KASHMIR IS THE DEFINING ISSUE OF INDIAN IDENTITY

by Subramanian Swamy

I believe that the Kashmir "issue"[1] can no more be solved by dialogue either with the Pakistanis or the Hurriyat[2] This is because the Pakistan army has now a majority of captains and colonels owing allegiance to the Taliban. In another five years, they will reach, by promotions, the corp commander level. We know that the government in Pakistan is controlled by the seven corp commanders of the army. Therefore a Taliban government in Pakistan is inevitable and a jehad against India the logical consequence of the same. In turn the Hurriyat is an organization that cannot go against Pakistan.

Hence India has about five years to prepare for a decisive and defining war with Pakistan and we must prepare to win it. We therefore have to throw out of office in the coming elections all those Indian politicians who crave or preen themselves on being popular in Pakistan by sounding reasonable and secular as also equivocating on every issue. For the survival of the ancient civilization of India we have to win that inevitable war and recover the whole of Kashmir.

I will not blame the jehadis for the coming war. They are after all programmed that way by Islamic theology. I will blame ourselves for not understanding the fundamentals of Islam as propounded in the Sira and the Hadith. It teaches that if Muslims are in a majority, they must rule [Darul Islam], and then everyone else is a dhimmi and a kafir who do not have equal rights of worship. Thus in Saudi Arabia, you cannot even display a picture of a Hindu god inside your own home! When Muslims are in a hopeless minority, then Sira and Hadith urges Muslims to make a deal with the majority and make no demands [Darul Ahad]. In US and Australia for example, Muslims will therefore never ask for separate shariat personal law. If Muslims are not hopelessly in a minority, then Islam directs that true Muslims conduct subversions and act against all human values to leverage their position [Darul Harab] to become of defining influence in the polity and ultimately rulers. We saw this in Kashmir recently when the government was made to cave in on the most humane gesture of allotting land to make Hindu pilgrims feel comfortable while on arduous journey to Amarnath caves. And we have it on the authority of the Chief Minister of the state that the agitation against the allotment was financed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

It is foolish therefore in the face of this reality to expound the banal sentiment that "all Muslims are not terrorists or fanatics". Of course that is true. Or that Koran is a message of peace. May be it is. However, the Islam of the cutting edge of Muslim thought propounded by leaders such as Osama Bin Laden is in Sira and Hadith, which calls on the faithful to wage war against the infidels who cannot strike back effectively and crush them.

The struggle for Kashmir by the jehadis thus is not just for independence. They instead want a Darul Islam there and for the state to become a part of the Caliphate. Hindus are a special target because despite Iran, Iraq, Egypt and other countries becoming majority Muslim after less than two decades of conquest and brutalization, India after a thousand years of massacres, mayhem and rape remained dominantly Hindu. This is a living affront for the fundamentalist Muslim, and in their seminaries and madrassas in Iran and Saudi Arabia, they even today debate and agonize over it.

Contrary to the British imperialist propaganda, Hindus did not just lie down and be conquered by foreign invaders. Hindu fighting spirit had never dimmed even if weakened by traitors within. Periodically Hindus rose in revolt symbolized by the Vijayanagaram empire [which lasted 300 years] or in Shivaji's bravery, or Guru Gobind Singh's campaigns or the Mahratta national onslaught.

Most of us thus remained Hindus, defiant, even if in poverty and misery singing Vande Mataram.[3] This is the true history of India which the fundamentalist Muslim and the British imperialist historians cannot bear to acknowledge.

Accommodation and compromise with Islamic terrorists is self-defeating and suicidal. We have instead to fight back, for which Kashmir is the starting point. Hindu renaissance, long overdue, will be nurtured if we look for an opportunity to seize back the occupied areas of Kashmir, and make the jehadis feel that in India there can only be Darul Ahad for Muslims. We had opportunities earlier to demonstrate that: e.g.,in 1948, 1971, 1999, and 2001. But we let it go.

Hence, let there be no more intellectual confusion about the identity of India as a Hindu Rashtra [Nation], which means a land of Hindus and those others who acknowledge proudly that their ancestors are Hindus. If Muslims acknowledge this truth, then they are welcome as a part of our family. And those who do not so acknowledge cannot be equal citizens in India. Hence, we shall not agree to any more truncation of Indian territory

We have to therefore disown UN Resolutions and India-Pakistan treaties such as signed in Simla [1972] as unauthorized Nehruvian policy blunders. The legality of the Instrument of Accession signed in favour of India by the then Maharaja of J&K on October 26, 1947 has to prevail. Otherwise it will create a plethora of legal issues including what will become the status of the Maharaja if we abrogate this Instrument. Will Dr. Karan Singh, the son of Maharaja Hari Singh, have then a claim to be regarded again as an independent and sovereign King of J&K? In the Junagadh issue, Pakistan had held the Instrument once signed is "final, irrevocable, and not requiring the wishes of the people to be ascertained". That is the correct position. But the Junagadh Nawab after signing the Instrument in favour of Pakistan, invaded the neighbouring princely states, states which had acceded to India. So when the Indian Army was moved by Patel to defend these areas, the Nawab ran away to Pakistan. His subjects were mostly Hindu who then welcomed the Indian army.

Furthermore, on what legal basis can we de novo seek to ascertain the wishes of the people of J&K when the Indian Independence Act [1947] passed by the British Parliament makes no provision for the same? After all it was this same Act which created a legal entity called Pakistan, carved out from the united India. India under the Act was a settled and continuing entity out which the British Parliament made a new entity called Pakistan. Never in previous history there was ever a country called Pakistan. The concept itself was formulated only in 1947.

By what mechanism can then Pakistan today seek to amend or even de-recognise the Act without unwittingly undermining the legal status of Pakistan itself? That is, if the Instrument of Accession is called into question, will not Partition itself be subject to challenge as without legal basis on the same consideration? I raise this question also because in the case of Beruberi in Eastern India, the transfer of that area to Bangla Desh although agreed to, has been enmeshed in prolonged litigation in the Indian Supreme Court because of Article 1 of the Indian Constitution which bars de-merger of any Indian territory after 1950.

Indian army jawans[4] created Bangla Desh out of Pakistan. But despite that, and drunk with their Darul Islam status, the Bengali Muslims have not only driven out the Hindus or butchered them or forcibly converted them but millions of Bengali Muslims have sneaked into India and are happily working with Hindus in India. Partition was agreed to by Hindus only for those Muslims who could not bear to live under Hindu hegemony. And now after getting their territory, they cannot now say that they are happy to live in India with Hindus.

Hence, a virat Hindu Rashtra [nation] should tell Bangla Desh to take back their Muslims or hand over one-third of Bangla Desh territory as compensation. If they do not agree, then we must send two divisions of Indian army from Sylhet to Khulna and annex one third of north Bangla Desh as our due for bearing the economic and political burden of Bangla Deshis in our country. This will make our access to Assam and Northeast much easier too.But most of all it will send a powerful and salutary signal to Pakistani terrorists that Hindus will no more be passive.

These actions are possible if we gear up diplomatically for it. Today the world is sick of the terrorism and the greed of Muslims nations to make money out the sale of oil which they have got by sheer accident of geology. Hence, we must make strong allies. Israel is one such country. We must find ways to make China see our interests. It can be done if we know how to come to an understanding with them. This is essential for isolating Pakistan. At present China has begun to see the tinder box that Pakistan has become. Uighurs from Xinjiang have been to madrassas of Pakistan for training in subversion in Urumuchi and to sabotage the Beijing Olympics This worries China. It should concern us too.

Hence to lay the foundation for the liberation of Kashmir, we must have President's Rule for some time. India should refuse to engage in any dialogue on Kashmir in which the other side does not accept the whole of Kashmir as an integral and inalienable part of India. The people of Kashmir should be left in no doubt in their minds where the citizens of Hindu Rashtra stand on the future of the state: that it lies with us. Every Hindu has a claim on Kashmir. I for one claim it because my gotra [lineage, clan] is Kashyapa. It was RShi Kashyapa who invented Kashmir out the Dal lake. Hence my claim.

We should undo the "cleansing" of the state of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits by sending 1 million ex-servicemen and families into the Kashmir valley for re-settlement. Article 370 of the Constitution will have to be removed for that purpose, but according to the Constitution itself, it is supposed to be a "temporary provision" not requiring a Parliamentary two-thirds majority for amendment. It can be erased by a Presidential Notification on the recommendation of the Union Cabinet.

Then we await a war. We do not have to go to war with Pakistan on Kashmir because a Talibanised Pakistan will provide us with the opportunity. What I am advocating here is that we prepare mentally and militarily for that eventuality, and having been provided that opportunity, go for the jackpot -- to use an American slang.


Editor's End Notes (Not part of the Original article)

[1] Kashmir Issue. Because of agitation by Indian Muslims, India was partitioned in 1947 into two independent states: India and Pakistan. This was accompanied by a large population exchange. When the dust settled, Pakistan was mostly Muslim, India was Hindu with a sizable Muslim population. To read the excellent analysis by Jeffrey Weiss, "India and Pakistan -- a Cautionary Tale for Israel and Palestine," click here. Muslims have continued to agitate for more territory.

[2] The Hurriyat is an umbrella group of Muslim political, business and religious organizations, which have banded together to promote Kashmir separatism. As noted on www.satp.org: "Since the international community frowned upon the resort to violence by non-state actors, the Hurriyat was an ideal platform to promote the Kashmiri secessionist cause." The Hurriyat views Kashmir as the 'unfinished agenda of Partition.'

[3] Vande Mataram ("Hail to the Mother(land") is India's especially beloved song, its nationalist song, which since the late 1800s conveyed the Indian desire to be free of British rule. It visualizes the nation as Mother Durga, a Hindu goddess. It was rejected as the national anthem because its imagery was considered offensive to Muslims.

[4] Young man. Private soldier.


Subramanian Swamy is an economist, who has taught on the university level both in India and U.S.A. He was a founding member of the Janata Party in India and has served as a cabinet minister. He has promoted normalizing relations with China and Israel. Contact him by email at ilky@sify.com

This article was submitted july 16, 2008. It was a lecture delivered on July 9, 2008 to Indian students and American scholars at MIT.

Kashmir Problem : Public Platform

Kahmir, the problem is jihad of islamists.
by kv chandran on Aug 01, 2009 04:03 AM | Hide replies

The problem of islamists is that they live in a remote past ie 7th century and not mentally prepared to accept the 21st century democracy, peace, economy as the true values of the nation. Pakistan was for that matter is islamist in nature and are reaping its own fruits for following the islamists ugenda. Islamism is a problem not only for Kashmir, it is for Uighur in China, Moros in Philippines, the southern thailand, the ace province in indonesia, Chechen in russia, Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan and other african countries etc., etc., It is not about human rights. It is about killing indiscriminately by the "freedom fighters" everywhere. They can kill anybody and the lefties exclaim it is for freedom. How can you explain the killing of 3 year boy, other children, women and old for the sake for freedom. Read jihadwatch org freedomfaith international org islam-watch and see the jihad going on in the world.

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Ladakh and Jammu?
by Varun Shekhar on Jul 31, 2009 11:18 PM | Hide replies

I wonder if Baweja can answer a very simple question: if "alienation" of Kashmir is the cause of violence, then why aren't Ladakh and Jammu also affected? Surely, at least Ladakh would be seriously alienated. If you look at a map of Kashmir, you'll notice that Ladakh is located farther away from New Delhi than the Kashmir valley. But there hasn't been one violent incident in Ladakh. I wonder why.

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Please solve Kashmir problem
by patriot on Jul 31, 2009 06:35 PM | Hide replies

Please solve Kashmir problem.
it is like tamils who want their own land in sri lanka. These people should be summarily finished off. India helped us a lot.

It is because of india, we managed to defeat the tamils and kill 20000 of them. Without india supporting us at the international forum, and helping us to kill those people, we would have never won. It is india, who gave us the strategy to herd them into one region and bomb them. It was india, who told us to keep them in a concentration camps and settle sinhalease. out of 300000 people, we killed 20000, another 80000 should die of diseases in the camp and we can release the 200000 people. By that time, we would have settled 600000 in the north, making them a minority in the north.

Our army is too stupid to come up with this great idea. We are greatful to india for giving us the strategy to kill these tamils.

We have a long historical cultural relationship with india. Both countries hate the tamils and both countries want as many to die as possible.

Now it is our turn to help you. if our strategy to kill some and settle sinhalease in the area work, then india will also follow that with settling hindi speakers in kashmir. This strategy is very important to india and that is why india is helping us so india can see whether it will work. I read on the newspaper that india wanted us to finish off 100000 through bombing but our stupid army in lanka couldn't even manage that.

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Re: Please solve Kashmir problem
by Guest on Jul 31, 2009 08:44 PM
What utter garbage this woman has written and rediff is publishing it?

The agitation and "alienation" of some Muslim Kashmiris is not because of genuine grivances but because of intolerance and supremacist mind set.

"freedom" for them is more hell for all of us, espcially to the Hindus,Sikhs and Buddhusts of Ladakh.

This shamelss woman Baweja ....does he have any comparison to the Chinese occupation of Uighur land? There the muslims have to learn Mandarin, the Han chinese have invaded to alter the demographics.

The only way to respond to the likes of this shamelss woman is let us settle some Assamese, Gujaratis, Biharis, Tamils in Srinagar and Sophian.

Either the Islamofascists in Kashmir have to learn to live peacefully or migrate to their promised land and join the refugees in Swat valley.

No question of yielding more land. Utter garbage. And you go to Washington DC to announce this garbage!

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Re: Re: Please solve Kashmir problem
by Varun Shekhar on Jul 31, 2009 11:01 PM
That's a good observation, Guest. I've always pointed out that Jammu and Ladakh have never been a problem; it's only the Kashmir valley, and that's because of religious separatism and fanaticism. That's the only real issue for these violent Kashmiris.

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kasmir
by sudeep sabde on Jul 31, 2009 04:41 PM | Hide replies

a psycheatrist is needed.


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Kashmir Problem
by Ganesh on Jul 31, 2009 04:40 PM | Hide replies

The Chinese also have an ethnic problem with Uighurs who are muslims. They have been having this problem as long as we have had our Kashmir problem. First the Chinese did not internationalise the issue. They slowly settled more and more ethnic Chinese in these areas so that their poulation has increased to about 40%. Contrast this with what we did. Nehru internationalised the issue by going to UN - the most foolish thing to do. Then not only did we not settle Hindus in Kashmir, we allowed the Hindus to be driven out of the state. The centre spends more money per capita in Kashmir as compared to any otherstate. What is the next result - zero. Why blame Baweja for her rhetoric when the PM himself is out to sell Kashmir to Pakistan.

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What a load of crap
by Kunal Sareen on Jul 31, 2009 03:50 PM | Hide replies

Seperatist kasmmiris are like dogs who kick the plate they are fed in. Instead of exchanging respect and initiaiting peace, they mistreat armed forces and shelter foerign terrorists.
Abolish article 370 and let hindus settle there like we do anywhere in India. Then we will talk about referendum in 10-20 years...
Why does not this author talk about human rights in China, Russia, Middle east, Ireland, Spain and Israel..
We need to have such discussions in India on US civil war and crime rate in US/ UK, hit them where it hurts the most!

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Re: What a load of crap
by Ram Sharma on Jul 31, 2009 04:17 PM
You are abs correct! Some Indians have sold their conscience to the enemies of India..This woman is one of them...

All the valley 1zlamis should be resettled in Chhatisgarh and similar areas..Indians from other states led by the kashmiri pandits should be shifted there...The kashmir issue will be resolved peacefully!

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another puppet
by iluvtaj on Jul 31, 2009 02:57 PM | Hide replies

another puppet HUNGRY for awards and money from west and gulf.

These type of ppl can sell anything for name fame and money.

Why they SEE ONLY ONE SIDE OF COIN?

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These are the paid stooges of PAK through US & UK
by mandar on Jul 31, 2009 02:49 PM | Hide replies

The people talking nonsense on the issue of Kashmir seem to be the paid stooges of PAK through US & UK. Indians do not need any meddling of US, UK, PAK or for that matter any country in this world.

Kashmir is an integral part of India and will remain so forever. That Islamic creatures are creating problems everywhere in the world is not a hidden fact. Islamists when in minority do not get along the majority and do not become the part of main stream anywhere in the world. When in majority, they do everything to erase other religions living there.

The only mistake India did was Article 370 wherein the others in India can not buy a piece of land and stay in Kashmir. We should scrap it and let everyone in India buy property and stay in Kashmir, thereby reducing the Islamists population to minority. That will solve the problem forever. China has done this in all parts of China.

By the way, who are US & UK to preach us whether it is an International issue or a National one. We, the Indians will decide how to handle this issue. The paid Indian stooges should be shown their place as soon as they come to India. Everyone remember the names of Harinder Baweja, Dr Angana Chatterji, Navlakha and Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai. These people should not be allowed to keep their feet on Indian soil. Let them go & stay in Pakistan or any other Islamist Country.

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Re: These are the paid stooges of PAK through US & UK
by iluvtaj on Jul 31, 2009 02:59 PM
absolutely right.

There are problem all over the world:
US
UK
SPAIN
CHINA ..................

Why these ppl do not say something about these??

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Re: These are the paid stooges of PAK through US & UK
by Stud on Jul 31, 2009 03:00 PM
mandar...spot on. Very nice write up. Thanks dude. But, you will have to wait for 5 more years for any of what you have written to happen.

With Kangress in power they will lock you up for saying this.

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Re: These are the paid stooges of PAK through US & UK
by sati savitri on Jul 31, 2009 03:14 PM
Very Well Said Mandr.....Excellent thoughts.

“Damn the boycott,” Shabnam Lone ( Daughter of Abdul Ghani Lone ) unveils the Farce of Kashmir poll boycott

Daughter drills Lone hole in boycott
Rebel in scarf up against brothers
- Shabnam sets out to upturn family’s rejectionist legacy
SANKARSHAN THAKUR

A woman walks past CRPF jawans on a Srinagar street on Tuesday. (AFP)
Kupwara (North Kashmir), Nov. 25: There’s a screaming hole in the heart of the boycott campaign and it goes by the name of Shabnam Lone, daughter to assassinated separatist and People’s Conference patriarch Abdul Ghani Lone, sister to Hurriyat spearheads Bilal and Sajjad.

“Damn the boycott,” Shabnam says, “Damn this politics of deadlock, people have needs and aspirations, Kashmiris must rise to meet them.”

As an Independent candidate from Kupwara, the Lones’ picture-postcard domicile at the northern edge of the Kashmir Valley, Shabnam has set out, rock-jawed, to upturn her family’s rejectionist legacy — a Lone branching off from all that the name has come to mean in these parts.

Shabnam has always been a bit of a rebel. She fought her way through conservative society mores to a law degree, became a human rights advocate of some repute, refused to marry, and then, in something that young Kashmiri women rarely achieve, moved out of the Lone household and set up a separate home. Now, she is out to conquer that inheritance and emboss it with her own credentials.

The irony is she has little to go by other than her family name she wishes to overwrite. She lives in a spartan room in the Kupwara dak bungalow, which stands in the lee of a towering pine escarpment. Her campaign office is a ramshackle log hut located in an abandoned yard on the town’s outskirts; there isn’t enough to signpost the office or furnish it — it holds little other than a table, Shabnam’s appointed election symbol.

And when she sets off, megaphone in hand, into the deeper reaches of this beautiful but pitilessly backward constituency, she is tailed by no more than what the government has afforded her — two troop carriers which also double as rides for her campaign team. “I have no money,” she tells you, breathless upon a steep haul through the woods to her next meeting in a hill hamlet called Hind, “But I think I have a chance.”

She’s greeted you with a cosmopolitan shake of the hand and a trendy “Hi, how are you?” that rings pleasantly strange in the depths of rural Kashmir. But she’s playing true and full to the conservative gallery, make no mistake about it — she’s turned out in a loose full-length cowl, her head is scarved, her hands gloved. It is inexcusably cold, true, but that’s not the only reason the gloves are there; they don’t take kindly to women flaunting themselves here, and Shabnam is taking no chances.


Shabnam Lone
She admits she is up against it even though this is her family fief — “I am new to this and I have few resources” — but her chief adversaries are not those in the contest — sitting National Conference MLA Mir Saifullah and Zafar Mir of the PDP. Her chief adversaries lie within — brothers Bilal and Sajjad, who have unleashed a bitter boycott war to spite their sister.

“There is something called a Lone vote here, the family votebank created by her father,” explains Bashir Ahmed Dar, a Shabnam votary and president of the Kupwara bar association, on the sidelines of the Hind meeting. “It is that vote which is crucial to Shabnam’s success and it is that vote her brothers are trying to keep her from grabbing. Her challenge is to lure the traditional boycotters to the polling booths, if she can do that, she’s made.”

But isn’t it too much for her to expect that a votebank fed on separatism and sustained on boycotts should suddenly somersault and line up at the polling stations? Leave that to the crafty charms of Shabnam Lone; Bashir Ahmed Dar proclaims himself a foremost and willing victim. “I was a diehard separatist and boycotter,” he says, “but then came Shabnam appealing in the name of none other than her father. He would never have wanted his people to live permanently under the curse of poverty and backwardness, he would have wanted to do something about it, she said, and I think she had a point.”

Dar says several of patriarch Lone’s People’s Conference cadres have fallen behind Shabnam. Khurshid Iqbal, a Kupwara lawyer and activist, is among them. “We do want a separate nation,” he says, “But meantime, we also want some succour for the people, that won’t come from sitting in Srinagar and proclaiming a boycott.”

The throngs she’s gathering at her megaphone meetings in these remote hills are probably a clue Shabnam has hit a pulse long awaiting attention.

Village after village, they trail her, men and women and children for whom it has become a rarity for a politician to come calling. The cluster of the curious has become a cavalcade of the willing by late afternoon; and it has pumped Shabnam’s anti-boycott call. “How long do you want to remain frozen in your backwardness? How long will you not exercise your right? Rise, demand what is due to you, come and vote, my father would not have wished such penury on you and I promise to do whatever I can… turn up, turn up and vote for me….”

She utters not a word about her estranged brothers to the people, but she does once she is off the megaphone and rushing to her car towards another meeting. “What do I care what they say,” she bursts out. “They are welcome to propagate their boycott on television, I am propagating a vote among my people.”

She’s off in a roar of raised arms and ayes — “Shabnam Lone, zindabad! Zindabad! Zindabad!” Fayaz Hamid, a local journalist who’s accompanied us, is a touch taken by what he’s seen. “Believe me, she has got something going, my guess is Kupwara will vote with a vengeance.” Who’ll win, he won’t bet, but if they turn out at the booths in this boycott stronghold, it will have been victory enough for Shabnam against her rival Lones.
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