Kashmir Fatigue
Ajay Raina June 17, 2002
#1 Posted by roohi on June 17, 2002 3:30:48 pm
Ajay,
Every word in your article rings so true ... if it is possible to document the raw and tangled emotions and narratives of all the people of the valley from the past decade - this must come very very close. I can hear echos of my Chachi`s voice in the middle of your article, of my Kashmiri friends in Delhi (Hindu and Muslim). I hope those gods will be carried back by returning Kashmiris to watch over the valley again ... and people will tie threads together for peace to return to the land ... and that the young soldiers who paid with their lives will also be remembered by some as the martyers they were. Sometimes the truth is just not simple.
Regards
Every word in your article rings so true ... if it is possible to document the raw and tangled emotions and narratives of all the people of the valley from the past decade - this must come very very close. I can hear echos of my Chachi`s voice in the middle of your article, of my Kashmiri friends in Delhi (Hindu and Muslim). I hope those gods will be carried back by returning Kashmiris to watch over the valley again ... and people will tie threads together for peace to return to the land ... and that the young soldiers who paid with their lives will also be remembered by some as the martyers they were. Sometimes the truth is just not simple.
Regards
reply to this interact
write a new interact
add to favorites
flag objectionable content
#2 Posted by notamullah on June 17, 2002 3:30:48 pm
Nice article Ajay Raina. It ironic that people who fight the struggle for Kashmir due to the ``supression by India`` are more blatant in supressing a differing opinion from theirs. I have talked to my fellow muslims that complain of biases and checks placed on them due to their Islamic faith after Sept 11 in America but openly support the exclusion of non-muslims from their holy or ``pure`` lands. It`s their ``American`` right to freedom of religious belief they say. However, a non-muslim has no right to even exist in Islamic lands.
Similarly if you are a Kashmiri (hindu or muslim) that wants to side with India, you are automatically labelled an enemy of the ``legitimate`` Kashmiri cause. Thats democracy Islamic style. You have the freedom to choose Islam (and its implied banner carrying mullahs) or to die. And then they say the American or Indian democracy is flawed.
NotAMullah
#3 Posted by arjun_m on June 17, 2002 3:30:48 pm
=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts
view this users filtered interacts
#4 Posted by afrasiyab on June 17, 2002 3:30:48 pm
Ajay,
I am afraid your article is going to be the launch pad of yet another series of insults, cutting and pasting of long articles from newspapers all over the world instead of people politely providing feedback and ideas.
I will have my say here and get out of the way of the stampede of replies I can almost feel getting closer, from loyal Pakistanis and equally loyal Indians who can never think like human beings first and Pakistani or Indians next.
The one and only thing in common among the GOP and the GOI (note that I am not using the names of the countries Pakistan and India) is that they have no feelings for Kashmiris. They are madly going after a piece of land. If Kashmir was a barren desolate place with no resources to speak of, and without any Kashmiris in it, I still think that the intensity of both governments going after Kashmir would be the same.
I invite people on this forum to not make the replies section of this article another war between India and Pakistan and instead think about alleviating the human tragedy of Kashmir. If you have any ideas about resolving the issue without involving the governments on either side please make good use of the space here otherwise for tirades against the two nation theory, Jinnah, Gandhi, the Muslim League, Pakistan Military, POK, and IOK, please go elsewhere.
I am afraid your article is going to be the launch pad of yet another series of insults, cutting and pasting of long articles from newspapers all over the world instead of people politely providing feedback and ideas.
I will have my say here and get out of the way of the stampede of replies I can almost feel getting closer, from loyal Pakistanis and equally loyal Indians who can never think like human beings first and Pakistani or Indians next.
The one and only thing in common among the GOP and the GOI (note that I am not using the names of the countries Pakistan and India) is that they have no feelings for Kashmiris. They are madly going after a piece of land. If Kashmir was a barren desolate place with no resources to speak of, and without any Kashmiris in it, I still think that the intensity of both governments going after Kashmir would be the same.
I invite people on this forum to not make the replies section of this article another war between India and Pakistan and instead think about alleviating the human tragedy of Kashmir. If you have any ideas about resolving the issue without involving the governments on either side please make good use of the space here otherwise for tirades against the two nation theory, Jinnah, Gandhi, the Muslim League, Pakistan Military, POK, and IOK, please go elsewhere.
#5 Posted by temporal on June 17, 2002 4:43:17 pm
ajay:
...thank you for sharing your grief and emotions...
...as far as kashmiri conundrum is concerned we are all buck naked indian or pakistani…over there or in the diaspora…of or without faith...and unlike the story…dead or living…bay gor-o-kaf’n---
rgds,
...thank you for sharing your grief and emotions...
...as far as kashmiri conundrum is concerned we are all buck naked indian or pakistani…over there or in the diaspora…of or without faith...and unlike the story…dead or living…bay gor-o-kaf’n---
rgds,
#6 Posted by arjun_m on June 17, 2002 6:43:47 pm
=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts
view this users filtered interacts
#7 Posted by Nagnatheshwar on June 17, 2002 6:43:47 pm
Raina Sb.
Frankly i have, even bleaker picture of Srinagar & Kashmir ,seeing photographs & news reports almost daily for more than a decade continuously ,than the epic saga narrated.
One missing element in this sum of all miseries, is the two parties Pakistan & India.Whether animosity between India & Pakistan ,from the beginning of IML of Jinnah & THE congress is the cause or Kashmir is the cause of this continued continuous hostility between the two is moot point.
When stubborn & arrogant India fails to tolerate condescendingly, to sit with Musharaff in the last year Agra Summit,India is just as much responsible for everything in Kashmir as anyone else.
You might be uprooted from the valley but atleast can return & so can your future generations.What about the thousands of exiled Kashmiris to Pakistan & then to all over the world ,they dont have that luxury as you .
Frankly i have, even bleaker picture of Srinagar & Kashmir ,seeing photographs & news reports almost daily for more than a decade continuously ,than the epic saga narrated.
One missing element in this sum of all miseries, is the two parties Pakistan & India.Whether animosity between India & Pakistan ,from the beginning of IML of Jinnah & THE congress is the cause or Kashmir is the cause of this continued continuous hostility between the two is moot point.
When stubborn & arrogant India fails to tolerate condescendingly, to sit with Musharaff in the last year Agra Summit,India is just as much responsible for everything in Kashmir as anyone else.
You might be uprooted from the valley but atleast can return & so can your future generations.What about the thousands of exiled Kashmiris to Pakistan & then to all over the world ,they dont have that luxury as you .
#8 Posted by Ansari on June 17, 2002 6:43:47 pm
Afrasiyab,
Thank you for saying that, sir. Really, thank you.
Yours,
Aamir Ansari
Thank you for saying that, sir. Really, thank you.
Yours,
Aamir Ansari
#9 Posted by mohajir on June 17, 2002 6:43:47 pm
Asia Times
Hindu minority refuses to bow out of Kashmir
By Sonia Jabbar
NEW DELHI - Adding to the complexity of the ``Kashmir Problem`` which has dogged India and Pakistan for more than 50 years has been the fate of the minority Hindu population of Kashmir, otherwise known as the Pandits.
If little is known about the 300,000 Pandits who fled the Kashmir Valley between 1989 and 1991, at a time of popular support for militancy, to become refugees in India, less is known about the tiny number of 17,860 Pandits who chose not to leave.
Unlike the Kashmiri Sikhs who rallied around in huge numbers after the massacre of the 36 Sikhs of Chittisinghpora earlier in March last year, the Pandits were unable to organize themselves effectively in the face of selective killings of their community, choosing the safety of tented refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi instead.
The mass exodus of the Pandits is still shrouded in mystery. Why they left is a question still levelled at them by the Muslims of the valley.
``Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims have died either at the hands of security forces or militants, but we are still here,`` says Shafi, an artist in Anantnag whose group of friends was almost entirely Pandit before the exodus. That there was a real, palpable fear among the Pandits of being exterminated is a fact dismissed by Shafi. He feels, like most Muslims, betrayed by them. They left without saying goodbye.
In Delhi, an old man`s sense of betrayal is of equal intensity. He was a government servant in Kashmir who trusted his Muslim neighbors. He feels they gave him no choice once the killings of the Pandits started in 1989, that they did nothing to allay his fears, that they drove him out of his homeland. ``I asked my Muslim friend why did you throw us out, why? Did we murder you? Did we rob you? Did we rape your women?`` he shouted, ``we taught you to read and write, we taught you . . . `` His friend, he said, had no answer.
The Pandits of Kashmir are all Brahmins, and pride themselves on being the only caste to have resisted conversion when Islam was introduced peacefully to the Kashmir Valley in the 14th century by the Sufis of Central Asia. They held considerable power, as they were the only people who had a tradition of being highly educated. But this also meant that they bore the brunt of the tyranny unleashed by certain ruthless invaders, particularly during the Afghan occupation of Kashmir in the mid-eighteenth century.
Even though the Kashmiri Pandits have had greater sympathies and links with the Indian Union than their Muslim counterparts, they bore severe economic losses after the Maharaja of Kashmir acceded to India when, in 1949, Kashmir`s leader Sheikh Abdullah introduced land reform measures, redistributing land largely held by the Pandits to the Muslim tiller.
``We have suffered at the hands of tyrants through history,`` says Yuvraj Raina, a Panun Kashmir activist in New Delhi. ``There have been four migrations of Pandits. This is the fifth, and the last.`` Panun Kashmir is an organization of Kashmiri Pandits formed in 1991 which believes that the only solution to the problems faced by Kashmiri Pandits is a separate homeland carved non-violently out of the Kashmir Valley.
This portion of the Valley, called Panun Kashmir, would be a secular state autonomous of Srinagar, and would abide by the Indian Constitution. They feel this is the only way to safeguard the interests, values and culture of the Kashmiri Pandit.
``Look, we told those who remained behind, it`s just a matter of time before they get you,`` says Raina. ``The Muslim fundamentalists want to ensure a pan-Islamic State from the Middle East and Central Asia to Kashmir and the world keeps quiet.`` He recounts the recent killings of the Pandits in the Valley - five last month, one more a couple of weeks later. ``We told them it is either homeland or perish.``
But this is not a sentiment shared by the Pandits who choose to remain in the Valley. In Mattan, south Kashmir, a young school teacher, Jyoti, continues to live with her family and extended family amongst her Muslim neighbors. ``This is the only home I`ve known. These are the only friends and neighbors I have ever had and they`ve been very good to us - so why should we leave?`` she asks.
``Yes, we do feel scared sometimes,`` she concedes. ``You see, no one knows anymore who the killers are. It`s not like the old days where everyone knew who belonged to which militant outfit. Now they are nameless, faceless.``
About the Pandit exodus she says, ``We never knew they were leaving. No one told us anything. In the evening they`d be chatting with us quite normally, perhaps a little afraid, and then the next morning we`d find a big lock on their front doors.``
The exodus of the Pandits has also meant that it becomes increasingly difficult for someone like Jyoti to find a suitable husband. In Srinagar there is a sizeable concentration of Pandits, but in rural areas there are barely a few families among the larger Muslim population. ``I really don`t know what I will do. My parents don`t want me to marry into a family who lives in some isolated hamlet. They`d worry for my safety. I suppose they`ll marry me off to someone in Jammu and I`d be forced to leave the Valley,`` she says quietly.
In Srinagar, the Hindu Welfare Forum, founded in 1991 to protect the interests of the Pandits who chose to remain behind, are an angry lot. They are visibly upset by the recent killings of the Pandits and fear another migration. ``Neither the state government nor the government of India has done anything to protect us.Nobody even knows we even exist. Neither the Indian media nor the international media has bothered to see how we live, highlighted our problems. Even our own community in India and abroad calls us traitors because we refused to leave,`` said a Forum member.
Apart from the myriad problems faced by this tiny community, they are a determined lot. Says Wanchoo, a businessman and a member of the Forum: ``We will never leave Kashmir, and we don`t believe in a separate homeland.
``This is our homeland and we wish to live in peace here. As for the killings, well it`s a problem faced by all Kashmiris, not just the Hindus. Everyday you read that 8-10 people have been killed and they`re usually Muslims. But the militants must realize that they only get discredited when they kill the minorities.``
His wife, who has lived through these terrible 12 years, witnessing much of the violence, experiencing much of the pain, relates a recent experience which makes her smile with delight and hope. ``At a wedding recently a whole lot of us had gathered after a long, long time - Muslim women as well as Sikh and Pandit women - and we really had fun, singing and dancing late into the night just as we used to before the militancy started.
``As I was turning in to sleep I heard the Muslim women whispering among themselves in the kitchen. `After so long,` they said, `after so many years all of us have come together`.
``It`s true, isn`t it, that a garden is most beautiful when there is a profusion of many kinds of flowers.``
Hindu minority refuses to bow out of Kashmir
By Sonia Jabbar
NEW DELHI - Adding to the complexity of the ``Kashmir Problem`` which has dogged India and Pakistan for more than 50 years has been the fate of the minority Hindu population of Kashmir, otherwise known as the Pandits.
If little is known about the 300,000 Pandits who fled the Kashmir Valley between 1989 and 1991, at a time of popular support for militancy, to become refugees in India, less is known about the tiny number of 17,860 Pandits who chose not to leave.
Unlike the Kashmiri Sikhs who rallied around in huge numbers after the massacre of the 36 Sikhs of Chittisinghpora earlier in March last year, the Pandits were unable to organize themselves effectively in the face of selective killings of their community, choosing the safety of tented refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi instead.
The mass exodus of the Pandits is still shrouded in mystery. Why they left is a question still levelled at them by the Muslims of the valley.
``Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims have died either at the hands of security forces or militants, but we are still here,`` says Shafi, an artist in Anantnag whose group of friends was almost entirely Pandit before the exodus. That there was a real, palpable fear among the Pandits of being exterminated is a fact dismissed by Shafi. He feels, like most Muslims, betrayed by them. They left without saying goodbye.
In Delhi, an old man`s sense of betrayal is of equal intensity. He was a government servant in Kashmir who trusted his Muslim neighbors. He feels they gave him no choice once the killings of the Pandits started in 1989, that they did nothing to allay his fears, that they drove him out of his homeland. ``I asked my Muslim friend why did you throw us out, why? Did we murder you? Did we rob you? Did we rape your women?`` he shouted, ``we taught you to read and write, we taught you . . . `` His friend, he said, had no answer.
The Pandits of Kashmir are all Brahmins, and pride themselves on being the only caste to have resisted conversion when Islam was introduced peacefully to the Kashmir Valley in the 14th century by the Sufis of Central Asia. They held considerable power, as they were the only people who had a tradition of being highly educated. But this also meant that they bore the brunt of the tyranny unleashed by certain ruthless invaders, particularly during the Afghan occupation of Kashmir in the mid-eighteenth century.
Even though the Kashmiri Pandits have had greater sympathies and links with the Indian Union than their Muslim counterparts, they bore severe economic losses after the Maharaja of Kashmir acceded to India when, in 1949, Kashmir`s leader Sheikh Abdullah introduced land reform measures, redistributing land largely held by the Pandits to the Muslim tiller.
``We have suffered at the hands of tyrants through history,`` says Yuvraj Raina, a Panun Kashmir activist in New Delhi. ``There have been four migrations of Pandits. This is the fifth, and the last.`` Panun Kashmir is an organization of Kashmiri Pandits formed in 1991 which believes that the only solution to the problems faced by Kashmiri Pandits is a separate homeland carved non-violently out of the Kashmir Valley.
This portion of the Valley, called Panun Kashmir, would be a secular state autonomous of Srinagar, and would abide by the Indian Constitution. They feel this is the only way to safeguard the interests, values and culture of the Kashmiri Pandit.
``Look, we told those who remained behind, it`s just a matter of time before they get you,`` says Raina. ``The Muslim fundamentalists want to ensure a pan-Islamic State from the Middle East and Central Asia to Kashmir and the world keeps quiet.`` He recounts the recent killings of the Pandits in the Valley - five last month, one more a couple of weeks later. ``We told them it is either homeland or perish.``
But this is not a sentiment shared by the Pandits who choose to remain in the Valley. In Mattan, south Kashmir, a young school teacher, Jyoti, continues to live with her family and extended family amongst her Muslim neighbors. ``This is the only home I`ve known. These are the only friends and neighbors I have ever had and they`ve been very good to us - so why should we leave?`` she asks.
``Yes, we do feel scared sometimes,`` she concedes. ``You see, no one knows anymore who the killers are. It`s not like the old days where everyone knew who belonged to which militant outfit. Now they are nameless, faceless.``
About the Pandit exodus she says, ``We never knew they were leaving. No one told us anything. In the evening they`d be chatting with us quite normally, perhaps a little afraid, and then the next morning we`d find a big lock on their front doors.``
The exodus of the Pandits has also meant that it becomes increasingly difficult for someone like Jyoti to find a suitable husband. In Srinagar there is a sizeable concentration of Pandits, but in rural areas there are barely a few families among the larger Muslim population. ``I really don`t know what I will do. My parents don`t want me to marry into a family who lives in some isolated hamlet. They`d worry for my safety. I suppose they`ll marry me off to someone in Jammu and I`d be forced to leave the Valley,`` she says quietly.
In Srinagar, the Hindu Welfare Forum, founded in 1991 to protect the interests of the Pandits who chose to remain behind, are an angry lot. They are visibly upset by the recent killings of the Pandits and fear another migration. ``Neither the state government nor the government of India has done anything to protect us.Nobody even knows we even exist. Neither the Indian media nor the international media has bothered to see how we live, highlighted our problems. Even our own community in India and abroad calls us traitors because we refused to leave,`` said a Forum member.
Apart from the myriad problems faced by this tiny community, they are a determined lot. Says Wanchoo, a businessman and a member of the Forum: ``We will never leave Kashmir, and we don`t believe in a separate homeland.
``This is our homeland and we wish to live in peace here. As for the killings, well it`s a problem faced by all Kashmiris, not just the Hindus. Everyday you read that 8-10 people have been killed and they`re usually Muslims. But the militants must realize that they only get discredited when they kill the minorities.``
His wife, who has lived through these terrible 12 years, witnessing much of the violence, experiencing much of the pain, relates a recent experience which makes her smile with delight and hope. ``At a wedding recently a whole lot of us had gathered after a long, long time - Muslim women as well as Sikh and Pandit women - and we really had fun, singing and dancing late into the night just as we used to before the militancy started.
``As I was turning in to sleep I heard the Muslim women whispering among themselves in the kitchen. `After so long,` they said, `after so many years all of us have come together`.
``It`s true, isn`t it, that a garden is most beautiful when there is a profusion of many kinds of flowers.``
#10 Posted by satyavadi on June 17, 2002 6:43:47 pm
Ajay Raina:
Very eloquent and moving.
Had Kashmir not happened, had the secularist and the Islamists not kept quite about the Pandits` plight, had the govt had some spine to assist the Pandits, who knows probably Gujarat would not have happened either.
Satyavadi
Very eloquent and moving.
Had Kashmir not happened, had the secularist and the Islamists not kept quite about the Pandits` plight, had the govt had some spine to assist the Pandits, who knows probably Gujarat would not have happened either.
Satyavadi
#11 Posted by stuka on June 17, 2002 6:43:47 pm
afrasiyab:
``They are madly going after a piece of land. If Kashmir was a barren desolate place with no resources to speak of, and without any Kashmiris in it, I still think that the intensity of both governments going after Kashmir would be the same.``
True enough. Look at Siachen...but doesn`t that prove that there are some causes that are larger than life? I agree with the facts that you put forth, but feel that different conclusions can be drawn from it.
``They are madly going after a piece of land. If Kashmir was a barren desolate place with no resources to speak of, and without any Kashmiris in it, I still think that the intensity of both governments going after Kashmir would be the same.``
True enough. Look at Siachen...but doesn`t that prove that there are some causes that are larger than life? I agree with the facts that you put forth, but feel that different conclusions can be drawn from it.
#12 Posted by ali1 on June 17, 2002 6:43:47 pm
Reply # 5 temporal
[``...as far as kashmiri conundrum is concerned we are all buck naked indian or pakistani…over there or in the diaspora…of or without faith``]
Indian occupation forces have killed 80000 (30000?) Kashmiris and raped 15000 (5000?) Kashmiri women, with the full support of Indian people and government. What has Pakistan done that comes close to this? temporal, you piece of shyte, when you equate India and Pakistan w.r.t. the Kashmir conflict, you equate the aggressor and the aggrieved, the perpetrator of genocide with the victim of genocide and the rapist with the victim of rape.
Morally equating India and Pakistan regardless of circumstance has been a communist tradition dating back to partition and the riots that followed.
[``...as far as kashmiri conundrum is concerned we are all buck naked indian or pakistani…over there or in the diaspora…of or without faith``]
Indian occupation forces have killed 80000 (30000?) Kashmiris and raped 15000 (5000?) Kashmiri women, with the full support of Indian people and government. What has Pakistan done that comes close to this? temporal, you piece of shyte, when you equate India and Pakistan w.r.t. the Kashmir conflict, you equate the aggressor and the aggrieved, the perpetrator of genocide with the victim of genocide and the rapist with the victim of rape.
Morally equating India and Pakistan regardless of circumstance has been a communist tradition dating back to partition and the riots that followed.
#13 Posted by temporal on June 17, 2002 10:17:20 pm
ali1 #13:
…am not equating the perpetrator with the victim…far from it…
whatever the real numbers are…for those displaced, murdered and raped…be they hindus, muslims or sikhs…that is one too many for me…now tell me this…WHAT CAN WE DO TO PREVENT thousands more murders, rapes and loss of innocent lives in the next twenty years in kashmir?
(from the pakistani perspective)
GOD?…leave her/him alone! God is an uninterested and apolitical party to the resolution of this conflict.
PAKISTAN’S ARMY?….it has done diddly the past fifty plus years…PLUS…it is busy the fighting the biggest battle of its life…that of self preservation…more on this later…
POLITICIANS?…ok let’s move on to another bad joke…
JEHADIS?…another bad joke…cause of half the mayhem there…
TIME TO GET OUT OF THE BOX…try some new approach…
…let us get the international observers involved at the loc…then go one up on india and tell the world we are moving out of ‘azad’ kashmir…withdrawing from there…giving the control to foreign observers ….as long as indians do not advance to occupy it…and then build up the international pressure…so that india pulls back from its portion of kashmir...LET THE KASHMIRIS decide their fate…que sera sera!
…for how long do ordinary pakistanis and indians have to suffer for the intransigence and rigidity of their political/military rulers?…their priorities are clean drinking water, health, education…WHY must our/their future be mortgaged to the whims of politicians and military jamadaars?…only the western arms merchants are the winner if status quo reigns…
…will repeat…WHY MUST OUR FUTURE BE MORTGAGED for the sake of irresolvable conflict that can only result in further rapes and murders and deaths?
…hope you forgive me if i sound harsh…but i believe it is time we get off our ‘faith’-ful or ‘faith’-less arse and get on with life…
rgds,
t
…am not equating the perpetrator with the victim…far from it…
whatever the real numbers are…for those displaced, murdered and raped…be they hindus, muslims or sikhs…that is one too many for me…now tell me this…WHAT CAN WE DO TO PREVENT thousands more murders, rapes and loss of innocent lives in the next twenty years in kashmir?
(from the pakistani perspective)
GOD?…leave her/him alone! God is an uninterested and apolitical party to the resolution of this conflict.
PAKISTAN’S ARMY?….it has done diddly the past fifty plus years…PLUS…it is busy the fighting the biggest battle of its life…that of self preservation…more on this later…
POLITICIANS?…ok let’s move on to another bad joke…
JEHADIS?…another bad joke…cause of half the mayhem there…
TIME TO GET OUT OF THE BOX…try some new approach…
…let us get the international observers involved at the loc…then go one up on india and tell the world we are moving out of ‘azad’ kashmir…withdrawing from there…giving the control to foreign observers ….as long as indians do not advance to occupy it…and then build up the international pressure…so that india pulls back from its portion of kashmir...LET THE KASHMIRIS decide their fate…que sera sera!
…for how long do ordinary pakistanis and indians have to suffer for the intransigence and rigidity of their political/military rulers?…their priorities are clean drinking water, health, education…WHY must our/their future be mortgaged to the whims of politicians and military jamadaars?…only the western arms merchants are the winner if status quo reigns…
…will repeat…WHY MUST OUR FUTURE BE MORTGAGED for the sake of irresolvable conflict that can only result in further rapes and murders and deaths?
…hope you forgive me if i sound harsh…but i believe it is time we get off our ‘faith’-ful or ‘faith’-less arse and get on with life…
rgds,
t
#14 Posted by Ras Siddiqui on June 17, 2002 10:49:52 pm
From the CHOWK archives...
KASHMIR
Let all veils of deception fall
The face of reality can no longer be hidden
Blue lakes, tears of crimson, weeping injustice amidst
House boat rentals, where beauty lives with tragedy.
Tourist posters, promises of romance in the Vale
Switzerland of the East, saffron scented heaven
Cries of anguish not mentioned in the backdrop
Of mountain peaks that stand, silent witnesses.
The occupiers propose marriage, undying devotion
Love is easy in your embrace, such beauty but
Vows are made and broken between gunshots
As the rejected claim questionable legal ownership.
Let Kashmir speak, world don’t turn away
Its not just mist that we see in her eyes
The thundering boots of soldiers approach
Ready For another day in Paradise.
By
Ras H. Siddiqui
#15 Posted by stuka on June 18, 2002 1:10:56 pm
``Indian occupation forces have killed 80000 (30000?) Kashmiris and raped 15000 (5000?) Kashmiri women, with the full support of Indian people and government.``
Was anyone standing there and counting? Or do you guys take everything on the Lashkar E Taiba website as gospel truth?
Was anyone standing there and counting? Or do you guys take everything on the Lashkar E Taiba website as gospel truth?
#16 Posted by stuka on June 18, 2002 1:10:56 pm
``In effect, Pakistan held three divergent positions on the question of accession—in favour of the Hyderabad Nizam`s right to independence, Junagadh right to accede to Pakistan against the wish of the populace, and, in Kashmir, for the right to self determination. Double standard is a common enough practice in politics, but it invariably harms the actor who lacks the power to avert consequences. The Nawab of Junagadh tried to deliver his Hindu-majority state to Pakistan, which set the precedence for the Maharaja of Muslim-dominated Kashmir choosing India. Pakistan did not have the power to defend either the Nawab or the Nizam, nor the will to punish the Maharaja. So India, practising double standards in its turn, took it all.``
Exactly the point I had made to Romair some time back. Both sides did haramipanna, difference is , we won.
Exactly the point I had made to Romair some time back. Both sides did haramipanna, difference is , we won.
Interact Index
Latest Interacts
- giani_240: Re: # 12 I was... A Very Costly Bill
- gorki: I am not sure... A Very Costly Bill
- giani_240: Re: # 2 Geelani lived... Who is Maqbool Bhat?
- blumfeld: Nanga...why dont both india... Who is Maqbool Bhat?
- RiazHaq: Re: # 10: "for... A Very Costly Bill
- BJ2: It is the U.S.... A Very Costly Bill
- jang: "anti defection bill" for a... A Very Costly Bill
- NangaPir: This is the lowest... Who is Maqbool Bhat?
