Kashmir: Kashmiriyat vs. Islamic Fanaticism

Text of a speech in Geneva at a seminar on self-determination issues in South Asia, in a side-event organized by Inter-Faith International during UN Human Rights Council’s June 2010 session.

The people of Kashmir have suffered immensely since the Pakistani invasion of their land soon after Partition in 1947. India took the matter to the UN Security Council to persuade Pakistan to stop aggression and make arrangements for returning the territory it had occupied. Security Council asked Pakistan to withdraw its forces from Occupied Kashmir within 90 days. But Pakistan has failed to do so till date. The Security Council too failed to get Pakistani aggression vacated. It was India that gave the People of Kashmir the right to self-determination, though it did not need to do so under the provisions of the accession document that the ruler of that princely state had signed to be able to invite Indian forces and help the state fight Pakistani aggression.  The Maharaja of Kashmir was supposed to accede to either India or Pakistan following Independence from the British colonial rule and he chose to accede to India since Pakistani forces invaded his state despite having signed a standstill agreement, according to which Pakistan had agreed to respect the Maharaja’s rule and not do anything alter the situation. Pakistan having violated the standstill agreement, the Maharaja did not have much of a choice and acceded to India.

But since then a large part of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir has remained occupied by Pakistan. Political leaders and other public figures from different parts of Pakistan occupied Kashmir have kept coming to the UN Human Rights Commission and now the Council over the years with their tales of woe, detailing how they have been deprived of practically every human right, political, economic, cultural,  in the areas under Pakistani occupation. But to no avail. Instead of listening to the voices of people under its occupation and mending its ways, Pakistan merely sought to extend its area of occupation in Kashmir by first fighting wars with India and then fomenting cross-border terrorism and secessionism in the last couple of decades, though it had agreed under the Simla agreement to resolve the issue bilaterally and peacefully. This has led to untold miseries and sufferings for the people of Kashmir.

But the greatest disservice Pakistan has sought o do to Kashmir in my view is damaging the distinguishing feature of Kashmir that made every Kashmiri proud, its Kashmiriyat. The state of Jammu and Kashmir had a deeply composite culture, shaped by its mystics, the Sufis and the Rishis. These Sufis had enormous influence on the minds of the people of all religions and were revered and followed by all. Take the mystical verses  of Hazrat Nuruddin Nurani, for instance, which have had great influence in shaping the Kashmiri literature as much as the general mindset of common Kashmiris.   He deals, with a range of subjects, from submission to God to championing the rights of the oppressed.

Author's Note

The Author has been write in the field of Islamic Terrorism & Salafi Islam