Kashmir card

And the politics of hate

Recently a British Member of Parliament from East Harrow (London), Robert John Blackman, made several statements about the conflict in Kashmir while repeating Indian far right groups’ anti-Pakistan rhetoric at a press function held in Jammu organised by Jammu Press Club. His statements became the headlines of several Indian newspapers including the following:

“Entire J&K Including PoK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) is Integral Part of India”; and “Pakistani groups in Britain running vicious campaign against India: British MP”

The gentleman seems to be either completely ignorant of the historical context of the Kashmir issue or he has gone too far to win Indians’ votes in his constituency in London – God bless politics.

Before endorsing the flawed reasoning of India and declaring Kashmir as her ‘Integral Part’, Mr Blackman forgot several UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir demanding that the Indian government held an impartial plebiscite in the state. We may excuse Mr Blackman for his naivety of the complex political issues and historical background of the Kashmir dispute. However, it is despicable how he simply chose to ignore dozens of reports by local and international NGOs documenting human rights abuses in Kashmir. How could anyone possibly forget over half a century long history of torture, rape and state sponsored extra-judicial killings in the state of Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian security forces?

To bring more shame to the democratic norms and values of Britain, this British MP suggested that the “ruler of Jammu and Kashmir had signed instrument of accession with India and given the control of the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir to India”. So basically Mr Blackman legitimised the most tyrannical act of Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir at the time of Indian partition in 1947, who decided the fate of four million Kashmiri (three-fourths of whom were Muslims) while snatching away their fundamental right of self-determination. It was the same Maharaja about whom the London Times reported in Oct 1947 that his forces were involved in ‘systematic extermination’ of the Muslims in the Poonch area of Kashmir. Supporting such a ruthless ruler by an elected Member of Parliament in Britain is utterly irresponsible and frankly quite worrying.

Just to educate Mr Blackman on a brief historical account of Kashmir, it wasn’t Pakistan but India’s founding father and first PM, Pandit Jawahurlal Nehru, who is responsible for the unresolved Kashmir dispute. It was his obsession with Kashmir that never allowed the people of Kashmir to decide about their future. There is no justification for any foreign intrusion in Kashmir in any shape or form but it’s essential to have an impartial analysis of the historical events which deprived the Kashmiris of their fundamental rights and made their beautiful valley a battleground for security forces, separatists and militias.

As a matter of fact, the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, tried hard to resolve the Kashmir issue peacefully but Nehru refused to accompany Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy to Indian subcontinent, to visit Mr Jinnah in Lahore in Oct 1947 as scheduled. Pandit Nehru deliberately shut down all possible negotiation channels to discuss the Kashmir issue with Pakistan. The warnings were issued by him to then PM of Kashmir, Mehr Chand Mahajan, and Chief Minister, Sheikh Abdullah, to avoid any direct contacts with Mr Jinnah to discuss Kashmir affairs. Even he went against his own high commissioner to Pakistan, Sri Prakasa, who proposed to hand over Kashmir to Pakistan to prevail peace in the region.

As professor Stanley Wolpert mentioned in his renowned book, A Shameful Flight, Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel, then Deputy PM of India, wanted to bankrupt Pakistan by escalating the Kashmir war and by continuing to withhold the overdue payments of 550 million rupees of British India’s cash assets.

Various attempts were made by the United Nation’s Commission on India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir but nothing could shake Nehru’s determination to forcefully keep Kashmir with India. He even rejected the last effort of then British Prime Minister, Clement Richard Attlee, to resolve the dispute by involving International Court of Justice as an impartial arbitrator in order to find the wishes of the people of Kashmir as to which dominion they wanted to join.

Mr Blackman seems to be a follower of Mahatma Gandhi as he was found to be standing before his grave with his eyes closed in his last visit to India. But I don’t think he knows what Gandhi said about the Kashmir dispute: ‘‘If the people of Kashmir are in favour of opting for Pakistan, no power on earth can stop them from doing so….’’ When Gandhi offered to become the arbitrator to resolve the matter, Nehru refused it again. Gandhi’s philosophy of peace and love had been proven wrong by his own disciple, Nehru, by believing in wars and state sponsored terrorism in Kashmir; this legacy became part of the state policy for the subsequent Indian governments. The last thing that Mr Blackman must always remember before pointing fingers at Pakistan for promoting terrorism in India is that, Nathuram Godse, a fanatic who put three bullets through Gandhi’s chest, was neither an Islamist nor a Pakistani. He was a Hindu Brahman, a trained RSS member.

Well, what respect for democracy one can expect from a person like Bob Blackman who blocked his local council from honouring Nelson Mandela in 1990 when the leader of the Brent Council at that time, Cllr Dorman Long, proposed the ‘freedom of the borough’ award on his visit to London. Mr Blackman did not stop there and made an audacious statement on Twitter at the funeral of Mr Mandela saying that he was glad for his actions against the Council to honour him. His tweet incited huge outrage but he rather arrogantly replied “my view is unchanged”.

Mr Blackman’s character can further be explained by the following news stories of Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail:

Tory MP Bob Blackman’s 700 ‘inaccurate expenses claims’; and Bob Blackman will not pay back expenses.

Perhaps, Mr Blackman should focus on clearing his name from the corruption allegations against him and building some good reputation at home instead of making failed attempts to resolve international conflicts.