Speech on Kashmir Issue Essay
Honourable Course Director, Respected Deputy Course Director and Dear Colleagues Assalam-o-Alaikum My topic of speech is Kashmir Issue. Today, There are many issues which are threats to World peace the The Kashmir dispute is the oldest, unresolved, international dispute in the world today. Pakistan considers Kashmir as its core political dispute with India. The exchange of fire between their forces across the Line of Control, which separates Azad Kashmir from Occupied Kashmir, is a routine affair.Now that, both India and Pakistan have acquired nuclear weapons potential, the possibility of a third war, between them over Kashmir, which may involve the use of nuclear weapons, cannot be ruled out. According to the instruments of partition of India, the rulers of princely states were given the choice to freely accede to either India or Pakistan, or to remain independent.
They were, however, advised to accede to the contiguous dominion, taking into consideration the geographical and ethnic issues.In Kashmir, however, the Maharaja hesitated. The principally Muslim population, having seen the early and covert arrival of Indian troops, rebelled and things got out of the Maharaja’s hands.
The people of Kashmir were demanding to join Pakistan. The Maharaja, fearing tribal warfare, eventually gave way to the Indian pressure and agreed to join India by, as India claims, ‘signing’ the controversial Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947. In 1947, India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir.During the war, it was India, which first took the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations on 1 January 1948, the following year, on 1 January 1949, the UN helped enforce ceasefire between the two countries. The ceasefire line is called the Line of Control. It was an outcome of a mutual consent by India and Pakistan that the UN Security Council (UNSC) and UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) passed several resolutions in years following the 1947-48 war. TheUNSC Resolution of 21 April 1948 one of the principal UN resolutions on Kashmir stated that “both India and Pakistan desire that the question of the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan should be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite”.
Subsequent UNSC Resolutions reiterated the same stand. India, however, thwarted all attempts by the United Nations to organize a plebiscite in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Eventually, India openly resiled from its commitments and declared that Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India.In 1965, India and Pakistan once again went to war over Kashmir.
A cease-fire was established in September 1965. Indian Prime Minister Lal Bhadur Shastri and Pakistani President Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Declaration on 1 January 1966. They resolved to try to end the dispute by peaceful means. Although Kashmir was not the cause of 1971 war between the two countries, a limited war did occur on the Kashmir front in December 1971. The 1971 war was followed by the signing of the Simla Accord, under which India and Pakistan are obliged to resolve the dispute through bilateral talks.Until the early 1997, India never bothered to discuss Kashmir with Pakistan even bilaterally. After more than four decades of a peaceful struggle against Indian repression, manipulation and exploitation, the Kashmiri people, convinced that India would never honour its commitments, and inspired by similar movements for freedom in other parts of the world, rose against the Indian occupation towards the later part of 1989.
Their struggle was, and remains, largely peaceful. India sought to suppress their movement with massive use of force, killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children.Since 1989, more than 60,000 Kashmiri people have been killed in a reign of terror and repression, unleashed by over 600,000 Indian troops. Many more languish in Indian jails where they are subjected to torture and custodial deaths. There have been numerous cases of gang rapes of Kashmiri women by the Indian forces and the deliberate burning down of entire localities and villages. These brutalities have been documented by International and even Indian Human Rights Organizations.
Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as Indian human rights NGOs have extensively documented the gross and systematic violation of human rights of the Kashmiri people by Indian military and para-military forces. Extra judicial killings, involuntary disappearances, arbitrary detentions, rapes and torture continue to be reported on a large scale. The Kashmiri leaders have been repeatedly harassed and physically intimidated. They have also been denied travel permission to prevent them from exposing Indian human rights abuses in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
The massive suppression by India is clearly designed to silence the people of Jammu and Kashmir through sheer brutality bordering on genocide and ethnic cleansing. India refuses to acknowledge that the people of Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) have become totally alienated and there is complete rejection of Indian occupation. The people of Kashmir are engaged in a heroic resistance struggle and have lain down and continue to lay supreme sacrifices to relieve jugular vein of Pakistan and that of their own from enemy’s sword as willed by the Quaid-e-Azam.
May Almighty Allah bless them with success- Ameen. The Kashmir problem will be solved the moment international community decides to intervene in the matter to put an end to Indian state terrorism in Occupied Kashmir and to implement UN resolutions. These resolutions recommend demilitarization of Kashmir (through withdrawal of all outside forces), followed immediately by a plebiscite under UN supervision to determine the future status of Kashmir.
The intervention of the international community is all the more necessary, given the consistent Indian opposition to both bilateral and multilateral options to settle the Kashmir issue. Such an intervention is also urgently required to stop the ever-growing Indian brutalities against the innocent Muslim people of Kashmir, who have been long denied their just right to self-determination his dispute dates back to the partition of the British Indian Empire in August 1947, into two independent states.Pakistan and India. At that time there were also around 565 princely states, large and small, which were under British suzerainty but were not directly ruled by the British Government Most of these states joined either India or Pakistan taking into account their contiguity to one or the other country and the wishes of their people. By Sardar Muhammad Anwar Khan President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir in 57th Session of the U. N.
General Assembly. Excellencies!On this vital international occasion I, on behalf of 13 million struggling people of Jammu and Kashmir as well as on my own behalf, earnestly appeal to the sagacious conscience of the participants of 57th Session of the U. N. General Assembly to take urgent notice of the: * Gross human rights violations being consistently committed by India in Kashmir by unbridled killings, tortures, oppression and suppression, arsoning of properties, molestations and abductions of women, maiming of youths and surgical pilfering of human organs for sale within India; * Continued violations of U.N. Security Council’s Kashmir resolutions by India; * Blatant violation of international norms by persistent refusal to the outside human rights organizations to enter Kashmir under Indian occupation; and civil liberties through brutal enactment’s like Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA); * Desecration of places of worship in Indian held Kashmir; * Turning educational buildings in Indian-held Kashmir into armament depots; * Denial of medical aid access to the wounded; Incarceration of Kashmiri leaders who speak of the right of self-determination of the Kashmiris conceded to them by the august Organization of United Nations 65 years ago in various resolutions accepted by India herself.
Excellencies The successful enforcement of U. N. writ elsewhere in the settlement of world issues like East Timor encourages the people of Jammu and Kashmir to remind the world leaders to assist them in their struggle for the realization of their birth right – self determination.India, by her violation of the U. N. mandate in Kashmir, is in fact jeopardizing the regional peace and stability, so essential for development and outside investments.
Therefore we the people of Jammu and Kashmir appeal to the participants of the 57th Session of the U. N. General Assembly to put their collective pressure on India: * To honor the U. N. resolutions on Kashmir, b) restoration of human rights in Indian-held Kashmir. * Immediate release of all detenues detained within or outside of Kashmir. Withdrawal of occupation forces from Kashmir. * Opening of J&K to outside humanitarian and medical organizations.
The people of Kashmir, reminding the world community of its Kashmir plebiscite pledges, reiterate that no gimmick of so-called elections fabricated by India in Kashmir can replace the imperatives of an international plebiscite in Kashmir. It does look like grotesque farce that so-called elections are being held under the intrusive presence of over 700,000. Indian military and paramilitary personnel today in Kashmir.
Therefore the world community should restrain India from staging such a farce and instead force her to the path of peaceful international settlement of Jammu and Kashmir dispute as per wishes of Kashmiri people as promised to them through the U. N. Resolutions. Since the partition of subcontinent in 1947 into two independent states, Pakistan and India, the political situation in the region has been volatile. Both these countries have strained relations and have fought two major wars resulting in the cession of East Pakistan.
The real bone of contention between the two countries is Kashmir. The people of Kashmir have expressed their desire to accede to Pakistan but India creates hurdles in the fulfillment of their desire. The state of Jammu and Kashmir came into existence in 1848. Gulab Singh, Dogra Rajpot, bought it for RS.
7500000 from Lord Lawrence. The state has an area of 84,471 square miles. It has 902 miles long border with Pakistan and with India 317 miles only. The three main rivers of Pakistan, namely, the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab are their sources in Kashmir.The two roads that link Kashmir with the rest of the world also lie through Pakistan.
More than 80% of the people of Jammu and Kashmir are Muslims. Thus geographically, culturally, economically and religiouslyKashmir is an integral part of Pakistan. But India has never accepted this fact. The result is that Kashmirhas become an apple of discord between Pakistan and India. The Kashmiris were leading a miaerable life. They were treated as slaves. They had no status in society. They were always at the mercy of the Dogras and the Hindus of the state.
The result of this suppression and oppression was that the people of Jammu and Kashmir stood against the Maharaja’s rule in 1930. The Maharaja tried to suppress this movement. He succeeded in crushing the rebellions for the time being, but he could succeed is sowing the seed oflove in the hearts of the Kashmiris for the Hindus. According to the partition plan of June 3, 1847, it wasdecided that on the withdrawal of British power the Indian states would be free to join either India orPakistan or remain independent.Lord Mountbatten advised the princes of those states to accede to India or to Pakistan bearing in mind three main points: (1) The geographical position of the state.
(2) The composition of the population. (3) The wishes of the people. Had this advice been acted upon, Kashmir would have become a part of Pakistan. But the Maharaja Hari Sing ignored the wishes of the people and entered into a conspiracy with Hinds leadership in Delhi and acceded to India.
Maharaja’s conspiracies against the Muslim majority unleashed the feelings of annoyance and revolt.But India’s urge to maintain her hegemony over other states has blinded her to all norms of justice and co-existence. It kept its control on Kashmir through selfish, insincere and faithless leaders like Sheikh Abdullah and his stooges. The Kashmir dispute cannot be solved unless the India government changes its attitude and comes to the conference table with an open mind. The people ofKashmir should be given the right to decide their future by themselves. And if they decide to establish their own independent state acceding neither to India nor to Pakistan and India should accept their decision heartedly.India and Pakistan, two nations united by history but divided by destiny, has travelled a long way in an attempt to bring peace to the highly volatile valley.
Peace is still a “far sighted dream” which every Kashmiri nurtures in their minds. India’s impassivity and stubbornness have transformedKashmir valley, once an epitome of romance and beauty to a land with painful tales of human suffering and mayhem. War brings with it death and misery. Victory comes at the cost of life, and defeat again at the cost of life.
