JAMMU & KASHMIR and MEDIA ISSUE

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JAMMU & KASHMIR and MEDIA ISSUE

Jammu & Kashmir is a state in India. It is a large state and was ruled by a Maharaja (Indian King) in the past. Jammu & Kashmir is made up of many regions but is called Jammu & Kashmir because the two most populous regions in the state are called Jammu and Kashmir. There are other distinct regions in the state including Ladakh, Gilgit, Baltistan and Skardu. India's neighbour, Pakistan, grabbed many of these regions about 50 years ago. Some parts of the state were forcibly taken over by China. The largest portion of the original state of Jammu & Kashmir remains as a state within India.
Kashmir is a beautiful valley in the northernmost part of India. It is part of a state called Jammu & Kashmir. The Kashmir Valley is surrounded by some of the highest mountain ranges in the world. The valley itself is green and thickly populated. The people of this Valley are highly evolved and have therefore dominated the history and culture of the state.

Kashmir's Accession to India

Jammu & Kashmir in the year 1947 was an independent country for all practical purposes. The Maharaja who ruled the State had signed agreements with both Pakistan and India to remain neutral and not be part of either country. India honored that agreement but Pakistan did not. Pakistani raiders and soldiers attacked the state in 1947 forcing the Maharaja to flee to India. The Maharaja asked India to help his people who were being killed and looted by the Pakistani raiders. He also agreed to make Jammu &; Kashmir part of India. The Indian ruler at that time was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He accepted Jammu &; Kashmir's accession to India and agreed to rescue his people from the Pakistani attackers.

The Fighting Began

Indian troops were flown into the Kashmir Valley and they managed to drive away most of the Pakistani raiders from the state. But a large area of the state remained under the control of Pakistani soldiers. These areas were difficult to reach because they were surrounded by tall mountain ranges. Also, India wanted to stop the fighting. The fighting ended with Pakistan retaining control of a large area of the state but India keeping a larger part. The fighting ended in the beginning of 1949 because India did not want the war to drag on.

Dispute Continues

India felt that other influential countries like the US and Britain would ask Pakistan to stop fighting and withdraw its soldiers from a State that had legally become part of India. India therefore went to the world body called the United Nations, or UN for short. India said that Pakistan had attacked a neutral State and that State had now become part of India. Therefore, Pakistan should withdraw its soldiers from the State. The United Nations agreed with the Indian demand and asked Pakistan to withdraw its forces from Jammu & Kashmir. It also told India to ask the people of Jammu & Kashmir whether they wanted to be part of India or part of Pakistan. This was because some people in the State wanted to join Pakistan while others wanted to stay with India. The Prime Minister of India agreed to ask the people what they wanted through a process known as a referendum or plebiscite. Pakistan did not agree and refused to vacate the areas of Jammu & Kashmir it had forcibly grabbed. Because of this a plebiscite could not be held. Powerful countries like the US and Britain did not force Pakistan to withdraw its troops from Kashmir. They simply termed the entire State as a ‘Disputed Territory.’
This was done essentially because both India and Pakistan claimed the state of Jammu & Kashmir. The big powers, like the US and Britain, did not want to take sides and might have felt that it would be best if the problem of the state could be settled between India and Pakistan. India wants to settle the problems once and for all. But Pakistan will only accept a solution under which it can keep the Kashmir Valley to itself. India cannot allow this. Therefore, the so-called "dispute" continues to this day.

India’s Integral Part Jammu & Kashmir

Legally, Jammu & Kashmir is an integral and inseparable part of India. The British had ruled India as one undivided country made up of many provinces and princely states. When they left, India was partitioned into two separate countries. The new country, as mentioned earlier, was called Pakistan. The British as well as the leaders of both India and Pakistan had agreed to one basic principle - every inch of land must go either to India or to Pakistan. In other words, people living in India before the partition of 1947, had only two options: they could either join Pakistan or they could join India. They could not remain independent.
Jammu & Kashmir was actually an exception. The Maharaja of the State had wanted time to decide whether he should join Pakistan or join India. But the rulers of Pakistan did not want to give him the opportunity to decide and instead attacked his state, killing hundreds of people and causing extensive damage to property. The Pakistani action forced the Maharaja to join India.
Legality
India’s accession was absolutely legal. According to the agreement on which the partition of India was based, the rulers of princely states, like Jammu & Kashmir, had the absolute right to decide whether they wanted to join Pakistan or India. There was never any question of holding a referendum or a plebiscite. All the same, the then Prime Minister of India, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, agreed to hold a plebiscite because he was a democrat and wanted to find out what the people of the state of Jammu & Kashmir wanted.

Holding a Plebiscite

The plebiscite was not held because Pakistan refused to vacate the large parts of Jammu & Kashmir that had been occupied by its soldiers. The plebiscite was meant for all the people of the state of Jammu & Kashmir and not just for those who lived in the Kashmir Valley. But the Pakistanis felt that the parts of the state they had captured was theirs and would not part with it. Pakistan defied the agreement reached by the world body called the United Nations and refused to vacate its troops. The powerful countries of the world did nothing to ensure that Pakistan honored the UN Resolutions on Jammu & Kashmir. India could not therefore hold a plebiscite.
In 1947, when the Pakistanis attacked Jammu & Kashmir, the most popular leader of that state was a man named Sheikh Abdullah. He was a friend of the Indian Prime Minister, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru. Both men believed in secularism, which is a concept that allows people of all religions and creeds to live together. Pakistan, on the other hand, was created on the basis of religion. The leaders of Pakistan wanted a country where only Muslims would rule. Indian leaders, on the other hand, felt that anybody could rule as long as the people elected that person. Sheikh Abdullah preferred the idea of secularism. He therefore wanted Jammu & Kashmir to be part of India rather than part of Pakistan. At the same time, the Hindus who were a majority in the Jammu region also did not want to join Pakistan. Nor did the Buddhists of Ladakh. Since all these groups wanted to be with India, there was no point in holding a referendum on the Indian side of Jammu & Kashmir. Also, in 1954, the people on the Indian side of Jammu & Kashmir elected a government of their own. This government made it clear that their state was part of India and not part of Pakistan. Officially speaking, they "ratified Jammu & Kashmir's accession to India". This meant that henceforth there could be no question of holding a plebiscite in the state of Jammu & Kashmir.

A plebiscite cannot be held today for two reasons. Firstly, Pakistan continues to illegally occupy a large chunk of Jammu & Kashmir and does not allow the people here any freedom of choice. In most parts of the Pakistani occupied part of Jammu & Kashmir, the local people have no democratic rights. They cannot elect a government and they cannot dare to even talk against Pakistan for fear of being killed. For all practical purposes, the territory and the people captured by Pakistan in 1947 have been incorporated into Pakistan. These people have always been ruled by Pakistan and have not been given the opportunity to learn what democracy is all about. Unless, Pakistan agrees to give them a chance to participate in a plebiscite, it will be of no use. Secondly, Jammu & Kashmir became a legal, integral and inseparable part of India many years ago. Today, no Indian government can allow some people in Jammu & Kashmir to break away from India. The Indian government tolerates some people in Jammu & Kashmir who talk about separation from India but does not like them. In other countries, people who want to break apart a country by creating a separate independent country are called traitors. They are usually punished by hanging. India is a more tolerant country.

The insurgency in Kashmir

This is because a section of leaders belonging to the Kashmir Valley want to break away from India. Some of them want to form a separate country while others want to join Pakistan. Making such demands is against the law. The Indian government has been forced to arrest some of these leaders and put them in prison. Most of them have later been released. Some of them, however, decided to become terrorists and started to kill people in the Kashmir Valley and in other parts of the state. To protect the lives of people and to counter these terrorists, the Indian government posted soldiers in the Kashmir Valley. The terrorists then started killing these soldiers as well. The soldiers started fighting back and for all practical purposes, the Kashmir Valley became a battlefield. Indian soldiers have killed many terrorists but some remain to this day and continue to frighten the people of Jammu & Kashmir.

Kashmiri People

Kashmiris are basically a proud people. The younger generation also showed that they are a brave people. When their elders and intellectual leaders told them about the glorious victories of Islam and how India had reneged on its promise for a plebiscite, the Kashmiri youth felt they had to take up the gun against the Indian security forces. This happened because some leaders in the Kashmiri Valley, who were unhappy about the fact that they could not rule, decided that they would force the Indian government to leave the Valley. These leaders knew they could not fight the Indian government by themselves. So they went to Pakistan. There the Pakistani leaders assured them all help because the Pakistanis felt that if India was forced to give up the Kashmir Valley, then they would grab it for themselves. They decided to help the Kashmiri leaders who wanted to separate from India. The Pakistanis trained Kashmiri youth to fight, set off bombs and carry out assassinations. They also gave them money and weapons of all kinds. These Kashmiri youth went back to the Valley and started a reign of terror in 1989. They became known freedom fighters as first and then later as terrorists. Now most Kashmiri youths are disillusioned and have stopped fighting but are still called terrorists, when actually those fighting are mainly from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Pakistan and Afghanistan. These people are also looting Kashmiris and indulging in forced adulterous relations with many Kashmiri women.

India’s Redefining Kashmir

Most Kashmiris are disillusioned with all the killing and fighting. They want peace. Elections were held in Kashmir and Dr. Farooq Abdullah, the leader of Jammu & Kashmir's main political party, the National Conference (NC), was elected Chief Minister. He is ruling the state today and has clearly said that Jammu & Kashmir cannot and will not be part of Pakistan. He has pledged full support to the Indian government to fight against the terrorists and the traitors who want to break away from India. There are other Kashmiri leaders, who wish to see the state return to normalcy and the people have a better life.

Pakistani’s Terror Involvement in Valley

When Kashmiris began to grow disillusioned with the fighting, the Pakistanis realized that an opportunity to grab the Kashmir Valley was slipping out of their hands. They therefore trained people from Pakistan, Afghanistan and other places to fight in Kashmir. Most of these new fighters were mercenaries and were paid to fight in Kashmir. These mercenaries were also told that the Muslim faith was in danger and that they were fighting a Jihad or Holy War. These are the people who are creating the most trouble in the Kashmir Valley today. They are also responsible for killing former Kashmiri terrorists who have stopped fighting. These foreign mercenaries have no love for the ordinary Kashmiri and have caused them a lot of harm, killing their men and raping their women. They are also responsible for the abduction of six foreign tourists in 1995. One of the tourists, who was an American, managed to escape while another, a Norwegian, was cruelly beheaded. The other four tourists were also killed in cold blood but their bodies were never found.

State of Indian Administrated Kashmir

The people in other parts of the Indian side of Jammu & Kashmir are very alarmed with all the fighting in the Kashmir Valley. They are also afraid of the demands for separating Jammu & Kashmir from India. They want to be part of India and in recent years have been demanding that the state of Jammu & Kashmir be broken up and the other main regions, including Jammu & Ladakh, be put under direct rule of the Central Government in New Delhi. But the Indian government does not want Jammu & Kashmir to be broken up any further.
State of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir
The Pakistani side of Jammu & Kashmir has been divided into two main parts. The largest part is called the Northern Areas. Here the people have no political or human rights and are ruled directly by Pakistan. They cannot express an opinion. But of late they have begun to rebel against Pakistan. The Pakistani Army has crushed these rebellions with brute force. The other part of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is a tiny portion called Azad Jammu & Kashmir. Azad in the Urdu language means free. The people settled here are also not very happy with Pakistan but know that they cannot gain independence even though theirs is a supposedly a "free" country. Their leaders are supported by Pakistan and given lots of money. These leaders are comfortable with Pakistan and want to remain in Pakistan. Others do not want to stay in Pakistan but most do not dare protest for fear of being killed or imprisoned.

Terrorism in Valley

The elected Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir has promised to end terrorism in his state with the help of the Indian government. The common man in Jammu & Kashmir also wants peace and the resumption of normal life. Once the people of Kashmir can safely vent their feelings and foreign mercenaries are captured or killed, peace has to come. But peace can never come if the Kashmiri decides to go on fighting. His honor has to come first. For this, Pakistan too has a role to play. It must stop sending the so-called Holy Warriors of Islam into Kashmir. The present dictator of Pakistan realizes that Islamic fundamentalists are destroying Pakistan and he has ordered a crackdown against them. Once they are finished as a force, peace will surely come Kashmir’s way.

Media’s biased role in the Kashmir Valley

Any impartial and unbiased media coverage has two important elements. The first is the objective reportage of events. The second involves the unbiased editorship of the concerned medium, whether print or electronic. Kashmir has been an important focal point of Indian Media for last sixty years or even more. Unfortunately for the major part of this period, it has lacked both, the objectivity in reporting as well as impartiality in the editorship outside.
Kashmir has suffered a concerted and continuous system of biased coverage. Before the partition of the sub-continent, Kashmir got into news because of an egalitarian struggle of a down trodden peasantry against the tyrannical autocracy. The news of Kashmir’s peasant revolution was widely reported in Moscow papers in early thirties. Prominent nationalist leaders of India including Nehru empathized with this struggle and were in fact an important factor in motivating the local Kashmiri leadership to change their movement from a basically Muslim tenor into a nationalist one in 1938. This nationalist struggle received wide coverage as long as it kept itself out of the ideological conflict which was raging in the sub-continent at that time. It appeared to the Kashmiri leaders that the Indian leadership which claimed itself to be progressive and secular had very noble aims in regard to their struggle. They seemed to have been either totally ignorant of the ulterior motives on both sides or were too deeply and completely absorbed in their own centuries old problems to care about anything else.
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who was installed as the head of emergency administration in 1947, with his progressive and secular outlook became the darling of Indian Media. He was hailed as a revolutionary leader of not only the Kashmiris but of the entire sub-continent because of his vehement opposition to Jinnah’s two nation theory. During his first tenure of about six years, Abdullah proved worse than Stalin in some of his ruthless measures to curb popular opposition. His “Peace Brigade” headed by a local “Beria” surpassed even KGB in suppressing people opposing his pro-India political philosophy.
However, the Indian Media almost totally in time they came to monopolise the entire Media set up in Kashmir. Probably only exception was J N Sathu who again suffered for his independent views. At one point in time almost all reporters would send the same copy to their editors. A number of subsequent upheavals in Kashmir received the same biased treatment. Indian media ignored these happenings in Kashmir.
The main victim of this Media with vested interests is the most talked about “Peace Process”. Many people feel that the stalling of the process and its hushed forward movement is because of this Media scare. The main players have a mortal fear of the whole thing getting derailed should the Media get an inkling of any behind the scenes “Agreement” or “Deal”. Thus it would seem that the people in general should first strive to convince the Media on both the sides to give up the prejudice and bias before any forward movement can take place in the resolution of the vexed problem of Kashmir. As long as the Media keeps on defending their “National Interest” on both sides of the divide at the cost of objective reporting, Kashmiris have no escape!

Objective role and Militant Attacks on Media in Valley

Correspondents of national dailies in the valley who tried to be objective have been beaten up .and driven out of Kashmir. Any journalist who does not faithfully report the utterances of the leaders of the various militant outfits, almost all of it propaganda, has to face their wrath.
One of the popular Urdu dailies published from Srinagar, the Aftab, decided to close down on September 10, 1993, following a directive from Jamait-Ul- Mujahideen, a pro-Pakistan outfit, asking the editor of the paper to appear before it within one week.
Earlier, on August 31, 1993 the house of the founder editor of the paper, Sanaullah Butt, was gutted. The surmise is that the fire which destroyed the one-storeyed house of the editor in Soura was the handiwork of the militant group which had summoned him.
During recent times, other papers have come under militant attack, the common allegation being that they have been writing "anti-movement" reports. The problem is that different groups perceive "anti-movement" in different ways. For instance, there was a spate of incidents after one group, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, was credited with having issued a statement substituting "self-rule" for "independence" as the goal of the movement in the Valley.
When the report was published, the chief of Mahaz-e-Islami, Inayatullah Andrabi, issued a statement condemning it in strong terms. The statement was published in the Srinagar Times which earned the wrath of the Jammu and Kashmir Students Liberation Front which imposed a ban on the paper; the Srinagar Times suspended publication forthwith (August 28 1993). The coordination committee of working journalists met in Srinagar and decided not to publish controversial statements issued by rival militant organizations. Following the decision the Urdu daily Al Safa did not publish the statement sent to it by Andrabi. The result was that the office of Al Safa was attacked on August 30. The militants ransacked the press and broke the furniture the television and telephone.
Earlier in August the militant organizations had also banned Greater Kashmir the only English daily published from the Valley for writing an "anti- movement" report. The paper resumed publication after 12 days. The Srinagar Times resumed publication on September 11, 1993.
One or the early victims in the print media was the editor of the Urdu daily Al Safa. A highly respected person the editor Mohammed Shaban Vakil, was shot dead in his office on April 23, 1991. A powerful explosion damaged the printing press of the daily Aftab on November 4, 1990. The other victim of militant anger was Srinagar Times edited by Sofi Ghulam Mohammed. An explosion took place at the Dal Gate residence of the editor on October 2, 1990.
Al safa voiced the problems faced by the media in Srinagar when it said: "During the last four years militancy has affected all shades of public life in the Valley. The Press had also to see ups and downs during these years. At times journalists had to hear unbecoming treatment at the hands of the government and at times militant outfits burnt copies of newspapers broke the furniture and humiliated journalists... Local newspapers and correspondents have had to suffer more at the hands of those other than the government. Publication of newspapers has been banned at will and their copies burnt by militants... statements about clashes between different militant outfits have been a source of great anxiety for local journalists. If the length of the statement of one organization exceeded that of the other outfit the paper had to hear the onslaught. The profession of journalism has been tied in chains and anybody who tries to break the chains could be sentenced to death."

Assassinations

The targets of attack are not only newspapers in Srinagar but also other media. The newsrooms of All India Radio and Doordarshan are under constant threat. The casual newsreaders of the electronic media have been asked to dissociate themselves from voicing the programs and reading the bulletins. An assistant news editor of All India Radio in Srinagar was beaten up by militants and the assistant news editor of the Television station was abducted and released a week later after a thorough drubbing The news staff have still not forgotten that the director of Doordarshan (Television) in Srinagar, Lassa Koul, was killed by the militants in February 1990. This was followed by the killing of an assistant director of the State Information Department (SID), P. N. Handoo, and the SID joint director, Syed Ghulam Nabi.
Several corespondents representing national newspapers left Srinagar in early 1990. Some of the correspondents are now operating from Jammu and some have returned to their headquarters with their papers deciding not to post a permanent correspondent in the militant dictated atmosphere in Kashmir. Following the murder of Lassa Koul the news rooms of All India Radio and Doordarshan were shifted to New Delhi and Jammu respectively in 1990; the newsrooms shifted back to Srinagar only in 1993.
Newspapers published from Jammu and elsewhere and correspondents posted in the State have also suffered at the hands of the militants at one time or another. For a time the entry into the Valley of the Jammu-based papers Excelsior and Kashmir Times was banned by the Hizbul Mujahideen. Sunday the weekly published from Calcutta was the target of militant ire for sometime and one of its correspondents was banned from entering the Valley. So was the correspondent of the Indian Express. For a while the Wahadat-e-Islami prohibited the entry of the BBC bureau chief in India, Mark Tully, into the Valley.

Doctored Reports

Hizbul Mujahideen one of the militant outfits has directed that statements of Kashmiri leaders like Dr. Farooq Abdullah and Ghulam Rasool Kar should not be published. The militants have also directed the Press that no suggestion should be made in the media that the Kashmir issue could be settled through negotiations. When newspapers sought to disregard the code explanations were called for and bans were imposed.
The language Press in the Valley is the focus of attention of the militants. Facing the gun, it has little choice except to publish distorted and exaggerated stories. Stringers controlled by the militants put out colorful and doctored reports which are a travesty of the truth. The people in the Valley who would rather believe what is printed in the local Press rather than the news put out by All India Radio and Doordarshan get worked up by the provocative militant- inspired writings and often come out in the streets to stage protest demonstrations. The foreign media which often has a problem understanding the nuances and background then project the demonstrations as a reflection of the spontaneous support of the people for the militants and secession. This is the chain reaction sought to be achieved. The diabolical hand of Pakistan is behind this orchestrated campaign against India. Disinformation, false reports and rumors are floated by militants and these are forced on the local media. This is for instance what happened in 1991 when charges of excesses, atrocities, torture, arson, rape and loot were hurled against the Army which had been called out to aid civil power in Kashmir in Kunan - Poshpora.
The Army not wanting its honor and dignity sullied, complained to the Press Council of India and asked for an independent, impartial enquiry. The Press Council appointed a committee which went to Kashmir, visited the various sites of action and interviewed a large number of people - villagers, men and women, police and medical officers, judicial and administrative officers, journalists and Army personnel of all ranks. After its investigation the committee produced an extensive well-documented report in June 1991.
The conclusion of the committee was that the assumption that the security forces had been given a free hand to "wreak vengeance on a rebellious and anti- national population is totally unsubstantiated". The committee concluded that "all things considered" the Indian Army had "emerged with honor". The committee investigated a number of media stories presenting "human right excesses against the Indian Army in Kashmir" and found them "grossly exaggerated and invented". Thus the committee remarked that human rights activists and organizations "must continue their watchdog role in Kashmir but they need to be more cautious about publicizing their findings". The committee warned that for some militant groups in Kashmir "it is a jehad with martyrdom awaiting those who lose their lives. And they have two weapons .... guns and words. With the gun they threaten the physical existence of the opponents while their propaganda is aimed at the minds of men".

Press Exasperated

Some newspapers have had the courage on occasion to write boldly. The Urdu daily Al Safa of Srinagar, commenting on the destruction of schools, colleges and professional teaching institutions by the pro-Pakistan militant organizations, questioned (in the December 11 1990 issue) whether the government of Pakistan would reconstruct the schools, offices, bridges, hospitals and other national assets which had been destroyed by their agents? Also quoting the Pakistani Press the paper said that thousands of villages in Pakistan were without electricity and in the interior of the Sindh province roads barely existed.
An indication of the exasperation of the Press in Srinagar is provided by the statement issued by the Kashmir Editors Conference on November 14, 1992, which said that the members of the Conference unanimously decided not to entertain "uncalled for and purposeless" bans imposed by militant organizations on the publication of newspapers in the Kashmir Valley. The decision to defy the ban was taken at an extraordinary meeting of the Conference following the reported ban on the daily, Aftab, imposed by one of the militant organizations. The Conference decided that if a ban is imposed on any newspaper it will be considered a ban on the publication of all newspapers associated with the Conference.
The Press Council of India appointed a Committee in December 1993 to examine the threats faced by the media. After visiting the Valley and holding extensive discussions with the media persons and officials, the Committee concluded that there was an overwhelming fear of the militants over all sections of society. The press and the electronic media are under constant threat of bans arson violence abductions of employees and their families bomb attacks and killings. The Committee recommended better security arrangements and action against erring newspapers.
It is true that the Press has to guard its freedom zealously and should brook no interference from the government in a democracy. A subservient Press will sound the death-knell of democracy. But in a situation as it prevails in the Valley when the militant organizations are forcing newspapers to toe their line at the point of a gun.