Saturday, June 22, 2019

The impure land – the failed state of Pakistan

On 14^th August, 1947 came into existence a nation, challenging the 5000 years of India’s existence as a nation where every religion, every thought however contrary and diverse was debated, welcomed and allowed to flourish. Even the founder of Jamait -e-Islami Syed Abul A’la Maududi opposed the creation of Pakistan calling it a nation of Muslims and not an Islamic nation.

The history of Pakistan is chequered and the nation although claiming to be land of pure (Pakistan) is full of deceit and contradictions. Pakistan has never been honest in the ideals on which it was created and has been probably one of the cruellest state against the Muslims. The Muslims of the Pakistan have suffered more in Pakistan than in anywhere in the subcontinent.

The Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, that Pakistan believes is the unfinished agenda of the Partition, was the first to face the brunt of ruthless Pakistan state when their army and their backed tribes invaded the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir, plundering the state and killing and raping thousands of Muslims of Jammu & Kashmir. The atrocities of the so-called Islamic army against the followers of Islam and the people they claimed they came to liberate, still sends shivers down the inhabitants of Jammu & Kashmir. The division of Jammu & Kashmir because of the intervention of United Nations, left one third of Kashmir under the occupation of Pakistan. Apart from Pakistan occupied Kashmir, the Pakistan also got to occupy the areas of Gilghit-Baltistan, the remote areas of the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir. These remote areas have seen the worse of the atrocities from the Muslim state of Pakistan. Senge Sering, Director of the Gilgit-Baltistan Studies based out of Washinton DC says “the rights of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan are being subjugated and the combine of China and Pakistan are looting the resources of the region.The police apparatus is mostly from Pakistan. When Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau — an autonomous, federal body ostensibly meant to check corruption, but effectively keeps an eye on politicians on behalf of the army — wanted to open an office in Gilghit-Baltistan, it took over the only centre in the region for the handicapped”. He further alleges that “Pakistani Police are so ruthless that when the taking over of handicapped centre was protested by the locals and the local Law Minister spoke in their favour, a Pakistani soldier grabbed the Minister by the scruff of his neck and led him away. The minister later complained to the Chief Minister about the incident, but the CM said nothing could be done about it. That is how helpless and marginalised our people are.” (1)

In 1970 when the Awami League with large following in the erstwhile East Pakistan and now Bangladesh, won the national assembly elections decisively, the state of Pakistan refused to honour the mandate of the people and imposed martial law in East Bengal. Pakistan always practiced extensive economic discrimination against East Pakistan. Although East Pakistan generated 70 percent of Pakistan’s export revenue, the Pakistan government spending was much higher in West Pakistan and East Pakistan was regularly refused funds even for basic development. After the Bangladeshi started the civil disobedience movement against the blatant discrimination, the Muslim state of Pakistan used the most ruthless and brutal ways to subjugate the Muslims of east Bengal. The Pakistan Army under the direction of the state massacred around 3 million Bengalis. A Muslim state of Pakistan committed genocide against the Muslim citizens of its country. It is documented that General Niazi, the then military commander of East Pakistan had asked his men to rape every woman they see. ‘Iss haramzadi qaum ki nasal badal do (change the race of this community)” (2) was his instruction to his army men. What happened in Bangladesh is now being repeated in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. The Muslims of Balochistan who have been resisting the atrocities of Pakistan have seen killings of Balochis in thousands. While many Balochis have disappeared without a trace, many have been killed publicly and brazenly. Nearly 1,000 dead bodies of political have been found Balochistan province over the past six years. Activists say the figures, point to large-scale extrajudicial killings. Relatives say most victims had been picked up by security agencies. Thousands of people have disappeared without trace in Balochistan since a separatist insurgency gained momentum in 2007 (3)

The role of Pakistan in the Islamic state of Afghanistan has always been of a neighbour who would go to any length to foment and promote trouble. The support to Afghan Taliban, especially the Haqqani Network, has been the root cause the bloody war that has been waging in Afghanistan, result in the death of thousands of people in both terrorist attacks and the retaliatory attacks by the NATO forces. The NATO forces continued to bombard Afghanistan in their pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, while he was hiding comfortably in garrison town of Abbotabad in Pakistan. The Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani recently said “the keys to war are in Islamabad, Quetta, Rawalpindi” – all cities in Pakistan (4) – suggesting the neighbouring country was a safe haven for cross-border terrorist activities.The sly Pakistan continues to soak its hand with the blood of innocent Afghanis, who are overwhelmingly Muslims.

India has the 3^rd largest population of Muslims in the world. Many Organisation of the Islamic countries (OIC), including Bangladesh, Turkey and UAE have expressed the desire to include India as a member to the organisation. Addressing the OIC foreign ministers’ meet last year, the then Bangladesh foreign minister AH Mahmud Ali had said, “A number of countries — not OIC members — have a large number of Muslims as their citizens. Muslims may be a minority in those countries, but in terms of numbers they often exceed the total population of many OIC member countries. There is a need to build bridges with those non-OIC countries so that a large number of Muslim populations do not remain untouched by the good work of OIC. That’s why, reforms and restructuring are critical for OIC.’ (5)

The move has not been liked by Pakistan, the self-claimed global protector and the well-wisher of Muslims of the world. Pakistan has been totally against the move and has thrown many tantrums to block the induction of India in OIC. It even passed a resolution in their National Assembly to request OIC to neither include India in OIC and requested OIC to not even invite the nation with third largest Muslim population as a guest or observer. So much is the love for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent that Pakistan will go to any extent to deny them any benefits they may derive from the good work of OIC.

The hypocrisy of Pakistan probably gets best exposed in the dealing of its all-weather ally China, with the Muslim citizens of China. The establishment of Pakistan or for that matter the entire state of Pakistan goes silent on the treatment of Muslims, their beloved Ummah, in the Xinjiang region of China. The Uighurs, have seen the worst form of religious prosecution, with China denying them even the basic right to worship and follow their religion. As per UN estimates, around a million Uighurs have been detained by Chines authority. The number and size of the detention camps has expanded rapidly since 2016, with estimates ranging from 180 centres to more than 1,000. Foreign news outlets and human rights groups have reported physical and psychological abuse on a massive scale. (6) This gross violation of Human rights, especially of the Muslims has seen zero response from the self-claimed protector of Muslims and Ummah; Pakistan. The leaders of Pakistan who have never shied away from taking the credits of the victorious Muslims rulers from the various parts of the world including claiming the glorious past of Caliphates as the part of their own history under the umbrella of Ummah, conveniently forget the same spirit of Ummah, when it comes to talk about the brutal atrocities on the Muslims of China.

The current Pakistan not only has failed as a nation state but has also failed on the very core principle on which it was created: Islam. Pakistan has clearly demonstrated that a nation state on the basis of religion is a failed experiment and at the best is a creation of a rogue nation and should be lesson to all those who are sympathetic to the killing in name of jihad and for a global Islamic supremacy, ignoring the most important verse from the Holy Quran ‘Killing of an innocent is killing of all humanity’ Quran verse 5:32

By - Amit Raina Twitter: rainaamit

https://wp.me/p1V8Mx-1U

References:

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/senge-sering-highlights-pakistan-china-atrocities-in-pok/article26600135.ece

Khadim Hussain Raja’s book “A stranger in my own country: East Pakistan 1969-1971

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38454483

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-president-pakistan/afghan-president-accuses-pakistan-of-holding-keys-to-war-idUSKCN1PO1U8

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/indias-global-stature-and-islamic-component-help-it-get-oic-invite/articleshow/68145827.cms

(https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/the-uighurs)

Thursday, April 4, 2019

With Crackdown on Yasin Malik, India Has Officially Acknowledged Genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. Yasin Malik and several other members of his outfit have been accused of heinous crimes such as targeted killings, gang rapes, assaults and arson to drive Kashmiri Pandits out of the Valley.

https://www.news18.com/news/opinion/with-crackdown-on-yasin-malik-india-has-officially-acknowledged-genocide-of-kashmiri-pandits-2088481.html

The tweet of Mehbooba Mufti condemning the arrest of dreaded terrorist Yasin Malik and ban on JKLF was a surprise if not a shock. She was defending a man and his organisation that had kidnapped and threatened to kill her sister.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable.” This thought has been most abused by the self-claimed Gandhian, Yasin Malik. The name still brings the chills to Kashmiri Pandits and the victims of his terror acts. He, along with members of JKLF, unleashed terror on the minuscule minority community of Kashmiri Pandits. He and several other members of his outfit have been accused of heinous crimes such as targeted killings, gang rapes, assaults and arson to drive Kashmiri Pandits out of the Valley.

Hundreds of Pandits were killed, raped and tortured in a way that this country had never seen before. The government of the day looked away, giving him and his men a free hand to continue the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits.

With the Farooq Abdullah government turning a blind eye, Yasin and his men dared to successfully kidnap the daughter of then home minister Mufti Mohammed Syed. The kidnapping brought down to its knees the weak central government headed by VP Singh and they released five dreaded terrorists as part of the ransom agreement. The release was a watershed in the insurgency in Kashmir. It opened up the floodgates to the subsequent genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. Yasin and his men were so emboldened that within a few days of the release of their fellow terrorists, they went ahead and shot dead four unarmed Air Force personnel who were waiting for a bus to go to work.

By the end of January 1990, Yasin Malik and his JKLF had ensured that the Valley was bereft of Kashmiri Pandits. Newspapers carried advertisements by terrorists, threatening the Hindus of the Valley to leave in 72 hours or face the consequences. Posters were pasted outside homes of Pandit families with threats that their womenfolk would be kidnapped, raped and converted if they did not leave. As a part of this agenda, Sarla Bhat, a nurse at Kashmir’s premier medical institution SKIMS, was gang-raped and cut to pieces, political leader Tikkalal Taploo, Justice Ganjoo, and the then Doordarshan Kendra director Lassa Kaul — all of them were murdered in broad daylight. The list of killing and rapes runs into hundreds.

The man after seeing his objective of driving Pandits away from Kashmir fulfilled somehow found a way to befool the government and avoid punishment. He declared that he turned “Gandhian” to continue his struggle against India. So enamoured were few media houses with his newfound love for Gandhi that they even called him a youth icon. The government continued to turn a blind eye to his crimes and awarded him with a passport. He travelled to Pakistan with this passport and shared the stage with Hafiz Saeed, the chief of the same organisation that has bled India dry — Lashkar-e-Toiba.

But how long can a chameleon hide his true colours? At a 2009 event on Kashmir in Delhi, Yasin Malik thundered, “Give us independence or don’t hold us responsible if we pick up the guns again.”

This statement violated the basic thought of Gandhian ways of non-violence. Gandhi’s dislike for violence was so severe that he halted the successful non-cooperation movement on the national level in 1922, the moment it turned violent at Chauri-Chaura. But this self-claimed Gandhian continued to wage a war against India, by instigating stone pelting, arson and rioting in 2010. The stone pelting incidents in 2010 led to the death of more than a hundred.

He led the mobs in destroying and burning government buildings and schools and in attacking security forces. The act was repeated with the same impunity in 2016. Yasin Malik, who is part of the infamous JRL (Joint Resistance Leadership) of Kashmir, has endorsed every act of terror by the terrorists of JeM, LeT, Hizbul and other terrorist groups in Kashmir. While protests have been called to mourn the death of terrorists, the same JRL has kept mum on the death of innocent civilians by terrorist groups.

Yasin Malik has always maintained the he is proud of the fact that he took up the gun because without that, the Kashmir issue would not have gained attention. Not even once has he expressed remorse for his actions and never condemned the reign of terror unleashed by other terror groups. In an interview with a foreign news channel, he proudly defended the killing of the air force officers, calling them his enemies. The enemy being the Indian state. This Gandhian romanticises power of the gun, violence and deaths.

In this context, the drafting of the statement issued by Home Secretary Rajeev Gauba, while announcing a ban on his outfit, is welcome. The fact that he acknowledged, “Yasin Malik was the mastermind behind the purging of Kashmiri Pundits from the Kashmir Valley and is responsible for their genocide,” is a huge step forward. It is perhaps for the first time that India has officially acknowledged what happened to us as a ‘genocide’ and we hope this won’t be the last step in exposing people like him and giving us long overdue justice.

(Amit Raina, Spokesperson, Roots in Kashmir. Views are personal)

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Finally government admits that it was a genocide of Kashmiri Pandits

Government bans Yasin’s JKLF, blames it for 1989 genocide of Pandits

NEW DELHI: Continuing its crackdown on separatist elements in Jammu & Kashmir, the Government on Friday banned the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) led by Yasin Malik as an unlawful association for its extremist orientation and violence against the Hindu minority in the Valley.

The ban under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act is on the grounds that JKLF had spearheaded separatist ideology in Kashmir and triggered the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits by murdering members of the minority community in the late eighties.

“Malik was the mastermind behind the purging of Kashmiri Pandits and is responsible for their genocide. The JKLF has many serious cases registered against it. This organisation is responsible for murder of four IAF personnel and kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of the then Union home minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed in the V P Singh government,” home secretary Union Rajiv Gauba said.