What about Kashmir?

Last week, the UN welcomed South Sudan as its latest member. For nearly half a century the Christian missionaries have championed the cause of the south Sudanese, mostly animist and Christian, to break into pieces the largest African republic. Their efforts paid off when President George W. Bush elevated Sudan to the top of his foreign policy agenda after coming to office in 2000.

In 2005, the American government pushed the southern rebels and the central government to sign a comprehensive peace agreement that guaranteed the southerners the right to secede. An American-backed treaty set the stage for a referendum in January in which more than 98 percent of southerners voted for independence. Last Saturday the southerners officially proclaimed their independence.

For the last 63 years, the Palestinians have also been seeking independence – much like the south Sudanese. So have the Kashmiri people for the last 64 years. And their plight continues, in spite of the repeated promises made by India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to hold a plebiscite on the question of Kashmir’s accession to either India or Pakistan!

Jammu and Kashmir, the northwestern region of the Indian sub-continent, has a population that is predominantly Muslim. For nearly five hundred years since 1349, Kashmir was ruled by Muslim rulers. In 1819, however, the region came under the oppressive rule of a Sikh ruler who imposed unbearable taxes and many anti-Islamic laws, including banning of cow slaughter, closing down of mosques and stopping the call to prayer (adhan).

With the collapse of the Mughal and Afghan rule, and after the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845, Kashmir was first ceded by the Treaty of Lahore to the East India Company, and shortly after sold by the Treaty of Amritsar to Gulab Singh (a Dogra Hindu), Raja of Jammu, who thereafter was given the title Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. The Dogras administered the region under the British tutelage, a process that was to continue until 1947 when India and Pakistan were partitioned off from British India.

In the British census of India of 1941, Kashmir registered a Muslim majority population of 77%, a Hindu population of 20% and a sparse population of Buddhists and Sikhs comprising the remaining 3%. In the 1901 Census of the British India the population of the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu was 2,905,578. Of these 2,154,695 were Muslims (74.16%), 689,073 Hindus (23.72%), 25,828 Sikhs, and 35,047 Buddhists.

For almost a century a small Hindu elite had ruled over a vast and impoverished Muslim peasantry, who were abused like slaves. Much like East Bengal (today’s Bangladesh), these Hindu absentee landowners (of Jammu and Kashmir) extracted unbearable taxes and revenues from the local Muslim peasantry. Driven into docility by chronic indebtedness to Hindu landlords and loan-sharks or moneylenders, the Muslim peasants had no political rights. Prem Nath Bazaz, a Kashmiri Hindu journalist, wrote in 1941: “The poverty of the Muslim masses is appalling. ... Most are landless laborers, working as serfs for absentee [Hindu] landlords ... Almost the whole brunt of official corruption is borne by the Muslim masses.” [Kashmir: roots of conflict, paths to peace by Sumantra Bose]

When the British Raj decided on partitioning its crown jewel into Pakistan and India it left the status of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (similar to the Muslim ruled Hyderabad) unresolved in spite of its overwhelming Muslim population. After rumors spread that the Maharaja supported the annexation of Kashmir by India, in October 1947 Muslim revolutionaries in western Kashmir and Pakistani tribals from Dir entered Kashmir, intending to liberate it from Dogra rule. Unable to withstand the invasion, the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession on 25 October 1947 that was accepted by the government of India on 27 October 1947.

According to Burton Stein, a scholar on India, "Kashmir was neither as large nor as old an independent state as Hyderabad; it had been created rather off-handedly by the British after the first defeat of the Sikhs in 1846, as a reward to a former official who had sided with the British. The Himalayan kingdom was connected to India through a district of the Punjab, but its population was 77 per cent Muslim and it shared a boundary with Pakistan. Hence, it was anticipated that the maharaja would accede to Pakistan when the British paramountcy ended on 14–15 August [1947]. When he hesitated to do this, Pakistan launched a guerrilla onslaught meant to frighten its ruler into submission. Instead the Maharaja appealed to Mountbatten for assistance, and the governor-general agreed on the condition that the ruler accede to India. Indian soldiers entered Kashmir and drove the Pakistani-sponsored irregulars from all but a small section of the state. The United Nations was then invited to mediate the quarrel. The UN mission insisted that the opinion of Kashmiris must be ascertained, while India insisted that no referendum could occur until all of the state had been cleared of irregulars." [History of India]

In the last days of 1948, a ceasefire was agreed under UN auspices, but since the plebiscite demanded by the UN was never carried out by India, relations between India and Pakistan soured. The rest is history!

In a broadcast to the nation on 3 November 1947, Nehru said, "We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given not only to the people of Kashmir and to the world. We will not and cannot back out of it." That statement was later collaborated by his letter No. 368, dated 21 November 1947, addressed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan, in which Nehru said, "I have repeatedly stated that as soon as peace and order have been established, Kashmir should decide of accession by Plebiscite or referendum under international auspices such as those of United Nations."

In his statement in the Indian Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1947, Nehru said, "In order to establish our bonafide, we have suggested that when the people are given the chance to decide their future, this should be done under the supervision of an impartial tribunal such as the United Nations Organisation. The issue in Kashmir is whether violence and naked force should decide the future or the will of the people."

In his many letters and declarations, Nehru often cited the “request” of Kashmir’s Hindu Maharaja’s government towards “Kashmir’s accession to India,” which was accepted by his government. However, later, Nehru did send Indian army to occupy princely states of Hyderabad and Junagarh against the wishes of their Muslim rulers who had decided to join Pakistan. So much for the empty promises and wishes or requests of the ruled and rulers! As we all know by now, none of those promises made by Nehru or those who came to power after him honored the international obligations promised to the Kashmiri people and the rest of the world.

Over time the Indian government has increasingly relied on military presence and a curtailment of civil liberties to achieve its aims in Indian Occupied Kashmir, which is to prolong its illegitimate occupation of the territory by hook or crook. People there have no political rights. Sham and rigged elections are held to support the ongoing occupation by the Indian government. It is not difficult to understand, how people’s agony and frustration have given rise to armed insurgency movements against India, which has stationed nearly 700,000 of its troops in the disputed territory. These troops have engaged in widespread humanitarian abuses and have engaged in extra-judicial killings - often for entertainment against boredom. The "Armed Forces Special Powers Act" grants the military, wide powers of arrest, the right to shoot to kill, and to occupy or destroy property in counterinsurgency operations. Published reports suggest that at least 40,000 Kashmiri Muslims were murdered by the Indian occupation forces. A 2005 study conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières also found that Kashmiri women are among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world, with 11.6% of respondents reporting that they had been victims of sexual abuse by Indian forces.

Since 2000 the ‘insurgency’ has become far less violent and has instead taken on the form of peaceful protests and marches. Certain groups have also chosen to lay down their arms and look for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. And yet such Gandhian non-violence movement has not generated any kind of change of heart from the Indian government. Even peaceful activists like Arundhati Roy are harassed by the government on sedition charges for so-called anti-Indian speeches and writings. In her speech, Roy rightfully claimed that Jammu & Kashmir valley had never been integral part of India and that it is a historical fact. She pleaded with Indian government to abide by the wishes of Kashmiri people.

There is no alternative to resolving this most agonizing of conflicts of our time without allowing the people of the disputed territory to decide their fate in conformity with the original pledges made by the Indian government, under the UN supervision, much like what has happened with South Sudan. Unfortunately, like the other ‘democracy’ - Israel, after 64 years the Indian government is much stronger today both economically and militarily, thanks to the billions of dollars poured from outside. And with the support it enjoys within the ‘Amen Corner’ of the Capitol House, the Pentagon and the White House, it is in no hurry to do what is right. Like Israel, with America’s foreign and defense policy so much skewed in its favor, it fancies that time is on its side and it can use every trick to delay holding the plebiscite in the occupied territories.

The poor Kashmiris, unfortunately, don’t have a powerful partner that the south Sudanese had to redress their grievances and must learn the ugly truth that there is too much hypocrisy in our world and the difference between a democracy and an autocracy is often an elusive one. It is easy to get rid of an undemocratic monster than a ‘democratic’ demon that uses the veneer of democracy to oppress a minority and confuse others.

Religion-based businesses

IF WE look back into Islamic history right from the very beginning when religious Caliphs used to rule the state based on the Quran and the Hadith, we won’t find any religious body aiming for individual or personal interest. This sub-continent also saw a lot of Islamic preachers who never had any business motive. They have struggled to take the religion to the people and even sacrificed their lives instead of compromising their ideal or principle. Now we see a lot of divisions among the Islamic philosophers and leaders which creates confusion. We have lost our morality and moved away from the right track and are now running after individual benefit.

Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country where there are a lot of Islamic organisations and religion-based political parties. In the name of the organisation or party or shrine, many people often arrange periodic gatherings where the followers offer a huge amount of money and goods and even cattle etc to the party’s or shrine’s fund. Is there a body to monitor these funds and see how they are being spent? Should these not be spent for common good only?

I recently visited Sadarpur in Faridpur where there are two big shrines. When I was there, there were a lot of people and many vehicles in the streets around the area and even the surrounding areas for the purpose of such gatherings. A great many buses, microbuses, minibuses, private cars, vans, trucks were running jig jag on the narrow roads and on the old bridges and culverts. Any day this may cause a massive accident like the one in Mirsarai. In that case, who will take the responsibility? Shouldn’t the authorities of the shrines spend the money collected to build broad roads and new bridges and culverts in these areas for the people and even in their own interest? This way they can also draw the attention of the people. But actually, they are gathering heaps of money for their own interest or for political purposes using the name of religion. As a Muslim, I fail to see the justification of their action.

Finally, I’d like to request the government bodies concerned as well as the law enforcing agencies to closely monitor the activities of these organisations on different occasions to verify their intention and see how and where the money collected in the name of religion is being spent.

Science and religion: God didn't make man; man made gods

In recent years scientists specializing in the mind have begun to unravel religion's "DNA."

Science and religion

By J. Anderson Thomson and Clare Aukofer

Before John Lennon imagined "living life in peace," he conjured "no heaven … / no hell below us …/ and no religion too."

No religion: What was Lennon summoning? For starters, a world without "divine" messengers, like Osama bin Laden, sparking violence. A world where mistakes, like the avoidable loss of life in Hurricane Katrina, would be rectified rather than chalked up to "God's will." Where politicians no longer compete to prove who believes more strongly in the irrational and untenable. Where critical thinking is an ideal. In short, a world that makes sense.

In recent years scientists specializing in the mind have begun to unravel religion's "DNA." They have produced robust theories, backed by empirical evidence (including "imaging" studies of the brain at work), that support the conclusion that it was humans who created God, not the other way around. And the better we understand the science, the closer we can come to "no heaven … no hell … and no religion too."

Like our physiological DNA, the psychological mechanisms behind faith evolved over the eons through natural selection. They helped our ancestors work effectively in small groups and survive and reproduce, traits developed long before recorded history, from foundations deep in our mammalian, primate and African hunter-gatherer past.

For example, we are born with a powerful need for attachment, identified as long ago as the 1940s by psychiatrist John Bowlby and expanded on by psychologist Mary Ainsworth. Individual survival was enhanced by protectors, beginning with our mothers. Attachment is reinforced physiologically through brain chemistry, and we evolved and retain neural networks completely dedicated to it. We easily expand that inborn need for protectors to authority figures of any sort, including religious leaders and, more saliently, gods. God becomes a super parent, able to protect us and care for us even when our more corporeal support systems disappear, through death or distance.

Scientists have so far identified about 20 hard-wired, evolved "adaptations" as the building blocks of religion. Like attachment, they are mechanisms that underlie human interactions: Brain-imaging studies at the National Institutes of Health showed that when test subjects were read statements about religion and asked to agree or disagree, the same brain networks that process human social behavior — our ability to negotiate relationships with others — were engaged.

Among the psychological adaptations related to religion are our need for reciprocity, our tendency to attribute unknown events to human agency, our capacity for romantic love, our fierce "out-group" hatreds and just as fierce loyalties to the in groups of kin and allies. Religion hijacks these traits. The rivalry between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, for example, or the doctrinal battles between Protestant and Catholic reflect our "groupish" tendencies.

In addition to these adaptations, humans have developed the remarkable ability to think about what goes on in other people's minds and create and rehearse complex interactions with an unseen other. In our minds we can de-couple cognition from time, place and circumstance. We consider what someone else might do in our place; we project future scenarios; we replay past events. It's an easy jump to say, conversing with the dead or to conjuring gods and praying to them.

Morality, which some see as imposed by gods or religion on savage humans, science sees as yet another adaptive strategy handed down to us by natural selection.

Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom notes that "it is often beneficial for humans to work together … which means it would have been adaptive to evaluate the niceness and nastiness of other individuals." In groundbreaking research, he and his team found that infants in their first year of life demonstrate aspects of an innate sense of right and wrong, good and bad, even fair and unfair. When shown a puppet climbing a mountain, either helped or hindered by a second puppet, the babies oriented toward the helpful puppet. They were able to make an evaluative social judgment, in a sense a moral response.

Michael Tomasello, a developmental psychologist who co-directs the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has also done work related to morality and very young children. He and his colleagues have produced a wealth of research that demonstrates children's capacities for altruism. He argues that we are born altruists who then have to learn strategic self-interest.

Religion-based political parties and the Bangladesh Constitution

On June 30th, the Bangladesh Parliament passed the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, and it was signed by the President on July 3rd. The Constitution now comes into effect with the assent of the president.

The Constitution of 1972 has gone through 14 amendments, the last of which was adopted in May 2004.

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution brought 55 changes, some of them reversions to the 1972 constitution, following the judgment of the apex court on the illegality of the fifth, eighth and thirteenth amendments. 

The opposition party BNP boycotted not only the sessions of the Parliament when the 15th Amendment was passed but also the deliberations of the special parliamentary committee on constitutional amendments.

One of the amended ones is Article 12, which prohibited religion-based politics. The question is whether a political party's name with the words "Muslim" or "Islamic" or "Hindu" or "Christian" is prohibited under the constitution. 

The answer to the query is in the negative because it is not just the name of the parties that matters.

What matters is whether a political party wants to change the structure of the constitution and laws of a state on the basis of a particular religious set of guidelines. In such circumstances, it is considered using religion for political purposes and is counter to the Constitution of Bangladesh, which is a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and multi-religious state.

When political parties in their manifestoes want to change the structure, system of government, judiciary and laws of a state in accordance with the principles and beliefs of a particular religion among multi-religious citizens, people of other faiths in such a state perceive gross discrimination on the basis of religion. Such discrimination is arguably untenable under the Bangladesh Constitution.

In many European countries, political parties have prefixed the name of a religion, such as Germany's Christian Democratic Union and Christian Union in the Netherlands. In Pakistan, it is Muslim League, and there are parties with Hindu names in India.

Although many political parties in Europe have prefixed the word "Christian," there appears to be no intention to change the basic structure of a state's existing structural system and laws on Biblical doctrines.

The word "dharmanirekhapata" (religious pluralism) is to be distinguished from non-involvement with religion. Religious pluralism implies governmental engagement with religion for the purpose of treating all religious groups fairly, equally and equitably, while non-involvement implies governmental isolation from matters of religion. 

It is argued that in the background of festering and destructive communal politics in British India, religious pluralism and Bengali-language based nationalism constituted the spirit of the Liberation War of 1971. The fact that Pakistani Muslim soldiers committed crimes against humanity against Bengali Muslims in 1971 demonstrates that commonality of religion could not hold back the Pakistani soldiers from committing such nefarious crimes.

Religious pluralism is a golden thread running through the Constitution that was adopted on November 4, 1972. The concept of freedom of religion is further stipulated in Article 41 of the Constitution, which is as follows: 

"(1) Subject to law, public order and morality:

(a) every citizen has the right to profess, practice or propagate any religion;

(b) every religious community or denomination has the right to establish, maintain, and manage its religious institutions

(2) No person attending any educational institution shall be required to receive religious instruction, or to take part in or to attend any religious ceremony or worship, if that instruction, ceremony or worship relates to a religion other than this own."Article 41 is founded upon on religious pluralism. In Bangladesh, people of various faiths are deeply religious, and the most devoutly religious people are also the staunchest defenders of religious pluralism.

Bangladesh, despite a few extra-constitutional bumps on the road, has been very successful in keeping harmony among people of all faiths, which is consistent with the long-standing political and cultural history of the Bengali people. 

Recently, a Vatican leader Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, during his visit to this country, expressed happiness that Bangladesh could be considered "as an example of how it is possible for people of different religions to live together, cooperative together and simply be together."

He tried to ascertain the reasons for such an extraordinary characteristic of Bangladesh. He posed questions: "Is it based in Bengali culture? Is it based in constutional realities? Is it based in the history of the country? Is it based in the realm of religions themselves and in particular in Islam as it exists and is followed here? I leave the answers to those to experts."

Given the foregoing paragraphs, one may argue strongly that if a political party uses religion for political purposes, meaning when it wants to change the basic structure, laws and judicial system of Bangladesh on the basis of one religious doctrine to the exclusion of other religions or faiths, it is counter to Article 12 of the amended constitution.

UN declares Somalia famine in Bakool and Lower Shabelle

The United Nations has declared a famine in two areas of southern Somalia as it suffers the worst drought in more than half a century.

An estimated 10 million people have been affected by the drought in east Africa.

The UN said the humanitarian situation in southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle had deteriorated rapidly.

It is the first time that the country has seen famine in 19 years.

Meanwhile, the UN and US have said aid agencies need further safety guarantees from armed groups in Somalia to allow staff to reach those in need.

Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009, but has recently allowed limited access.

An estimated 10m people have been affected in east Africa by the worst drought in more than half a century. More than 166,000 desperate Somalis are estimated to have fled their country to neighbouring Kenya or Ethiopia. 

'Rarely used'

Drought, conflict and poverty have now combined to produce the necessary conditions for famine. Those conditions include more than 30% of children being acutely malnourished, and four children out of every 10,000 dying daily.

"Across the country nearly half of the Somali population - 3.7 million people - are now in crisis, of whom an estimated 2.8 million people are in the south," said a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Somalia.

It said that the ongoing conflict had made it extremely difficult for agencies to access communities in the south, which are controlled by al-Shabab.

"If we don't act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks," the head of the agency Mark Bowden warned.

The BBC's Africa correspondent Andrew Harding says the emotive word "famine" is used rarely and carefully by humanitarian organisations, and it is the first time since 1992 that the word has been applied to a situation in Somalia.

The UK Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, said the response by many European and developed countries to the crisis in the Horn of Africa had been "derisory and dangerously inadequate".

"The fact that a famine has been declared shows just how grave the situation has become. It is time for the world to help," he said.

Meanwhile, the UN is calling for unhindered access to affected areas, saying that the security situation is hampering humanitarian efforts.

Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, told reporters that the situation for aid workers in Somalia is "not what we want it to be".

"We do have a very minimal presence, and we have regular visits into the country, but we need significantly better access than we have at the moment to address an emergency of this scale," he said, speaking from Geneva.

The UN World Food Programme, which is trying to feed 1.5 million people, estimates that as many as one million people are in areas it cannot currently access.

"Once we have the assurances of security and the ability to have full access to deliver and distribute and monitor, then we will be prepared to go back in," Emilia Casella, a spokeswoman for the WFP, told the Associated Press news agency.

Johnnie Carson, the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, says the US was assessing if they were seeing "real change" from al-Shabab, or whether the group planned to impose some kind of "taxation" on aid deliveries.

"Al-Shabab's activities have clearly made the current situation much worse," Mr Carson said.

"We call on all of those in south-central Somalia who have it within their authority to allow refugee groups and organisations to operate there to do so," he said.

In a separate development, Amnesty International says children in Somalia are being systematically recruited as child soldiers by militant groups such as al-Shabab.

Drawing on interviews from more than 200 Somalis who have fled their country, the rights group says some of those recruited are as young as eight years old.

The report says al-Shabab lures children with promises of money and mobile phones, but also carries out abductions. 

Areasn Of Food Shortages.