I am sure many of you would be full of disgust for the opinion I have on Kashmir Secessionist's. But I am more disgusted with all those people who have been arguing that Kashmir should secede from India. You may think that I am just another Indian supporter who does not understand the reality of Kashmir. However, before you think that you have understood me, it is important to listen to my view point.
Some people are arguing that Indian Government has lost moral authority to rule over Kashmir valley and that is why Kashmir should be accepted as an independent state or become a part of Pakistan. However, if we put a bar as a high as "the moral authority" for determining whether Indian Government deserves to rule over Kashmir, then I do not think any segment of India should be the part of "India".
Oh wait, Kashmir has witnessed a significant number of extra-judicial encounters or in plain language "cold blooded murder". So let me remind you that other states in India have witnessed more extra-judicial encounters than Kashmir. Jamshedpur, my home town, probably has more fake encounters than Kashmir. I remember encounters being a daily affair when Ajay Kumar was the SP of police. Encounters reduced after that but still happen all the time. So in that vein, Jamshedpur should have seceded from India long time back.
Here are some examples:
NHRC encounter matches
So you will say these are just incidental, where is the data? If you see the NHRC report for 2003-2004 and see Annexure 13(a) on Page 305, you will see the number of "Alleged Fake Encounters" where Uttar Pradesh had 13, Andhra Pradesh had 13, Gujarat 2, Madhya Pradesh 2, Maharashtra 2, Bihar 1, and Jammu Kashmir 0. If you are going to argue that for some reasons encounters in all except Kashmir is good, then you can stop reading this article.
The need of the hour is to make the pending police reforms happen. Make police and army accountable and stop giving them blanket immunity. Reward policeman who arrest criminals and bring them to courts. Cases of extra-judicial killings should be seriously investigated. Modify the Armed Forces Act so army folks understand the risk of fake encounters when operating in civilian areas.
But then a Kashmir Secessionist will say "leave aside the encounters, look at the way people in Kashmir are treated by Indian authorities that brings shame to the Kashmiris". I guess you have not looked at the situation of the rest of India. I guess you have not looked at how different government departments function in India. How are people treated when they go to a ration shop for BPL cards, how tribals are treated in forests over which they have rights, and how you will be treated by even police on the road.
Finance minister says that the fiscal deficit is high and there is a need to cut subsidies and increase taxes on common people. This causes increase of food items which has already hit our hungry people and malnutritioned children. And then there are severe corruption that hits government revenues like Rs 60,000 crores in 2G spectrum allocation, Rs 9,000 crores in Commonwealth games and Rs 4,000 crores by illegal mining in Jharkhand under Madhu Koda government.
Because of traffic accidents, 3 people die daily in Bangalore and 4 people die in Delhi. 52% of people dying in traffic accidents in Delhi are pedestrians. Look in Bangalore how safe it is walk and then things will be clear. Traffic police can very well reduce these numbers by making pedestrian walking safe and creating over bridge/subways for crossing roads. By making sure people who jump red lights pay fines and people who do rash driving have their licenses suspended, traffic accidents can be severly brought down.
The last argument is that when Kashmir will be ruled by a different class of people namely "real Kashmiri" then the problem will be resolved. Thats what they said when they said Jharkhand will improve when a separate "Jharkhand" state will be created and I know what the current state is. Thinking that replacing "Omar Abdullah" by "Syed Gilani" will change the future of a Kashmiri is a mirage that only fools can believe in. I have seen people connected with soil and leaders of poor people like Laloo Yadav, D. Raja, Mayawati, Arjun Munda, Madhu Koda and I have seen what they have done.
So overall a lot of work needs to be done by the government to claim the moral authority to rule over India. We need to bring in the talk of those improvements that bring government transparency, accountability and efficiency of delivery of government services. And not get side tracked with with useless discussion of which class of people should rule. Think about who gets benefit ted by throwing in these discussions and it will be clear what is the value of this discussuin.
4 comments:
Please update your link to the NHRC Annual Report for 2003 - 2004
Here is the correct link.
http://nhrc.nic.in/documents/ar/ar03-04eng.pdf
Thanks Anon for pointing out the link problem! I accidentally linked the wrong pdf.
I have postd my detailed response here:
http://knowledgeisliberating.blogspot.com/2010/08/some-facts-and-figures-on-kashmir.html
My comments on the above post:
It is good to have liberal views. However, when quoting UN declaration it is useful to cite it and use it as it "was intended". Here is the link: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/drip.html so that you understand what was passed in UN ...on self-determination and on the rights of "indigenous people". Here is the wikipedia article on UN charter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination#The_UN_Charter which will give you more context on what was passed. It was about the independence of local people from foreign occupiers. Territorial integrity of a sovereign state was considered quite important in the declaration. Article 46(1) was specifically inserted for that reason: "Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, people, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act contrary to the Charter of the United Nations or construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States." So it is useful to look at diverse viewpoints from even the extremists but apply your thought and research before copy-pasting.
I think the issue of self-determination has echoed many times in your blogpost and uses UN charter in the beginning as a legal and moral force to support your viewpoint. So it is important to analyze which side of UN viewpoint you are on. U...N universal declaration of human rights does not even have the word "self-determination". The main reason is that the "self-determination" has not been considered as a right of people but as a principle to resolve the political issues. So citing that is irrelevant and it is still not clear which UN resolution you are using to support "your idea of self-determination". Chapter 1 in UN charter mentions "self-determination" in article 1 and asks members to act accordingly article 2 while pursuing article 1. Article 2(4) says: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." There were two more resolutions passed in 1960 but all of them were related to the de-colonization http://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/decolonization/Decolonization_brochure.pdf to speed up the charter of self-determination. So please post the UN resolution that says that "a portion of a sovereign member state has the right to secede if they so want and form a new state"
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