“The ball’s in India’s court”: an interview with President Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Sardar Masood Khan

This is the first time blinding has been used as an instrument of war

The Security Council should hold a debate on the situation. Its members cannot remain silent; they have to return to their own resolutions. If they care about peace and security, they have a responsibility to be proactive. They cannot simply say that the problem should be solved by India and Pakistan; especially when a crisis, like the one we have been experiencing for the past six months, has broken out. This matter is about the right of peoples to self-determination

Three geo-political ambitions, Indian, Pakistani and Chinese, clash in Kashmir. It is here, more specifically, that the Indian-Pakistani conflict crystallises, born from the division of the British Indian empire in 1947.

The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, despite the fact that it was in majority a Muslim region, was at that time ruled by a Hindu maharaja who chose to turn to India instead of Pakistan. A first war broke out and ended in 1949 with the partition of Jammu and Kashmir between the two countries, with in between the Line of Control installed by the United Nations. Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan are on the Pakistani side. Since then, other conflicts drenched the region in blood, but never an enduring solution could be found between the two powers.

Political movements and radical armed groups have appeared in the region controlled by India to ask for more autonomy or for the annexation to Pakistan. Islamic militants also infiltrated in the region to perpetrate attacks Numerous Kashmiris of the Srinagar valley ask today for freedom and the end of what they call the Indian occupation. But there are also youngsters that choose the armed fight and radical Islam to demand independence.

The situation in Indian dominated Kashmir, a majority Muslim region, has flared up in the last six months, without a glimpse of the beginning of pacification. Sardar Masood Khan, president of Azad Kashmir in Pakistan, travelled to Brussels this week to raise European leaders’ awareness of the conflict between the two nuclear powers in South Asia. “Europe has a moral and political responsibility to intercede more visibly in favour of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the flag of human rights must also float high in Srinagar,” he said.

Always gracious with his time, he talked exclusively to DNA as the struggle in Kashmir enters an entirely new phase.

Question: How do you read the situation on the ground now, especially the unprecedented manner of the Indian response? Is this a sudden uprising or has it too, like everything associated with the Kashmiri freedom struggle, brewed over a long time?

Sardar Masood Khan: It is terrible. The crisis was triggered by the assassination, by the Indian forces, of a popular figure of the struggle for freedom. There are indiscriminate killings of civilians, demonstrators. Hundreds of people were killed or injured, property was destroyed. This is the first time that blinding has been used as an instrument of war; that an occupation force is targeting the eyes of those who seek freedom.

Q: What is the way forward? The Pak-India equation is about as deadlocked as it can possibly be short of actual war. How, then, does the so-called peace process forward?

SMK: The ball is in the India’s court. Pakistan is ready to commit itself with India for quite some time. You talk about the “peace process”, but before the peace process resumes, you have to start by having contacts, by having a form of dialogue. The bilateral discussions do not work; they don’t produce anything tangible since decades. As long as India is reluctant to engage in Kashmir, we have no other option but to turn to the international community and the United Nations. The Security Council should hold a debate on the situation. Its members cannot remain silent; they have to return to their own resolutions. If they care about peace and security, they have a responsibility to be proactive. They cannot simply say that the problem should be solved by India and Pakistan; especially when a crisis, like the one we have been experiencing for the past six months, has broken out. This matter is about the right of peoples to self-determination.

Q: What, in your opinion, does India want to accomplish in light of the particularly brutal crackdown? How should the Kashmiri people protect their rights in this case?

SMK: India wants to eliminate the Kashmiris from the solution of the conflict. The people of Jammu and Kashmir should have the opportunity to determine by referendum their political future and who will have sovereignty over their territory, in conformation with the resolutions of the Security Council.

There are two versions: the Indian version and ours. We don’t have sufficient evidence to conclude that attack has been committed byjihadis from Pakistan. We don’t know who has inspired, financed or organised the attack. The Line of Control (which separates Kashmir) is the most controlled of the world; with electronically monitored impassable fences at the Indian side. India is strong in communicating. But where is the proof?

Q: What is your answer to Indian allegations of the Pakistani side leveraging the jihadi element to further its cause, especially in light of the Pathankot incident, among others?

SMK: India gives this argument to divert attention from the atrocities it commits in Kashmir. It doesn’t give credible proof of jihadi activities in the region.

There are two versions: the Indian version and ours. We don’t have sufficient evidence to conclude that attack has been committed byjihadis from Pakistan. We don’t know who has inspired, financed or organised the attack. The Line of Control (which separates Kashmir) is the most controlled of the world; with electronically monitored impassable fences at the Indian side. India is strong in communicating. But where is the proof?

Pakistan fights terrorism under all its forms. We are eliminating its reminiscences in all parts of the country. That is very clear. The action against Hafez Saeed has been taken in conformation with the constitutional law and in the framework of the engagement of Pakistan in regards to the international community.

If India would have been sincere, it would have restarted the dialogue with Pakistan on Kashmir and would have stopped killing Kashmiris. The problem doesn’t come from Pakistan, but from the mass murders, the genocide, the crimes against humanity, the human rights violations committed by India.

A: I observe an increase in Hindu extremism, in intolerance in hatred against Muslims. It is the recipe for a disaster, not only for Kashmiris but also for the Indian civil society as a whole.