DM Monitoring
NEW YORK: Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, a prominent Kashmiri leader, has called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent statement about providing statehood to the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region post-elections a reflection of his “Machiavellian trait”, saying the core issue is not statehood or even restoration of abrogated laws, but the fulfillment of the U.N. resolution promising self-determination to Kashmiris.
“Nothing less will be acceptable to people of Kashmir,” Dr.Fai, Secretary General of the Washington-based World Kashmir Awareness Forum said in a statement issued on Sunday.
He said that the Indian government should learn from past experiences and renounce the exercise of “hoodwinking or befooling international community or the people of the region.” India, he said, held these “dubious” exercises several time in the last 76 years, and every time their outcome was rejected by the people of the occupied land and their genuine leadership.
“The genesis of the dispute lies in the Indian refusal to hold a plebiscite to meet the aspirations of the people of the region that international community has promised them by virtue of various resolutions of the United Nations Security Council,” Fai said.
Contrary to fulfilling that promise, the Indian government has been crushing the voices of freedom by “brute and barbaric actions”. Several human right organizations have documented that since 1990 more than 100,000 Kashmiri civilians including youth and women have been murdered, 11,300 women gang-raped and thousands are missing, pointing out the presence of mass graves as well as children blinded due to pellet wounds.
“Similar to the past, by conducting farce elections and putting the discredited politicians who toe the line of Indian establishment, in the saddle, will not yield any tangible results,” the Kashmiri leader said. In this regard, he quoted renowned Indian writher and author, Arundhati Roy’s statement that “India will not be able to usurp the territory that never belonged to it.” He noted that Ms. Roy was now being currently prosecuted by the Indian government for the “expression of her honest views that are based on unequivocal historical facts.”
The Indian establishment has failed to understand that Kashmiris outrightly reject the occupation and will not accept anything less than free and fair plebiscite held under the auspices of UN, he said. “Modi was living in fools’ paradise when he thought by abrogating article 35A and 370 and snatching the statehood can legitimize his brutal hold on the region,” “According to reputed journalists, during recent elections people of Kashmir have sent a strong message to Indian government and made it abundantly succinct that they have not abandoned the freedom movement,” he pointed out. “Undoubtedly with the growing frustration due to the non-acceptance of Indian presence by Kashmiris, Modi has issued the preposterous statement of providing sops like ”statehood post-elections”, saying such tactics won’t work nymore.
