Kashmir The Untold Story

Poonch insurgency 1947

http://www.india-seminar.com/2013/643/643_christopher_snedden.htm

"The J&K-Pakistan border was very porous southwards from around Mirpur. It was an artificial line that superficially separated the northern end of the Punjab plains into Pakistani and J&K territory. A number of large Pakistani towns located near this border, including Jhelum, Gujrat and Sialkot, were closer to Mirpur than Jammu City. Similarly, Poonch was closer to Murree and Rawalpindi, than to Jammu City or Srinagar."
 
"Indeed, a number of factors suggest that the Poonch uprising was an indigenous affair. Pakistan was fully occupied dealing with the almost overwhelming physical, administrative and emotional ramifications of Partition. Any Pakistani support or leadership for Jammuites was probably not officially sanctioned. Rather, Punjabi or NWFP Muslims, with whom Jammu Muslims had close ethnic, familial, cultural, geographical and economic links, would have provided support on that basis. For example, some ‘sudhans’ from Poonch considered themselves to be ‘sudho zai Pathans’ (Pukhtoons), which, for them, explained why ‘the Pathans lost no time’ coming to help J&K Muslims. Furthermore – and importantly – Poonch Muslims had the capability, given their military abilities and experiences, and the intent, given their anti-Maharaja grievances, to foment and sustain anti-Maharaja actions themselves. They did not need any Pakistani encouragement or assistance."

http://www.countercurrents.org/zargar120313.htm
"In July 1947, Muslims of Poonch were directed to surrender their arms only to be handed over to Hindus & Sikhs of the area. Fearing that these will be used to carry out a massacre of Muslims, which fears later turned out to be true, Poonchis, among whom many had matrimonial relations with various pashtun tribes ,sought fresh weapons from them as they were well known for manufacture of arms. This laid the basis for direct contact between the members of Poonch resistance and the pashtun tribesmen. And when the stories of Muslim massacre in Jammu started reaching them, they offered their assistance for liberation of their co-religionists in Kashmir. And that is how an incursion started to take a definite shape."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7057694.stm


"They crossed the border in the early hours of 22nd October and - aided by desertions from the maharaja's army - quickly took control of the town of Muzaffarabad. Khan Shah Afridi, a veteran of the invading force, said he was instructed to go to Kashmir by a Muslim holy man.
"The pir told us we will fight and we should not be afraid. It's a war between Muslims and infidels, and we will get Kashmir freed."
Many Kashmiri Muslims initially viewed the tribesmen as liberators, but the raiders' appetite for loot cost them much local support."

Massacre of Muslims in Jammu 1947

https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=0cPjAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT43&lpg=PT43&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false 

https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=0cPjAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT48&lpg=PT48#v=onepage&q&f=false


Massacre of Hindus and Sikhs in Mirpur 1947

https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=N2BIAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141#v=onepage&q&f=false

"A couple of months ago, I received an email from Bal Kishan Gupta, a retired engineer who lives in Georgia. He wrote, I read your article on Jammu 1947 on the website. It is a heart rending account of the massacre of Muslims in Jammu. I am from Mirpur and was a witness to the slaughter of the Hindus and Sikhs of Mirpur. As a matter of fact, I am one of the few survivors of the Alibeg concentration camp. As Muslim refugees from Jammu mark the anniversary of the November 5 Jammu killings, the Hindu and Sikh survivors of Mirpur remember the November 25 holocaust of Mirpur."


Plebiscite

http://theindianeconomist.com/christopher-sneddons-research-damaging-indias-cause-vis-vis-kashmir/
"Nehru had, in fact, gone on record even later to say that he was willing to follow the UN resolution (i.e. conduct the plebiscite) in the whole of the erstwhile princely state if Pakistan complied with the precondition of withdrawing its troops, as can be seen from this video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7wn0ZRhyq0&feature=share (watch 1:58 onwards).

Also, when Shaikh Abdullah had later started vacillating and Nehru had him imprisoned, Nehru did, on the other hand, again offer Pakistan a plebiscite! To be quote the eminent writer MJ Akbar on this point, from his highly acclaimed book Kashmir – Behind the Vale (2002 paperback edition)-

“Within a fortnight of arresting Abdullah for asking too much of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru completely reversed India’s position and offered Pakistan a plebiscite!

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, now Mohammad Ali, came to Delhi on an official visit. In the talks Nehru suggested that after the two Prime Ministers had finalized the preliminary issues, a plebiscite administrator could be named by April 1954. He even told Mohammad Ali that voting could be done in the whole state rather than separate Hindu & Muslim regions, and if this meant the loss of the whole Valley, he was prepared for it! The offer was confirmed in a letter to Mohammad Ali on 3 September.” (page 154)

“The only condition Nehru placed was that the American UN nominee Admiral Nimitz be replaced ad Plebiscite Administrator by someone form a smaller country. Deeply suspicious of the US, he did not want this superpower’s hand in the plebiscite.” (page 154)

“If there were any doubts about Nehru’s sincerity in those years about the plebiscite commitment, then surely they should have ended with this proposal.” (page 154)

Akbar further mentions how Pakistan’s insistence on the US admiral led Nehru to withdraw the offer."

http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153341/the-pursuit-of-kashmir
"The Muslim League had virtually no presence in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan had no guarantee that the people of Kashmir would overwhelmingly vote to be part of Pakistan.
Pakistani leadership was aware of the problem which is why both Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan consistently rejected a plebiscite in Kashmir as long as Indian troops were there. “If the India Government [is] allowed to act…unfettered as [it pleases] by virtue of having already occupied Kashmir and landed their troops there, then, this El Dorado of plebiscite will prove a mirage,” read an official Pakistan statement. During negotiations with Mountbatten, Jinnah strongly objected to having a plebiscite even under the auspices of the UN, maintaining that the presence of Indian troops as well as Sheikh Abdullah’s tilt towards India would deter the average Muslim in Kashmir from voting for Pakistan. In a letter to Attlee, Liaquat Ali Khan described Sheikh Abdullah as a “quisling” and a “paid agent of the Congress for the last two decades”.
In a December 1947 meeting with his Indian counterpart, Liaquat Ali Khan also questioned the efficacy of a voting process in Kashmir while it was under an India-sponsored administration. “…[T]he people of Kashmir were bound to vote, in the plebiscite, in favour of whatever administration was then in power. The Kashmiris were an illiterate and oppressed people, and they would be bound to favor the authority in possession. If an Englishman went as administrator, they would vote to join the United Kingdom,” he said.
That not only the Maharaja but also the National Conference favoured India was the advantage Nehru wanted. In his correspondence with Indian politicians, he pointed out that any activity by Pakistan would look illegal and unacceptable after Kashmir had acceded to India. He was right. After the Maharaja acceded to India on October 26, 1947, New Delhi was successful in portraying to the rest of the world that Pakistan-supported militant activity was an act of belligerence. This would remain the thrust of India’s case against Pakistan for the times to come."


http://archives.dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/05-Jul-2009/book-review-how-india-got-it-wrong-in-kashmir-by-khaled-ahmed
"Did violence against Kashmiri Pandits begin after Pakistan sent in its non-state actors? The book tells us that it actually began in 1986, with the Rajiv Gandhi government in its infancy. The most remarkable aspect of this outbreak was that even though the community had faced persecution by bigoted rulers in the past, this marked the first person-to-person conflict in all of Kashmir's history (p.55).
This is new information for a Pakistani reader. Also new is the fact that many Muslim clerics fled anti-Muslim violence in Assam and filled up the Kashmiri madrassas run Jamaat Islami. They became a potent influence on young minds and played a critical role in nurturing the religious mind-set of young Kashmiris by the close of the 1980s, when the insurgency erupted. (p.57)"

"What is surprising is the fact that the Kashmiri Pandits were attacked by the JKLF and not by the mullahs of the Jamaat. Even though the JKLF philosophy was supposedly secular, minuscule minority of the pandits from the Kashmir Valley became the principal targets of terrorists from both JKLF, and the violence sparked emigration of almost the entire Pandit community from the valley into Jammu and different parts of India. (p.66)"

"Then Hizb fell out with JKLF. In April 1993, the chief ideologue of the JKLF, Dr Guru, was kidnapped and brutally murdered by the Hizb militant Zulqarnain. Guru, a leading Srinagar physician who had funded a medical college, had commanded wide respect and presented reasonable face of separatism. (p.82) That year also came the Hazratbal Shrine Incident, followed by a far more damaging debacle at Charar-e-Sharif in March 1995."

http://archives.dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/19-Jul-2009/book-review-approaches-to-kashmir-dispute-by-khaled-ahmed
"Bushra Asif examines a topic embarrassing to Pakistanis: How Independent is Azad Jammu and Kashmir? AJK has all the trappings of an autonomous state. Its constitution — the Interim Constitution Act of 1974 — provides for a parliamentary form of government with a president as the constitutional head, a prime minister as the chief and 48 member legislative assembly. AJK also has its own Supreme and High Courts, an election commission, and even its own national anthem and flag. For all practical purposes, its administration has traditionally been regulated by Islamabad through its Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas (KANA) and, since 1974, also by the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council (p.33). The constitution set up an Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council to serve as a 'coordinating link' between Pakistan and AJK, comprising thirteen members, with the chief executive of Pakistan as its chairman.
Suba Chandran in India and Armed Non-State Actors in the Kashmir Conflict takes account of jihadi groups that have tried to impose a Taliban-type Islam in IOK. In 2001, Lashkar-e-Jabbar (LeJ), widely suspected to be an LeT front, threatened to attack women for not wearing the burqa. Later that year, LeJ announced that there should be segregation of the sexes in public transport and asked Hindu women to wear a bindi on their forehead, and Sikh women to wear saffron dupattas to differentiate them from Muslim women. Kashmiri women have resisted this dress code; Mehbooba Mufti, prominent Kashmiri politician and daughter of former IOK chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, led the counterattack along with others. (p.52)"
According to a Sunday Times report, nine hundred UK Muslims are trained every year to fight in IOK, and 'about 10 per cent of those stay and fight, the rest take their political and religious indoctrination and bring it back to their communities, mostly for fund-raising and recruitment.' (p.56)


Militant Groups (post-1980s)


http://www.tehelka.com/2013/11/are-kashmiri-shias-the-next-pandits/

In the year 1947 and after, Shiites took active part in the political affairs of the State. In many instances they were at the forefront of Kashmir’s struggle for independence – a sizeable population from the community also had to suffer at the hands of the State for their pro-Pakistan leanings. Munshi Mohammad Ishaq, a Shia leader was a prominent figure of the historic Plebiscite Movement. And during the armed uprising in Kashmir in the late 80’s the Shia community also had a militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mominoon (the party of the faithful). Many of this group’s ‘boys’ were either killed or arrested.

A scholar from the Shia community Ibne Muhammad (name changed) says, “The Shia community is a strong stake holder in Kashmir and we have been participating fully in the political struggle of Kashmir throughout its history.” Talking about the diversity of political thought within the community he says, “You can find a Shia presence across the political spectrum of Kashmir. There is a Shia leader in every major separatist and mainstream political party here.”

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36005#.VodiIfHFuCQ
"The foremost goal of most of the Kashmiri youth who took up arms was to oppose what they called “Indian occupation.”  However, there were two important sectarian groups: the Shi’a Hizbul Momineen and the Salafist Tehrik ul-Mujahideen. Apart from the Hizb ul-Mujahideen, the ISI allowed only the Tehrik ul-Mujahideen from Indian-administered Kashmir (led by Maulana Jamilur Rehman) to set up its own training camps. The most important of these, Ma’askar (camp) Abdullah bin Mubarak, was set up outside of Mansehra district. Although the Tehrik ul-Mujahideen attracted very few Kashmiris, it trained thousands of young Pakistani recruits from the Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith (an Islamist political party) at its training camp. The Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith (Assembly of the Way of the Followers) adopted Tehrik ul-Mujahideen as its armed wing in the late 1990s. In the early days of the Kashmir jihad, Maulana Abbass Ansari, who heads the Shi’a political party Ittehad ul-Muslimeen, set up a Shi’a militant group under the command of Mir Tahir. [4] Under the influence of Saudi Arabia, the ISI discouraged Shi’a Muslims from joining the jihad in both Afghanistan and Kashmir. Maulana Abbass Ansari has a vast following among the Shi’a of Kashmir and was deemed particularly unacceptable by the ISI. Consequently, the Shi’a militants had to wind up their jihadi infrastructure and join the political field in the early 1990s. At the same time, the ISI encouraged a rival Shi’a group, Hizb ul-Momineen. Hizbul Momineen accepted only Shi’a recruits. The first commander of the Hizb ul-Momineen, Shuja Abbas, developed differences with the ISI in the late 1990s and had to quit.  Now led by Syed Ijaz, Hizb ul-Momineen has engaged in little militant activity in recent years. The most important role of the Hizb ul-Momineen has been to save the Kashmir jihad from drifting into Shi’a-Sunni sectarian conflict when the ISI asked the movement to claim responsibility for the assassination of pro-Indian Shiites who were actually being killed by Sunni jihadis. This was done to prevent India from stirring sectarian tensions by claiming that Sunnis were killing Shi’a in Kashmir. "

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EG25Df01.html
"According to Jihadis in Jammu and Kashmir: A Portrait Gallery by K Santhanam and others (New Delhi: Sage and IDSA, 2003), the attacks in the early 1990s by Sunni militant groups on the Shi'ites led to the formation of the militant group Pasban-e-Islam for "self protection" of the Shi'ites. In 1992, it was renamed the Hizbul Momineen.

Surrendered militants of the Hizbul Momineen told this correspondent in 2000 that the group seemed more concerned with negotiating protection arrangements and alliances with Sunni militant groups than with fighting the Indian forces. However, none of these arrangements ever lasted as the suspicions of each other's motives ran deep. "The Sunnis were wary of our loyalties; they feared we were working with the Indian Intelligence. And we felt it was a matter of time before they turned on us," recalled a former area commander of the Hizbul Momineen.

Indeed, the dominant sentiment among the Shi'ites is pro-India. The possibility of J&K joining Pakistan fills them with dread. The option of azadi (freedom) from both India and Pakistan, while favored by many in the Valley, is not something to which the Shi'ites aspire. An independent Kashmir, they fear, will leave them at the mercy of the dominant Sunnis.

Incidentally, the militancy did not take root in Muslim-dominated Kargil. Kargil is predominantly Shi'ite. Pakistan's attempts at inciting the people of Kargil against India and calls for Islamic brotherhood have failed to strike a chord here. As among the Shi'ites in the Valley, those in Kargil see Pakistan as their bigger enemy, notwithstanding the bond of Islam."



http://www.firstpost.com/india/how-a-few-harsh-words-lit-a-communal-fire-in-kashmirs-badgam-983451.html 
24 July 2013:

Early the next morning, stone-throwing mobs confronted each other in half a dozen villages. In Payrus and in Sahipora, local police have told Firstpost, over a dozen homes and a Shi’a Imambara have been burned down.  Fatima Mir, an elderly woman, is in critical care, battling for her life because of head injuries.

For the first time in years, troops from three battalions of the Indian Army’s Rashtriya Rifles regiment have been out on Badgam’s streets.

The clashes that have led to curfew being imposed across the central Kashmir district of Badgam, bang next to Srinagar, and home to a significant part of the state’s Shi’a minority, aren’t big enough to attract attention in the national media. Everything has a context, though—and it’s the context to the communal violence in Badgam that’s more significant than the rioting itself.

For decades—even centuries—there’s been low-grade sectarian skirmishes in Kashmir, mostly signifying nothing more than the human capacity for violence over petty differences. In recent years, though, these skirmishes have shown a worrying uptick: tension flared up across Badgam in 2011 after a cellphone sex-clip of a Shi’a girl and Sunni boy surfaced, and there was violence between members of the two religious groups in Srinagar’s Hawal area last year. 

...

Kashmir’s Shi’a population have mostly been bystanders to this religious competition—but the rising tide of religiosity is fuelling fears, especially given the regional context. The assassination of National Conference-affiliated Shi’a leader Aga Syed Mehdi in 2000 highlighted the ideological strains: Islamist groups like the Dukhtaran-e- Millat, as also the political outfits like the Islamic Students League and the Muslim League even lashed out at secessionist leaders for attending his last rites.

......

Kashmir’s Shi’a leadership has long feared the consequences of jihadi terrorism might have for the community: in the 1990s, its leadership even sponsored a militia to cushion against the possibility of an Islamist victory. Elements of the Shi’a community have also drawn ever closer to the state: in 2009, hundreds turned out to mourn Shabbir Malik, a local boy who died alongside other  Indian troops fighting jihadists.

Half widows


http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153456/enforced-disappearances-the-plight-of-kashmirs-half-widows 
'Half-widows' is used to describe wives of men who have disappeared but have not been declared dead. The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons estimates that 8,000-10,000 men have disappeared since 1989, leading to an estimated 1,500 'half-widows' in [India-administered] Kashmir. However, the Indian government doesn’t recognise the phenomenon of enforced disappearances in Kashmir and asserts that the ‘missing’ count is not more than 4,000. This leaves the 'half-widows' in a state of permanent limbo as they suffer the consequences of an ‘ambiguous loss’: a situation of loss without closure or clarity.