Time on Their Side

              Existing nations preserve a crucial rapport with their history. They derive dynamism from its lighter phases to assemble their present and reinvent their potential. They circumvent difficulties by learning from its blunders. Time for them is an unrefined unanimity where past,

present and future are centrally affected by one another.

Those acquainted with both the current situation in Kashmir and its history may recognize that, as misfortune would have it, Kashmiris have been isolated from their past. Kashmir’s history boasts fame and fruitfulness, and thus the Kashmiris have sound reason to be proud. Not only did Kashmiris make innovative and important contributions to the arts, but for centuries they preserved their own independence and ruled over vast expanses of Asia. So pathetically despondent is Kashmir at the moment that these details appear to be the fabrications of a fantasy.

It is these very achievements, however, from which Kashmiris should extract motivation and support to carry out a systematic and continuous struggle against oppression. History is on the side of the Kashmiri people because their struggle is one against injustice. Should this universal reality need evidence, the present-day conditions of Iraq, Chechnya, Palestine and Afghanistan sufficiently satisfy any qualms.

Confronting the Challenges of an Apathetic Society

In an era of technological advancement, science may have unearthed a therapeutic for most troubles.

However, it has discovered no cure for the nastiest of them all—the apathy of human beings.

Situated at the foothills of the Himalayan mountains lies one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Once known for its heavenly like setting, poetic beauty and Sufism, Kashmir has become a hotbed of political unrest with an uncertain future.

And yet, few know anything about Kashmir, identified by the United Nations as the most militarized region in the world.

So much aggression and so much apathy.

To be apathetic to human suffering—no matter whom it affects in the world—is what makes our humanity inhumane. For apathy is more hazardous than resentment or rage. While hatred or anger may propel human beings to react, apathy elicits no response.

The people of Kashmir do not need apathy. In fact, apathy is an acquaintance of the aggressor.

With both India’s and Pakistan’s continual refusal to admit that the Kashmir problem is not one between them, but one that concerns the human dignity of Kashmiris, the United Nations should seriously consider apathy as a crime against humanity. It is not only a crime, but it is also a punishment to those it neglects.

On August 1, Al Jazeera English published a special human rights spotlight on Kashmir (“Kashmir: The Forgotten Conflict”). A report detailing how television news stations are banned from reporting the news, Facebook accounts are constantly supervised, and prepaid phones cannot send or receive Short Message Service (SMS) reveals the dismal reality for the people who continue to live and survive under such adverse conditions.

 In our truth-seeking study of the Kashmir dispute, we have full confidence in the concept of sedition pondered by Socrates. Socrates deplored the idea of pressuring people to accept a particular type of government and restricting their access to conceivable alternatives to the system under which they are subjugated. Concerning this issue of morality, he grew to be an enthusiast for rebellions the world over.

Considered to be the most peace loving people in the world, Kashmiris only desire the precise rights and privileges that we are fortunate to have safeguarded here in our own country. Through their unarmed demonstrations and other acts of nonviolent civic action, which Gandhi once called “the greatest and most activist force in the world” during India’s own struggle for independence from Britain, Kashmiris simply long for freedom. For what freedom do Kashmiris long? Kashmiris crave a freedom from fear, a freedom from injustice, and a freedom from apathy. Kashmiris want a freedom that encompasses some sense of accountability. An overwhelming majority of Kashmiris ardently desire self-governance and domestic sovereignty.   

The international community often associates Kashmir with the snowcapped mountains and blue streams that are the focal region of contention between India and Pakistan. But what if we view Kashmir as a totality of individuals and families, deprived of their most fundamental rights as human beings? Clearly we see how human sensitivity can be transformed by the internal image we construct as opposed to that constructed by the scenic display, which, while profuse in beauty, lacks human emotion and response.

Birth of Bicker: British Bequest

Kashmir is exclusively positioned in the political patchwork of South Asia with a pervasive communal core. It has long been engrossed in its struggle articulated as a chase for identity and protection needs. It borders three civilizations of Central Asia, China, and South Asia, which have implanted elements into the structure of the society. Additionally, against the setting of this dissimilar ethno political landscape, the geopolitical contours of control segregate the state into three regions controlled by India, Pakistan, and China.

With hindsight, Kashmir left as a part of British India would have been dispensed to its destiny in the partition process. Why were the princely states debarred from the partition? Potentially might these small enclaves have endured, left to fend for themselves? Ultimately, obviously, these small enclaves were all enveloped by might.  British by default were accountable for constructing the controversial boundary or Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir that prolonged the conflict. Britain’s political stance has historically been representative of British diplomacy, a microcosm of their general political preservation instinct. The people of Kashmir are saddened at the country’s taciturn approach and disgusted at their strategy of having to brownnose Americans who have neither past affairs with the region nor any true compulsions to facilitate.

        

Chester A. Crocker’s Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict, classifies and examines the fundamental characteristics and core dynamics of intractable conflicts; conflicts, which, in Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases, are defined as conflicts that, have festered over time and “refuse to yield to efforts—through either direct negations or third-party assistance.” Kashmir, naturally, is characterized in the second half of the volume with an examination on the dispute’s development, an assessment of internal and external factors that have connived to thwart an agreement, and a consideration of whether former conciliatory proposals have in reality merely provoked the dispute.

The work concludes with the message that even conflicts like Kashmir ultimately cease if certain approaches and steps are pursued collectively by world bodies, intergovernmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. The conflict of Kashmir, albeit “intractable,” is solvable through the formation of an entity that adheres to unorthodox and nonpartisan approaches employing modern-day thinking and positive attitudes. While conventional diplomatic efforts have often relied on history's victors to guide them through the peace process, it is important to recognize that this strategy may no longer be effective based on the fact that a successful peace effort must be conducive to new social, political, and economical challenges posed by the twenty-first century.

Human Rights 60 Years On

           A quick look into the human rights situation in Kashmir through the eyes of a distressed observer is analytic of the degree of human suffering. In an age when world bodies such as the United Nations seek to infuse guidelines of human rights into the sphere of global politics and commemorate the advancements made since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Kashmir has endured an unswerving attrition of rights, from the autocratic rule of an occupying power to the unending cruel treatment of Kashmiri civilians.

In light of the situation in Kashmir, the international community propels itself to question if the Universal Declaration of Human Rights requires rewording.

           

If law and order correlated to human rights, might severe treatment of civilians still be justified? Defenders of the dogmatic rule declare force is employed to look after the innocent, in the clichéd name of sectarian politics and purported national security interests. Yet, is this the truthful image?

What laws, exactly, direct the governing measures in Kashmir? If we venerate the ideals of Gandhi or Jefferson, it is an appalling spectacle that in Kashmir the fundamental right to life is an uncertainty upon every person’s existence. Clearly there exists a disjuncture amid assumption and application of international law.

Evidently these laws may have the sophistication of judicial terminology and legislative conjecture, but they have minute relevance to the day-to-day happenings in the boulevards of Kashmir. These days in Kashmir, those who decide to be a part of the political order are punished, those who challenge the political order are punished, those who value human rights are punished, and those who are candid onlookers also get punished either in crossfire or in scheme. That of course does not explain the armed participants from all sides, who die daily in great numbers and may receive a mention in the media as an article of everyday information. Has Kashmir become a human butchery and a stadium for self misery? 

"All human beings, whatever their cultural or historical background, suffer when they are intimidated, imprisoned or tortured . . . We must, therefore, insist on a global consensus, not only on the need to respect human rights worldwide, but also on the definition of these rights . . . for it is the inherent nature of all human beings to yearn for freedom, equality and dignity, and they have an equal right to achieve that."
-The Dalai Lama

"Whence do we come? What are we? Where are we going?"

          Crimes against humanity, as per the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court, are “particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings.” According to this definition, inhumane acts such as torture, rape, political and racial persecution are not considered crimes against humanity unless they are part of a government’s deliberate effort to suppress civilian populations. History is clearly stained with these crimes; however, even today in the twenty-first century, governments in every corner of the world continue to exploit strategies involving the execution of these crimes as a means to control the aspirations of those who have been denied rights to their own land and independence. In the case of Kashmir, it is critical to ask, what impact do these adverse political and social conditions, crimes and all, impart on the Kashmiri people?

          The late French painter and sculptor, Paul Gauguin, is referred to in the influential and popular comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes by the American cartoonist Bill Watterson. Contextualized, Calvin is seen walking past his mother, protesting “Paul Gauguin once said, ‘Whence do we come? What are we? Where are we going?” A few panels over, Calvin returns and inquires, “Who the heck is Paul Gauguin anyway?”  

          Undeniably, the comic strip is humorous, but at the same time, it may shed some important light on the struggles of the human condition. Do Kashmiris, who have a history discolored by a denial of rights to their own terrain and freedom, at times, ask themselves:

“Whence do we come? What are we? Where are we going?”

          How, exactly, do Kashmiris recognize their current situation? What are their views on the conditions of their present lives? Ingrained in the times of yore, determined for the security of affluence in future, they stay restless, as the world is an enterprise connecting those who are alive, those who are deceased and those who must still be born. It may be practical to contextualize the standardized feelings with which the Kashmiris are preoccupied and what expectations they relish for the future considering the deplorable human rights infringements they suffer on a daily basis.

          The Kashmiri people bear the distress with the expectation that there are better days in store. In the turbulent history of Kashmir, its picturesque splendor decoyed even the unworldly to invest in Kashmir, and yet, the political turmoil it is witnessing today has not only pervaded those qualities but also hindered any efforts toward progress.

          If the Kashmiri people have not yet done so, it is likely that one day, much like the adventurous six-year-old Calvin, they may have some questions, and global actors, intergovernmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations endeavoring toward further development in this beautiful land must bear in mind that too extensive of a sacrifice may, unsuspectingly, create a stone of the heart.

Inevitability of Peace

There is a hidden predictability for a resolution to the Kashmir dispute. India, a nation considered to be a rising superpower with poverty still rampant within its boundaries, cannot afford antagonism on all its borders and a military stalemate over unending violent rebellion in a state it administers. India is only fooling itself if it wishes away the harsh realities of the situation. Moreover, how can Pakistan continue to contest with a power quadruple its size and still make any endeavor at progress?

There is mounting understanding of loss of life on a day-by-day basis from all sides at dispute, and this understanding will bring to light the human feelings and growing concern about the senselessness of wasting so many precious lives.

India and Pakistan: whatever the culture of combat orders, human life is not unreservedly dispensable. There is no means to peace: peace is the means. Dear Kashmir, peace is inevitable.

Oh, the Irony! (Shout-out to Koch, Gandhi, and The Greatest Democracy in the World)

The late American poet, Kenneth Koch, once stated:            

"Certainly, it seems true enough that there’s a good deal of irony in the world…I mean, if you live in a world full of politicians and advertising, there’s obviously a lot of deception." 

Interestingly enough, Koch’s words may be more relevant to the dispute in Kashmir than to any poetic prose.

Isn’t it ironic that the principal government involved in the Kashmir dispute, considered to be “the world’s greatest democracy,” has fallen victim to the caprices of ruthless use of military power, justifying its actions on the basis of sectarian politics and so-called national security interests?

My question is, what didn’t justify the occupation of East Timor and Bosnia that justifies the occupation in Kashmir? This is a question that continues to remain in the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri people, since both East Timor and Bosnia, with the support of the international community, gained independence from their oppressors only a few years ago.

For a more recent example, what didn’t justify the violence and bloodshed in South Sudan that justifies six decades of unnecessary conflict and ongoing blood baths in Kashmir?  

To all the democracies of the free world, and specifically the alleged “democracy” involved in the Kashmir dispute, please understand that it is natural and just for nations, peoples, and individuals to demand respect for their rights and freedoms and to struggle to end repression, racism, economic exploitation, military occupation, and alien domination.  

Mr. Kenneth Koch, irony is bittersweet. It should be left in poetry. But isn’t it ironic that a nation founded on the Gandhian principles of love, peace, and brotherhood, is guilty of withholding lifesaving medicine to Kashmiris?

With too long of a history of human rights abuses in Kashmir, universal respect for human rights must take precedence over egocentric and draconian government policies.