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Kashmiris, Nagas, Sikhs demand
end to Indian Imperialism
WSN Network
 LONDON: As India
celebrated its Republic Day on January 26, many aspirational
people's movements sent out a powerful joint appeal to the
international community and key Kashmiri, Naga and Sikh leaders
highlighted the fundamental conflicts and contradictions at the
heart of the Indian state, as well as the unwavering intent of their
nations to secure freedom in accordance with their right to
self-determination as enshrined in international law.
They issued a
call to the international community to play a constructive role in
dismantling India’s unlawful hold on their territories, which has
been maintained purely by military means at the cost of hundreds of
thousands of innocent lives since 1947, and to restore fundamental
freedoms, democracy and the rule of law in the most volatile region
of the world.
The leaders
included Syed Ali Shah Gilani, Chair of the All Parties Hurriyat
Conference in Kashmir, Naga leader Th. Muivah, General Secretary of
the NSCN-IM and Kanwarpal Singh of Dal Khalsa in Punjab. Their
message was endorsed by leading organisations based in the
respective Diaspora communities which held demonstrations outside
the Indian High Commission in London and elsewhere to once again
publicly reject the Indian constitution as being applicable to their
territories.
Instances of
ethnic communities protesting in front of Indian embassies and
consulates against violations of human rights in
India
are increasing by the day. In the United States itself, the Sikhs
have frequently staged protests against New Delhi's failure to
deliver justice in as brazen cases as mass murders of Sikhs in 1984.
Rubbishing
India’s claims to be a democratic, secular, peaceable state which
complies with its international obligations, the leaders pointed to
the reality of a belligerent, militaristic state which oppresses the
minorities and nations under its control, which has become a serial
violator of international law and human rights.
 They said Indian
armed forces chief Deepak Kapoor’s recent public comments about
bringing both China and Pakistan to their knees within 96 hours of a
war betrays the dangerous and aggressive mindset of the Indian
establishment which has already conducted undeclared wars on the
Naga, Sikh, Kashmiri and other nations using brutal means,
systematically violating basic human rights, as routinely pointed
out by the world’s leading human rights organisations such as Human
Rights Watch and Amnesty international.
Pending India’s
compliance with the international standards the Naga, Kashmiri and
Sikh leadership urged the international community to robustly
dismiss India’s pretensions to a permanent seat at the UN Security
Council.
“It would be the
height of folly indeed to reward a serial violator of basic
international norms by giving it the means to frustrate the one
international body that can hold it to account,” they observed.
They pledged to
work together, along with their friends in the region and beyond, in
order to promote a peaceful transition from the current unjust
framework of Indian colonialism to a new order in South Asia where
freedom, peace and security and justice would prevail.
The withdrawal
of Indian forces from these occupied territories would be a
pre-requisite for that transformation. Instead of indulging itself
in Republic Day posturing, India would do better to reflect on the
crimes it has committed and its own inherent contradictions.
Threatening its
neighbours and inhumanly oppressing minorities may have become the
raison d’etre for ‘Hindutva,’ but these policies offend the very
notion of religion and will surely ultimately prove suicidal for
the Indian state.
It demanded
ejecting India from all the UN’s humanitarian bodies until it
improves its appalling record of mistreating its religious
minorities. In August 2009, the United States Commission for
International Religious Freedoms put India on its ‘watch list’ of
states that fail to protect such groups.
In the UK,
Muhammad Ghalib, Chair of the All Party Kashmir Co-ordination
Committee, Amrik Singh Sahota , President of the Council of
Khalistan, and the Naga Support Centre all pledged to continue their
campaign to enlist international support for the peaceable
implementation of their national rights.
 Lord Nazir
Ahmed, Chair of ‘Parliamentarians for National Self-Determination’,
the cross party group at the Westminster parliament which promotes
national self-determination, endorsed these demands.
Having been
recently denied a visa to visit
India
specifically because of his support for these causes, he castigated
the ongoing oppression of these freedom loving nations and urged the
international community to hold India to account for its crimes.
Reflecting on
India’s refusal to grant him a visa, he noted the move was
consistent with India’s attempts to conceal its record by denying
human rights groups, UN officials and independent observers access
to conflict zones.
He remarked that
all this was futile with the true picture is becoming ever more
apparent to the global community which will be forced to act sooner
or later.
India is already
on the watchlist of global community for refusing assessment of
restrictions on religion, and it continues to marginalize the ethnic
minorities, dalits and other deprived sections. Its recently
launched war against the tribals in the name of Operation Green Hunt
is being led from the front by P Chidamabaram, the country's Home
Minister, while even its own Planning Commission has said in report
after report that much of the violence in the so-called Red Corridor
areas was because of massive poverty, lack of development, state
apathy and bureaucratic corruption.
Now that the
multi-national corporations are eyeing the minerals and natural
resources in those areas, New Delhi is all set to blow to extinction
the tribals, and describes them as the gravest internal security
threat.
27January 2010
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