Jammu and Kashmir not about territory, but its people: Khurram Parvez

Bengaluru: "Corruption is used as an adhesive to bind Jammu and Kashmir together. The regime is a puppet and each and every election is rigged. Article 370 and its autonomy is a mere structure as most of it has been eaten up by the Government of India," said Air Vice Marshal (Retd.) Kapil Kak, one of six panelists  who spoke at a searing discussion on 'Towards Peace and Reconcilation in Jammu and Kashmir' that brought the plight of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to the fore.

Moderated by noted historian Ramachandra Guha, the panel hosted by Bangalore International Centre brought together senior journalist Dr Shujaat Bukhari, Ms Rinchen Angmo Chumikchan, activist from Ladakah, Rakesh Gupta, President, Chamber of Commerce, Jammu and Khurram Pervez, a human rights activist.

" This is a three generation problem that led to a 30 year long insurgency. Indian politicians do not engage in political dialogue which would act as a balm when 4,500 lives are being lost everyday," Kak said in his speech, adding that ," The centre of gravity is the youth, their opinion matters. This is the only way to unscramble the Kashmir Omlette as they call it."

Khurram Parvez, a member of a Human Rights Litigation group opined that communal polarization invested by the state’s adhoc policies, making civilians fight with militants is all being done for electoral gain " In 27 years more than 70,000 people lost their lives due to armed forces and militants. 8000 people were made to disappear most of which was done by the army and there are 7000 unmarked and marked graves in the state," Parvez said, reeling out troubling statistics, rarely reported in the mainstream media. "In the last three decades, not a single member of the armed forces was prosecuted for human rights violations, by the civil court," he added.  Based on his organization's report, the State Commission of Human Rights suggested that GOI undertake DNA test and comprehensive investiagtion of the 7000 graves. However Parvez came up against the official counterclaim that these were "the bodies of foreign terrorists and India had only 16 labs capable of doing the analysis, which would not be feasible."

Parvez and the other panelists dwelt in some detail on the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits who were brutalised and killed in lakhs, and forced to leave their homes in Kashmir. Thousands still remain, but the majority still live in Jammu.

Shujaat Bukhari repeatedly drove home the point that no initiative had been taken by the government to drive the political issue to a logical  conclusion. " We have new age militancy and Kashmir is at the cross-roads, " Bukhari warned, adding " Kashmir is projected as people who are demonized he said, pointing to the many reports on Kashmir that had been ignored thus far, and his disappointment with Prime Minister Modi's Kashmir policy.

" We thought PM Modi had a strong mandate for Kashmir in 2014. We were hopeful. But he brought up Vajpayee’s 'Insaniyat, Jumhuriyat, Kashmiriyat, ' many times, but has not walked the talk on it," Bukhari said.

Chumikchan brought up the use of pellets against civilians in Kashmir, saying pellers are being used against protesters in Kashmir, when they were not used in any other conflict zone in the world!

Ramachandra Guha, interestingly while in complete agreement with all of the abive, had only one point of dissent, " " My personal opinion is that Pakistan is not a reliable interlocutor."