The Kashmiri has been ruled by Shah Mirs and Sultans (1339-1586), Mughals (1586-1751), and dogra (1846-1947).An immutable lesson of history is that they never reconciled with foreign rule. If they could no longer fight an invader with arms, they pelted stones on invaders (Moghul). The stone throwers were called dilawars. Even when they could do nothing, they hated the Moghul by calling them shikas mogle (misery or disaster).It baffles one’s imagination how the Kashmiri has sustained his struggle over hundreds of years, dogra oppression for 101 years (1846-1947), and Indian yoke for over 71 years. Historians agree that when oppression becomes unbearable, the oppressed become apathetic (Toynbee’s Challenge and Response Theory). A kind of mental degradation follows that saps ability to fight challenges around. Even civilisations disappear for inability to respond to repressive environment. Ibn-e-Khaldoon’s asabiya (spirit of national cohesion) also suggests that a nation’s spirit is likely to be smothered by a challenge which is too heavy. The Kashmiri’s struggle for freedom defies history. Neither the dogra nor the Indian could gag them. The struggle for freedom has continued unabated for over 173 years.
Human rights violations have been documented and denounced by International human-rights organisations, as well as India’s National Human Rights Commission. They have have brought into limelight the Kashmiri’s mysterious disappearances, their custodial deaths, and countless rapes of hapless Kashmiri women.
There are landmark events in Kashmiris’ struggle for freedom like July 31, 1931. This day is observed throughout the world as Martyrs’ Day, besides the fifth of February, Kashmir Solidarity Day. On this day, in year 1931, 22 Kashmiris sacrificed their lives to express their resentment against the despotic dogra rule. Several events served as a prelude to this fateful day. These included ban on prayer-leader (Imam) Munshi Mohammad Ishaque to deliver Eid sermon in the Municipal Park of Jammu, desecration of holy Quran, and also trial (in camera) of Kashmiri youth Abdul Qadeer by the dogra‘s kangaroo court. Qadeer’s offence was that he had pointed his finger towards maharajah‘s palace and shouted “destroy its every brick”.
The July 13 event happened in spite of dogra rulers’ efforts to gag Kashmiris’ voice during the preceding period (1846 to 1931). The struggle for freedom continued in the post-1931 period. India marched its forces into the Valley and annexed Kashmir on October 27, 1947. The self-conceited basis for India’s aggression was a fake instrument of accession. The world community does not recognise this so-called accession instrument. As such, the United Nations granted right of self-determination to the Kashmiri. This right is enshrined in the UN’s resolutions of 1948 and 1949.
Let us have a glimpse of the dogra’s reign of terror in Kashmir. To stifle the Kashmiri’s fighting spirit, the dogra punished even Kashmiri children who played with fork-slings (ghulail in Urdu) and stones (Muhammad Yousaf Saraf, Kashmiris Fight for Freedom, vol. 1, p. 50). Nowadays,
Indian forces fire pellets (called `birdshots’) with pump-action shot-guns against unarmed protesters or stone throwers, even women, and children five to eight years’ old. A New
York Time report portrays a gruesome picture(“An Epidemic of ‘Dead Eyes’ in Kashmir as India Uses Pellet Guns on Protesters”, New York Times Aug 28, 2016`) It says` the patients have mutilated retinas, severed optic nerves, irises seeping out like puddles of ink’. Doctors call them `dead eyes’. A similar report in Washington Post (December 12, 2017) is no less poignant.
The Indian forces fire bullets or gun-pellets to kill or blind stone-throwers. Under the dogra rule, the Kashmiri were treated no better than beasts of burden. Instead of donkeys and horses, Kashmiri Muslims were used to transport goods across Gilgit, Leh and Skardu. They carried luggage on their backs across glaciers as high as 17,000 feet. Thousands of them perished along the way each year owing to frost bites, fall from a precipice, and hunger or sickness. The dogra caravans were not humane enough to stop for a while in the snowy passes to look after the injured porters (or ‘human beasts of burden’).
Besides performing the forced labour, the Kashmiri had to pay heavy taxes. Whole of their produce was confiscated by the dogra. Little was left for tillers and their children to eat. On every item, the oppressed Kashmiri had to pay multiple taxes. Take shawls. Not only the shawl-makers were taxed, but also the other intermediaries like importers of pashmina (wool) from Ladakh, and storekeepers, whether wholesalers or retailers (ibid. p. 280-81).
The regressive revenue system resulted in a famine during winter of 1877. People began to die of starvation. Instead of releasing grain stocks from the royal go-downs, the maharajah’s constabulary drowned the starved, crying people in the Wullar Lake. Saraf writes: “Whole boat-loads of starving people have been conveyed by the Maharajah’s officials to the Woolar Lake, and there drowned” (ibid. p. 294).
The reign of terror by Indian forces (now estimated at over seven lac regulars and security personnel) who replaced the maharajah’s constabulary on October 27, 1947 is no less gruesome. Like the dogra, Indian rulers are mercilessly exploiting Kashmiris’ economic resources. Bulk of locally-generated electricity is being diverted to Indian states. The tourism industry is in shambles. Highly – educated people have no jobs. With no inflow of tourists, the shopkeepers have no business.
The lesson from Kashmiris’ struggle for freedom is that repression or palliatives like elections in occupied Kashmir are no good.
Plebiscite, as promised in UN resolutions is the only solution for the Kashmir’s long struggle for freedom.
