India colonising Kashmir’

India colonising Kashmir’
October 25, 2010 7:04:39 PM

Khursheed Wani | Srinagar

Irascible Arundhati spreads more hatred, this time in Valley

Activist Arundhati Roy, who recently whipped up a major controversy by advocating ‘azadi’ for Kashmir at a seminar in New Delhi, has gone a step further by claiming that the State was never an integral part of India and those espousing the cause of “freedom from India” should not be called separatists. Alleging that India became a “colonising power” soon after its Independence from British rule, she asked the people of Kashmir not to join the police or CRPF and work to consolidate the “anti-India resistance”.

Speaking at a seminar on ‘Wither Kashmir: Freedom or Enslavement’, organised by the Coalition of Civil Societies (CCS) here on Sunday, Roy said, “Kashmir has never been an integral part of India. It is a historical fact. Even the Indian Government has accepted this.”

While taking pride in associating herself with “resistance movements” across India, Roy counselled the people of Kashmir Valley to consolidate over the “gains” of the recent four months of anti-India agitation.

She said that since the day India won freedom from the British, it turned into a “colonizer” itself and started subsuming nationalities militarily in Nagaland, Manipur, Punjab, Kashmir and other places. “Now India is calling out the Army in central India to fight a protracted war against the poorest people of the world,” she claimed.

Roy offered tips to the people to organise and consolidate the “anti-India resistance”. “The power concedes nothing unless it is forced to,” she said while advocating the need for seeking justice through demands of demilitarisation and repeal of “harsh laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act”. She said the people should ponder as to whether the “resistance” is in linear progression or short-circuiting.

While asking the Kashmiris to refrain from joining State police and the Central Reserve Police Force, she said the people (of Kashmir) should worry whether the occupation was not becoming “part of your cellular structure”. She also stressed the need for them to fix the goal of their resistance.

Though she tried to appear unmoved over the accusations of preaching cessation at the recent Delhi seminar, she said she wondered why nobody was inquiring into as to who had organised the seminar. “What was their motive and who were the people behind it. It was not that Geelani sahib parachuted down at the venue. There was proper arrangement made for the speakers to gather there,” she said.

She asked Kashmiris to create more space for debate and consolidate over the gains of the past four months. “You have gained considerable ground in the past four months. Now you should think to consolidate on it. The real risk is that it should not turn into temper tantrum,” she said. “The debates are part of the sharp blade of resistance. If you don’t debate, they still know what your faultlines are,” she pointed out.

She differed with the idea of fellow speaker Gautam Naulakha that participation in elections did not impact the resistance movements. “You (Kashmiris) should think how the elections were used against you (internationally),” she offered.

Roy said that in the late 1980s, India simultaneously opened the locks of Babri Masjid and open economy to become totalitarian for Hidutva and corporatisation. She said that whichever Government assumed power at the Centre, be it the Congress or the BJP, it has to be militaristic. “The Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy has not been elected,” she added.

Roy said that India was “behaving like a colonial power and suppressing one community at the hands of the other just like the British” did in World War II. “They are sending Nagas to Kashmir and Punjabis to Manipur,” she said.

The ‘activist’ explained her interactions with Maoist rebels and expressed happiness over the involvement of women in their “struggle”. She added, “Biodiversity has to be the hallmark of resistance so that it can’t be wiped out with one kind of pest.”

Senior Delhi-based Kashmiri journalist Najeeb Mubarki said there was consensus over radical change in the status quo of Kashmir. He also deliberated over the role of corporate media, misrepresentation of the situation in Kashmir and issues of Islamism. Coalition of Civil Society, an NGO that works against enforced disappearances, had organised the seminar here on Sunday.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/292079/‘India-colonising-Kashmir’.html