Bri­tish Sikh po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Jagdeesh Singh pre­sents a dev­as­tat­ing analy­sis of the how the In­dian state has treated Kash­mir cul­mi­nat­ing in to­day’s ab­ro­ga­tion of Ar­ti­cle 370 which granted a spe­cial sta­tus on pa­per but noth­ing on the ground.  There is no short-cut to the in­de­pen­dence of Kash­mir, ar­gues the au­thor.

IN THE LAST SEV­ENTY YEARS,  In­dia has fol­lowed a re­lent­less pol­icy to kill, de­stroy, dis­em­power, un­der­mine, be­tray, sub­ju­gate the non-Hindu com­mu­ni­ties, cul­tures, ter­ri­to­ries, sym­bols, re­li­gions, peo­ples and in­sti­tu­tions. The Bharatiya Janata Party with its mas­sive Hindu su­prema­cist man­date and rau­cous at­ti­tude is con­sol­i­dat­ing the Hindu to­tal­i­tar­ian state, with full glare and fan­fare.

The story of Kash­mir is akin to the story of so many sup­pressed re­gions and na­tions within the mighty In­dian state bound­aries. In­dia is a ter­ri­to­r­ial prison to un­will­ing, un­con­sent­ing peo­ples.

Suf­fo­cate. Smother. Sub­ju­gate -these have been the buzz­words for the be­lea­guered peo­ple of Kash­mir as too of Pan­jaab, Ma­nipur, Na­ga­land, Tamil­nadu and more.

Sev­enty years of mis­treat­ment of Kash­mir as an ‘au­tonomous’ state as en­shrined in Ar­ti­cle 370 of the In­dian con­sti­tu­tion as a pre-req­ui­site for ac­ces­sion to In­dia by all-pow­er­ful In­dia, demon­stra­bly and to­tally dis­proves the ef­fi­cacy of any vi­able, cred­i­ble or work­able ‘fed­er­al’ au­ton­omy sta­tus for Pan­jaab or any other state within the In­dian po­lit­i­cal mono­lith.

Those in Pan­jaab, who through fear or op­por­tunism still ad­vo­cate only ‘au­ton­o­my’ for Pan­jaab and re­ject in­de­pen­dence, af­ter 70 years of a damn­ing, dev­as­tat­ing, fail­ure of the grossly un­even, in­equitable and wholly one-sided In­dia – Pan­jaab re­la­tion­ship: are con­tin­u­ing to re­duce Pan­jaab to a fu­ture of to­tal dom­i­na­tion and sub­ju­ga­tion within one of the world’s most sav­age and dra­con­ian su­per-states.

To­day’s scrap­ping of the su­per­fi­cial au­tonomous sta­tus of de­fi­ant Kash­mir rep­re­sents a ma­jor con­sol­ida­tory ac­tion by the In­dian state. No­tably, it has been done in prox­im­ity to the great drama and head­lines of the Kash­mir Hindu Ya­tra and as we ap­proach the an­nual blus­ter and rhetoric of 15th Au­gust. Un­doubt­edly, world gov­ern­ments and the United Na­tions will stand by silently and com­plic­i­tous, as Kash­mir is rav­aged and sav­aged fur­ther. Per­haps, Kash­mir is about to see some ma­jor mil­i­tary crack­down akin to June 1984. This ap­pears to be a fi­nal on­slaught on the out­ly­ing ter­ri­to­ries and na­tions which have dis­sented and re­sisted the Hindu-Indi mon­ster so far.

Fan­ci­ful and vain hopes of some kind of au­ton­omy and self-gov­ern­ment within a ‘fed­er­al’ In­dia, were to­tally de­stroyed in the In­dian States’ grue­some, geno­ci­dal at­tempt at In­di­a’s fi­nal so­lu­tion of the an­tag­o­nis­ing Sikh-Pan­jaab ques­tion in 1984. The rem­nant au­ton­omy of Kash­mir has now been stripped away en­tirely too. In­dia as a union­ist state has no in­ter­est in con­ced­ing au­ton­omy, de­vo­lu­tion, etcetera. Pro­tag­o­nists of ‘au­ton­o­my’ within In­dia, feel an ir­ra­tional, sub­servient need to main­tain the sin­gu­lar In­dian su­per­struc­ture. They daren’t go be­yond.

The dor­mant Hindu In­dia, which has been ev­i­dent from 1947 but dis­guised as ‘sec­u­lar’ and ‘de­mo­c­ra­t­ic’ by its mul­ti­far­i­ous apol­o­gists in­side and out­side of In­dia, is now com­ing to full, un­stop­pable, fruition. Hindu In­dia is now ex­plod­ing forth and con­sum­ing all in its steam­rolling path.

The pro-In­dia Ab­dul­lahs of Kash­mir like their equiv­a­lents in Pan­jaab, are be­ing proven as id­iots and ever more de­fec­tive.  They want Kash­mir to re­main stuck to In­dia. They keep cling­ing to the In­dian state. Kash­mir is Kash­mir! It be­longs to no-one but it­self! Kash­miri peo­ple have the full right to their in­de­pen­dence through the ex­er­cise of the in­alien­able right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, notwith­stand­ing the ex­tremely poor and in­ad­e­quate in­ter­ven­tion of the United Na­tions and the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity.

No­body has the right to rule over an­other! In­dia is do­ing the ex­act re­verse of what it says it was cre­ated for in 1947 – free­dom from sub­ju­ga­tion. In­dia is per­pe­trat­ing the same im­pe­ri­al­ism.

As con­cerned world cit­i­zens watch painfully and anx­iously, to­day Kash­mir has been for­mally and fully oc­cu­pied by the In­dian state. Stripped of all its rights, iden­tity and au­ton­omy. Kash­mir, like Pan­jaab, Tamil Nadu, Ma­nipur, Na­ga­land has now been of­fi­cialised as an ap­pendage of the In­dian em­pire.