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VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN KASHMIR - Petition to Chairman NHRC on Human Rights Day
New Delhi (India), December 10 2013 |
ERADICATE POLITICAL TERRORISM END GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING OF HINDUS & SIKHS PUNISH PAN-ISLAMIC GROUPS & PAKISTAN FOR PLOTTING AGAINST INDIA’S UNITY. Dr. M.K. Teng & C. L. Gadoo The Joint Human Rights Committee of India (JHRCI) represented by its two ever popular and powerful Co-Chairs Dr. M.K.Teng and Mr. C.L.Gadoo have forwarded an urgent and exhaustive memorandum to the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and the Govt. of India on December 10, Human Rights Day, demanding immediate action by the Commission and the Govt. upon three of its most pressing demands. These demands stated without mincing words included:
We hold no brief for any one violating human rights anywhere. All we submit is that the small and helpless community of Kashmiri Pandits, along with Kashmiris of other communities suffering for their belief in secularism, nationalism and democracy, are the worst victims of human rights violations in Kashmir. They continue to suffer the aftermath of this tragedy, living a miserable life in townships of tattered tents, and other camps, in Jammu and other parts of the country. But nobody hears their anguished cry while the terrorists, their supporters in the state and Pakistan have succeeded in generating worldwide awareness about the hardship faced by some Muslims in Kashmir for harboring and helping terrorists. Organizations like the Amnesty International and Asia Watch while raising howls about the difficulties of Kashmiri Muslims make no more than passing references to the inhuman brutality with which the Muslim terrorists in the state massacred large numbers of Kashmiri Hindus and indulged in rape, arson and plunder forcing them to flee their homes of thousands of years. All this is sought to be hidden behind the smoke screen of "human rights violations by the security forces" and basic questions are clouded in a desperate attempt to keep the world in dark about the actual happenings in the name of insurgency against the Center. It is therefore essential to make a proper assessment of violations of, whose human rights in Jammu and Kashmir. While doing so, facts must be treated as sacred and not twisted for dramatic effect to serve sectarian political ends. Unfortunately, the assessments made by some of the Human Rights organizations are faulted in their very fundamentals because such assessments have been based on avowedly partisan evidence. Most of the evidence has been collected in Pakistan-occupied part of the Jammu and Kashmir State and from other sources close to the terrorists. Some of these "watch dog" groups make little attempt to conceal the fact that they are functioning as apologists for Muslim terrorists operating in the State at the behest of Pakistan. Nothing else can explain their studied indifference to the plight of more than five lakh Hindus whose "rights", such as they were in a regime which was already Islamic except in name, were trampled under the jack-boots of the Pakistan-aided marauders in collaboration with local Muslim fundamentalist and secessionist elements. The magnitude of misdeeds of the terrorists have been of such proportions that Asia Watch found it difficult to completely conceal them and had grudgingly to concede that they were guilty of excesses in the name of violent opposition. It is a tragedy that even after the Asia Watch report was made public, certain people in this country, fell prey to the Pakistani and terrorist disinformation and have developed a mind-set totally indifferent to the plight of Kashmiri Hindus who have been reduced to refugees in their own country for their patriotism, tolerance and secular ideals. The flood of publicity mounted by the mentors submerged the sad tale of their suffering, so much so that when the specter of "demographic change" was raised, nobody asked: Has demographic change not already been brought about in the state? Has it not been made a totally Muslim Kashmir now with the elimination of the Pandits? Design To Break Up India Terrorism is a violation of human rights, whatever its political objectives. Terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir motivated by ideological commitments to a Muslim crusade is a greater violation of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it must not be forgotten, was adopted by the world community precisely to save mankind from the scourge of crusades; the second world war, was a war of crusades. There is an imperative necessity for a bold and unconventional endeavor to identify the content and contours of violence which has ravaged Jammu and Kashmir State and describe the perspectives in which the infringements of human rights deserve to be assessed. Any enquiry and assessment restricted to parameters predetermined by political considerations and social motivations and preconceived notions of the nature of the violence and strife in the state, is bound to be self-defeating. Human judgments which are presumed to be universal, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, underline generally accepted norms and standards of human behavior and not such norms and standards which are arbitrarily devised. There is always a danger in shifting parameters and judgments in respect of human rights because shifting parameters and judgments are incompatible with and destructive of the universality of such rights. It will be a travesty of human history to ignore the crucial factor of terrorist violence in Kashmir which must ultimately determine the context in which the violation of human rights has taken place. The boundaries of state action to contain terrorism must be viewed in the broad context of the United Nations Charter, the International Covenants and the resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council on terrorism. An enquiry into human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir cannot be confined to narrowly local and narrowly dated frames of reference. The terrorist violence unleashed in Jammu and Kashmir by various terrorist organizations and the state of Pakistan, Is by itself a violation of human rights. The Muslim crusade which seeks to exterminate the religious and ethnic minorities In Jammu and Kashmir and establish the primacy of Islam in the government and the society of the state, contravenes the principle of the due process of law which is the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Political terrorism, whatever its Ideology and objectives, is a crime against International Law, a crime against humanity, a crime against the law of war and a crime against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir has several dimensions which have a direct bearing on human rights in the state. In the first place, terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir is a process of political violence which has specified political commitments aimed to separate Jammu and Kashmir State from India and secure its annexation to Pakistan. It is the culmination of the Muslim struggle in pre-partition India for the homeland of Pakistan, which claimed Jammu and Kashmir on account of the Muslim majority character of its population. It is a religious crusade to complete the partition of India which it is claimed is 'incomplete' so long as Jammu and Kashmir is not merged with Pakistan. It must clearly be understood that this terrorist violence is not aimed at effecting any change in the existing political system, economic organization or social relationships. It is neither an expression of political dissent, nor is it apolitical movement aimed to replace the existing sets of political instruments in the state. It has an international content as it is aimed at cutting off a part of the Indian nation and secure its annexation to the state of Pakistan. The Muslims in Kashmir are the ruling elite of the state. They dominate its entire economic organization and enjoy communal precedence in all social forums. Islam is virtually the official religion of the state. Whereas the Muslims constitute a little more than half the population of the State, they possess three-fourths share In legislative bodies, administrative organizations and all the local Government Institutions. In the Kashmir province, the Hindus have no elected representation In the State Legislature, nor do they have any elected representation in the local bodies. They constitute less than five per cent of the administrative services of the State and have less than one percent share In the higher cadres of the state administration. Muslims monopolize 94% of the state services In Kashmir. The Hindus of Kashmir province have absolutely no share In the decision making clusters of the state Government, which have always been constituted by the Muslims of the Kashmir Province. More than 90% of the admissions to professional, technical and other educational Institutions are reserved for Muslims in one form or the other purely on communal basis. The Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities share a bare 8% of the educational facilities that the State provides. The Muslims own and control the entire economic and Industrial structure of the Kashmir Province. They own 96% of the agricultural land, orchards and other urban landed estates. They enjoy a monopoly over the entire industrial organization, trade, commerce, financial resources and exports of the province of Kashmir. They have complete monopoly in trading in fruits, carpets, shawls, wood-work, woolens, silk etc. The Hindus in Kashmir have never been allowed to have any share In the tourist industry, the transport organization, concessionary contracts for the construction of the State property, roads and buildings and the licenses for Imports and exports which the state Government has been lavishly distributing among the Muslims. Evidently, terrorist violence in the State is not local in content or outlook. Its objectives have transnational implications and its aim is the separation of Jammu and Kashmir State from India and, as a consequence, open the way for the disintegration of the Indian Union. Violation of Human Rights The political content of the terrorist violence has a direct effect on human rights as it involves militants' strategies which cannot but infringe the principles which form the basis of human rights. These strategies include: 1. Liquidation of the Indian support structures in the state, involving elimination of the people of all communities including Muslims who constitute such support structures; 2. Suppression of all political dissent and opposition by fear, 3. Oppression and mental torture of people who do not support terrorism; 4. Liquidation of civil population which extends help to security forces in their operations against terrorists; 5. Communalization of the society aimed to suppress opinion opposed to the secession of the state; 6. Conduct of military operations by the terrorists against the security forces of the state in violation of the laws of war. The second major dimension of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir is the terrorists' aim to exterminate Hindu population in the Kashmir valley because Hindus do not accept the secession of the state from India and its annexation to Pakistan nor do they accept to be governed by the authority which derives its sanction from the law and precedent of Islam. The Hindus have always supported accession of the state to India. They have, undeniably, formed the most powerful support base for India in Kashmir. Hindus in the valley rose united against the invasion of the state in 1947, and fought shoulder to shoulder with the Indian soldiers against the infiltrators from Pakistan in 1965. They were always in the forefront of the struggle against secessionism, communalism, fundamentalism and the various movements for annexation of the state to Pakistan. In the present turmoil the strategies used in the terrorist operations against the Hindus in Kashmir include: 1. The extermination of Hindus; 2. Subjection of Hindus to brutal torture to instill fear among them in order to achieve their submission to the terrorists and their exodus from Kashmir; 3. Flushing out such Hindus who refuse to submit to the terrorist dictates, by force, fear of death, fear of conversion and criminal assault on their women; 4. Destruction of the residential houses of the Hindus Who migrate and the appropriation of their business establishments to ensure that they do not return; 5. Attachment of their landed property; 6. Destruction of the social base of the Hindus by desecration and destruction of their places of worship, shrines and temples; 7. Appropriation of the property of the Hindu shrines and its attachment to the Muslim religious endowments; 8. Declaration of a religious crusade against the Hindus. Pakistan Factor The third and the most crucial aspect of terrorism in the State is the participation of Pakistan in the terrorist violence. Pakistan has a history of sponsoring terrorist violence in its neighboring countries including India. It is openly committed to the export of Islamic revolution to non-Muslim states and militarization of pan-Islamic fundamentalism in South Asia. Pakistan has always used Islam as an ideological instrument for its territorial expansion. It has claimed Kashmir in the name of the Muslim nation and the unity of the Muslims Ummah. Pakistan is at present a conventional, organized and international base for the militarization of pan-Islamic fundamentalism and Muslim terrorism in Asia. There is enough proof of the complicity of Pakistan in the terrorist activity in Jammu and Kashmir, which cannot be disregarded. The induction of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan is its third attempt to cut off Jammu and Kashmir from India and annex it to its territories. In October 1947, Pakistan sent thousands of armed forces and irregular commandos into the State to annex it. Were it not for the heroic resistance of the state troops led by the Chief of the Army Staff of the State, Brigadier Rajender Singh, who resisted the advance of invading forces till the State acceded to India and the Indian troops joined the battle, the story of the State would have been different. About thirty thousand Hindus and Sikhs were slaughtered by the invading hordes in the territories of the State overrun b them. Hundreds of thousands of them were uprooted and displaced. That story is still untold. In 1965, Pakistan inducted thousands of its trained commandos in the garb of local Muslims into the State to unleash a Muslim rebellion against India. The infiltrators spread all over the valley, penetrated into Srinagar. but due to the lack of support from local Muslim population and prompt military action taken by Government of India, the infiltrators sneaked back to Pakistan after war broke out between the two countries. The present terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir is the third attempt by Pakistan to break up India and annex Jammu and Kashmir. This time the technique of military intervention is different; the flanks of terrorist organizations are recruited from the local Muslim population and after being trained and armed in Pakistan are re-inducted into the State, to carry on the Islamic crusade, Jihad, against India. Large numbers of armed commandos consisting of personnel of the army and intelligence services of Pakistan, and the various troop formations raised in the occupied territories of so-called Azad Kashmir have also been inducted into the State to help the terrorist elements. Mass Massacres The terrorist violence in Kashmir has involved mass massacre of the people of the State, destruction of their property and genocide of Hindus and their exodus from Kashmir. The death and destruction of innocent people, genocide of minorities and conduct of a war of attrition in violation of the laws of war are crimes against humanity and international law, besides being violation of human rights. The terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir, on a well designed pattern, has led to several consequences which are inextricably interlinked with the violation of human rights. The main targets of terrorist violence in Kashmir, have been 1. the Hindus; 2. the Muslims opposed to secession, the Muslims accused by terrorists of acting as "agents of India" and "informers" and those alleged to have spied for the security forces of the state; 3. Hindu employees of the State government, the Hindu employees of the government of India posted in the State, Hindu technical staff of Government of India installations of communications, police, radio and television, Hindu technical staff of the industrial corporations and the Hindu personnel of the security organizations of the state as well as the personnel of the Central paramilitary forces deployed in the State. Genocide Of Hindus Genocide is the destruction in whole or in part of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution on 11th December, 1946, declaring genocide a crime under International Law. A convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide adopted by the General Assembly came into effect on 12th January, 1951. The Convention proclaims genocide as a crime against International Law. The Convention lists destruction of an ethnic, racial or religious group as genocide. Specifically, genocide includes: 1. Killing members of a community or a group because of their affiliations;
2. Causing bodily or mental harm to the members of a community or a group; 3. Deliberately inflicting conditions on the community or the group to bring about its physical destruction; 4. Imposing measures to prevent births in the community or the group; 5. Forcibly transferring children from one group to another. The terrorist organizations in the State and those operating from Pakistan have unleashed an organized campaign to exterminate the Hindus in Kashmir. Besides the obligation to prosecute a religious war against them, terrorists have sought to achieve several tactical advantages in eliminating Hindus. Hindus used to form a vital and powerful base for India in Kashmir. They have fought the secessionist movements in the State with their bare teeth. They alone have resisted the onslaught of the pan-Islamic fundamentalism as well as the Islamization of the Government and the society in the State. They have always been instrumental in keeping the feedback channels of Government of India open and maintaining a regular and uninterrupted flow of information to its agencies.
The mass attack on the Hindus began in January, 1990, and by the onset of August, 1990 more than eight hundred of them had been murdered in cold blood. Most of the victims were innocent people who lived in poverty and persecution under the Muslim dominated constitutional organization of the State. Among those killed, were people from all sections of the society, lawyers, political activists, media men, intellectuals, shopkeepers, errand boys and men of small means. Exodus in Panic
The rising terror which consumed hundreds of innocent Hindus, the deliberate indifference of the state apparatus infested by pro-Pakistan agents and infiltrators and the failure of Government of India to take effective and firm measures against the terrorists as well as their harbourers, particularly in the ranks of the administrative organization of the state, compelled the Hindus to flee for their lives to Jammu and beyond. By July- September, 1990 more than three lakhs of Hindus had evacuated from their homes leaving their property, land, trade and business behind them. After the exodus, all the Hindu property has been looted and thousands of Hindu houses burnt down. Several Hindu shrines have also been burnt down or destroyed by explosives. Terrorism is a negation of life, and violation of the norms of human behavior recognized by all civilized people of the world. All value-based violence, which contravenes generally accepted norms of social order, human behavior, and right to life and equality of all men, is retrogressive. Judgments which are based upon preferences which violate life equality of all men and freedom, do not have any revolutionary content. The political violence motivated by ideological commitments whatever their value- content is necessarily retrogressive. There is no freedom which impinges upon freedom, no equality which upholds inequality. There is no life which portends death. Political terrorism even if it is for a religious crusade is as heinous a crime as any other crime against humanity. All political terrorism is organized crime.
Terrorist violence cannot be justified on the ground of its political and ideological motivations or value-basis. International conventions and treaties, even those pertaining to human rights, do not recognize terrorist violence as legitimate political action, arising out of any ideological or political commitments or any value basis. Commitment to separation of Jammu and Kashmir from India to further the cause of Islam and in the name of Muslim unity and brotherhood, to ensure the Muslims in the state the right to decide the future disposition of the state as envisaged by the United Nations Resolutions; commitments to "complete the partition of India" by the accession of the state to Pakistan or commitments to liberate the Muslim majority state of Jammu and Kashmir from India or commitment to establish a Muslim State of Jammu and Kashmir based upon religious precept and precedence cannot legitimize and validate terrorism in Kashmir. Human Rights In the Charter of the United Nations, the peoples constituting the United Nations, express their determination to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and nations large and small. In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all people and all nations. In 1966, it adopted the United Nations Covenant of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates, in several sets of its articles, the inalienable rights of all members of human family. These inalienable rights are grouped around six main principles- Equality of man; Freedom of thought; expression and faith; Due process of law; Freedom of peaceful assembly and association; Representative basis of state power, and Right to a share in the social and economic organization of the state. The equality of man is fundamental to the Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration affirms that human rights are universal and applicable without any discrimination. If all human beings, professing different faiths, are born free with equal dignity and rights, no religious, social or political injunction can impose a reservation on the equality of man and discrimination against any people of the world. The equality of man transcends all religious precepts and precedent, social sanction, all ideological commitments and political limitations. All human beings, the Declaration proclaims, are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. All people are entitled to all rights and freedoms envisaged by the Declaration, without any distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other status. Every human being has right to life, liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. All people are equal before law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of law. State's Inaction The State Government and the Government of India have an obligation under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the various international Covenants and the United Nations Resolutions, to deal firmly with terrorist violence. Neither the State Government which is vested with the powers to maintain law and order in the state in the Indian federal division of powers, nor the Union Government which assumed all powers of the administration to itself in consequence of promulgation of President's rule in the State, adopted any of the measures mentioned above to deal firmly with the terrorist violence. Terrorist crime is still dealt with as an ordinary crime. Trial procedures have not been changed to meet the threat of crimes committed by the terrorist; no special anti-terrorist organizations have been instituted within the police department or within the security structures of the State. Thousands of innocent lives could have been saved, if the State and Union Government had taken adequate measures which the world community, the civilized nations have adopted to deal with the political terrorism. The local newspapers are a testimony to the death and destruction of Hindus and other innocent civilians who have been victimized by the various terrorist flanks and who could be saved if powers were given to the security forces to take pre-emptive action. Thousands of innocent lives have been taken by the terrorists and thousands of Hindus have been uprooted from their homes. They are languishing in refugee camps in Jammu and other parts of India. Their right to life, their homes and their freedom is as sacrosanct as any other human right listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. APPEAL We appeal to National Human Rights Commission; a) Put an end to political terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir so that the extermination and death of Hindu minorities and other innocent people is stopped immediately and hundreds of thousands of Hindus refugees are able to return to their homes in Kashmir, b) To act immediately to put to an end continuing genocide and Human Rights violations imposed upon Hindus of Kashmir who are living in exile for the last 22 years, virtually, abandoned by the Indian State and relegated to the life of deprivation, poverty and exploitation, and c) Indict pan-Islamic fundamentalist organizations and terrorists organizations in Jammu and Kashmir which are responsible for terrorist violence in Kashmir, and the State of Pakistan which has sponsored these organizations by providing training, arms and funds to the terrorists in Kashmir, for crimes against humanity and International Law and crimes against Human Rights. Sd/Dr. M.K.Teng - --------------Sd/C.L.Gadoo Diversity-USA a Democratic Think Tank on Minority issues has decided to approach the UN and the US President with this memorandum emphasizing upon them the need for their action in order to save an uprooted community (Kashmiri Pandits) that has already lived in exile for nearly a quarter of a century and has lost two generations of its people. This brutality and ethnic cleansing upon the world's most non-violent and educated community was inflicted by the same terrorist forces who attacked the mainland America on 9/11 killing more than 3,000 innocent people. Under these circumstances the neglect and indifference shown by the UN, leaders of the global system and the international community is inexcusable, unconscionable and unacceptable.
Through Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) Diversity-USA had submitted a memorandum to the House Foreign Relations Committee requesting a strong action by the US Congress for ending genocide and ethnic cleansing of the non-Muslim minorities in Kashmir. Regrettably the uncontained political war going on between between the two parties, in which the Tea Partiers played a pivotal role, prevented the House from taking any action. In view of the seriousness of the situation we hope the White House will not hesitate to take necessary measures for bringing the fast deteriorating situation under control. Our memos to the UN HQ and the White House should reach them by the first week of January, 2014. |
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