Indian-Occupied Kashmir: “We Can Also Do It Like Israel”

 

A very telling statement by a leading Indian diplomat

 

by Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the RCIT, 30 November 2019, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

A video has recently gone viral on social media in which Sandeep Chakravorty, India's consul general in New York, addresses participants at a private meeting on 23 November. The video attracted wide attention because Chakravorty’ speech reflects the arch-reactionary mindset of the right-wing extremist Indian government in an undisguised manner.

 

In his speech, Chakravorty referred to the exodus of tens of thousands of Kashmiri Hindus in 1989 after an armed rebellion against the Indian occupation started and said: "I believe the security situation will improve, it will allow the refugees to go back, and in your lifetime, you will be able to go back … and you will be able to find security, because we already have a model in the world. I don't know why we don't follow it. It has happened in the Middle East. If the Israeli people can do it, we can also do it.” [1]

 

These sentences show once again the plans of the Modi government to enforce an “Israeli” solution in Kashmir. This means nothing but the expulsion and annihilation of large sectors of the Kashmiri Muslims who constitute the majority in the region since the beginning of the Indian occupation in 1947/48. In parallel, Delhi plans to systematically bring Indian Hindu settlers to Kashmir in order to change the ethnical and religious balance of forces. In short, the Hindutva chauvinists plan to the same what the Zionists did (and still do) in Occupied Palestine.

 

This statement has understandably provoked widespread outrage. What is happening in Kashmir is an ongoing historic crime taking place in front of the eyes of the world. The Kashmiri people are brutally oppressed by the Indian state since many decades. They have shown their desire for independence by a long history of heroic resistance. They started a popular uprising in 1989 which the Indian army tried to smash with utmost brutality. Since then, nearly 100,000 Kashmiri Muslims have been killed and nearly 10,000 women have been gang raped by marauding bands of Indian soldiers.

 

On 5 August this year the Hindu-chauvinist government has revoked Article 370 of India’s constitution which removed some formal autonomy rights of the region. Since then, Delhi has imposed de facto a state of emergency in the whole region. This has resulted in dramatic consequences for the Kashmiri people. They have only limited or none access to essential things for survival like food and medicine. They are cut off from nearly all forms of communication. Currently, at least 800,000 Indian soldiers and police forces are deployed in Kashmir – an area that has a population of only 8 million Muslims. This means that there is almost one Indian soldier for every ten Kashmiri Muslim! In other words, the tyrant Modi, has transformed Kashmir into a huge concentration camp!

 

The statement of the high-ranking diplomat reflects that India’s government is not satisfied with this state of oppression. It wants to go even further and to expel and marginalise the Muslim-majority population in their own country – “like Israel does” to put it in the words of Chakravorty.

 

For revolutionaries this declaration does not come as a surprise. In our statement with the title “Defend the Kashmiri People against Modi’s “Israel-Style” Attack”, published one day after Modi’s revocation of Article 370, we drew already attention to the similarities of the BJP’s policy with that of the Zionists. [2]

 

To avoid any misunderstanding: We strongly defend the existence of a multi-national and multi-religious Kashmir. The Kashmiri Pandits, as the Hindu minority in the region is called, are a legitimate and historic part of Kashmir. They shall continue to live in the region with all their cultural and religious rights. It is not the Pandits which must leave Kashmir but the Indian state and its army!

 

We point out that the Kashmiri nationalists have always directed their fire against the Indian state and not against the Pandits. This is also reflected in the fact, according to government figures, 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed between 1989-2004. This is a relatively low number compared to the more than 100,000 Kashmiri Muslims which were killed in the same period and also compared to the 7,000 police personnel which were liquidated by the freedom fighters. [3] This reflects that the Kashmiri liberation movement does not direct their resistance against the Hindu minority but rather against the Indian state forces.

 

At the same time, it is clear that new Hindu settlers from outside, i.e. not Pandits, must not be allowed to be brought to Kashmir by the Indian state. Revolutionaries have always opposed the transfer of white settlers to Africa by the colonial state [4] or of Jewish settlers to Palestine by the British Empire and later the Zionist state. [5] Likewise we strongly oppose today the transfer of Han Chinese to the historic Muslim majority region of East Turkestan (or Xinjiang as the province is officially called by the Chinese authorities). The RCIT takes the same approach to any Hindu settlement policy of the Indian state.

 

We conclude by emphasizing once more: All socialists, all democrats, all righteous people around the world must support the struggle of the Kashmiri people for freedom. We repeat: Kashmir is our second Palestine! Their liberation is our liberation!

 

 

 

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We refer reader also to other articles and documents of the RCIT on this issue which are collected in a special sub-section on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/collection-of-articles-on-the-liberation-struggle-in-kashmir/