State repression and violence cannot curb the human will to survive and be free-Communist governments in Europe and the Soviet Union learned it, even South Africa has finally realized its folly, but the Indian government has still not become wiser.
Last week dozens of innocent civilians were killed in Kashmir by paramilitary police, interviews published in London papers with the survivors show that they were literally hunted down for minor infractions, plane loads of troops have been rushed to the beautiful but beleaguered land, and even the normally pragmatic State Department, said that it appealed to the Indian government to prevent the use of excessive force against the demonstrators.
Kashmir has been completely and illegally integrated with India in defiance of United Nation’s resolutions of 1948 and 1949 and the Indian government, has steadfastly refused to hold a plebiscite despite promising to do so in the UN, because it realizes that Kashmiri Muslims do not want to be oppressed by India.
In Punjab, Simiranjit Singh Mann, perhaps the only prominent politician who said he wanted to resolve the issues within the Indian constitution was brutally attacked and wounded by the police as he led a peaceful demonstration to protest against their atrocities. The similarity of the situations lead to immediate comparisons with Lala Lajpat Rai who suffered at the hands of the British Indian Police and whose death was avenged by a Sikh, Bhagat Singh years later in England. Mann should now realize that all peaceful means have failed, he should, like Nelson Mandela, declare that freedom, by whatever means, is the only goal of the Sikhs.
That the only two states in which Hindus are not an overwhelming majority in India-Kashmir and Punjab should seek to secede from it speaks volumes about the failure of the alleged secular policies of India.
The recent state elections were marred with violence -around a hundred deaths in Bihar alone-they were a farcical exercise to decide which group of the ruling majority will run the country for the next five years. Social and economic dislocation combines with atavistic caste and communal prejudices in the minorities being short shafted.
As we have said before, polls do not mean anything for the minorities because as long as the prevalent Hindu chauvinism continues, and the BJP electoral gains testify that this wins, the minorities will still be discriminated against and treated as second class citizens in India.
The government of India is well known for its propensity to imitate the Soviet Union with which it maintains close ties. They will be well advised not to maintain a Stalinist posture but to follow the Gorbachevian one, which is recognizing and trying to rectify the mistakes of the past. The realization of the inevitable and a peaceful, graceful secession of various parts of the country which want to break away from the Union will pave a way for good neighborly relations.
Kashmiris and Sikhs should no longer let the government’s strategy of divide and rule work against them. They should join hands and together fight for their freedom. As Clarence Darrow said,” You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting other men’s freedom. You can be free only if I am free.”
Article extracted from this publication >> March 9, 1990
