Afridi’s remarks create ripples off cricket pitch
Maverick Pakistan cricket captain Shahid Afridi is best known for his “boom boom” batting and for scoring the fastest hundred in the 50-over version of the game.
However, he is now creating ripples off the cricket pitch for his remarks against India, at a time when the two countries, who have been to war three times since independence, attempt to resume dialogue at the highest level.
Speaking to Pakistan-based Samaa TV, Afridi, the joint highest wicket-taker in the recently concluded cricket World Cup, said on Tuesday it was difficult to maintain good long-term relations with India.
The remarks come a week after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart to watch the arch-rivals battle it out in the semi-final of the showpiece event at Mohali.
“If I have to tell the truth, Indians cannot have the kind of hearts that Pakistani Muslims have,” Afridi said a week after Pakistan were knocked out by India. “They cannot have the big and clean hearts that Allah has given to Pakistanis,” Afridi told the TV channel amid raucous applause from the studio audience.
His comments sparked outrage in the Indian media, and headline writers had a field day. The Indian Express called it “Afridi’s wrong ‘un,” while the Times of India called it a “bewildering, undiplomatic rant against Indian culture, its people, cricket team and the media.”
To his credit, Afridi quickly went into damage-control mood and said on Wednesday he was quoted out of context. “The media makes a big deal of small issues. It is shameful. I have always done my bit to improve Indo-Pak ties but sometimes you say something and it is interpreted the other way,” Afridi told NDTV.
Should forces responsible for over 100 killings be praised for restraint?
India’s Prime Minister praised the work of security forces in disputed Kashmir on Tuesday, in a show of support for troops that killed over 100 separatist protesters last year that risks angering those that resent India’s large military presence in the state.
The remarks represent a seal of approval for security forces that are cited by many Kashmiris as an element of the violence, rather than the preventers of it, and come as a team of interlocutors enters its fifth month of talks in the troubled region, and almost two months after Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said that a political solution to the troubles was likely to emerge “in the next few months.”
But can Manmohan Singh’s praise for the “tremendous restraint” of Indian forces in Kashmir be applauded considering they have been responsible for the death of over 100 separatist protesters in months of violent clashes since last summer?
“It is really unfortunate and sad that despite tremendous restraint shown by the security forces, many young people died,” Singh told a conference of state chief ministers in New Delhi on Tuesday. “As we meet today, the situation in the valley has improved.”
Such rhetoric — regularly trotted out by New Delhi and military leaders — is reviled by many in Kashmir by those who resent the perceived heavy-handed treatment by India’s security forces.
Last month, India appeared to be moving towards a reduction in ground forces in the state, while discussions roll on regarding the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act — much-maligned by Kashmiri citizens.
@Oppressed 1947
***I am curious why kidnapping and killing two teenage sisters by militants did not raise as much hue and cry as the rape and killing in Shopian case where people in the valley were protesting.
Why not protest like that now?
Why is Kashmir upset over choice of new interlocutors?
Last week, New Delhi appointed three new mediators to find a solution to the decades-old dispute over Kashmir where popular protests against Indian rule have mounted in recent months.
The appointment of the three-member non-political team of interlocutors – journalist Dilip Padgaonkar, academician Radha Kumar and government official M. M. Ansari – is also aimed at defusing simmering anger in the disputed region.
More than 110 people were killed, most of them by police bullets, in months of deadly protests.
But New Delhi’s most important initiative on Kashmir, which India and Pakistan claim in full but rule in parts, has provoked widespread disappointment and dismay.
“…the eight-point plan of action unveiled last month had generated tremendous hope and enthusiasm. And yet the actual announcement of a three-member non-political team has provoked widespread anger and hostility and even invited ridicule,” says Amitabh Mattoo, Professor of International Studies at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a senior separatist leader spearheading the ongoing protest strikes, has described the appointment of interlocutors as a “futile exercise.”
I have a rhetorical question to the Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s and Syed Geelani’s, why have you not advised Pakistan of their obligations to the 1948 UN resolutions regarding Kashmir?
Which Kashmiri leader, if any of them has asked for full true azadi from Pakistan?
Or nobody has asked, because all Kashmiri separatists are Pakistani stooges? Somebody prove my comment wrong. I am trying to make a point here.
The Geelani’s and Umar Farooq’s of this world don’t even want to mention the suppression of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Please feel free to discuss Kashmir in its whole entirety, regarding Pakistan’s role in all this, if you don’t India will not listen either.
Is Kashmir’s protest leader gaining popularity?
Separatist militancy has waned over the years in Kashmir, but now a radicalised young generation which has grown up in over two decades of violence and strife is driving the massive anti-India demonstrations across the disputed region.
Who is leading months of freedom demonstrations in Kashmir, a fresh unarmed uprising that is proving a huge political challenge for the Indian government?
Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the 80-year-old hardline Kashmiri politician who is hated by India and backed by Pakistan, has emerged as the leading face of the present separatist campaign in the region.
Since the crisis started on June 11 when a 17-year-old student died after being hit by a tear gas shell during a protest, Geelani weekly issues a protest calendar that calls for protest marches, strikes and sit-ins.
More than 100 people have now been killed in more than 100 days of protests, the biggest since an armed revolt against New Delhi’s rule broke out in 1989.
The death toll so far includes children, women and teenagers, nearly all killed by police bullets.
Many Kashmiris are not happy with Geelani’s protest plans because the continuing cycle of strikes and government curfews has shut down schools, colleges and offices, made food and medicine scarce and has brought untold misery to the people.
@RajeevDubey,
As long as Pakistan and India have the notion that Kashmir belongs in totality to one or the other, circustances will always keep militancy alive into Indian Kashmir and Kashmiri’s will always get stuck in the middle.
India must win the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri people and they will wholeheartedly choose the Indian union over Pakistan. India has the time, money, the resources and patience and above, intelligence of ideas. A heavy hand will not win the hearts of Kashmiri’s only a gentle, methodical, intelligent and persistant approach will work.
Kashmiri leaders must be kept constantly accountable and at the table and those leaders must hold their people accountable as well. Concurrently, India needs to do a better job of policing the LOC, educating Kashmiri youth and creating jobs and infrastructure for them and bring the down the hammer of justice on militants that cross the LOC.
With enough time, Kashmiri’s will realize that India is the ONLY one, that cares to preserve their culture and their state and language, because if India does not, Pakistan will swallow, assimilate, displace Kashmiri’s by settlements.
Indian politicians need to take a more pro-active role in this regard and start creating a more friendly atmosphere and put these idle, useless mouthpieces like Geelani out of business for good.
India can take Kashmir by winning Kashmiri hearts, force will create more separatism and militantism. Again, India has the resources, money and patience, just lack of political will to engage this issue with some greater vision and spine.
Tony Blair says India to be ‘one of the key leading powers of the world’
Forced to cancel book-signing events in his own country due to the threat of being pelted by eggs by anti-war protestors, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair took the publicity tour for his newly-released memoirs to India with an interview with the Times of India on Saturday.
In A Journey, which has caused a great deal of interest and controversy in the UK, Blair writes: “India remains , still developing, that manages to be genuinely democratic,” and this sentiment continues in the interview:
“I was very keen to move beyond the old-fashioned relationship… My view was India was going to be one of the key leading powers of the world in the times to come. The west in the 21st century, including countries like mine will have to get used to the fact that we’re going to have partners who will be equals, sometimes more than equals,” he says.
Like his successor David Cameron, who led a high-profile trip to India in July, Blair was keen for the UK to make the most of the Indian growth story, visiting the country in 2005 as European Union President to broker trade agreements.
Out of office since 2007, Blair now sees India’s value to the global community as more than just an investment opportunity:
“Lot of people focus on the Indian economy and its diversity, and so on, and all that is true and absolutely right. But it’s also what India has got to teach is in terms of culture, in terms of peaceful co-existence between religions and in terms of dealing with this struggle against terrorism.”
“But it’s also what India has got to teach is in terms of culture, in terms of peaceful co-existence between religions and in terms of dealing with this struggle against terrorism.””…same old, same old.
Is New Delhi working on Kashmir solution?
At least 64 people have been killed across Kashmir during anti-India demonstrations, one of the worst outbreaks of unrest since a separatist revolt against New Delhi broke out in 1989.
Frequent curfews, security lockdown and separatist strikes have kept the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley on the boil, shutting down much of the region for the past two and a half months.
New Delhi has been criticised for failing to respond to violence that has wounded hundreds, closed down schools and colleges also.
But now Kashmir’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, has hinted at a political solution of the crisis by New Delhi in the coming days.
“The Union government is actively working for a political solution,” Abdullah said and expressed hope that an “amicable and peaceful” settlement would not be too far off.
After several failed rounds of peace talks between separatists and the Centre in the past two decades, India will find it difficult bridging the “trust deficit” between New Delhi and Kashmir, a region seen as key to the stability of a broad zone ranging from India to Afghanistan.
Abdullah expressed hope that New Delhi will take positive steps in addressing the political issues of Kashmir in a sustained dialogue process avoiding the “re-occurrence of mistakes done in the past.”
i doubt if India is really serious about resolution as there is no leader of that caliber who would take risks involved in such resolution as politics of India at this time is not statesmanship oriented…..but let us watch what India is going to offer????????
U.N. concerned over Kashmir unrest
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has expressed concern over the weeks of violent anti-government protests in Kashmir which have killed more than 30 people, dragged in more troops and locked down the disputed Himalayan region.
A separatist strike and security lockdown has dragged on for nearly a month-and-a-half in Muslim-majority Kashmir, a region at the core of a dispute between India and Pakistan.
“In relation to recent developments in Indian-administered Kashmir, the Secretary-General is concerned over the prevailing security situation there over the past month,” Farhan Haq, Ban Ki-Moon’s spokesperson said in a statement.
The Secretary-General has called on all concerned to exercise utmost restraint and address problems peacefully.
But security forces, to quell the daily street protests, have launched a major crackdown across Kashmir and detained at least 1,400 people. The arrests are fuelling more anger.
Most separatist leaders have been arrested or placed under house arrest.
The government has ordered a judicial probe into the deaths of 17 people, mostly protesters, in an attempt to end the crisis amid the biggest demonstrations against Indian rule in two years across the Valley.
kahsmiris who wnt independece arnt bloody traitors you idiots. kashmriis are apeopel and they consider themsleves differnt to idnians – and they wre independent before india shoved thier flag over them
theyre patriots. theyre fighting for ther people. they cnsider their peole kashmiris!
tell me is india fighting for pakistanis? no? why not after all we share blood, historyc, culture, lingusitics. becase we have drawn a line ebtween idnia and pakistan. so we conider our own different to paksitan.
does india fight for afghansitan and iran? no ? why not, go back far enough and we were all indo-iranians! because we do not parade under the idno-iranian banner. similiry kahsmiris dont parade under the idnian banner and they dont have to if they dont want to.
Is Lashkar-e-Taiba behind Kashmir protests?
India has blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group for violent anti-India demonstrations sweeping across the Muslim-majority valley in which 11 people have been killed so far.
In Indian Kashmir, authorities extended a curfew on Friday and deployed thousands of troops to quell fresh protests that have spread to other parts of the disputed region.
“We think it is the LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) which is active in Sopore (in north Kashmir),” Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said.
But Kashmir’s former chief minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, called the response from New Delhi to the present Kashmir crisis an “insult” to the people of Kashmir.
“Linking the genuine anger and anguish among people here with terrorism was nothing short of an assault on their self-respect and dignity,” Sayeed said.
Sayeed, chief and founder of the state’s main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), was also India’s Home Minister when armed revolt against New Delhi’s rule broke out in 1989.
Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s chief minister, also says ”anti-India forces” are creating trouble and has asked people to respect curfew and counsel their children.
Kashmir today is very different from Kashmir in 1947. A lot of water had flowed under the bridge. Today, it is an extremely geo-strategic location for India. Not an inch can be yielded there. India has been fighting Pakistan over the Siachien glacier for more than 25 years now. It is a barren landscape and the two militaries are engaged in a stalemate there. If that is the case, India has no reason to leave Kashmir. By siding with Pakistan because of religion, Kashmiris have made their condition worse. The first thing they need to do is to distance themselves from Pakistan and its support. That is the only thing that will reassure mainstream Indians that Kashmir’s needs should be addressed. We all know that Kashmir will never have its freedom. If India leaves, Kashmir will fall under the control of Pakistan immediately. It will be indirect first and Pakistan and Kashmir will live off their hatred for India for sometime. Then fissures will erupt turning Kashmiris against Pakistan as well. And Pakistan will not deal with Kashmir like India does. It will be brutal. Look at how they handled East Pakistan or Afghanistan or Balochistan. Or even ask Azad Kashmiris.
Kashmir, in today’s situation, will not be able to remain free. If it is not India, it will be Pakistan. Islamic unity will not work. It has already been proven in the case of Afghanistan and East Pakistan. Islamic unity only works against non-Muslims. And countries cannot live off of that for too long. So Kashmiris have only one path. Reconcile with India and move on. If they did that, India might not be this tight in its grip. For peace to return that, Kashmiris have to push back on Pakistan. They must realize that Pakistan is supporting them mostly for its hatred for India and nothing else. They have no special love for Kashmiris. Pakistan has already converted Azad Kashmir into a road for China. And China is famous for its invasion of Tibet and occupation. Pakistan will not say a word about that of course. They are friends. Chinese can slaughter Uighur Muslims and Pakistanis are fine with that. Only Kashmir matters because India can be irritated. Unfortunately India is growing stronger by the day. Not much is going to move there.
Put Kashmiris first, says Crisis Group
Any dialogue between India and Pakistan aimed at a solution to the decades-old Kashmir problem will fail if the two rivals do not first include people living on both sides of Line of Control (LoC) that divides the region, the International Crisis Group says.
New Delhi and Islamabad appeared willing to allow more interaction across the LoC but failed to engage Kashmiris in the process, the Crisis Group said in a report titled, “Steps Towards Peace: Putting Kashmiris First.”
The latest briefing from the Crisis Group identifies the key political, social and economic needs of Kashmiris that should be addressed on both sides of the divided state.
Here is the complete report.
Samina Ahmed, Crisis Group’s South Asia Project Director says the atmosphere of hostility is undermining the progress that had been made in softening the border that also divides the Kashmiri families.
Relations between the south Asian neighbours went into a freeze the Mumbai attacks killed 166 people.
“Since the Mumbai attacks by Pakistan-based militants in November 2008, tensions between the two neighbours have eclipsed Kashmiri hopes for political liberalisation and economic opportunity,” Samina adds.
Lately all types of people have started stirring the curry in Kashmir. People who have perhaps not even known the valley beyond the newspapers have been allowed to take centre-stage. Take for example the tenuous and callous edict of Arun Datti Roy, who has perhaps developed some kind of an affinity with the radical elements during her frequent rendezvous with them. Her proclamation might have won her the hearts of her beloved subversive kin in the valley and their mentors across the border but our hearts bleed to hear such rhetoric. The indigenous people like us, who have grown up in the lap of the vale and might have suffered the ignominy to be thrown out of our homeland, would not at all assimilate such sacrilege.
Ms Roy might be a credible writer but ostensibly she is a pathetic reader. Perhaps she has not cared to read and understand the backdrop, the cause and the purpose of the strife in the valley. It is ironical to hear about Kashmir and its tribulations from someone who is not at all qualified to talk about the subject. As a matter of fact, these days it has become fashionable for every dog on the street to open its mouth and vomit whatever it can chuck on Kashmir to gain cheap publicity, without caring about the sentiments of the people who have given blood to safeguard its sanctity.
It is worth reminding Ms Roy that not long ago, Kashmir was not what it is today. We have lived in a Kashmir which was an example of amity, serenity and tranquility. We fondly remember the times when Miwaiz Maulvi Farooq the slain father of Huriyat functionary Mirwaiz Omar Farooq used to travel to idgah for offering Idd prayers and on his return we, the Hindus living in his close neighborhood used to line up on the road side to wish him IDD MUBARAK and he used to return the greetings gratefully. Although Maulvi Farooq was a staunch crusader of azadi, but never did he transverse the path of secession in the right spirit due to lack of support from the people. The people were more concerned about earning their living rather than bother about azadi.
On the other hand the life of politicians across the border in Pakistan depended solely on the passion they ignited on Kashmir. They used every possible medium – Pakistan Television, Radio Pakistan & Azad Kashmir Radio, Tiralkand & Muzaraffabad and to some extend the local vernacular press to inculcate the seeds of azadi in Kashmiries. In April 1988, it took a historical maneuver by the very cunning General Zia-ul-Haq, the then military dictator of Pakistan, who devised a very realistic and viable plan to create instability and chaos in Kashmir. His doctrine named “OPERATION TOPAC” envisaged everything that Kashmir is passing through today. The situation created by Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ushered a God created opportunity for Zia to facilitate the fulfillment of his dream. What has happened to Kashmir would have never taken place without the intervention and connivance of Pakistan. If tomorrow Ms Roy’s dreams are realized and an independent Kashmir is formed, she should thank the genius of Gen Zia for sowing the seeds of secessionism in the Kashmiries.
We the Kashmiri Hindus, have suffered the most through the years of bloodbath and anarchy. Yet we would not dare to think of separating Kashmir from our motherland – India. Had we been having the kind of blood that is running through Ms Roy, we would have very easily compromised our jingoism and perhaps would have not been at the receiving end of misery and hardship that has become part of our lives today.
Would someone amongst us standup and make people like Ms Roy understand that every word spoken about Kashmir has got multifarious repercussions for the stakeholders and every word they speak has a bearing on the peace process that may be going on overtly or covertly in Delhi, Srinagar or Islamabad.
Afghan endgame and fears of rise in Kashmir violence
The Indian army says rebel violence will escalate in Kashmir in summer as hundreds of militants are waiting in the Pakistani part of Kashmir to infiltrate into the Indian side and step up attacks.
Even an internal assessment of the Home Ministry says the summer of 2010 will be as bloodier as or even worse than the mid-nineties.
In Kashmir, violence involving Muslim rebels and Indian troops was on the decline since India and Pakistan, who dispute the region, began a peace process in 2004.
Then why does New Delhi fear escalation of militant violence in Kashmir?
Analysts say after the failure of high-level talks between New Delhi and Islamabad, both are now locked in an escalating proxy war in Afghanistan, a war-torn region where both neighbours vie for influence.
“If no solution is found to reconcile Pakistani and Indian interests in Afghanistan, the coming months might see stepped up terrorist attacks against Indians in Kabul and the return of militants infiltrating Indian Kashmir from Pakistan,” says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist.
Though the high Himalayan passes are still covered with a thick layer of snow, Pakistan-based militants have started pushing in their members into the Valley.
I my self come from kashmir part belonging to pakistan so called azad kashmir on a recent visit what i saw completly surprised me majority of the people in my region were from afganistan or they had come from the region bodering india, I asked a few people as to what they were doing in the valley leaving their homes and land in the mountains the reply i got was that they were scared of the constant shelling, I assume it will be both side shelling one another. There is no industry in azad kashmir the pakistani govt. has not invested in any sort of infrastructure if kashmir was ruled by one honest govt. it can be self suffient and look after if self the tourist industry in that place would be huge. India and pakistan should sit down work something out for them people and in return they would not have to spend huge amount of money on defence which could go towards their own people, everyone would be better off but India cannot let kashmir go because it would lead to its destruction because other regions will want self rule which India cannot afford and it is same with pakistan so the people of kashmir will have to suffer no matter what. They can thank the British, Lord Mountbatten and the U.N for their fate. Both India and Pakistan are there for self interest only, the good thing is our part is not as bad as the other side, this boder should come down like the berlin wall but unfortunatly their is no country out their to help the people of kashmir.
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