. British citizens and residents sympathetic to the Kashmiri cause can help us immensely by signing the online government petition which is on the official website of the Prime Minister of UK. The purpose of the petition is that the Kashmir conflict will be debated in the UK parliament, something that the Indians will fight tooth and nail against, because their excesses and atrocities against us will come out in the open and the world will be made aware of these war crimes against us. Please visit the site and sign the petition. (Click here to visit the petition)

Request to other site owners: Please link this petition to your blogs.

For more information...

- Petition site on #10 Downing website

-Topic discussion on Kashmir Forum

-David Miliband's blog

Urdu is an alien language

2009-01-27T13:23:00.000-08:00

Have you ever observed how the pronunciation of Kashmiri words is deliberately changed when they are mentioned in Urdu or even Hindi. The most common form is to end the Kashmiri words with an extended vowel. As if our Kashmiri language doesnt deserve the respect to leave the pronunciation intact. Take for instance the names of places when mentioning them to non-Kashmiri speakers. Every hot-blooded Kashmiri knows that it is Navvyut, and not the alien sounding 'Nowhatta' as the pronunication is changed in Urdu. Or even when the pronunciation of the names of things is changed such as 'Goor' becomes 'Gooroo' (milkman). These are the formally used names. What is even more foolish sounding is the variation perpetrated by non-speakers of the urdu language. They attempt to add an "oo" on every Kashmiri word to make it sound as though it were an urdu word; for instance, "csott" becomes "csottoo" (bread), csochworr (bagel) becomes csochworroo or even "thool" becomes "thooloo" (eggs). I have no clue how suffixing an "oo" at the end of a Kashmiri word will transform that word into an Urdu word or how it will make the slayer of the Kashmiri language sound more sophisticated.

Remember Remember The Fifth of November

2009-01-25T19:09:00.000-08:00

Remember, Remember
The Fifth of November
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot

So the poem goes remembering a man named Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the British Parliament on November 5th 1605. Here is a link to the poem from a movie that used this poem as their central theme (click here). The people loyal to the king hijacked this day and say that this day is celebrated to remember the foiling of the plot to bomb the parliament, when in reality people celebrate it for Guy Fawkes. In the movie, the masked man ends up blowing up the parliament, to protest what he sees as authoritarian rule and lack of freedom.

I am not going to end up sounding like an entertainment magazine, but the reason why this movie came to mind is that I was reading the news in the local GK that the people of Arigam, Bandipore were protesting against the Army orders that the local residents are prohibited from venturing out of their homes at night.

Reminds me of someone who was upset about the unwritten rule of the army that people cannot use torches at night and instead have to use lanterns. That was only eight months ago. I wonder what their opinion is about this rule now that they are is in a position do something about it! (click here to read the GK news story about this)

In a different part of Kashmir, in the village of Handwara, people wanted to commemorate their own remembrance of the 21 unarmed protesters who were killed exactly 19 years to the day on Jan 25th 1990. They might not have a catchy poem to remember their brothers and sisters who were brutally killed by the BSF, but all they want is to build a memorial on the spot where the BSF mowed down those 21 unarmed protestors. To add salt to injury, a CRPF bunker has been erected right at the very spot of the carnage. (read the story here)

Government huts are useless

2009-01-24T06:57:00.000-08:00

A bizarre story that caught my eye today was the case of a minister slapping a fisheries department officer for not allowing him to use a government hut. This is one of those things that I fail to understand. Why does the government require so many luxurious huts, which are spread all over the state, and have overtaken the whole Zabarwan mountain including all of Chasmashahi.

Imagine all the state resources used to maintain these huts. The government will be quick to justify these palatial huts by claiming that the officials utilize these when they visit different districts or officials visiting from other states in India use them. Why cannot the government officials who use these huts stay in hotels instead? The government can pay for those stays, and just might end up putting in a few more rupees into Kashmir's economy.

They keep complaining about unemployment and a stagnant economy. If the government keeps offering free palatial housing for their good-for-nothing officials, why would the local residents even consider being entrepreneurial and opening up motels. Would it not be a prudent idea to lease these hundreds of thousands of huts to unemployed youth for a certain period, say ten years, and let the youth earn some money by renting them out. I am sure the officials and ministers would not like this idea!

Everybody and their hens

2009-01-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

Looks like everybody and their hens are inundating the blogosphere and the local newspapers with their 'pearls of wisdom' about what Omar Abdullah should be doing. (I must digress and confess that the correct expression is "everybody and their dogs", but then not many people have dogs as pets in Kashmir therefore hens would be a better word choice for conveying my sarcasm). Getting back to my topic, it is close to 1AM and I had to write this post because it refuses to be confined in my stomach till morning. Therefore here I am typing away when the rest of Kashmir is probably sound asleep.

Now that every one is jumping on the bandwagon to suggest what is wrong with the current state of affairs in Kashmir, and what we can do to fix them, here is my crumpled-up, old-two-rupee-note worth of observation:

1. The traffic in Kashmir is horrendous. There should be one-way traffic for all small roads and lanes in downtown area. (just as an example, the road between Khayyam chowk and Khanyar should be one way going towards dargah; and on the way back it should be one way on the back road through Nowpoor going towards Lalchowk; or people can use the Babdemb road.) Similarly, turn all downtown roads one-way.

2. CRPF crooks should be barred from demanding ID cards. It is demeaning. Only Kashmir police can interact with Kashmiris, and ask for ID if needed.

3. Close down all brick-kilns. They are a major cause of lung-diseases for people living in surrounding area because of dust, and poisonous emissions fron their chimneys. They only provide income to owners, and slave labour brought from outside Kashmir. Impact on local employment will be minimal if at all. But banning the brick-kilns will help the environment and health conditions of those areas. Besides they sit on prime agriculture lands.

4. Introduce modern method of garbage pickup. I think it is time we live like a civilized society and the municipality picks up garbage which is tied in bags or in containers outside each house, instead of piling each mohalla's collective trash into a pile for the local stray dogs to feast on. No wonder Srinagar's stray dogs would be considered the most well fed and healthy stray dogs of the world. Which brings me to the 5th most important pressing issue..

5. Eradicate all stray dogs. They are a threat to the safety of humans. This should be a good enough reason to kill them. It's like someone's house is infested with cockroaches or rats and mice; would they not use all means possible to get rid of the pests? why are stray dogs different.

More later

Butcher of Kashmir, Jagmohan, spews drivel again!

2009-01-18T21:43:00.000-08:00

It seems that when no one is paying any attention to the butcher of Kashmir, Jagmohan, he tries to draw attention to himself by jotting a few lines of nonsensical tripe and emailing it to one of the many online hindutva websites, who are more than happy to make it their headline matter.

In his latest rant, he goes on to berate the current Indian government for not doing enough to chase after the terrorists responsible for the Bombay attack, who he assumes are definitely hiding in Kashmir, because he emphasizes that the Indian government was snoozing when Kashmiri militants were blowing up innocent women and children in Kashmir. I am least surprised that a criminal mind such as Jagmohan resorts to lying to make his point. We are well aware that Kashmiri militants have never targeted innocent women and children; this distinction lies solely with the Indian army.

We are to infer from his diatribe that he is advocating a similar Indian response to Kashmiri militants as Israel's reaction when they razed Gaza to the ground to counter home-built Hamas rockets. He argues that the response of the present government has been too soft in dealing with "Kashmiri terrorism".

He further goes on babbling about nonsensical gibberish which doesnt deserve a response because it doesnt make any sense to begin with, and yet again resorts to lying by claiming that India has been trying to hide the problem of "Islamic terrorism" in Kashmir. Yes, certainly we are to believe that figment of Jagmohan's imagination! On the contrary, India has been trying to hide the true spirit of Kashmir's quest for freedom by falsely branding it as religious fundamentalism.

Amidst yet more gibberish I located a sentence that should alarm all Indians. He claims that the Indian democracy is diseased. By this, we can only deduce that he is advocating hindutva rule which would curtail all democratic rights for Indians. This comes as a no surprise to us Kashmiris. We have known Jagmohan prescribes to this kind of ideology right since our unfortunate fate of suffering through his stint as governor here in the 80's, and the Indian army has been practising his doctrine here ever since. We do feel sorry for the rest of the Indians when Jagmohan and his ilk do again seize power in india.

He becomes delusional by mentioning that the reason why he was sent as the governor for the second time is that he had "built good rapport with the people and bureaucracy"! Jagmohan should really lay off those drugs he has been snorting lately. Next we'll hear him claim that Kashmiris have built a shrine in his memory where they pay obeisance to him every day. His delusions do not end there. He further goes on to babble that the whole reason Kashmiris rose up against Indian repression is that the militants were distributing Islamic literature. He specifically mentions cassette recordings that were being distributed (in reality those cassettes were being sold in Lalchowk, but for Jagmohan, lying is a habit) and translates a "Kashmir's song of freedom". Who could have thought that if it wasnt for those darn cassette recordings, Kashmiris would have never realized we want freedom. Such is the twisted logic of Jagmohan.

So vile is the arrogance of The Butcher of Kashmir that he flatly claims that there was not a single Indian politician, bureaucrat or official dealing with Kashmir who had figured how to deal with the rising anger of Kashmir's population. He goes on to display his lunacy by claiming that, "To meet these grim conditions, a series of firm and innovative measures were taken by me. These included seizure of subversive material, removal of loud speakers from which violence was incited in the name of religion..." These indeed are very innovative measures that no one in India but the genius Jagmohan could think of! Who could have thought of these!

He never mentions his real acts for which he has earned the distinction of being remembered as 'The Butcher of Kashmir', and tries to attempt a quick escape by claiming that, "the constraint of space does not permit me to give here detail of these measures". No need to elaborate on what those measures were; the whole world has ample evidence and information on them. The only time I would suggest to Jagmohan that he not worry about the constraints of space is when he is being tried in an international court of justice for war crimes committed against Kashmiris. He will need a lot of space to defend himself then. The memories of Gawkadal will forever remain engraved in the minds of Kashmiris and we will always remember Jagmohan the way Jews remember Hitler or the Kurds remember Saddam.

For more info..

-Jagmohan's tripe
-Gawkadal massacre

Factually challenged Indian politicians

2009-01-17T18:14:00.000-08:00

It seems that even after decades of bloodshed, the Indian government is unwilling to learn from their follies in Kashmir and acknowledge the facts on the ground by at the very least accepting their responsibilities. One could accurately describe them collectively as being in denial. The recent statement by the Indian foreign minister emphasizes the Indian government's state of denial perfectly. He was responding to British foreign secretary Mr. Miliband's statement that the unresolved Kashmir conflict is the real cause of instability in south Asia, and that India should sit down with Pakistan and hammer out a solution. As we know from Mr. Singh's asinine recital, India was obstinate as usual, and surprised no one by using the worn out argument that Kashmir is an 'atoot-ang' of India, and that the world community has no right to meddle in the so-called "internal issues" of India - even though the well meant advice by Mr. Miliband pertains to Kashmir, which the UN has passed numerous resolutions for!

For more info..

PTI

Slum Dog Millionaire

2009-01-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

Nothing bursts the bubble of imaginary Indian progress than the new movie that came out called "Slum Dog Millionaire". It hits the nail of the false Indian pride right on the head. We have all witnessed the false sense of superiority that uppity Indian youth belonging to the middle class have when they keep harping about how India is at par with other developed nations and that George Bush and other EU leaders do not even go to sleep unless they have phoned the PM of India and sought his advise. This movie exposes India for what it is - a poverty stricken, mean, and unfortunate place to be living on this planet. It rattled the false sense of superiority so much so that even their big movie star Amitab Bachan gave the movie a piece of his mind. He goes on to argue that even the most richest of worlds nations have pockets of poverty. But maybe someone should go and whisper into Mr Bachan's ear that before he goes ahead and embarasses himself before the world audience, and compares these pockets of poverty in devleoped nations with India's astronomical poverty stricken populace, he is comparing a basketful of apples with ten thousand truckloads of apples!. 80% of India's population lives in abject poverty.

For more info...

1. Guardian UK

Different decisions of an independent Kashmir

2009-01-12T19:23:00.000-08:00

The recent Israeli aggression against Palestinians is a prime example of a rogue country such as Israel justifying its blatant terror tactics by blaming the victims themselves. They are able to accomplish this and get away with it simply because of their hold on the international media outlets in countries all over the world including India. If they do not outright own vast media empires, then at the very least they have their henchmen placed in strategic positions who are able to sway the media reporting in their favor. This is no secret or my bizarre conspiracy theory; this is a fact and a quick google of "Israel" and "zionist media monopoly" will gather a few reliable websites that accurately mention the shameless Israeli ownership of the world media outlets.

I have no interest in wasting my time talking about Israel or its media control had it not been something related to Kashmir. What got me started on this topic is the fact that how different the reaction of a truly representative government of Kashmir would have been, had we been an independent country. For starters let me place the most obvious hypothetical question; would we have diplomatic relations with Israel? let alone would the chief of Israel's army ever dream of stepping on Kashmir soil? the common basis for these is India's insensitivity to the wishes of Kashmiris.

India would want Kashmiris to believe that they are as much part of the Indian union as any other state. That the wishes of Kashmiris are as much respected as any other Indian. The facts prove this to be just a white wash, and no where is their blatant colonial attitude more obvious than India's cozying up to Israel. Israel is an emotional issue not only for all the muslims of the world, but for all those people who value human dignity and freedom. Had Kashmir had any say in the Indian union, India would not transform into Israel's largest arms buyer - most of these arms end up in Kashmir to be used against Kashmiris.

If the current government has an iota of respect for the wishes of the Kashmiri people, or even the tiniest sense of solidarity with the Palestinians, it would pass a resolution in the Kashmir Assembly barring all Israeli nationals (tourist or otherwise) from entering Kashmir and prohibiting any Israeli made products to end up in Kashmir. This is what an independent Kashmir would have done. This reflects the wishes of the people of Kashmir. And although this will not in any way alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians, who have as of now lost more than 950 innocent people since the beginning of the terror campaign by Israel, this motion by the Kashmiris will be a symbolic show of support for our brothers and sisters in Palestine. Although there is a next to nil chance of it happening, given the pro-Israeli stance of the Indian government and by extension of the current Kashmir government, and given the fact that there has not been a single utterance of condemnation for the Israeli actions either by the Indian government or the current Kashmir government here.

Please visit these sites for more on Indo-Israel relationship..

1. BBC

2. "India is Israel’s largest arms export market in the world. Sales in 2006 were $1.5 billion.." (The Brookings Institution)

3. Commentary by Indian Hawks in US about Indo-Israel relationship (Harvard University)

Self Censor

2009-01-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

I was reading a few of my recent posts, and felt quite ashamed that I had resorted to the use of crude language when referring to Omar Abdullah. I have accordingly self censored those adjectives in those few sentences; however the main ideas in those posts remain unaltered. Thankyou Tanvir Sadiq for pointing those out. I would also like to offer my sincere, unreserved and heartfelt apology to Omar if those crude remarks might have hurt him or his family; having an opposing political view does not give me the right to drag his personal life into the debate.

The reason for this self sensor is that those remarks do not represent who I am or my convictions. I do not have to resort to mudslinging to convey my message across.

Now that I have self-censored those few sentences, I believe Tanvir Sadiq must be gloating over his belief that I have recently resorted to writing "rot" - as he expressed it. Or that 'Kashmir Crisis' must be having his eureka moment having thus proven that I am a chameleon because I self-censored the offending sentences.

I believe that it is neither. Learning is a life-long process, and if I learnt something today and have the courage to credit the people responsible for that change; I think that is something positive. There is nothing wrong in acknowledging my errors - that is the whole point of an evolving thought process. It does not make me a chameleon, but rather, it makes me a human who is willing to listen, learn and act accordingly.

Here is the link to the rebuttal of the discussion that led to my self-censoring (please click here)

Barkha Dutt performs magic

2009-01-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

Of all the Op-Ed articles about Omar Abdullah in the Indian media in which featherbrained journalists seem to be suffering from some sort of mindless infatuation with Omar Abdullah, Barkha Dutt's opinion piece in the fundamentalist Indian newspaper, The Hindustan Times, cracked me up the most.

In order to save you folks from the agony of reading through her trite write-up, which is bereft of any logic, and laden with half baked assumptions, I will try to sum up the opinion piece in one sentence. She feels that Kashmiri people have all along been cherishing the thought of participating in these elections (which, she adds for emphasis, were the most important in 50 years!); that separatism is a thing of the past; and Omar Abdullah is a reincarnated hindu god in her eyes, who has been prophesized about in ancient Indian manuscripts. (click here to read her column, if you must, but dont blame me for not warning you!)

To appease her new god in Omar Abdullah, she even goes as far as to conjure up imaginary bloggers out of thin air to make her point! She claims that young separatist bloggers were all praise for Omar Abdullah, and even have promised to give up separatism and replace their blog background images with current pictures of a shirtless Omar flexing his muscles (similar to the pictures of Salmaan Khan found pasted on the walls of tea-stalls and dhabas); all this because Omar Abdullah will be the "best administrator ever"(emphasis on "ever" just like young people speak) (read the discussion of real-world separatist bloggers here)

When my fellow blogger from the Kashmir Forum queried about this magical act of her's in materialiazing "young separatist bloggers" out of thin air, Ms Barkha Dutt replied to him by email and claimed that her new god, His Holiness Omar Abdullah, had given her authority to re-invent the definition of the word "blogger". Apparently, in her dictionary, a person could be considered a blogger even if they simply post a comment on someone's facebook page! How silly of us and the rest of the world to think that to be considered a blogger, one would have to have a real-world blog address.

Omar Abdullah's regime commences with same old tyranny

2009-01-07T01:15:00.000-08:00

My next few posts are going to contain a number of old sayings that might sound like cliché but there is no better way of expressing those sentiments. For now, most of you must have heard the old saying, "you cannot teach an old dog new tricks". This saying fits perfectly in describing Omar Abdullah's reign, which we will be forced to bear through for better or worse, for the next six years.

Although there were several reports of attrocities on Kashmiris as usual yesterday, none was as heart-wrenching and heinous as the report of an innocent Kashmiri man named Abdual Reshi of Pahalgam, who was shot dead in cold blood outside Omar Abdullah's home last evening. The poor innocent man leaves behind a young family, including three little children. The innocent man's only crime was to be walking outside Emperor Omar Abdullah's Gupkar residence at 10Pm at night. How dare common Kashmiris even think about stepping on the sacred soil that sits outside Omar's house! Only the Abdullah family, their Indian cohorts, and a few cronies have the right to be walking on Gupkar road. (Please read the full story here ) It will not surprise me at all if the police and Omar Abdullah attempt to cover up this crime by planting weapons or incrminating evidence on this poor man. It's not at all far fetched, infact, I am certain that is exactly what Omar and his Indian masters will be claiming in the next few days. But our common sense has not taken a leave just yet to beleive that a young man of 47 years old, would even consider to single handedly breach the most fortified locality in all of Kashmir.

This poor man probably wanted to meet Omar Abdullah for a job or had some grievance and wanted to share it with Omar because he got suckered into beleiving that Omar truly meant when he claimed that he will be open to meeting with the public. He probably arrived late because the bus that brought him to Srinagar was late! there are so many possibilities. Maybe he wanted to ensure where Emperor Omar's house was so he could come back the next morning and be the first in line to be graced with his majesty Omar's presence. Too bad, that this person's one decision to think that Kashmiris and Indians are equal and can walk on Gupkar road without fear of reprisal from the trigger happy protectors of Emperor Omar, cost him his life. He should have known that in front of the barbaric Indian Army, all Kashmiris are presumed terrorists.

Another incident that should wake up all Kashmiris, who presumed wrongly that Omar is going to change things, is the lathi charge and beating up of Shias who were taking out the Muharram procession. Atleast 150 mourners were arrested and not less than 400 were severely injured. An 80 year old lady participating in this Moharram procession was also beaten up by the police. Omar duped all Kashmiris into beleiving that he will bring an end to the Indian oppressive policies in Kashmir. But how ironic that Kashmiris were taken for a ride. I will not be the one to gloat that the Hurriyat had warned the Kashmiri public that NC and Omar are mere puppets in the hands of the Indian opression machine. Why would their policies be any different than what we have already been experiencing for the past 20 years! (please read the full story here)

If these incidents mark the first 48 hours of Omar taking over the reins of Indian rule in Kashmir, I cannot even fathom what tyranny Omar Abdullah has in store for us in the next six years!

News coverage about Jan 05

2009-01-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

I feel it is quite interesting how the Indian media blacked-out news about the self-determination day protests even when the Turkish media reported about them!

Click on the following links to learn more..

Say 'no' to the fear-mongers

2009-01-01T03:45:00.000-08:00

Isn't it time someone stood up to the fear-mongering pro-India parties? They would like us to be fearful of the 'might' of the Indian forces. These pro-India parties warn us that the sooner we toed the Indian diktat and behaved like subservient inhabitants of a captured colony, the sooner the number of Indian army personnel stationed in Kashmir will be brought down to ease our miseries caused by their unwelcome presence in our country. As if a reduction of a few thousand soldiers out of a million and a half Indian barbaric army would make much of a difference anyways.

They lecture us that the dream of self-determination is unachievable. Another example of fear-mongering; but look around the world. The world is full of examples of similar small countries who according to nay-sayers should never have attained their freedom or right of self-determination or referedum - whatever name you want to call this basic of democratic principles. East Timur, Kosovo, Quebec, Ireland, and yes, the ironic case of India's own independence from Britain.

What does it take to keep the flame of freedom burning in a Kashmiri's heart? A willingness to suffer the consequences rather than surrendering our basic right of freedom. A profound sense of obligation toward the 200, 000 brothers and sisters who sacrificed their lives for Kashmir. And when the challenge is hardest, when the Indian barbarians imprison the entire population of Kashmir for straight eight days, when they lock down the Jamia Masjid for four weeks , when they arrest, torture, and murder innocent freedom fighters just to break our will, and when the pro-India parties are shaking their heads and hoping we will finally cower and join them - to say, "No - India can go to hell".

Join your fellow countrymen and women in observing Self-determination Day on January 5th.

Self-determination day January 5th, 2009

2008-12-31T00:12:00.000-08:00

We haven't given up. A promise was made to the people of Kashmir on January 5, 1949.

THE UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION FOR INDIA AND PAKISTAN
Having received from the Governments of India and Pakistan in Communications, dated December 23 and December 25, 1948, respectively their acceptance of the following principles which are supplementary to the Commission's Resolution of August 13, 1948;
1. The question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite;
...[source: click here]

On January 5th, show that you await the fulfillment of that promise. Observe the self-determination day.

For More information..
1. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's appeal
2. Archive at Mount Holyoke College 1
3. Archive at Mount Holyoke College 2
4. Archive at Mount Holyoke College 3

Why we should be afraid of Omar Abdullah

2008-12-29T15:44:00.000-08:00

Like every other Kashmiri, I used to be curious about Omar Abdullah. About what he stands for; what his values are and what he holds dear. Being that he belongs to a family that has had an unparalleled influence on the history of Kashmir. I will be the first to confess that I never take any event at face value and do my own research on subjects that I wish to form an opinion on. This gives me an opportunity to form a balanced view that is based on true facts and not on propaganda spewed by the state controlled media or leaders having their own agenda. Therefore, I make up my own mind and form my own opinion on issues - not necessarily because those opinions are fashionable at the time.

Readers of my blog will notice that this blog started off, way back when, as having a pro-autonomy and pro-India stance. However, my research proved my views wrong. By learning about India's true nature of occupation and colonization and their nurture of pro-India crooks in Kashmiri politics opened my eyes to their true intentions for Kashmir. We should be afraid of Indians not only because of their outrageous military presence here, but rather because of what their long term goals are to consolidate their hold on our country.

The reason why we should be afraid of Omar Abdullah is that his cowardice and naivety puts Kashmir's future in jeopardy (that is the reason why I had suggested to the APHC that we ensure that neither of the major pro-India parties be allowed to form a government).

Omar Abdullah is someone who cowers into a corner like a coward and quits his blog just because someone posts nasty comments on his blog, instead of being steadfast and have courage to defend one's convictions. Now that Omar Abdullah has declared that the reason he will approach the "Indian" National Congress Party (INC) is that they are a "like-minded" party with a similar agenda, what are we to expect if Sonia Gandhi orders him to pass a resolution further diluting article 370? Will he similarly cower into a corner and grant her wish just so his refusal doesn't make her upset? That is exactly what cowards do and this is a fact and not just my attempt at berating Omar Abdullah or being mean to him - the fact is that Omar Abdullah is a coward unfit to lead Kashmir, even though he was elected in a farcical election. Isn't Sonia Gandhi the one who de-railed the state subject bill back in 2003? It will suit the congress party's national image if they were to further integrate Kashmir into the Indian federation. It would help Congress at the expense of the Hindutva BJP in India's general election.

For this reason, the next government will be the worst in Kashmir's history because both NC and the congress are staunchly pro-India. All abrogations of article 370 have taken place while NC was in power. Also, Omar Abdullah is known for his love of India and his despise of the Kashmiri freedom movement. He has bigger ambitions in India and sees his current stint in Kashmiri politics as a mere stepping stone, because of the fact that he is more popular down south in India than he is in Kashmir where he is perceived as a mere stooge of the Indians.

The facts also support the above views. [self censor by author] Further, his voting record in the current Indian parliament also prove that he is out of touch with the sentiments of Kashmiris. When all the world, both muslim as well as left-leaning western governments are staunchly anti-Israel, Omar Abdullah has never spoken against Israel or uttered a single word to change the course of increasing India-Israel friendship, when the sentiments in Kashmir are just as anti-Israel as they are in the rest of the Muslim world.

Although his election to the Indian parliament is just as farcical as the purported accession of Kashmir to India. For a second let's assume that he does "represent" the few thousand Kashmiris who voted for him. Then why not let the views of the Kashmiris known in the Indian parliament? The reason is that his representation is a sham just as Kashmir's representation in the Indian parliament. The real reason infact is that he is a coward and too afraid to speak against Israel and annoy the fundamentalist Hindus of India who might send him nasty comments!

My appeal to Kashmiris is that we remain vigilant about each and every move that Omar Abdullah makes. This because he is no more than an Indian disguised as a Kashmiri.

A beautiful theory slain by an ugly fact

2008-12-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

The recently concluded elections does not change a thing. Only India, the so-called "democracy" can claim the distinction of imprisoning a whole nation and then to add salt to injury, claim that "free and fair" elections were held. As if the people had a choice. Kashmir is a large army barrack. There are more than 1.5 million Indian army occupation forces here! for what? because most Kashmiris seek Independence by peaceful means? There are no more than 800 armed militants in Kashmir. Far less than the number of underground gangs in any other Indian state. So why have this outrageous presence of occupation forces here?

To illustrate my point, here is what the Indian colonial master of the "Kashmir" police had to say, "The number of militants operating in the state has fallen below 1,000 for the first time. It is 808, including 577 locals and 231 foreign militants..." (Source: The Telegraph)

The Indians are just fooling themselves. Their media is giddy about the current turnout in rural Kashmir as if that is the end-all for the freedom movement. As if they are suffering from amnesia and cannot remember that just six months ago Kashmiris were out on the streets unanimously voicing their demand for freedom from India.

As if the 40 unarmed protestors who were killed will ever be forgotten by the Kashmiris. What would have had a shred of legitimacy to the outcome of these elections is if there were no Indian forces to coerce people into voting. Their mere presence makes a mockery of any democratic system.

Blackmailing Kashmiris into participating in farcical elections is not going to fool anyone. We have witnessed the dilapidated condition of our civic amenities and one can only draw comparisons with what is happening in Gaza. The Israelis keep holding the Gazans hostage by blocking the Gazan's only road to the outside world, thus preventing any basic necessities such as food, medicine and fuel from entering Gaza. Similarly, the pro-India parties blackmailed rural residents into voting by threatening that the development of their villages is on the line if they didnt vote. For rural Kashmiris, it was a choice between getting basic necessities such as proper drains, water connections, and roads so he can get his produce to the markets. Does that mean he has any affection for the occupation forces or India? Indian editorial journalists can keep dreaming.

Open letter to Mirwaiz Omar Farooq

2008-12-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

I feel that I owe an explanation for suggesting that people get out and vote for independent candidates in the current farcical elections held by the occupation Indian forces in Kashmir. As I have emphasized numerous times in my earlier posts, we should not be constrained by self-imposed boundaries in seeking out alternative routes to reach the cherished goal of self-determination for our people. Boycotting the elections only makes it easier for the occupiers to "legitimize" their occupation in the international arena. It should be our goal to make it as hard as possible for the Indians to gain any semblance of legitimacy of their illegal occupation and expose the true nature of their absurd governance here. Voting for independent candidates will effectively dent their one and only absurd argument they keep harping about when confronted by the world community about their promise to hold a plebscite in Kashmir. As we are aware, their claim is that there have been numerous state elections in Kashmir, and therefore kashmiris have time and again sent pro-India politicians to the assembly, which thus is a reflection of the wishes of the people of Kashmir. It is time for us to play their games and call their bluff.

- It will show our true power and unanimity of the wishes of the wider populace who can disrupt the outcome of elections held by India.
- It will make the Indian intelligentsia rethink their role and approach in Kashmir.
- The absurdity of the Indian governance will be exposed.
Here is what the plan would be like:
a.)A coalition government is formed with most independent canididates cooperating to form the government.
b.)Most independent candidates vote to sever ties with India.
c.)The Indian government wastes no time in dissmissing the new government.
d.)President's rule is imposed.
e.)India's argument and standing in the world arena is shattered.
f.) India holds another set of farcical elections. The same results are repeated...
g.) Our claim is brought forth before the International community. After all how far can the Indians justfy repeatedly dissmissing an elected government who were elected by their own electoral system?

I am fully aware that legitimizing the elections by the Hurriyat has moral implications. It will be as though the Hurriyat will be caving in and compromising the high standards that it has held thus far. However, what I am suggesting is strategical moves to make India's worst nightmare come true.

Hurriyat definitely does not have to participate in the elections. However, every true Kashmiri can disrupt the predictable results of the elections if a call is given by Hurriyat to ensure that no pro-India party wins a single seat in Kashmir. I cannot emphasize enough how beneficial this message will be to the movement.

If an appeal is made by the Hurriyat to the people of Kashmir that people not necessarily boycott the elections but ensure that not a single pro-India party is sent to the assembly; that message will resound greatly with the people of Kashmir and they will understand the wider implications of this call. This call has to be given without indentifying the independent candidates - people are smart and will know whom to vote for. They are also smart to not succumb to the predictable propaganda unleashed by the pro-India parties who will waste no time in falsely accusing the Hurriyat of selling their souls to "Delhi".

Here is today's GK and the story about the NC candidate from Khanyar "Ali Mohammad Sagar". As we know, this imbecile was the home minister in the previous National Conference government. Do we want him to again claim that the people of Khanyar elected him?

“Many pockets of this constituency will observe boycott, but that is unlikely to hamper Sagar’s victory.....” he added. The senior NC leader has won the seat twice, in 1996 and 2002. Like many other city constituencies, there was less voter turn out in Khanyar constituency in 2002. Sagar then had only one candidate Mushtaq Ahmad of Congress against him. According to the official statistics, out of the total 72,495 voters, 3056 had exercised their franchise, out of which 2868 had voted for Sagar while Mushtaq received 127 votes. Sagar therefore won by a margin of 93.84 percent. Similarly, in 1996 elections, officials say there was 12.79 percent voter turnout in the constituency. .."

Omar Abdullah

2008-12-18T17:08:00.000-08:00

How ironic it is when Omar [self censor by author] accuses others of being "Indian" agents, when he himself is one of their biggest advocates. I dont know but someone must really break Omar's bubble and announce it to him that when Kashmiris talk about India, it is him who we refer to. He is the Indian puppet in Kashmir.

Talk about duplicity.

He is a so called Memer of the Indian parliament, and yet he talks about the "Indian machinations" by the so called "people in Delhi" to "divide" kashmiris in the current assembly elections. Maybe he thinks Kashmiris are too stupid to see through his lies and desperation.

Wake up Omar, your days of fooling Kashmiris are over.

Beating the Indians in Their Own Game - Vote for Independents

2008-12-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

It is with quite pleasure that I am announcing that our strategy of messing up Indias alternative to granting us our right of self-determination is working.

As many promoters of our cause have announced, we have to beat the Indians at their own game.

In the ongoing assembly elections, please get out and vote for independent candidates.

Under no curcumstances should either National Conference, PDP or Congress be given the opportunity to claim that they represent Kashmiris.

Under no circumstances should Omar Abdullah win in Ganderbal. If we boycott, his few supporters will come out and give him an opportunity to claim that "the people of Kashmir" voted for him. Same is the case with his father who is contesting from Hazratbal/Sonwar.

It makes more sense to vote for independents.

Let's all beat the Indians in their own game!

Stop Omar Abdullah

2008-11-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

Of all the politicians in Kashmir, Omar Abdullah scares me the most. [self censor by author] He went to Haridwar to seek the blessings of his Godfather and Guru "Shri" Dayanand Pandey (his photo to the right), who incidentally has been implicated in bombings in malegaon. [self censor by author].

As Kashmiris, we have to leave no stone unturned to reach our goal. In my opinion, we have to strategically seek out what our move should be now that the elections are being held. Even though nothing can replace our right of self-determination, here are some strategic actions we can take and think about:

1. Boycotting the elections will result in the few hundred supporters of the big pro-India parties going to the polls and therefore these parties will end up in the assembly anyways.

My suggestion is that we seek out independent candidates from each constituency and vote for them just to defeat NC, PDP and Congress from forming the next government. This is a strategy to throw off the current parties.

Ofcourse boycotting will also work and send out the message, but it hasn't worked till now and will probably not work yet again. It will end up sending either the useless PDP or the worthless NC back to power for six years , however, voting for independent candidates will punish these parties for selling off Kashmir time and again.

On this blog it has been my intention to think about alternative strategies for seeking our goal of gaining Independence, this has been one of those suggestions.

Terrorist Attack in Bombay Unforgivable

2008-11-28T10:11:00.001-08:00

Dear friends and well wishers.
I have been away trekking between Kistwar, Anantnag, and Poonch and meeting with old friends over there. It is quite a challenge trekking in the cold and only Kashmiris are capable of doing this; the Indians would quickly freeze their limbs out there - they dont suit in this climate. I will post pictures of my trek very soon.

Having said this, I would like to offer my deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of the terrorist attack on civilians in Bombay. I strongly condemn this heinous terrorism and wanton disregard for human life. The perpetrators do not represent Islam and will have to answer for their deeds before the Almighty for extinguishing more than 200 innocent lives in Bombay. This action is unforgivable and again I feel the deepest sorrow for the families of the victims. In Kashmir we are on the receiving end of similar terror unleashed upon us by the Indian Army therefore we can relate to the loss of the families of the victims of this terror attack.

I'll be Back

2008-10-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends ,

"Everything clever", someone rightly said, "is not always art" ! Ditto for many comments that I could publish and some which were too grose to find a place on my blog. My friends did a good job in a bid to attempt a detour and side-step the issues raised in my last three posts. But what is attempted must be sustained. And I will endeavor to follow along the path I have chosen. As I read many a lackadaisical outburst on my I-phone, I am unable to respond off hand, for I am constrained by my need for brevity. But I assure all my honourable friends of an apt reply - line for line - befitting the acumen, comprehension (indeed common sense) and sagacity of all the commentators. No wonder form, rather than substance, seems to matter to people like them.

Dear friends i am awfully busy these days , for my personal and professional reasons but your reply follows - and trust me I won't disappoint.

Thanks for all your concern about my well being.

Best Wishes

Psyc-Ops: Introducing a third religion in the Kashmir Valley

2008-09-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, I would like to apologise for my absence, but I had some important matters that needed attention. I appreciate the concern shown by many readers about my well being, and I would also like to assure that I am in good health and safe out of harms way. As of now, the Indians have no clue who I am and that is keeping me safe.

This post is going to be in continuation to my earlier post and will be full of grammatical and spelling mistakes; so please bear with me for a few days after which I will iron out the errors to make it easier to read.

What I would like to address on this post is the topic that I briefly touched on in my earlier post and that was my argument that the Indians are so desperate that they have resorted to cheap tricks to gain an upper hand in a conflict that they are clearly losing. They are doing this without regard to the long term repurcussions that their actions might have. By brazenly supporting and encouraging active evangelical missions in Kashmir, the Indians have clearly stooped to a new low to break the spirit of our freedom movement.

The reason this active prostylisation by evangelical Christians is mean-spirited and duplicitous is that they preach their religion in the guise of being non-government aid-workers. These devious people go to various villages around Kashmir with the active participation of Indian government officials and set up small centers where they assure the local villagers that they will be taught skills to improve their entrepreneurship skills and learn new crafts. Soon these deceitful evangelicals start by asking the villagers that it is customary to sing the Christian "lord's prayer" before each teaching session; which within a few weeks leads to them being bomabred with stories from the bible.

These villagers are warned that if they want to continue with the lessons, they have to keep saying the phase "praise the lord" every time they have a question to ask these crafty evangelical teachers. Soon they are also given an Urdu version of the bible to take home. They are advised to keep the book a secret and not to talk about it with other members of their families.

Many villagers that I spoke with also confessed that there is very little "new skills" that they learn in these centres and all it is a Christian conversion centers. How deceitful of these evangelicals and of the Indians to propogate this kind of dishonesty. Preying on poor people who want to learn a new skill and then propagate their religion this way smacks of evil that is incomprehensible.

The reaoson why propagating this kind of deception helps the indians is that it will divert the attention of KAshmiris who unitedly are fighting the Inidan occupation to infighting and civil war which will greatly help the Indian cause. They wnat to replicate what is happening in Israel and Iraq because the civil wars in those occupied territoreis takes the heat off the occupiers. In Iraw we saw how the sectarian war between Shia and Sunni, which was greatly encouraged by the US effectively took the fight between US and Iraqi fighters to a civil war between Iraqis themselves. In Palestine we saw how the infighting between Hamas and Fatah, which was orchestrated by the Israeli forces themselves, greatly helped them consolidate their occupation.

Similarly, India's attempts to foster hatred between Shias and Sunnis of KAshmir have been met with miserable failures all through the years. They tried to replicate what is happening in Iraq because that would take the heat off the Indian occupation forces here as the Kashmiris would be busy killing each other - so they reasoned; thank God they were proven wrong.

Considering the world sceanrio at the moment, Indias intelligence community, who are increasngly being Israel's lackeys in world affairs, and are their biggest arms purchasers, have been getting advise from them about how to deal with the Kashmir-thorn-on-their-side. It appears that Israel have given them this ill-advise of actively propagting the Christian evangelcials so that any response from Kashmiris would have the desired anti-muslim affect in the western nations, who have been warming up to the idea of an independent Kashmir lately.

A civil war in Kashmir is what India desires in Kashmir and with Israel at their side, it seems that they will leave no stone unturened in their wish of turning Kashmir into a hell.

Psyc-Ops: Exposing India's Psychological Warfare in Kashmir

2008-09-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

This post is going to ruffle more than a few feathers in the Indian intelligentsia as it attempts to expose their hitherto classified techniques used in Kashmir. The context of this topic is the much used technique of "Psyc-Ops" (short for Psychological Operations); a warfare technique used against the enemy to break their will and to gain the upper hand in a conflict.

I came to know about these Psyc-Ops used by the Indians through my research work and by speaking with reliable sources. The objective of these operations is very simple - to take away the main reason of Kashmir's quest for freedom: our identity. The main focus areas that the Indian Inteligentsia seem to be targetting are the areas of rewriting our ancient history; undermining our language and culture; and introducing a third religion in the valley.

I have written briefly about our history of the beginning of foreign occupation of Kashmir in my last post. Here, I will try to elaborate on how the Indians would benefit by rewriting our history to suit their wider agenda of portraying Kashmir as being part of the ancient Indian cultural mosaic. There is no smoking gun or irrefutable source of Kashmir's history that proves we were ever part of any Indian Kingdom in ancient times. Many of these claims are based on a book called "Rajatarangini". This book was written sometime around 1150 AD by an author called Kalhana. Although the book is a good "story" book, it would be very unscientific and naive of us to base our whole understanding of Kashmir's past on this work of fiction. Rajatarangini is a work of fiction because it has the following explanation for Kashmir's early geological origins; "...the valley was once a big lake (Sati Sar) which was drained by Kashyapa after killing the Demon Jalodbhava who was guarding its outlet in Baramulla...". We can either believe in ghosts and demons and believe that Kashmir was part of some ancient Indian Kingdom; or we can look for scientific proof, which sadly this book does not provide.

The Indians cannot take certain paragraphs which suit their arguments, to prove a scientific point, while disregarding others, such as the sentence above - which proves the book is a work of fiction. That is exactly what the Indians are doing. To base their entire arguments that Kashmir was part of the empires of their ancient rulers will certainly need more proof than mere mentions in works of fiction of the past.

There are no temples or old ruins in the valley that remotely refer to any of the old rulers of India. If Kashmir was ever a part of Chandragupta's or Asoka's empire, then there would have been artifacts or old temples, palaces or monuments bearing thier names. There are none; and this alone proves that these rulers were never able to pass the harsh mountain ranges that separate the Valley from the southern plains.

It suits the Indians to propagate this idea of a cultural mingling of Kashmir with the rest of India. That reinforces their argument that Kashmir was within the Indian sphere of influence for most of its history. Fortunately, this is a figment of their imagination and there is no smoking gun to prove any of their claims.

If the Indians were only trying to re-invent our history for us to suit their malicious designs, it would have been easier for us to battle them just on that front; but sadly, they have to open multiple fronts for imposing their culture upon us. This is where their well thought plan to undermine our language comes in. This area is well thought out as it is the most potent and recognisable trait of a different culture. If they can succeed in killing our language, then 75% of their battle has already been won. Sadly it is in this sphere where they have had some success. I have talked about this in my previous post as well and there is no better example of India's Psyc-ops than the exclusion of Kashmiri language teaching in our schools.

The Indian strategy is very subtle and unimposing in its demeanour. They will always claim that it is the Kashmir board of education that is responsible for implementing the school curriculum. However, this is where their plan comes in which they have perfected in 60 years to avoid detection. A few carefully placed henchmen in the ministry of education did their job for the. Piece of cake for the intelligence agencies to pull off. The plan is that should they have imposed Hindi or any other language, it would have been percieved as being Hindu domination and raised flags, so this is where the ingenious plan kicks in. Their motive is to kill the Kashmiri language; they could care less what replaces it.

They thought that should Kashmiris lose their langauge, there will be very little difference between the wider muslims of India and the Kashmiris. Even now this is their main argument, that should KAshmir declare independence, the muslims in India should follow suit and move to Pakistan. Their argument, therefore would be that there is no difference between Indian muslims and the muslims of Kashmir. They would gradually erode all our separate identity that sets us apart from other people of the subcontinent.

If the mean-spirited attitude of the Indian agencies is not evident from the previous points, their moves to introduce a third religion in the valley just goes to show their desperateness. It is no secrect about the full-fledged support of the Indian governemtn to fully fund and support evangelical Christian missionaries in KAshmir. It is also known that Hinduism is not much geared towards accepting converts, so the intelligence agencies innovate, and invite foreign evangelical christians to do their dirty job for them.

to be continued.....

400 Year Old Freedom Struggle

2008-09-02T03:06:00.001-07:00

It is said that Habba Khatoon, the peasant-Queen and the beloved of the last Kashmiri king, Yousuf Shah Chak, used to wander around Kashmir in memory of her captured husband. Her poetry mourns the loss of her beloved king, and of Kashmir to foreigners and has always sowed the seeds of revolt here.

It took the mighty Mughal army four attempts and thirty years before they could conquer us; and even then they only succeeded because of deceit, lies and trickery. Ever since that fate-ful day in 1587, when the Mughlas finally defeated our army, and entered Kashmir, we have never smelled the fresh air of freedom again. Our nation has been plundered by foreign rulers ever since.

After the Mughals were weakened, we bore the brunt of the Afghan Durani rule, whose governers subjected us to unmentionable cruelties. We suffered under them for 67 long years.

The Sikh rule that followed only made things worse as they treated us more like cattle. Forced labour and unreasonable taxes were the norm. Two European travellers, Moorcroft and Hugel, who visited Kashmir at different times during this period, corroborate our claim, and vividly describe the state of our miseries then. Moorcroft describes how Kashmiris were tied up like slaves and taken for forced labour. Anyone disagreeing would have their throats slit and left on the side of the road. Their rule resulted in Kashmiri muslims deserting their homes and moving to other countries. Moorcroft estimated in his account that in some villages, more than two thirds of the inhabitants had left Kashmir to escape the tyranny of the Sikhs.

The Dogra rule that immediately followed only made things worse as it was the same tyranny perpetrated by different rulers. Kashmiri muslims, who ruled this nation, and were proud owners of lands, who worked side by side with their brothers and sisters of other religions, were reduced to a pitiful state of misery. We were forced to become labourers of our own lands that we once ruled, slaves of our foreign rulers, and beggars once everything we owned was taken by the Dogra rulers as taxes.

If the Dogra rule was not brutal enough, we were made to witness a cruel irony of fate. When we were about to taste the sweetness of freedom after three centuries of seeing our nation being plundered again and again, the Indians had to take it away from us. The Indians, claiming to profess to democracy, arrested our newly elected Prime Minister and so began their oppressive rule in which they have killed 200,000 Kashmiris and tortured tens of thousands more. They have been responsible for killing thousands of Kashmiris whose bodies were recovered from mass graves; and still thousands more remain missing. They continue to subject us to the most unspeakable attrocities everyday. Some claim that the Afghan rule in Kashmir was the darkest in our history, I contend it has to be the Indian rule. Nothing even compares to these cruelties that they perpetrated on us.

This saga of foreign rule continues to this day, and after 400 years of subjugation, we are at a point in history where our united voices may end this spell; we can stand united and say no to foreign rule. We cannot go back in history and repel the invasion of the Mughal, the Afghan, the Sikh, the Dogra or the Indian & Pakistani armies; however we can in our hearts keep the flame of freedom burning. It is the legacy of our brave Kashmiri soldiers who fought the mighty Mughal armies and defeated them three times. It is a testament to the hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris who bore the tyrannies inflicted upon them by foreign rulers, and yet passed on the tales of the grandeur of a free Kashmir to the next generation.

They may think they rule us, but they do not rule Kashmir.

Defending my integrity

2008-09-02T00:52:00.000-07:00

Note: this post has been temporarily saved here.

This is the discussion that I had with Tanvir Sadiq and Kashmir Crisis (click here to visit the main discussion) on my opposing Omar Abdullah.

@kashmir crisis. here is a point by point rebuttal of your accusations:

-I praised Omar after reading his views on his blog. He seemed straightforward at the time and willing to listen to his opponents by posting their views on his blog. At the time, Omar had the courage to speak his mind and listen to his opponents. This is similar to me praising Tanvir Sadiq at this time for having the courage for being different from the pack and making his views known. 99% of the Kashmiri bloggers are pro-freedom, being Tanvir Sadiq would require a lot of courage to speak his un-popular views freely. It is that courage that I respect in Tanvir Sadiq, and USED to like in Omar Abdullah.

-You point out that I praised Omar after he stopped blogging. Timing is irrelevant. Maybe it was the same day I went to his blog and realized he had stopped. Praising an adversary for his courage is not psychophancy. Also, calling it as it is now is not mudslinging. In hindsight, omar showed poor judgement in quitting his blog. At that very moment I wrote what I felt was accurate.

-I will not discuss omar's family anymore, I have already acknowledged my poor judgement when I did so before in my earlier posts.

-the wealth of information on omar's blog was indeed priceless. Altogether there were about a thousand posts from people having varied political views raning from pro-pakistan, pro-independence as well as pro-autonomy and pro-india. why would you have an objection to me praising that?

-you contend that i was out there seeking a mandate from Omar! this view is so laughable that i am hard pressed for words to respond to this bizzare theory. For one, how would my 'psychophancy' on an anonymous blog, with an anonymous name have any bearing on omar's decision on giving me a mandate?

-you list the dates that I praised omar for his blog and then when i started the mudslinging. But then conveniently skip through the posts where i have written about the amarnath agitations, my visit to the villages where conversions are taking place or the fact that omar starting talking about 'indian machinations'. I pointed out that it was a 'typical' politician about face that omar is talking about india when he is an MP. These events had a profound impact on my view of the Kashmir issue and i have mentioned many times that changing my views makes me a pragmatist and not a flip-flopper. I am open to learning and so should every logical person.

-you mention that small kids in kashmir will be able to tell me about the abdullah family treachory in kashmir. To that i have to say that i am not a small kid. I refuse to be indoctrinated by popular slogans.

-omar abdullah was a nobody until recently. I had better topics to write about earlier and that is why there are no posts agaisnt him since i started my blog.

-your writings sadly give me the impression that you want the status quo in kashmir to last for ever. we have to challenge the facts being forced down our throats by being pro-active. voting for independent candidates would have changed the rules of the game. Any one with an open mind can see through what a brilliant strategy this would have been for the separatists. And only people who like to shout others down can oppose this.

-in your latest posts you seem to reveal your true mindset. By calling Tanvir Sadiq a failure, you seem to relish the fact that his is a minority voice on the net. I having said it before and i will say it now, I respect Tanvir's courage to speak his mind on his blog. Even though I absolutely and totally disagree with his political views, I salute him for having the courage to bring forth his views unlike all the rest of us who are using pseudo names and anonymous posts.

finally i would like to add that your last few posts on Tanvir sadiq's blog really opened my eyes. sometimes i really get worried that what if we finally were independent and people with similar mindset such as yours are in a position of power. what would the fate of minorities and pro-indian populace be? would you similarly curtail their freedom and ostracize them? this scenario has to change and i hope i am wrong. I will be the first to voice my opposition in that case.

@tanvir sadiq I have said that i respect your courage to speak your unpopular views on the internet. But that doesnt mean that i will let you go easily or that i will not be harshly critical of you and try to convince you to switch sided and join the separatist camp.

Here is the dilemma though. If you should make the informed decision of joining the separatist camp, people like kashmir crisis will be shouting from the rooftops that you are a turncoat, and opportunist, and a chameleon. Therefore, who is doing more disservice to the movement? It is sadly people such as kashmir crisis. It is because of people such as him that the freedom movementt in kashmir is stagnated. we need fresh ideas, and an open mind.

readers of your blog will liek to knwo that my online interaction with Tanvir sadiq began three years ago when i read his article in greater kashmir. What began with me writing a scathing email to him using adjectives not very different than what i has used for omar, or for that matter what 'kashmir crisis' used to describe him currently - i only used worse. surprisingly, his reply to me was measured and very polite, which thus earned him my respect. I have no qualms in acknowledging that there are knowledgeable and sound minds on both sides of the political spectrum in kashmir. what we are having here is an interaction of ideas and coming to know each other.

if we leave it to people such as 'kashmir crisis' we would sadly keep the cycle of violence, mistrust, and suspicion going for ever. we need a medium for making our views known without being called names or being shouted down.The internet and blogs are such a medium. I am guilty of calling names when it comes ot omar abdullah for sure, but i acknowlegde my mistakes and move on.

with this long-winded post, I would like to add that please do not stop blogging Mr Tanvir; your pro autonomy, and pro-indian political views are unpopular, misguided and speaking plainly - wrong. I do not agree with your views but I will stand by you and fight for your right to speak about them.

Imprisonment of a Whole Nation

2008-08-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

Calling this forced imprisonment of all Kashmiris for the seventh straight day a "curfew" is exactly what the Indian colonizers want the world to know. The world media in all their self-imposed blindfold to the happenings in Kashmir will simply jot down what the Indians want them to. I have been restraining myself in calling this double-standard about reporting on Kashmir as being biased. However, I think it is time to call the world media just that - stooges in the hands of the people who control the media empire. There is no such thing as a free press anymore; not even overseas. I always took this as being fact in India. Their free-press is a sham just as their so-called democracy is. When they start calling this curfew a mass-imprisonment of a whole nation; that is the time I'll start believing there is any such thing as a free-press.

Has the international press even attempted to report about the most horrific of the human-rights violations about which everyone in Kashmir knows about that happened in the last few days? Why this sudden black-out of reporting about these barbaric actions of Indians soldiers. I am referring to the beating of the expectant mother who was beaten by the Indian soldiers while on her way to the hospital. What are expectant mothers to do in this so-called curfew? Post pone their deliveries? These Indian barbarians will not even spare expecting Kashmiri mothers from their ire. A Kashmiri lady in labour was brutally beaten up for violating the curfew. She was on her way to the hospital for her delivery (read the story here). And consider this is only one instance of the terror that has been unleashed on Kashmiris. We have heard about even children were not spared (watch the video here) and were beaten to a pulp. If this is not a colonizer's attempt to consolidate their hold on an occupied territory than what is it? And the world media is an accomplice to these horrific acts for not reporting on these.

I have never been so disappointed by the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries). They have let us down over and over again. What use is this organisation if it cannot use its clout to get us out of this oppression. It is in these times that we should learn from the EU or NATO.

The OIC could help us if they wanted to; there is no doubt about this. Consider for a moment if Kashmir were a Christian country. What do you suppose the reaction of the "christian" EU would be? They would most certainly have brought India to task for these unspeakable horrors that it has perpetraed on our nation. There is no other reason for their silence other than the fact that we are a muslim nation; that explains their indifference to our sufferings. Had we been a christian country, a few economic sanctions from EU, and India would have been on their doors with a beggars bowl asking for clemency - And the Kashmir problem would have been solved just like that. This is what we should learn from the Christian countries. They always look out for one another.

All OIC has to do is to take a clue from all this. Even a threat of sanctions against India would bring us relief. Curbing their oil supplies; cutting off all imports from India; freeze off aid to India. Is this too much to ask for a fellow Muslim country being ravaged by a colonial power like India?

It is time for the OIC to take a leadership role to get a fellow Muslim nation out of occupation. It is legally and morally imperative they do that. The Kashmir issue is not about armed rebellion or terrorist attacks. It is about 40 peaceful protestors demanding freedom who were killed in cold blood. It is about half-a-million peaceful marchers who were terrorized by occupation Indian forces, and it is about 17 million Kashmiris who have been forceably imprisoned in their homes for the past seven days for seeking the most basic of human needs - freedom.

Independence: A viable option

2008-08-27T23:37:00.000-07:00

I would like to start posting my thoughts about the viabilty of Kashmir sustaining itself as an independent nation. You must have already guessed where my sympathies lie whilst reading the title of this article. Inspite of my pro-Independence leanings, I would like to analyse some arguments against this option. I will spend some time writing this, so same as while discussing the Pakistan option, this section will also likely be spread over several days.

I will straight away jump into it, and we all know that should India take it upon itself to practice real democracy and grant Kashmiris the right to a referendum to decide our fate, most certainly a majority of us would opt to stay independent. Many of you must be wondering why I use the term 'referundum' instead of the commonly used term 'plebiscite'. I will digress a little and explain my reasoning behind this.

Kashmiris have to be pragmatic and we have to change tactics as events unfold. The reason why we should change the vocabulary of our demands is that for all practical purposes, holding a plebiscite suggests that we would like India and Pakistan to live up to their responsibilty guaranteed to us by the UN resolutions, which asks that both these countries facilitate a plebiscite to be held under the supervision of the UN. This is all perfect in theory, however, very difficult to implement in practice. To make our demands more viable, we have to present our case as feasable and as being in the interests of all the peoples involved. Any result of a plebiscite would drag all the regions of the state one way or the other - even if they had voted for a complete opposite outcome. It is no surprise that the people of Jammu city and Ladakh would rather be with India. Therefore, this scenario is probably holding back many western supporters for our cause and in pressuring India to live upto its obligation. Keeping this in mind, let me explain why calling for a region-wise referundum would make it easier for us to get the international community to back us in our freedom struggle.

The results of a region-wise referendum for the parts of Kashmir occupied by India would come as a surprise to no one - Only Jammu city, Kathua, and Udhampur and perhaps Ladakh as well will opt to stay with India; the rest of the districts of the the Kashmir valley, Kargil, Doda (including Kihtwar), Poonch, and Rajauri will definitely want to join Kashmir as an independent country; however predicting the outcome of areas held by Pakistan is more difficult.

For one, many put forth the argument that Pakistan would be hell-bent against this arrangement since they have nothing to gain and everything to lose in this re-arrangement. This is a valid point to make since India will be gaining Ladakh, and three districts of the Jammu region, whereas Pakistan will likely lose all territory under its control, should a regionwise referendum be held. It will be very difficult for us to convince Pakistan to even consider a regionwise referundum; however, let me consider both options, first let us assume they agree to go ahead with this proposal.

Let us also assume for a moment that the regions under Pakistan, Gilgit, Hunza, and Muzaffarabad, (all of AJK) chose to join us in forming the new nation. We would most certainly need the cooperation of Pakistan in making this a success.

to be continued....

Forced conversion would not sustain a thousand years

2008-08-24T21:42:00.000-07:00

I have been quite puzzled with what I have been reading on websites that proclaim to be quite unbiased in thier views and yet they have this underying anti-Islamic tone. For one, they keep lecturing Kashmiris that we should accept the untruth that Kashmiris were forcible converts to Islam. They do not provide any historical account to back such a claim or even any source with a shred of authenticity to it. They want Kashmiris to simply accept the fact that every single one of our ancestors was forcibly converted to Islam, solely for the sake of them mentioning it on their hatefilled websites.

It is an established fact that before the advent of Islam in Kashmir, Hinduism and Buddhism were the main religions practiced here. However, these history-distorters fail to mention about the works of Shah-e-Hamdan, Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani or Mir Shams-ud-Din Iraqi . These learned scholars, who arrived from western asia from the 12th century onwards, preached the teachings of Islam, and Kashmiris voluntarily, and overwhelmingly accepted their message of peace and equality. These scholars did not arrive with a caravan of soldiers or any means to force their views on the Kashmiris of that time. History shows us that these are the facts.

Had it been the case that muslims were forcible converts to Islam, then it would be natural that resentment of Islam would have lingered with Kashmiris just simmering within, waiting for an opportune time to revert back to their old religion and the converts would have left Islam the first chance they were given. As we know from history, these chances were provided to the Kashmiris time and again but we are unaware of any muslims reverting back to Hinduism. In 1857, Ranbir Singh, the Maharaja at the time, commenced an aggressive campaign of prosyletisation, to convert muslims back into the hinduism fold. We know now what a big failure this campaign proved to be. We are unaware of any such mass conversion back to Hinduism in the Kashmir valley.

When the enemy fails to win by conventional means, they resort to these kind of untruths and false propoganda. This just shows their desperation - but history does not lie.

Local news channels in Kashmir banned!

2008-08-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

The Indian army today banned all private Kashmiri news channels from broadcasting in Kashmir. This simply underscores our argument that India has no notion of what true democracy and freedom of speech entails, and it simply cherry picks the freedoms Kashmiris can enjoy, while curtailing others which it feels could threaten their grip on the valley. It appears very soon the internet will be their next target.

Rural Kashmiris cannot write! Really?

2008-08-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

I would like to take a break for a day from conitnuing my post about analysing the Independence option for Kashmir and talk about myself. My only intention for doing this is to inspire more students who, just like myself, come from government run public schools to not feel at a disadvantage when it comes to writing in English. I hope this helps more Kashmiri writers on the internet to tell their story.

With an MA in English from Kashmir university I am sure my professors would agree that I was paying attention in some of my classes. Although I must confess that my writings here are in no way intended to be scholarly material or worthy of being submitted as an assingnment or homework. Were I to submit any of these posts as class assignments, the professors would waste no time in chucking them into the closest waste basket.

I do, however, intend my writing to inspire students with a background similar to mine, which is that I went to a government run public school. For the most part, it could be considered Urdu medium (but in fact a Kashmiri medium since most of the instructions were in Kashmiri).

My introduction to English came later. I never went to any of the premier schools in Kashmir such as Burn Hall or Biscoe, Greenland or others in Srinagar. There is also a misconception that closer to home, st. Joseph school or the one in Pattan, the Good Shepherd school students have better english skills than the students of government schools. I find this hard to believe because it is upto the students themselves how much of their time they want to invest in learning a new language. English for us is a foreign language and to master it simply requires time and effort on the student's part.

The reason why I am writing all this is that I would like students from rural Kashmir, and others who attend government schools and have taken it for granted that their language skills are inferior to that of other students who attend private run schools of Srinagar or other parts of the valley, to come out of this self-imposed boundary. It is absolutely untrue that rural students are at a disadvantage compared to the Srinagar students when it comes to learning the English language.

If I can do it, so can anyone else, be they from Chattergul or Pakharpoor; Wangat or Trehgam. There is absolutely no reason why us rural Kashmiris cannot face-off in our language skills with students who come out of private run schools like Burn Hall or Biscoe. Some even go as far to say that most of the students who attend these schools come from rich families and have usually been to other parts of India and overseas, and that is why their English skills are much better.

This might be true to some extent, if we only consider spoken English. Yes it might be true that most of us rural Kashmiris would be at a disadvantage in fluently completing our thoughts in English. This should not be held against us since English is not our first language. What I am trying to convey here is that when it comes to written English, the students of private run schools such as Burn Hall and Biscoe, or the Army School, cannot fare better than us government school graduates, and infact we have a level playing field. I have never been outside of the valley, or been on a plane. To be honest, my only visit outside the valley of Kashmir has been a bus-ride to Kargil. Does that mean that my English should be poor? I beleive it doesnt. My knowledge of world events comes from researching these topics from the internet and from scouring books in the libraries. Does having an informed opinion about a subject come only if you have visited that place? I doubt it does. And I believe that I am able to convey my thoughts in English just as a graduate from Burn Hall or Biscoe does.

With this, my only suggestion to my brothers and sisters is to practice, practice, and then practice some more. There is no such thing as a perfect essay or perfect article that suddenly appears out of thin air. For instance this write up will need atleast three or four revisions to iron out the grammatical errors and make it easier to read. If you do not want to take my word for it, then simply save this on your computer and compare it with another version of it two days from now and you will see where I would have made the corrections.

Back to my original topic of independence, and I hope to have it done by later tonight or tomorrow.

A wrong can never be eternal

2008-08-22T01:18:00.000-07:00

A wrong can never be eternal

A wise man once said that "Whatever is right can never be impossible; whatever is wrong can never be eternal." This phrase so fittingly describes the quagmire that Kashmiris see themselves in for the past sixty years.

I have been trying to analyse with my limited means, the possible outcomes that we should expect should Kashmiris be granted their wish of holding a referendum. In this section I would like to talk about my favourite option: should a majority of Kashmiris choose to remain independent.

As has been rightly pointed out by many, our biggest challenge would be securing our borders. We would be watching four different fronts, bordering four different countries.

Will continue later.....

Analysing Kashmir's merger with Pakistan

2008-08-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

It might seem that my diatribe against a possible choice of Kashmiris to opt for joining Pakistan has been going on for ever. But the end is in sight and I will try my best to conclude this section today. This must come as a welcome news for Pakistan lovers who might be judging my posts as being one sided and unfairly harsh against Pakistan. But please take my word that when I talk about the other two options of either being Independent or joining India, I will be just as critical, if not even more.

We have to be ready to face the consequences of our collective decision, whatever that may be, after the results of the referendum have been declared. Of all the negative scenarios, the option of merging with Pakistan worries me the most. Pakistan had the potential of becoming a role model for all the muslims of the subcontinent; however I would be forgiven to remind us that sadly it has failed all Muslims who sacrificed everything so Pakistan could be brought into existence. Therefore it is upto us Kashmiris to stand up to the podium now and be a role model for the rest of the Muslim states and I am certain we can accomplish what Afghanistan and Pakistan sadly failed to achieve.

As Kashmiris, we have all the ingredients of becoming a successful nation: an intelligent people, good natural resources, and a tourism industry that we can fall back on. Our history might not be as clean as we would have wished for in terms of religious tolerance; however, we fare much better compared to other nations whose histories make grown men cry. Inspite of these differences, these nations have set aside their differences and cooperated to make a success out of their countries. Similarly, as an independent nation, Kashmiris of all relgions and all different sects of Islam would come together and work for its prosperity; what will bind us is our love of Kashmir. We must not let even a shred of religious intolerance creep into our society. Sadly, I do not see that happening should we opt to join Pakistan. As I mentioned earlier, Srinagar is growing in size and very soon we could be compared to large cities such as Karachi or Lahore or even Islamabad.

A big city the size of Karachi would bring with it all the inherent problems that these big cities have to face. Foreign intelligence agents, posing as religious fanatics, and who most often are funded by Israel to sow the seed of discord between religions and between different sects, would make Srinagar their next target to destabilize this region. We will inherit all the problems that come along with being a large city. It might be in Srinagar that I foresee these mischief-makers preaching their doctrine of hate against religious minorites, since rural people are loath to be receptive to these ideals.

Leaving aside religious intolerances that might creep in as a result of us inheriting it from Pakistan, what we should also focus is the effect a merger with Pakistan will have on our economy. Although, for once I am very optimistic in this case. This because Pakistan would open up the whole middle-east to our products. Many point out that it would easier to do business with fellow-muslims than it is to do with Hindus down south. I am not so sure about this reasoning, however, I am convinced that the markets of the middle east would definitely boost our economy which would benefit from lower shipping costs to the rich markets of the whole gulf region. Although this might sound somewhat bigoted, but at some level, Kashmiris on the whole would find it easier working with Pakistanis than they are with Indians. My aim in this blog is to write the truth and I feel this is in fact the truth, although it might not be a very good thing to write about. In the past, this might not have been the case, but the recent events has made Kashmiris very suspicious of Indians and that would be the reason that Kashmiris would find it easier to work with Pakistanis , should it require for us to work together on a project or for commerce.

The preceeding was a rare note of optimism in regards to us joining Pakistan, however, this optimistic view is quickly overshadowed when we consider the affect on our state-subject laws. Would a merger with Pakistan leave us vulnerable to a literal invasion by wealthy "jagirdars" and land tycoons of the Punjab, who will simply offer inflated prices to the rural folk of Kashmir for our agriculture lands. This scenario is very worrisome since after a decision from the plebiscite, and should we opt to join Pakistan, their laws would apply here and according to their laws, there is no land to the tiller act that would protect the farmers. The land-reforms covenant introduced by Sheikh Abdullah in the 1950's will cease to exist. There will be no protection that the article 370 provided us. In that regard, we would certainly find ourselves in a unique position where our Kashmiri identity would be endangered. Ofcourse this analyses takes into account the worst case scenario, and it is quite possible that the Pakistanis would offer some sort of protection should we raise this issue after the plebiscite, however my goal in this post is to present my views on what we could be facing in the future.

We have every reason to be suspicious of Pakistan's intentions. Their political maturity leaves a lot to be desired, and I am not very confident about their steadfastness as a country that would keep their word to Kashmir if we even considered joining them on certain pre-conditions. This suspicion comes from the recent events about the Muzaffarabad road, and yet does anyone know what Pakistan's stand is on the issue of opening the road? I was confided by a very reliable source that during the recent all party meeting held in Pakistan, the issue of opening the Muzaffarabad road came up and the Indian side was in fact ready to discuss the formalities that would have to be fulfilled for making the road available for travelling between the two sides of Kashmir. I was speechless when I was informed that the Pakistani side was adamantly opposed to this idea. More so were the members representing the AJK goverrnment. I am lost for words to comment on such a travesty, if this news is accurate.

After 38 precious Kashmiri lives are lost over this barrier, and then finally we come to know that it's the other side that is unwilling to open their side of the Muzaffarabad road. I will post again to confirm whether this story is accurate but this is from a very reliable source.

It is with this note that I leave for readers to decide whether joining Pakistan would be a good option for us. Needless to say that I have probably only scratched the surface of this proposal. I am looking forward for this to generate a debate where others readers would add more points to this scenario which I must have overlooked or rectify some of my conclusions.

Next I will discuss the issues that we might face should a majority of us opt for remaining and independent nation: and as far as I can tell a majority of Kashmiris, infact, would definitely go this route.

Please check back later tonight or tomorrow....

We have better choices

2008-08-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

I will again pick up where I left off last night and would like to request new readers to please read my previous posts below to get an idea of what I was talking about. I am thankful for the many thought provoking comments that have been posted and I will try to incorporate them somehow into the larger picture about what we should expect should Kashmiris opt for any of the possible choices that are presented to them through a referendum.

The issue that I was considering in the last post was whether Kashmiri minorities will feel safe and secure in a Kashmir governed by Pakistan. While pondering over this issue what I felt was that even though there are sectarian clashes in many districts of Pakistan, we should not paint this with a broad brush and stigmatize the whole of Pakistan. There is a whole community of Ismailis living in Hunza who feel safe enough to work in Lahore and Islamabad, while leaving their families back in Hunza. Although, some might argue that the reason why Hunza itself has been saved from sectarian clashes is the fact that there are no other major sects living in Hunza. This region is dominated by the Ismaili community and there is not a large presence of Punjabi Sunni muslims in this region.

While mentioning the sectarian harmony of Hunza, one cannot deny the horrors that other minorities face in the bigger cities of Karachi, and other cities where the religious minorities live in small pockets of these areas and are often targeted by fundamentalists. This is the unfortunate scenario which might replicate itself in Kashmir should the leaders of these fundamentalist parties and organisations have unfettered access to Kashmiri youth.

Opponents to my argument will rightly point out Muzaffarabad and Murree as prime examples where even though they have been ruled by Pakistan, there have not been any serious sectarian clashes in recent history in these regions. While this is true, it should be noted that these regions have smaller populations compared to Srinagar, and smaller towns and villages tend be more closely knit, with a very good community spirit even though the people themselves might be practicing different faiths or belong to a different religious sect than that of their neighbours. People in smaller towns and villages tend to look out for their neighbours and usually have a good brotherhood compared to the city folk. Unfortunately, when we have to make comparisons with other cities of Pakistan, we have to look at the larger ones such as Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore; and sadly it is in these cities that the worst sectarian clashes usually take place.

I will continue talking about the options in yet another future posts, so please check back...

Fear of the unknown

2008-08-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

I will pick up where I left off on the previous post and that was where I was mentioning about the fear that minorities in Kashmir would have if a majority of the Kashmiris opted to join Pakistan instead of opting for either Independence or India, should we be given a choice in a future referendum. This fear is valid in my opinion considering the sectarian violence that plagues Pakistan. Pro-Pakistan proponents would be quick to point out the heinous tragedies in the rest of India and would be mentioning the Gujrat massacres even before I have a chance to complete my sentence. I would like to repeat that I am no fan of Indian politics and my reason for pointing the sectarain violence in Pakistan is that I am analysing that scenario and comparing it with the other two options of Independence or India.

There is definitely a possibilty that Kashmir could inherit the sectarian violence, and that would be the final nail in the coffin of religious tolerance in Kashmir. Although, the only way this would be possible is if the fundamentalist forces active in Pakistani politics become active in the valley. There is very little fear of that happening considering that similar parties in Kashmir never really had any success in the past when they started recruiting their cadres or when they tried their stint at coming into the mainstream politics.

I am not considering the Hurriyat in this category. The Hurriyat party is a conglomerate of all different parties and even the most hardline of their members, Mr Geelani, is a moderate by any standards. I may not be a big supporter of Mr. Geelani's pro-Pakistan overtures and his inexplicable admiration of all that Pakistan stands for; however inspite of all this, he has certain qualities that warrant the upmost respect from all Kashmiris and that is his moderate tone in regards to religious tolerance. He never called for violence against the Yatris or reprisals for the muslim killings in Jammu. For that, he has earned the respect of all Kashmiris.

I will continue with this post later today as duty calls....

The way ahead

2008-08-19T12:27:00.001-07:00

At this juncture of our movement. It is of upmost importance that we pause and take cognizance of the options that lay before us. We cannot just leap ahead without having full knowledge of the perils that may present themselves. We must not act as naive kids who go for a joy ride after they have found the keys to a car without fully knowing the dangers that are inherent while driving. As I mentioned in my previous post, Kashmiris are no doubt smarter and more knowledgeable at the present time than anytime before. We must not let opportunistic politicians take undue advantage of our sentiments anymore with promises of an overnight disapperance of all our miseries by selling us the idea of either joining Pakistan or India.

The reason why I am mentioning all this is that in my mind there is no doubt that India will succumb to our demands and call for a region wise referendum in Kashmir, where we will be given the three options of remaining Independent, joining Pakistan, or conitunuing to remain with India. I cannot be more certain that India is seriously studying this course of action and is ready to grant this wish to Kashmiris and I see this happening sooner than later.

This is what Kashmiris have all along wished for and we should use this power of steering Kashmir from this quagmire that is 60 years in the making wisely. Not only will this profound decision have immediatte repurcussions, but it will decide the kind of future that we want our future generations to live in. Because we clearly have clear options in front of us about the way we want Kashmir to progress henceforth. We can be part of India or Pakistan, and inherit all their problems; or we can stay aloof from either of the two and maybe develop our own unique set of issues which will be ours own in the making. I would like to analyse the three issues separately and see if my analyses has some weight to it.

First of all let me analyse the issues that we might face should a majority of Kashmiris wish to join Pakistan. Although this scenario is highly implausible considering that only a small minority of Kashmiris in protests actually chant the "Pro-Pakistan" slogans; I have most often witnessed the pro-freedom slogans.

I will not touch on the anti-muslim arguments that hindutva agents mostly use when they try to explain the horrific predicament that Kashmiris will face, were we to become part of Pakistan. They warn us that what lies ahead of us, should Kashmir become a part of Pakistan, is no less than a life of poverty and servitude under the fundamentalist tribal war-lords, who they claim will soon run over Kashmir. This scenario is so far-fetched that it doesnt warrant a careful analysis. I will however talk about the sectarian violence that has plagued Pakistan and which we unforunately might inherit. What I will also touch upon is the land-reforms in Kashmir, whose future might be uncertain should Pakistani laws become applicable here; will we have the same guarantee that article 370 currently provides Kashmiris being a part of India. And finally I will talk about the taboo subject of what happens should the fundamentalist elements in Pakistani politics gain a stronghold in Kashmir.

People might call me biased should I fail to address the fear that minorities in Kashmir have about the prospect of joining Pakistan. Their fears are well warranted and needs a careful examination.

i will continue soon......please check back

Azaadi does not translate to merger with Pakistan

2008-08-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

First of all I would like apologise to everyone for my short absence. I had certain chores on my list, such as joining the protest marches, and visiting family in my village after days of curfew. These chores were higher on the priority list than updating my blog. I am thankful to my dear friend and fellow of administrator of the Kashmir Frorum who agreed to publish your comments during my absence.

I am very perplexed with the statements of Mr Geelani about Kashmiris wanting to merge with Pakistan. This statement should alarm everyone who has fought hard all this long for the right of Kashmiris to decide their own future. Last time I checked the Urdu-English dictionary, the word Azaadi meant Independence and not merger with Pakistan. This is another ploy that politicians with a vested interests have always played with Kashmiris. I doubt it will work this time as Kashmiris have wisened up to these tricks.

Black flags mourn the killings of thirty eight unarmed protestor by Indian forces

2008-08-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

I decided to save the black flag on a separate post of its own to remind us of the sacrifices of 38 unarmed Kashmiris who were killed by the Indian paramilitary forces on Aug 11 to Aug 14th 2008. These brave men were marching toward Muzaffarabad, to force the Indians to open that road, which links the western part of Kashmir to Srinagar.

Intolerance is not a Kashmiri virtue

2008-08-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

If someone were to call Kashmiris intolerant, this label does not stick and comes off like water slides off the lotus leaves. This is because Kashmiris are inherently a good-natured, reasonable and thoughtful people. It is this trustful nature that has been taken undue advantage off by successive invaders right since the Mughal invasion of 1587. Yet we never gave up our tolerant nature, because that is what makes us Kashmiris. We have learnt to adapt to the current circumstances, preserve our heritage, and have become very suspicious of our rulers; but inspite of all this, we never morphed into an intolerant society.

We will debate, argue, and make compelling arguments about why the other side is wrong but deep within us we know that the other person has the right to their beliefs and we feel that it is a part of our culture to protect the other person's right to say and practice what they believe is right for them. I will quote a line from a fellow blogger who once said that in the past when Kashmiris would argue, they would have a heated argument and still at the end of this argument inquire about the well being of the other person and ask him for tea afterwards. This is the same Kashmir that according to the book by Walter Lawrence, had almost a zero percent crime rate when he was stationed here as the Resident Commissioner back in the 1880's. Was this absence of crime rate because Kashmiris did not disagree on issues? I don't think so. It is human nature to disagree on the smallest trivial things. I believe the reason for the absence of crime was that Kashmiris always looked out for their neghbours even though they might disagree with them. The well being and security was a collective responsibilty. This fact just reinforces my conviction that Kashmiris are inherently a very tolerant people who will protect their opponents right to have an opposing viewpoint even if they might bitterly diagree with them.

The reason why I am bringing this up is that every single Kashmiri has a right to their own views - no matter what those views are. The same people who derailed the movement last time might rear their head again in this phase of the protests. I am talking about the people who killed hundreds of National Conference workers - people who were their own Kashmiri brothers. Just because people have opposing political inclinations does not justify them being targeted or harmed in any way. In my opinion, we have to oppose this intolerance with all our might. It does not matter whether a person is pro-India, or belongs to a pro-India party; these people have as much a right to their opinions as any other Kashmiri.

It will do the freedom movement no good if we focus our attention on boycotting or ostracizing pro-India Kashmiris. In every country and every movement, there are always people of the opposition whose political views are awful; but asking people to boycott such persons invites the label of being intolerant of opposing views. Kashmiris should not tarnish their tolerant image by boycotting workers and members of the pro-India parties like the National Conference or the PDP. In this phase of the movement we badly need foreign allies such as the left leaning parties of western nations. If we have to attract these left leaning parties, we have to be very particular about respecting the right of political freedom for every Kashmiri; even though they might be pro-India.

Instead of boycotting members of these parties we should focus our attention on making our voices heard at the international levels and forging alliances with the left leaning parties of these nations. We can do that by emphaiszing our tolerant nature and showcasing our tolerance of opposing viewpoints. If we have to garner world-wide sympathy for our suffering and have to win allies in different parts of the world, we have to learn to accept that there will always be people with opposing views who have every right to practice what they believe is best for them. We have to let the world community know that we acknowledge that a percentage of Kashmiris is infact pro-India, but we have to convince them that a very large majority is in favour of Independence. Further, we have to let them know that the only way we can prove this claim is through a referendum. If we boycott the pro-India parties or should some harm come to the members of these parties, it will do untold damage to the legitimacy of the freedom movement of Kashmir, which will be branded as sprung from forceful hooliganism, which definitely it is not. It is therefore my sincere opinion that each Kashmiri be allowed to practice freely without compulsion their own political views.

When they come for you.

2008-08-15T18:23:00.000-07:00

Perhaps some of you must have already guessed the reason why I prefer not using my real identity when writing for this blog, while others must still be wondering what could be the reason behind my decision. The reason why I feel it is unadvisable to post using my real name is simple - fear for my safety. Fear that my family or I might be harmed in some way. The Indian intelligentsia is taking lessons from their new-found buddy: Israel, and everyone in the world knows the infamy of Israelis in dealing with their critics; somehow they all mysteriously tend to die in carbombs. Therefore, I dread that should my real identity somehow become known, I would become part of the statistics of missing persons in Kashmir. More so, I fear what an effect that will have on my family. If you think this scenario is far-fetched, then you are not aware of an organisation called the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, or APDP. Those young people, whose whereabouts are unknown, probably did not toe the line that the colonial masters in Delhi want us to follow, therefore they are part of the most horrific statistics to be part of in Kashmir: the statistics of missing persons. This misfortune is even worse for the families of these brave persons, because they cannot get a decent closure for their profound loss since they are unsure whether their loved ones are presently being tortured in some interrogation center or whether they have already been killed by these paramilitary captors and buried in some of the unmarked mass graves that are being regularly discovered in the valley. Such is the fear in Kashmir of messing with the Indian paramilitary forces, that people like myself wake up every morning and wonder whether we should really be doing this. Whether all this is really worth risking my safety and the wellbeing of my family.

Some mornings I wake up and feel that I should delete every single word on here and just stop writing about the horrors that India is subjecting Kashmiris to. But then, I would be no better than sheep who blindly follow their masters in the direction they point to. Then I realize what I talked about in my earlier post, that this period is in fact the beginning of the end of the darkest period of Kashmir's history. It is the time when we all stand up and say enough is enough. We all have a part to play in this last stage of darkest period in Kashmir's history. We all have our own duty toward Kashmir and it is upto us to perform that. And it is upto us to figure out what our duty is toward Kashmir. No one else but you yourself know how you can contribute to the prosperity of our beloved Kashmir. I found out what my motherland wants me to be doing and hence this blog. Everyone has their work cut out for them by our motherland; you just have to figure out what that is. But do so in a smart way and keep safe; keep one step ahead of the Israeli trained Indian colonisers - enough precious blood of innocent Kashmiris has been drawn by the Indian paramilitary forces.

In a real democracy, I should'nt have to worry that my writing would upset the powers that be. Some commenter pointed out quite accurately the other day that in reality, the Indian democracy is just a facade. Underneath lay the real demon of fanaticism and fundamentalism that is intolerant of dissenting voices. I do not have to prove these allegations; the facts speak for themselves. With more than 5000 missing persons, a thousand unmarked graves discovered, and countless other undiscovered ones, why would anyone still doubt the undemocratic nature of Indian rule? This is my take on India's so-called democracy, today, on their Independence Day.

Click on the following sites to learn learn more about the mass graves and APDP:
1. Resolution by the EU parliament regarding mass graves in Kashmir.
2. Amnesty International report about the mass graves of Kashmir.
3. Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) website
4. Press-release by European Parliament regarding mass-graves in Kashmir.

Unreliable internet connection in Kashmir

2008-08-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

I apologize for taking too long in approving the comments. The internet connection in Kashmir is very unreliable and I have to wait for my turn at the Iqbal memorial library at the University of Kashmir to get on the internet.

Getting out here in the curfew is also interesting and will make a good topic for next time.