Monitoring Desk: Independent researchers and journalists have confirmed that India has become a rogue state under BJP rule and the state power has been transferred to extremist and radical elements.
Researchers are of the view that the lives of non-Brahmin are in constant danger, the judiciary has bowed down to the ruling elite and the Indian Army is helping BJP for getting political mileage.
Over eight million people in the occupied state have been under a lockdown since August 2019 when the fascist Bharatiya Janata Party abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and suspended the rights of the Kashmiri people.
Each year, since the 1990s, Kashmiris across the Line of Control as well as people from all walks of life, all over the world, observe Kashmir Solidarity Day on February 5. Over eight million people in the occupied state have been under a lockdown since August 2019 when the fascist Bharatiya Janata Party abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and suspended the rights of the Kashmiri people.
The Kashmiri people remain prisoners in their own houses, their mosques deserted, while internet access is blocked. Schools, markets and roads are almost deserted as people are not allowed to move freely. Indian security personnel spread fear among the unarmed population in a repeat of the Nazi occupation of conquered territories.
To wake up world conscience
It is conventional that lethal weapons are not used to disperse unarmed protesters. But, recently, India’s Border Security Force showered bullets on a handful of protesters. It is unprecedented. The world’s apathy to the plight of the Kashmiris people under the Indian yoke encourages India to resort to living bullets. Earlier India has been using shotguns to fire metallic pellets on unarmed protesters. These pellets blinded countless Kashmiris youth.
Strange justification for use of short guns
IRKED by international media censure, the deceased Gen Begin Rawat had given a funny explanation for pellet injuries in the eyes of Kashmiris.
He says: “Most of the eye injuries were caused because those pelting stones bend to the ground to pick up stones and because pellet guns are fired at the legs they hit them in the eyes.”
Indian opposition took him to task for explaining how Kashmiris were being ‘radicalised’. They advised him to desist from dabbling into politics. Asaduddin Owaisi asked him: “Who will deradicalise lynchers and their political masters? Yogi (UP chief minister] and ‘Pakistan jao’ Meerut SP?
In 2021, three hundred incidents of persecution of minorities have been registered in India. US State Department has released its international religious freedom report, which paints a dark picture of the situation for religious minorities in India. India is on the path to self-destruction with its Hindutva policy targeting all minorities living in India.
An Indian writer, Khushwant Singh, has predicted doom for India due to its self-destruction course. President Genocide Watch, Dr Gregory Stanton has warned of an impending genocide of Muslims in India, comparing the situation of the country under PM Modi government to events in Myanmar and Rwanda. He explained that the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is especially for targeting Muslims. The idea behind the Act is “exactly what the Myanmar government did to Rohingya Muslims” in 2017. Myanmar government first declared Rohingya non-citizens through legislation and then expelled them through violence and genocide. India has entered into a very critical phase of communal strife after the Hindu zealots led by RSS-inspired BJP leaders openly called for genocide of the Muslims and persecution of other minorities through tacit extreme ploys. Human Rights Watch in its latest World Report 2022 unveiled said that Indian authorities had intensified their crackdown on activists, journalists, and other critics of the government using politically motivated prosecutions in 2021.
Plight of Sikhs
Not only the Kashmiri but also other minorities, particularly the Sikhs are victims of Indian brutality. The minorities observed India’s Republic Day (Jan 26) as a Black Day. Dal Khalsa held protests in Punjab against the arbitrary detention of innocent Sikhs.
Terming Republic Day as “betrayal day for Sikhs” the youth organizations organised a public rally at Amritsar on January 26 to protest against “constitutional injustices and denials”.
Explaining as to why their groups were organizing the protest on Indian national day, Gurnam Singh, Ranjit Singh Taksali and Kanwar Charath Singh said successive governments have subverted the Constitution to provide impunity to forces and police, crushed dissent by framing the dissenters under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act UAPA, misuse of Central Bureau of investigation and National Investigation Act.
Elaborating their grudges and grievances, the young leaders said the distinct identity of Sikhs was subsumed under Article 25 (b) (2), the day the Constitution was adopted imposing Hindu personal laws on Sikhs. They further added that Punjab’s river waters were being looted in clear violation of non-riparian principles.
They alleged that New Delhi has always treated Punjab as its colony, hence the people of Punjab should stay away from Republic Day.
Kashmir a prison
Even Mehbooba Mufti, a former BJP ally, was compelled to say, “Kashmiris feel that they are literally imprisoned in a cage from which almost all exit routes are barred save one, to India, which is also not without peril.” A.G. Noorani, in a similar vein, said, `Kashmiris are distrusted and treated poorly in many parts of India, whether as students or as traders.’
Earlier, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously adopted a Pakistan-sponsored resolution, titled “Universal Realisation of the Right of the Peoples to Self-Determination”. It unequivocally supports the right to self-determination for all peoples under subjugation, alien domination and foreign occupation”. With close to 900,000 troops, police constabulary and security sleuths deployed, the Indian-held Kashmir is practically an Indian colony.
While lauding the UNGA resolution, Pakistan’s foreign minister drew attention to the extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, including that of human rights activist Khurram Parvez,and illegal detentions in the Indian-held Kashmir (‘Hope for Kashmiris’: UNGA adopts Pakistan-sponsored resolution on right to self-determination, December 17, 2021).
A similar Pakistan-sponsored resolution was adopted last year with little tangible follow-up The resolution affirmed the right to self-determination for peoples subjected to colonial, foreign and alien occupation. The resolution called on “those States responsible to cease immediately their military intervention in and occupation of foreign countries and territories”.
Wolfgang Danspeckgruber (editor), in the book The Self-Determination of Peoples: Community, Nation, and State in an Interdependent World, deals with the subject from all angles. He covers issues of sovereignty and self-determination in contemporary world affairs. The book covers the conceptual, political, legal, cultural, economic, and strategic aspects of self-determination. Danspeckgruber says: “No other concept is as powerful, visceral, emotional, unruly, and steep in creating aspirations and hopes as self-determination”.
Self-determination is recognised as a right in several international law instruments. These include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Declaration of Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States, the Helsinki Final Act, and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) affirmed the right in several cases including Namibia, Israeli wall, and Chagos Archipelago advisory opinions. In the East Timor case, the court confirmed its universal jus cogens and erga omnes character.
Sumantra Bose argues, `The Security Council’s resolutions – notably those of March 1951 and January 1957- is unequivocal that such participation and representation could not be regarded as a substitute for an internationally supervised plebiscite (Sumantra Bose, the Challenge in Kashmir: Democracy, Self-Determination and Just Peace, p.166). Bose had referred to the UN Security Council’s two resolutions that rejected so-called accession by the constituent assembly. These resolutions, No 91(1951), Document No, S/2017, Rev.1, Dt 30 March 1951 and Resolution No. 122 (1957), duly rejected the ratification of the accession by the constituent assembly in Srinagar. Resolution No. 122 (1957) was adopted by UN Security Council at its 765th meeting on 24 January 1957.
In international law, a territory is considered “occupied” when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The definition of occupation and the obligations of the occupying power were initially codified at the end of the 19th century. The definition still in force and commonly used nowadays is the one contained in the Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land annexed to the Fourth Hague Convention of 18 August 1907 (H.IV). Section III of the regulations detail the rights and obligations of the military authority over enemy territory (Articles 42–56).
The ICJ regards these regulations as equivalent to international customary law (infra Jurisprudence). This definition takes into account the effective control of the territory by a hostile authority and seeks to regulate the responsibility of such authority.
Contemporary international humanitarian law has clarified and added to the rights and duties of occupying forces, the rights of the populations of occupied territory, and the rules for administering such territory.
According to humanitarian law, occupation falls in the definition of international armed conflict and is regulated as such by the four Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I. The occupying power faces specific obligations where it has effective control over the territories occupied. These include obligations related to respect human rights, law, and order, in addition to respect for relevant provisions of humanitarian law related to occupation. The basic obligations of the occupying power under humanitarian law are to maintain law and order and public life in the occupied territory.
India is bound to let Kashmiris exercise self-determination right. If India disobeys UN resolutions it is a rogue state, pacta sunt servanda, treaties are binding on the parties.
Self-determination is a legal right of people whether the decolonization process is perfect or imperfect, as in the case of occupied Kashmir, in which the UN became involved.
Karen Parker points out, `The disposition of [illegally occupied] Kashmir has not been legally decided. It is not part of any country and yet we have the failure today of the realization of the expression of the self-determination of the Kashmir people (Karen Parker, Understanding Self-Determination, the Basics, Collected papers and proceedings of the First International Conference on the Right to Self-Determination).
Malcolm N. Shaw says, `Self-determination became the legal principle that fuelled the decolonization process, both obliging the colonial powers to grant independence (or another acceptable political status) and endowing their territory in question with a special status and thus, international legitimation.
Concluding remark
India’s view of usurped Kashmir is untenable. The UN should declare it a rogue state, and impose sanctions on it.
