Writing: Mumtaz Hashmi
The history of resistance and freedom movement in the state of Jammu and Kashmir is very old and it started after the occupation by the British when on March 16, 1846, Kashmir was sold by the British to one of their loyalists, Gulab Singh Dogra, in exchange for 7.5 million Nanak Shahi coins under the infamous Treaty of Amritsar. Under this inhumane treaty, the entire territory of Jammu and Kashmir, its entire population and resources were handed over to Gulab Singh Dogra. The Dogra rulers were more prejudiced against Muslims than the British. The extent of their hatred and prejudice against Muslims was that no Muslim was allowed to go before a Dogra ruler before noon because they did not tolerate seeing a Muslim before noon. The Dogra rulers also had the same hostility towards Islam. They had turned mosques into horse stables and gunpowder stores. Muslims were not allowed to give the call to prayer and deliver sermons on Fridays and Eids.
The Dogra rulers skinned alive the Muslim leaders of Poonch, Sardar Sabz Ali Khan and Milli Khan, for raising their voice against the inhuman treatment and atrocities against Muslims. A wave of awareness arose among the people of Kashmir against these atrocities and they started organizing. Gradually, many organizations came into existence.
In 1931, a mosque was martyred in Bareilly and on the same day, a police officer deliberately desecrated the Quran, after which a wave of anger and resentment spread among Muslims and Muslim protesters started protesting on the streets. The police arrested many protesters. On July 13, 1931, when they were presented in court, a large number of Muslims gathered and demanded to hear the court proceedings. The police opened fire on these unarmed Muslims indiscriminately, resulting in 27 martyrs and countless injuries. When the news of the unbridled atrocities on Muslims started spreading in India, Muslims became concerned about their future. Due to these circumstances, an atmosphere of unity emerged among the Muslims of Kashmir and Kashmir Day was celebrated for the first time in Jammu on August 14, 1931. In October 1931, the cries of “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go Kashmir” began to resound throughout Punjab. On this occasion, the British government intervened and asked to stop the atrocities of the Dogra Raj.
At that time, on the one hand, a movement to get rid of the Dogra rulers in Kashmir was emerging among Muslims, and on the other hand, the freedom movement had taken a new direction throughout India.
The foundation of the establishment of Pakistan was laid by the great thinker of the Quran, Allama Iqbal, while renewing the two-nation theory. He presented the concept of "two-nation theory” in his speech while presiding over the annual session of the Muslim League in December 1930 and demanded a separate homeland consisting of Muslim-majority areas/states.
At that time, when the entire Islamic nation was in defeat and slavery and the system of Islam was not implemented in any part of the earth. Due to which the concept of the oinDean-Islam had completely disappeared and mental slavery and backwardness had spread among Muslims. Among Muslims, the concept of Islam had become limited to only religious worship and rituals. At that time, Allah Almighty gave Allama Iqbal the ability and vision to remind the Muslims of the forgotten lesson and instill in them the determination to restore the greatness of Islam again. He presented the concept of Pakistan as the President of the Muslim League for the revival of Islam in the world. According to which, this new Muslim state of Pakistan, which would consist of the provinces and states of India with a majority Muslim population, would have the opportunity to fully implement Islam and thus the true concept of Islam, which would be the model of the Rightly Guided Caliphate, would be a clear message to the whole world that the whole world would see the fruits of this system and in this way the world would turn towards Islam. And gradually the religion of Islam would become the means of implementation throughout the world. Iqbal convinced Quaid-e-Azam to complete this task. And Quaid-e-Azam, who was disappointed with the attitude of the Muslim League leaders, had gone to London. Allama Iqbal convinced him to return to India and fight for the establishment of Pakistan. Thus, by the strategy of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, he returned to India and worked very hard for the creation of Pakistan and linked the establishment of Pakistan completely and solely with the basic objectives of the of Dean-Islam. This movement very soon highlighted its importance and now the slogan of the establishment of Pakistan and the implementation of the Dean-Islam, has become a complete concept and has spread everywhere.
From 1930 to 1932, round table conferences were held in London, in which a consensus was reached on the constitution of a united India, but Chaudhry Rehmat Ali rejected the formula of a united India as a death warrant for the Muslims of India.
And in contrast, he presented the demand for a Muslim state in the name of “Pakistan” through his historic declaration Now or Never on 28 January 1933. According to Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, the “K” in the word Pakistan represented Kashmir.
After that, as the demand for Pakistan gained momentum in the subcontinent, the movement for independence and inclusion in Pakistan also began to gain popularity in Kashmir. In those days, the foundation of the Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference was laid in the Srinagar Stone Mosque in 1933. Due to these movements, the enthusiasm for the independence movement was increasing among the Muslims and they were organizing for it. On the other hand, the Hindu community, who dreamed of a united India, wanted to keep the whole of India under its control. Seeing the changing situation in Kashmir, the rukers invited extremist organization on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to Kashmir to establish its bases here. Thus, in 1934, the RSS started its work and centers of this organization were opened here and there. These centers were apparently like gyms and arenas where Hindu youth used to do physical exercises, but in reality they were centers for providing war training to the Hindu minority of the state to fight the Muslims. These centers were later used for systematic atrocities and massacres against Muslims.
80 percent of the population of the state of Jammu and Kashmir consisted of Muslims. Its 600-mile long border met with Pakistan. The state's only railway line passed through Sialkot and the postal and telegraph system was also connected to the outside world with Pakistan. The two paved roads of the state passed through Rawalpindi and Sialkot. Then, in the Pakistan Declaration of 1933, Kashmir was declared an integral part of Pakistan, without which Pakistan was incomplete, and Kashmiri Muslims had also accepted the ideology of Pakistan wholeheartedly. For all these reasons, the majority of the people of Kashmir wanted to join Pakistan. But with the collusion of the British and the Congress, Kashmir was included in India against the wishes of the majority of its people. This injustice led to a wave of anger in Kashmir and movements for independence from India and accession to Pakistan began to gain momentum.
During this time, a part of the state came to Pakistan, which is known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir as an autonomous state.
There have been several wars between India and Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir and the solution of this issue can only guarantee peace and harmony in the region.
And for a permanent solution to this issue, the United Nations resolution of 21 April 1948 has been accepted by both sides, according to which the future of Kashmir is to be decided by the will of the people of Kashmir and for this, a plebiscite should be arranged under the auspices of the United Nations Commission. But due to India’s stubbornness and expansionist ambitions, the plebiscite resolution could not be implemented in Kashmir, but on the contrary, India has also committed an illegal act of changing the status of Kashmir.
In these circumstances, the freedom movement has been going on in Kashmir since the beginning and great sacrifices have been made in this struggle. The great leaders of freedom in this struggle include Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Maulvi Muhammad Farooq, Khwaja Abdul Ghani Lone, Sardar Ibrahim, Sardar Qayyum, KH Khurshid, Muhammad Afzal Guru, Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas, Haibullah Shah Zia, Shorush Jabali, Maqbool Butt, Shabir Ahmed Shah, Burhan Wani, and hundreds of other leaders and millions of people. Thousands of youth, elders, women and children have attained the status of martyrdom in this great struggle.
Among these freedom fighters , a very unique name is that of Yasin Malik, whose undying courage and courage have given a new life to the freedom struggle of Kashmir.
Yasin Malik was born in 1963 in a middle-class family of occupied Kashmir. He is a freedom fighter leader of Jammu and Kashmir and the head of the Kashmir Liberation Front.
Since his early youth, he has been active in liberating Kashmir from Indian rule. For which he took all possible means, due to which he has been facing arrests since the beginning.
Yasin Malik initially emerged as a student leader against the ruling party National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir. He supported the Muslim United Front candidate Muhammad Yousuf Shah from Amira Kadal in the 1987 elections.
The role of JKLF In this freedom movement is not hidden from anyone. Yasin Malik joined the JKLF and dedicated his life to the freedom movement. For this, he endured immense suffering and was subjected to severe state violence, but he never bowed down to falsehood and has created immortal stories of courage and bravery.
Yasin Malik was arrested many times.
He was arrested in 1999 and again in 2002, during which he was in jail for about a year. After that, he started meeting leaders from all over the world and talking to resolve the Kashmir issue, while his party started a series of meetings with people called ‘Freedom Journey’ in 2007,
In 2009, he married Pakistani Mashal Malik. Mashal Malik herself is known as a human rights activist and she is a very brave and courageous woman and she also has a daughter Razia Sultana. After marriage, he lived with his family for only a few months.
Yasin Malik was last arrested on February 22, 2019 under the Public Safety Act and was shifted to Jammu Kot Bilwal Jail on March 7. After some time, he was shifted to Tihar Jail. From where reports of his deteriorating health have been coming out. When the Indian government revoked Kashmir’s special status on August 5, Yasin Malik was still in jail.
Yasin Malik, the hero of the Kashmir freedom movement, was arrested by the Indian government in February 2019 on baseless terrorism charges. Now, after enduring the hardshisp of many years of imprisonment, he has been tried in a court. Yasin Malik had been imprisoned in Tihar Jail in New Delhi for the past several years for his freedom struggle. Many other freedom-loving leaders of occupied Kashmir have also suffered the hardships of forced imprisonment in this infamous prison. Yasin Malik sacrificed his youth and entire life for the freedom of Kashmiris. He has been subjected to immense torture in prison and is being subjected to it.
Yasin Malik had abandoned armed resistance years ago and announced a political struggle for the freedom of Kashmir. This change was appreciated by various commentators and peace advocates, and even the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed Yasin Malik as his advisor. However, everything changed as soon as the extremist Hindu party BJP came to power and presented Yasin Malik as an accomplice of terrorists.
A few months ago, during his appearance in the Supreme Court, Yasin Malik had said that he was not a terrorist, but a political leader. And that seven Indian prime ministers had spoken to him in the past. Yasin Malik, who appeared in the court via video conference, had also said that the central government of India had not listed his party as a terrorist organization.
The then Indian government, which had extremist ambitions, was active in removing Yasin Malik from the path and now he has not only been sentenced to life imprisonment in the so-called case but is also eager to get him the death penalty. He has been framed in a so-called terrorism case and the lack of transparency in the trial is being criticized worldwide. The court is violating all human rights under state coercion. It is highly likely that the extremist government of India wants to remove Yasin Malik from the path and is using all possible tactics for this.
It should be noted that If India shows its stubbornness this time too and illegally sentences Yasin Malik to death, then the Kashmir freedom movement, which is still peacefully ongoing, may take a different direction, which may lead to resistance in other parts of India as well.
Therefore, it is a heavy responsibility for human rights organizations, media, NGOs, democracy and peace-loving people around the world to take practical steps against these nefarious objectives of the extremist government of India and force India to provide justice to Yasin Malik, who has been suffering from imprisonment for a long time.
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