With the area of around 86,000 square miles, Kashmir is a land facing the longest military occupation and surveillance due to an unresolved conflict, since almost 70 years. India has forcefully imposed itself on this former princely state by deploying 1 million (estimated) army personnel. The purpose of keeping the 45% of Kashmir in such a dense militarized predicament is not only to keep psychological pressure on innocent Kashmiris but also to justify its outrage occupation. India claims to barricade Kashmir on the grounds of a controversial agreement signed with ruler of this princely state, Raja Hari Singh, at the time of partition, 1947.
Taking that contentious agreement on legal grounds, its validity gets uncertain on the fact that the subjects (Kashmiris) of the alleged agreement have no consent to become part of India. Not only logical and geographical existence of Kashmir supports its accession but also the main idea of partition 1947 favors and attaches the notion of Kashmiris, with Pakistan. The concept of two nation theory along with the Muslim majority area’s accession with Pakistan had been forcefully declined by India particularly in the Kashmir valley. What makes this conflict worst is, the cold-hearted, immoral and illegal way of Indian occupation. When it comes to assessing the barbarism carried out by the Indian army in Kashmir, statistics show a grave and bloody situation.
More than a million Kashmiris have been affected by atrocities. Only the custodial killings reached up to 8000. In addition to that, 22,826 women were widowed, 10,717 women gang raped/molested and more than 107,591 children orphaned. The issue of “missing persons” is another mean of torturing Kashmiris and moreover to make the condition of their families vulnerable, Indian forces do not declare those missing person as dead.
In order to gloss over the cruelty and war crimes committed in Kashmir, a number of fake encounters have been done. This has been coupled with a perpetual blame game, termed as “infiltration from Pakistan”or “cross border terrorism”. However these were proven wrong when International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice In Indian-Administrated Kashmir (IPTK) released its report, in which following United Nations special Rapporteurs were requested to be permitted and invited to Jammu and Kashmir:
1. Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
2. Arbitrary Detentions
3. Torture and other Cruel, inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
4. Violence against Women, Its causes and Consequences
5. Extrajudicial, summary or Arbitrary Executions
Along with this request, the comprehensive ban on practices of torture as defined by International law and humanitarian ethics was also demanded. Point to bring under limelight is, that all these requests were made after witnessing the inhumane and unjust brutality. And this should be kept in notice that above mentioned report was prepared by using the information of over two years, from the official state documents along with the witness testimonies.
The legal root cause behind the Kashmir dispute is directly pointed towards the dimensions of international law; not recognizing the right of self-determination of Kashmiri people. Originated from customary international law, “Right of Self-determination” is a core principle of international law. This sacred right is sanctified and consecrated in many treaties and major instruments of international law due to its extreme importance. For instance; it’s a protected right in United Nations Charter, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and most importantly Self-determination is a ‘Jus cogen’. International court of justice (ICJ) and Inter-American Commission on Human rights though their case ruling, had given this right, status of “erga omnes” which means “following to all”.
It is explicitly stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that,“Whereas it is essential if a man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, the human rights should be protected by the rule of law.” Besides, Article 1 of the declaration declares that, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are awarded reasons and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” Besides, the international law states that, all people have right to self-determination and their human rights should be protected.
Kashmir is not an exception to all the guaranteed rights, but forcefully made exempted from attaining its fundamental human right by India. To suppress self-determination movement of Kashmiris, massive violations of human rights have been committed, which are highlighted as war crimes and crimes against humanity in international law and in its declaratory instruments. Despite of all the possible inhuman means of imposing supremacy through torture and massacre, India failed to push back Kashmiris from their valid stance not for a single step even after seven decades. The aggression of claiming the right of self-determination and awareness of their fundamental human rights did not get blur in the smoke of torture that Indian forces have created in Occupied Kashmir. Those oppressed people of the former princely state are still waiting for their rights to be acknowledged and still struggling to get rid from the worst torture they are bearing all these long years.
From 1947 to 1971, as many as 18 Security Council Resolutions were passed in connection with the Kashmir Dispute. Along with that, the United Nations has passed a number of resolutions but they could not be enforced due to them being persuasive (non-binding) in nature (for the reason that these resolutions were passed under Chapter-VI of its Charter). This explicitly is, one of the substantial hindrance to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. If these resolutions would had passed under Chapter VII, which deals with binding UN resolutions, the conflict of this disputed territory would have been sorted out. In addition, the resolutions passed by the United Nations commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) were also non-binding as, it was an agency of good offices and had no power to impose the decisions. It would be erroneous to establish that since these resolutions were not legally binding on India and Pakistan, they had not been implemented as such in real sense. In fact, those resolutions merely persuade and put any moral responsibility on India to ascertain the will of the Kashmiri people by holding a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir. India refused every time a report and resolution was floated with such a suggestion in any human rights commission or even through Pakistan. India fears that things in favor of Kashmir will favor Pakistan, and thus to keep it off, India’s stance always remains inflexible . At the same time while rejecting the insights of reports, India still pressurizes Pakistan to accept all terms , unconditionally. How can things get better, when only Pakistan is pressurized to act upon the recommendations of resolutions and at the same time Indian denial to accept forgetting that “it takes two to make a quarrel”
These aspects discussed above, needs attention of the world and that of International peace keepers in particular because humanity loses every day in Kashmir. The Role of international organizations cannot be denied completely, they are silent spectators. Witnessing the blood seeping on the streets of Srinagar and Jammu, it can be asserted that Piecemeal reports and resolutions have thus far not helped Kashmiris. Things need to get real through implementation with binding orders according to law and it is a fact that without respecting the rights of Kashmiris, the forceful supremacy will keep peace and justice elusive.
