Parallels: Kashmir and Palestine

Kashmir hailed as paradise on earth—a valley of crystal blue rivers, lakes, and lush, green fields nestled in the heart of the majestic Himalayan mountains is today as per reports the largest militarized zone in the world laced with laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
The problems of Palestine and Kashmir date back to the same time. Of the two, Palestine has far better media coverage, thanks to the Palestinians’ efforts not to let the issue fall off the international radar. They have also been helped by the fact that the Zionist state of Israel is a favorite child of western imperialist powers and any development or crisis there immediately grabs eye of international media. There are other factors at work also many non-Zionist Jewish activists have stood up in support of the Palestinian people.
What is surprising is that the Kashmiris’ suffering has received scant attention in the international media. Occasionally, some story would break out. The issue, however, is soon forgotten. It is fair to say that if an average person in some part of South America were asked about Kashmir there would be a blank stare. Many people do not know whether Kashmir is a place or a fruit. It is not their fault. How many times has the Kashmir issue made it to the international media or even the media of the Muslim world in recent times? Apart from Pakistan, there is scant media coverage anywhere else of what is taking place in Kashmir.
Is Kashmir another Palestine in the making? These are two different conflicts in two different regions therefore requiring two different prescriptions. Undeniably, there is some similarity in the issues being raised in both conflicts but to urge their comparison on this basis, without delving into the contextual differences between the two cases, would at best generalise, and at worst mislead. The kind of land row that Kashmir witnessed in 2008 has an intriguing precedent far off in Palestine.
A somewhat similar kind of land issue happened in Palestine in 2005 in which the Israel Lands Authority published tenders for the construction of 130 new housing units in Har Homa, East Jerusalem. The Har Homa neighborhood and all east Jerusalem settlements were built on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel subsequently incorporated the areas into Jerusalem’s boundaries in a move not recognized internationally.
In addition to the public announcement of the tenders, there were 500 houses already under construction in Har Homa, and 240 in the settlement of Maaleh Adumim in East Jerusalem. At the same time as the Har Homa tenders were being published, Israeli officials also called for bids from construction companies to build more than 300 apartments in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit near Bethlehem, about 20 minutes’ drive from Jerusalem. This came on top of Olmert’s approval at the beginning of the year to build 750 new houses in the Givat Zeev settlement northwest of Jerusalem, and 100 in the Ariel settlement in the northern West Bank. There are approximately 430,000 Israeli settlers residing illegally in the West Bank. The villagers of Ni’ilin did protest land expropriation which has seen the size of their village reduced from 5,700 hectares of land in 1948 to 3,300 hectares in 1967, to the present approximate of 1,000 hectares.
As a result of the land expropriation by Israel, several acts of civil disobedience were launched to retain the pieces of land that were confiscated. After the diversion of the 98 acres of forest land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), the fears of Palestine saga getting re-enacted in Kashmir were all but compounded.
The excessive use of force by forces on protestors in Kashmir demanding the land diverted to the SASB back and the subsequent loss of life and damage to property make for a good comparison vis-a-vis the situation in Palestine.
The country seems to be following the footsteps of Israel when it comes to Kashmir. When Kashmiris protested in unanimity against the move, the state announced election dates in Kashmir. Polls saw people queuing up to vote for state institutions. Amid that agitation, an elusive campaign was launched through SMS where youth were urged to crack the civil service exam to “secure the interests of Kashmiris” and in future avoid the mistake of handing over land on a platter. It was superbly crafted lure.
Since 2008, it has been a rat race to the bureaucracy in Kashmir. After qualifying for the civil service, most candidates naively say they want to help Kashmir develop. If all of Kashmir plunges into the civil service, the system is such that laws such as PSA and AFSPA will never be repealed, much less any progress on development. But by congratulating people through newspapers, one is giving legitimacy to the institutions of the state.
In 1993, according to an article in the Guardian, the then Israeli President Shimon Peres met with BJP leader LK Advani and advised him that the best way to secure long-term Indian control over Kashmir was by settling non-Kashmiri Indians there. This neatly encapsulates the similarities in Israeli and Indian policies when it comes to their territories. Given the obvious injustice involved in maintaining control over a territory against the will of its population, it’s sometimes difficult to take a step back and ask why Israel and India have been so stubborn about maintaining their control of Palestine/Kashmir despite the conflict this causes. But if we are to assess future prospects for Kashmir/Palestine, we have to address the question head-on.
Recently, the Joint Parliamentary Committee in its report recommended for the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly to have a look for the settlement of west Pakistani refugees and it was proposed to give them the equal status with that of the permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir. The issue has created a hue and cry in the state politics of Jammu and Kashmir. It is said that these people were deliberately moved, motivated and guided to settle in Jammu with the sole aim to change the demographic nature of Jammu and Kashmir, in order to have a safe say for India at the international level for the future of this state and to get a chance and favor in the process of promised plebiscite by the United Nations.
Kashmir is a landscape of internment, where Kashmiris have been deprived of the right of self-determination by plebiscite when people of East Timor, for instance exercised this right in 1999 and those of South Sudan in 2011 and Scotland in 2014?
Does any government have the right to take away people’s liberty with force? Part of the reason that Kashmir is in great trouble is because the state is now governed by an ideology that requires the fiction of a massive security threat in order to justify exorbitant expenditures on its military and police forces. This fiction is propped up by an ideology that amalgamates chauvinism, neo-liberalism and authoritarian statecraft.
The result has been the suppression of even the mildest form of public protest resulting in arrests, administrative detention, enforced disappearances, torture, rape, unprovoked attacks on peaceful protesters, and curfews. Some years ago police filed sedition charges against the Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education for showing a man in blue carrying a stick under the Urdu letter Z for zaalim (oppressor). The police have charged everyone affiliated with the book with criminal conspiracy, defamation, and provocation with the intent to breach peace, since the innocuous depiction was assumed to be a police officer.

Author can be mailed at ahrarershad@gmail.com