| PAKISTAN LEDGER | August 18th, 2008 | Moin Ansari |  ???? ??????? | Black Day-Aug 15th: Kashmiris hoist Pakistani flags in Srinagar. Burn Indian flags.  On August 15th, the Indian independence day, the demonstrators removed and burned the tri-colored Indian flags and replaced them with the Green Pakistani Crescent and Star atop the clock tower and other buildings in Srinagar. They yearn for freedom and they aspire to become Pakistanis. Pakistan is their destiny and “Azadi” (freedom) is their dream. “Kashmiris chant azadi & Jeevay Jeevay Pakistan in equal numbers and with equal intensity” “There was a green flag on every lamp post, every roof, every bus stop and on the top of chinar trees. A big one fluttered outside the All India Radio building. Road signs were painted over. Rawalpindi they said. Or simply Pakistan” Arundhati Roy on Kashmir. “They” hide the pictures of the Pakistan flags, but once in a while, they slip out. Keep an eye out, you will find hundreds of green flags mingled in with Pakistani flags in the crowds, and atop building in Indian Occuped Kashmir. You see them burning the Indian flag and kissing the Pakistani flag. .Pro-freedom, Pro-Pakistan and Anti-Indian demonstrations continue in Srinagar. 

There was a green flag on every lamp post, every roof, every bus stop and on the top of chinar trees. A big one fluttered outside the All India Radio building. Road signs were painted over. Rawalpindi they said. Or simply Pakistan. Arundhati Roy

On Saturday, protesters carrying black and green Islamic flags headed for Aziz’s hometown, Pampore, about 12 km from Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar. Aziz was a leader of Kashmir’s main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference. “There is no god but Allah, Indian forces go back,” the protesters shouted. Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-35029720080816)

Syed Ali Shah Geelani began his address with a recitation from the Qur’an. He then said what he has said before, on hundreds of occasions. The only way for the struggle to succeed, he said, was to turn to the Qur’an for guidance. He said Islam would guide the struggle and that it was a complete social and moral code that would govern the people of a free Kashmir. He said Pakistan had been created as the home of Islam, and that that goal should never be subverted. He said just as Pakistan belonged to Kashmir, Kashmir belonged to Pakistan. Arundhati Roy

Independence celebrations included parades, kite-flying contests, family picnics and flag-waving crowds, but Kashmiris spent the weekend waving black flags, unfurling green Pakistani flags and calling for “a national day of mourning.” Associated Press reports on August 18th, 2008

The separatist leaders who do appear and speak at the rallies are not leaders so much as followers, being guided by the phenomenal spontaneous energy of a caged, enraged people that has exploded on Kashmir’s streets. Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people swarm around places that hold terrible memories for them. They demolish bunkers, break through cordons of concertina wire and stare straight down the barrels of soldiers’ machine guns, saying what very few in India want to hear. Hum Kya Chahtey? Azadi! (We want freedom.) And, it has to be said, in equal numbers and with equal intensity: Jeevey jeevey Pakistan. (Long live Pakistan.) Arundhati Roy

“We promised Kashmiris a plebiscite six decades ago. Let us hold one now, and give them three choices: independence, union with Pakistan, and union with India. Almost certainly the Valley will opt for independence. Jammu will opt to stay with India, and probably Ladakh too. Let Kashmiris decide the outcome, not the politicians and armies of India and Pakistan,” . The Times of India runs an editorial along similar lines. Swaminathan Aiyar.

“Kashmiris don’t want to spoil their own economy,” he said. “If you are economically strong, you can fight for your independence. If you are weak, then you have nothing.” Tell that to the truckloads of young masked men, defying curfew to cruise the streets chanting “Pakistan! Pakistan!” Globe and Mail August 18th, 2008

People hoisted black flags in many parts of Srinagar on India’s independence day last Friday. BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7567305.stm)

We hate the sight of these security forces,” said Rizwan, 15, a student in Srinagar who declined to give his last name for fear of retaliation by Indian authorities. “We are Kashmiris, not Indians. Earlier, my mother used to tell me not to join protests, but yesterday even my mother was in the protest with me.” Associated Press reports on August 18th, 2008

For its part, Pakistan has expressed its concern about the plight of Kashmiris to the United Nations, further straining relations between the uneasy neighbours. The frequent sight of Pakistani flags in Srinagar is doing little to ease India’s concerns that its long-time nemesis in the region is influencing the region. Globe and Mail August 18th, 2008

Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a prominent leader, told the crowd to demand “the U.N., the U.S., Britain and international community to come and see what people want here.”

“This is a struggle for right to self-determination,” he said. “The U.N. should send its peacekeepers to Jammu as well as Kashmir.” Jammu is the region’s only Hindu-majority city.

“People have given their verdict that they won’t tolerate oppression and injustice. It is time for New Delhi to act and solve the dispute,” Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said on Saturday. Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-35029720080816)

Separatist leader and Kashmir’s main cleric Mirwaiz Umar says the issue has moved beyond land transfer. “Now it is beyond land transfer,” he said. “Now people are saying that anytime fundamentalists in India or in other regions of Jammu can cause an economic blockade in Kashmir. People are demanding that they have a birth right to trade with other side of Kashmir. Why can’t we look for alternative market if we can have.” VOA August 17th, 2008, http://voanews.com/english/2008-08-16-voa10.cfm

Kashmiri women shout pro-freedom slogans during a protest on Friday. The main city of Srinagar and other parts of the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley have been rocked by some of the biggest anti-India protests since a freedom struggle started in 1989. Muslims hoisted black flags and held noisy pro-freedom demonstrations to mark India’s independence day amid beefed up security. afp

The three regions are geographically divided into the Valley of Jhelum, Jammu and Ladakh. They are also distinct from each other in religion, language, and perception of their future. The people of the Valley are over 90 per cent Muslims, speak Kashmiri and demand azadi (freedom) without defining its full implications. The people of Jammu are predominantly Hindu, speak Dogri, Hindi or Punjabi. They definitely do not want the kind of azadi the people of the Valley clamour for. Nor do the Ladakhis, who are Buddhists and speak their own dialect. The core of the problem is the demand for azadi by the Muslims of the Valley. It can be met…Khuswant Singh Hindustan Times: First Published: 22:22 IST(15/8/2008). Last Updated: 18:33 IST(16/8/2008)

In Kashmir, talk of independence spreading like wildfire

CHRISTIAN COTRONEO From Monday’s Globe and Mail August 18, 2008 at 5:07 AM EDT

SRINAGAR, INDIA — When surrounded by half a million soldiers and police officers, there are few notes more discordant than a single word.

But today, it seems to be at the tip of every Kashmiri tongue.

Independence.

“When I am in India, I am treated as a Kashmiri, and not as an Indian,” he added. “If I am told that I am Kashmiri, then I am Kashmiri.”

Ironically, as India celebrated 61 years of independence from British rule over the weekend, the country was scrambling to rein in burgeoning nationalist sentiment in Kashmir. But hopes of curbing that tide in Jammu and Kashmir seem to be fading with every deadly clash between separatist mobs and massive security forces. In the past week, about 30 protesters have been killed and between 300 and 500 injured as security forces try to control what began as a split between Muslims and Hindus – and has now spiralled into a full-blown uprising.

“There is no government in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Shahid ul-Islam, personal secretary to separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. “There is no government. Nothing. Only people on the roads, that’s all.”

In recent years, the Hindus and Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir had managed to eke out a delicate harmony. Kashmir was just beginning to emerge from its violent past – when Pakistan and India fought bitterly over the mostly Muslim region – and welcome tourists. In the past five years, the picturesque Kashmir Valley, quilted in lakes, forests and mountains, saw a significant surge in foreign and domestic visitors.

“It was just all so fine from the Indian point of view, you had the Kashmiri separatists almost isolated,” explained Seema Mustafa, editor of an Indian political magazine called Covert.

“Everything was moving so beautifully and then these guys start playing electoral politics. It was one of the best times after the militancy. But now, it has gone back to the ’90s phase.”

The seeds of a renewed militancy in Kashmir were likely sown in about 40 hectares of land. In early June, the state government announced it was transferring a swath of forested land to the management of a Hindu cave shrine, called Amarnath.

Unfortunately, the land lay squarely in the Kashmir Valley, which is almost entirely dominated by Muslims. Throngs of Kashmiri Muslims filled the streets in angry protest. By the end of the month, the government yielded, cancelling the land transfer.

But a very old and angry genie had been released from its bottle. As soon as news of the state’s about-face reached the Hindu majority in Jammu, protesters took to the streets en masse.

“I think the chief minister was hoping the issue would get him some votes in the Jammu region and they didn’t bargain on the kind of response that they got,” Ms. Mustafa said. “Now, on both sides, in Jammu and Kashmir it has gotten far beyond the land issue.”

On Aug. 11, Kashmiri Muslims vowed to break through a blockade of Jammu protesters, who were preventing goods from entering or leaving Srinagar. In the police firing that followed, a separatist leader was among the dead. Accusing police of targeting their leader, Kashmiris vowed revenge.

Perhaps, the most ominous sign that India is losing its grip on Kashmir is the seemingly irreversible rift that has grown between Hindus and Muslims. In Jammu, Hindus maintain a majority, while the population of Kashmir is overwhelmingly Muslim.

When the government cancelled the Amarnath land transfer, nationalist parties such as Bharatiya Janata Party stirred up the Hindu masses to counterprotest.

Increasingly, those public outcries threaten to rock, not only the capital, but the entire state where police and soldiers, despite their numbers, have been forced to flee their positions – or fan the flames of dissent further by firing into the crowds.

Tour operator Mr. Ahmad does not buy into reports that Kashmiris are targeting by-standers, including journalists and tourists. Why would they, he mused, scare people away from the region?

“Kashmiris don’t want to spoil their own economy,” he said. “If you are economically strong, you can fight for your independence. If you are weak, then you have nothing.”

Tell that to the truckloads of young masked men, defying curfew to cruise the streets chanting “Pakistan! Pakistan!”

Indeed, Pakistan has become a focal point for the Indian government, which claims infiltrators from the bordering country are stirring up Kashmiris.

For its part, Pakistan has expressed its concern about the plight of Kashmiris to the United Nations, further straining relations between the uneasy neighbours.

The frequent sight of Pakistani flags in Srinagar is doing little to ease India’s concerns that its long-time nemesis in the region is influencing the region.

While Kashmir teeters on chaos, some observers wonder whether there is any turning back.

“I don’t think so,” student Aijaz Ahmad Malik said. “They’ve killed a lot of people.”

Special to The Globe and Mail

Kashmiris carrying Pakistan flags in Indian Occupied Kashmir

|  RUPEE NEWS | August 23rd, 2008 | Moin Ansari |  ???? ??????? | Indian Occupied Kashmir:-Children of the stones yearn for freedom and Pakistan. The Kashmiris have been kept in incarceration for the past six decades. Today the Kashmiris have exploded–seeking freedom and accession to Pakistan. For the first time in six decades the revanchist, irredentist, and triumphalist India media that caters to the Brahman elite is beginning to hear the voices of the Kashmiris.

Kashmiris carrying Pakistani flags

On August 15, India’s independence day, Lal Chowk, the nerve centre of Srinagar, was taken over by thousands of people who hoisted the Pakistani flag and wished each other “happy belated independence day” (Pakistan celebrates independence on August 14) Arundhati Roy

Ladakh has a Muslim majority map. Kashmir valley map

For the first time in six decades New Delhi’s Goebbelishcontrol of news coming out of Kashmir is crumbling. They watch Pakistani TV, and don’t watch Doordarshan. They listen to Radio Pakistan, and don’t listen to All India Radio. They dance to Pakistani music. The Green Wildfire of freedom in Indian Occupied Kashmir: Fields of Pakistani flags in Srinagar. They wave Pakistani flags and they chant Jeevay Jeevay Pakistan. They shout the kalima and burn Indian flags on August 15th. This is the new generation of Kashmiris–who cannot be cowed down by the Tricolor. They have chosen their color, and it is green.

Indian Occupied Kashmirs carrying Pakistani flags in Srinagar. AFP photo mislables it as

The separatist leaders who do appear and speak at the rallies are not leaders so much as followers, being guided by the phenomenal spontaneous energy of a caged, enraged people that has exploded on Kashmir’s streets. Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people swarm around places that hold terrible memories for them. They demolish bunkers, break through cordons of concertina wire and stare straight down the barrels of soldiers’ machine guns, saying what very few in India want to hear. Hum Kya Chahtey? Azadi! (We want freedom.) And, it has to be said, in equal numbers and with equal intensity: Jeevey jeevey Pakistan. (Long live Pakistan.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCnwSCClMU4

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCnwSCClMU4]

Syed Ali Shah Geelani began his address with a recitation from the Qur’an. He then said what he has said before, on hundreds of occasions. The only way for the struggle to succeed, he said, was to turn to the Qur’an for guidance. He said Islam would guide the struggle and that it was a complete social and moral code that would govern the people of a free Kashmir. He said Pakistan had been created as the home of Islam, and that that goal should never be subverted. He said just as Pakistan belonged to Kashmir, Kashmir belonged to Pakistan. Arundhati Roy

Kashmiri protesters carry the Pakistani Crescent and Star flags. India Occupied Kashmir

The unimaginable sums of public money that are needed to keep the military occupation of Kashmir going is money that ought by right to be spent on schools and hospitals and food for an impoverished, malnutritioned population in India. What kind of government can possibly believe that it has the right to spend it on more weapons, more concertina wire and more prisons in Kashmir? Arundhati Roy

There was a green flag on every lamp post, every roof, every bus stop and on the top of chinar trees. A big one fluttered outside the All India Radio building. Road signs were painted over. Rawalpindi they said. Or simply Pakistan. Arundhati Roy

 Indian Occupied Kashmirs carrying Pakistani flags in Srinagar. “]

Indian Occupied kashmiris burning the Indian flag ans showing support for Pakistan. They shouted slogans to join Pakistan. ??? ? ?? ???t ???? ???? ?? ???????????? Indian occupied Kashmiris shout: ??? ? ?? ???t ???? ???? ?? ???????????? “Lashkar is coming” to scare the occupying forcesMillions demand freedom in Indian Occupied Kashmir Indian Occupied Kashmirs throngs UN offices asking for freedom and end to occupation [gallery