Kashmir Conflict and International Human Rights Day. … Shaikh Yaqoob

All humans are born free, however, they haven’t been fortunate enough to live life like that. The human conscience has been engaged in an endless struggle to make this inborn right an unassailable and inviolable one, full marks to it for having come a long way in realising this sublime goal, and although the developed world can proudly revel in this achievement that has come through centuries of hard labour and unfathomable sacrifices, the developing world is still far off from such sense of achievement. This world is still plagued with a host of maladies, social, political, economic and cultural that have been tearing it apart badly, causing immeasurable pain, agony , hardship and misery all across it.The world may be commemorating the World Human Rights Day tomorrow with much enthusiasm, however, the fact is that innocent people are being humiliated, tortured and massacred endlessly in most brutal and brazen manner all across this poor and unfortunate landscape and there is no end in sight to this most despicable phenomenon . There are many spots on this planet that are soaked in human blood, however, Indian occupied state of Jammu and Kashmir stands out as one of most unfortunate and brutalised regions alongside Palestine. Kashmir saga began with the illegal Indian occupation of it in October,1947 when India airlifted its forces to Srinagar and occupied the region against the will of its natives and has been in occupation since then in brazen contravention of the UN resolutions wherein Indian own proposal for the final and just settlement of the state had been accepted and incorporated- India after occupying a major portion of the state rushed to the UN seeking a ceasefire in and a subsequent settlement of Kashmir- to the effect that it was the will of Kashmiris to be expressed through the democratic method of a UN supervised free and impartial plebiscite that shall be the only acceptable basis for its final disposition.How immoral and shameful that this very state that took the issue to the UN, proposed referendum as its only just and credible manner of solution and signed the resolutions passed by the Security Council would do everything possible to undermine all such resolutions and frustrate the efforts made by the world community to achieve a permanent resolution of the issue , and ultimately, stripping the state of its historical and legal identity merged it into its union territory in 2019 to the utter shock of the Kashmiri nation and the world at large! This Indian immoral illegal “integration”, the world knows, has come through 7 and a half decades of mass massacres, extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, mass arrests, arbitrary detentions, torture, molestation of women, arson, loot, humiliation and harassment,demolition of properties, siege and search operations, curbs on press,communication blackouts and economic blockades. Kashmir being the most heaviest militarized zone in the world and with hundreds of thousands of its natives killed leaves little to doubt how brutal, barbaric and inhuman Indian behaviour in Kashmi all through these decades of occupation has been.Not a single fundamental human right has been spared there from the birth right, the right to self-determination to the right to life, dignity and property to freedom of thought and expression to right to assemble and association to to religious, social, cultural and economic rights. Every notable regional and global human rights group including the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch has protested, recorded and made public these egregious violations and even the Office of UN Human Rights Commission has expressed its serious concern over the abysmal human rights situation and published reports in 2018 and 2019 indicting India for its gross human rights abuses in Kashmir, however, instead of scaling back on her atrociously inhuman behaviour, India dismissing all the outcry and uproar went into overdrive taking her nastiness and barbarity to to unimaginable levels betraying no sense of shame or remorse Particularly, after its colonial legislative measures of August 5, 2019, the Indian state terrorism has touched new heights and with pre- 2019 land rights gone as a result of Indian abrogation of Article 370 and 35 A, India has been pushing hard for a demographic change in the Muslim majority state to ensure that its occupation of the territory becomes unassailable. No doubt, whatever India does, Kashmiris won’t abandon their pursuit of freedom , however, the apathy and the criminal silence of the free civilised world must end. The free world and the United Nations has a legal and moral obligation towards Kashmir and its enslaved inhabitants and must take a serious notice of the human rights situation there. It must pressurise India to end its repression in Kashmir, allow its people enjoy the fundamental freedoms that flow from the UN Charter and many other human rights covenants and to seek a negotiated settlement of the issue in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions to ensure that the oppressed and subjugated people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir could live a life and future of their choice like the free peoples of the world. No doubt,Hindutva driven India is and will remain an anathema to fundamental human rights and freedoms, however, the collective will of the free world shall prevail and bring an end to the suffering of the defenceless innocent humanity in Kashmir, the nuclear flashpoint and the oldest unresolved item on UN agenda.