Altaf Hamid Rao
November 6 is a bold Day that lays before our eyes a full factual film of flowing rivers of martyred human blood and bones, loading history with the pridefulness of Mission – liberation of Jammu and Kashmir for its accession to Pakistan; it is a Day of remembrance of Jammu Muslims free-for-all massacre witnessed both by humans on earth and upper skies eyes; even after passage of 76 years Jammu Martyrs mission awaits completion; the saga of sacrifices continues with unwavering resolve to honor sacrifices of Muslims of Jammu. It was on this Day that 2,50,000 (London Times gives 2,37,000 counts) Muslims in Jammu province then were savagely slaughtered by triple organized forces: the Dogra army, Indian army and the trained RSS gangsters; the severity of the mass murders was no less than the Jalianwala Bagh now in East Punjab; blind barrages of bullets, clattering daggers and knives cut the bodies of this number of humans, pulled out of their homes, travelling groups and prayers offering Jammu Muslims. By all human tragedies definition Jammu Mass Massacre unfolds on earth a singular Doomsday; cries of mothers clinging infants to their bosoms, disabled limping along roadsides, in plains, shading under the trees were decimated, a scene that aghasts the entire Cosmos. I call it a systemic pogrom carried out by the nexus of Dogra fores and Indian armed legions in civvies; next name I usually give this saga of sorrows is stealth-and-open human mass killings. Intensity overwhelms me, my own family is the worst sufferers of this massacre. Even today by now the grand children of the martyrs and victims of Jammu settled in various cities of Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir imaginatively recall the horrors as a page of their school text books. Jammu martyrs are not an isolated story; their sacrificial link goes back to the emergence of Pakistan and India on August 14/15, 1947 in southern Asian landmass. The Muslim majority population in Jammu and Kashmir sought to merge their fate with Pakistan. Hindu ruler of the time Maharaja Hari Singh initially wavered in reaching the decision to accede J&K to Pakistan despite the fact that the Muslim majority justified that accession to Pakistan; but he was in half-way was cunningly trapped by the Congress leaders, raked in his Hinduism, falling to the trap made via his controversial decision to accede three subjects – defense, foreign affairs and currency – to India, a decision that militates all the times against the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. According the British-Muslim League-Congress formula of partitioning the then Indian subcontinent into two independent states of Pakistan and India on the basis of respective communal/religious majorities, the state of J&K was a natural part of Pakistan. It was and is a natural verdict of the partition formula, not a favor. History shall continue speaking in favor of Kashmiris’ wishes for accession of their state to Pakistan. That clearly means weight of the popular wishes. The ongoing liberation struggles in India-held Jammu and Kashmir parts is the direct continuing offshoot of the Jammu massacre of November 1947’s fist week. Despite Indian government’s gimmicks and underhand and inhuman acts even today the popular political mood in Jammu and Kashmir reflects original aspirations of the people there. Hindu nationalist movements could not gain a footage which India had planned in every phase of history, undermining Muslim-majority population. August 5, 2019 is a horrendous day for Jammu and Kashmir people, now 200 millions; it was on that saddest day that the Indian government abrogated the special guarantee Articles 370 and 35-A, undoing Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomous status, bifurcating the region into illegal annexation to Indian territories. Indian leaders take little lesson from history; the amount and extent of savagery they apply to the people of J&K meet with the same toughness and hardened reaction from the people. Even deployment of over one million Indian troops across the India-occupied parts of the state could not deaden the historical sentiments and resolve of the Kashmiri people. The recently held socalled election outcome is a proof; Indian BJP was routed in Kashmir; the people gave a clear mandate that India may do whatever she likes the people of the state would never succumb to the pressures, oppression, suppression, mass arrests by Delhi regime. I may clarify here that Kashmiris favor a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir dispute; but it is India that blocks their peace efforts; when the Indian subcontinental partition formula honors the religion majority based emergence of Pakistan and India, then why that formula of peace is not applied to the state of Jammu and Kashmir; India has seen to it that even after having lodging a complaint in the UN Security Council she had had to face a diplomatic defeat: UNSC issued the mandate of enactment of an international plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir; this clearly means rejection of all Indian claims to J&K. Logic says India must accept application of Indian Partition Formula to J&K for a peaceful solution of 76-year-old 3-war bloodied dispute. And the souls of the martyrs of Jammu martyrs shall be prayerful for the peoples in southern Asia.
(The Writer is senior most journalist of Azad Jammu Kashmir affiliated with Pakistan’s premier official news agency – APP, based at AJK):