The unfortunate events in Jammu & Kashmir regarding the transfer of land by the government to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board call for each one’s urgent attention and involvement.

What began as a simple effort to facilitate Amarnath pilgrims has suddenly developed communal and political overtones. This is appalling when compared to the facilities offered to the Haj pilgrims.

In an attempt to bring this to the attention of every one in this world, we would like you to have the benefit of some facts stated below.

In keeping with public policy statements, the Government of India makes elaborate arrangements for the welfare of Haj pilgrims and strives to improve the facilities provided to them every year. That is how it should be. The Government of India, and the ministry of external affairs in particular, deserves credit for providing perhaps the best arrangements that any government makes for their Haj pilgrims.

For eg: As reported in a newspaper article, here are the facts about the facilities provided to Haj pilgrims.

1. To begin with, the government provides an airfare subsidy to about 100,000 pilgrims selected by the Haj Committee of India who go for Haj annually. Pilgrims pay only Rs 12,000 for their air travel. This figure has remained unchanged for at least a decade or more. According to official figures, this subsidy was Rs 280 crores in 2006, or about Rs 28,000 per pilgrim. Today, with rising fuel prices, this figure would have gone up to Rs 350-400 crore. There is also a seperate Haj Terminal at Delhi International Airport.

2. There is a separate Haj cell in the ministry of external affairs. The Haj Committee of India has its own premises in Mumbai. Similarly the State Haj Committees have their own premises in various other Indian cities. These facilities have been built on land provided by the state governments.

3. Accommodation in Mecca and Medina is decided keeping in mind the need to provide maximum convenience and comfort to the pilgrims. Typically, all accommodation has lifts, telephones, running water, electricity and telephone at the minimum. There is total computerisation of pilgrim location and movement.

4. For Haj 2007, a contingent of 115 doctors (including 63 specialists with post-graduate degrees) and 141 nurses and other para-medical staff, 3 coordinators, 46 assistant Haj officers, 165 Haj assistants and 186 Khadimul Hujjaj were sent from India on short-term deputation to Saudi Arabia. Special attention is given to medical facilities for the pilgrims.

5. Some of the facilities provided by the government are: arrangements for polio, meningitis and influenza vaccinations for pilgrims before departure; a 75-bed hospital and 12 branch offices-cum-dispensaries in Mecca; a 15-bed hospital and 6 branch offices-cum-dispensaries in Medina; three medical teams at Jeddah airport to provide medical care round the clock to Haj pilgrims; 17 ambulances in Mecca and Medina; supply of medicines, medical supplies and critical medical equipment from India. All this adds up to the total money spent by the government to facilitate a hassle-free Haj pilgrimage each year for tens of thousands of Muslims from India.

What is due to one community by logic and fair practice is due to another. And yet in a discriminatory treatment lakhs of pilgrims who have been going to Amarnath for years have been denied basic human facilities. The question is what took them so long to consider these facilities and not whether or not they should be provided.

There isn’t any adequate medical and sanitary facilities for the pilgrims of Amarnath Shrine. As the agitation continues, it has been reported that a water bottle costing Rs 14 was sold at Rs 70. And a khacchar or a pony that took pilgrims at the cost of Rs 1,500 charged an abominable Rs 10,000. Compare this with the subsidies for Haj Pilgrims. Buses of pilgrims were also stoned by unruly elements.

The whole agitation was started by the Peoples Democratic Party on the absurd presumption that providing these basic facilities to the travelling pilgrims will result in a changed “eco-cultural character” of the state. Does this imply that Kashmir only has a “Muslim” character?

Kashmir originally and lawfully belongs to both Hindus and Muslims. Nevertheless, 4,00,000 Kashmiri Pandits were driven out of Kashmir and are living as refugees and now even the very thought of Hindus settling in Kashmir is creating such violent repercussions. Is this a sign of a secular, healthy, fair society?

Even if we were to presume that it has a Muslim character, how can travelling pilgrims possibly change eco-cultural character of a place. Can there be a likelihood of someone settling down at the height of 13,500 ft? There can not be any possibility of Hindus settling down in the proposed land.

It is ironical that though the Hindus are being denied basic hospitable facilities to enable their pilgrimage, the temporary, pre-fabricated shelters built by the Amarnath Shrine Board were dismantled and sent for emergency relief operations during the earthquake in Kashmir in October 2005. “About 60-70 pre-fab shelters were sent to Uri and Tangdhar, where they housed thousands,” a senior Government official is reported to have said. “The Amarnath Board also sent pre-fab toilets. There was no objection from any political party at that point.”

For centuries pilgrims have been making the arduous trip to Amarnath cave without any benefit from the state. They have to depend to private philanthropy for food, accommodation and other facilities. It is shameful that people have lived in torn taurpaulin tents. But a caring State in independent India can and should do more.

Please also view online exhibition on exodus and selective killings of 4,00,000 Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir. Click http://refugees-in-their-own-country.blogspot.com/ to view.

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Ramesh Naidoo

[Lecture on July 9, 2008 to Indian students and Americans scholars at MIT, USA]
I believe that the Kashmir “issue” can no more be solved by dialogue either with the Pakistanis or the Hurriyat. India has about five years to prepare for a decisive and defining war with Pakistan For the survival of the ancient civilization of India we have to win that inevitable war and recover the whole of Kashmir.

I don’t agree with Swamyji, what ever he said are his personal views, it’s not important to me. His speach is well publicised and I already have read this. This is the aggresive Indian attitude all Pakistanies hate. They try to complicate the real issue, first by their cunning friendly talk, then blaming, finally by threatening and attacking.

We know centuries old Hindu mentality, as much as you know Muslims, We ruled India over six hundred years gloriouslly, and made it an civilized empire, first time in history of Hind, and turned it into Hindustan.
I do agree with Swamyji, that, India need five years to get ready for the final round, but Pakistan is ready for it for last 61 years This final round India will only achieve, one goal control his over grown population, and even don’t have to incinerate millions of dead, and Pakistan don’t have to worry digging graves.
But Kashmir issue won’t go away, Mr. Zulfqar Ali Bhutto once told Indra Gandhi, ” Mai ( Old lady, on her success in Bangladesh ) we are in war for centuries with each other, sometine you win and some time we did, though mostly we win.This war is not over yet, I will fight our children will fight, we will fight for 1000 years, until we Win ”

Pakistan is Ready Johann, like always, why wait 5 years Swamyji, you may be dead by then, how you will enjoy Finals. ITS NOT A JOKE as Swamyji and many People in India and Pakistan, think so.

No matter how hard you try, and play the blame game, it won’t go away, It will haunt you, hurt you, and make you suffer, untill resolved. You have no idea, the big trouble you are in, and when you suffer I feel sad.

Hoongay yehi jhamaily yeh Zindagi kay maily dunia main kum na hoongay
AFSOOS HUM NA HOONGAY

” Kashmir is the Defining Issue of Indian Identity
by Dr. Subramanian Swamy

[Lecture on July 9, 2008 to Indian students and Americans scholars at MIT, USA]
I believe that the Kashmir “issue” can no more be solved by dialogue either with the Pakistanis or the Hurriyat. This is because the Pakistan army has now a majority of captains and colonels owing allegiance to the Taliban. In another five years, they will reach, by promotions, the corp commander level. We know that the government in Pakistan is controlled by the seven corp commanders of the army. Therefore a Taliban government in Pakistan is inevitable and a jehad against India the logical consequence of the same. In turn the Hurriyat is an organization that cannot go against Pakistan.
Hence India has about five years to prepare for a decisive and defining war with Pakistan and we must prepare to win it. We therefore have to throw out of office in the coming elections all those Indian politicians who crave or preen themselves on being popular in Pakistan by sounding reasonable and secular as also equivocating on every issue. For the survival of the ancient civilization of India we have to win that inevitable war and recover the whole of Kashmir.
I will not blame the jehadis for the coming war. They are after all programmed that way by Islamic theology. I will blame ourselves for not understanding the fundamentals of Islam as propounded in the Sira and the Hadith. It teaches that if Muslims are in a majority, they must rule [Darul Islam], and then everyone else is a dhimmi and a kafir who do not have equal rights of worship. Thus in Saudi Arabia, you cannot even display a picture of a Hindu god inside your own home ! When Muslims are in a hopeless minority, then Sira and Hadith urges Muslims to make a deal with the majority and make no demands[Darul Ahad]. In US and Australia for example, Muslims will therefore never ask for separate shariat personal law. If Muslims are not hopelessly in a minority, then Islam directs that true Muslims conduct subversions and act against all human values to leverage their position[Darul Harab] to become of defining influence in the polity and ultimately rulers.
We saw this in Kashmir recently when the government was made to cave in on the most humane gesture of allotting land to make Hindu pilgrims feel comfortable while on arduous journey to Amarnath caves.And we have it on the authority of the Chief Minister of the state that the agitation against the allotment was financed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
It is foolish therefore in the face of this reality to expound the banal sentiment that “all Muslims are not terrorists or fanatics”. Of course that is true. Or that Koran is a message of peace. May be it is. However, the Islam of the cutting edge of Muslim thought propounded by leaders such as Osama Bin Laden is in Sira and Hadith, which calls on the faithful to wage war against the infidels who cannot strike back effectively and crush them.
The struggle for Kashmir by the jehadis thus is not just for independence. They instead want a Darul Islam there and for the state to become a part of the Caliphate. Hindus are a special target because despite Iran, Iraq, Egypt and other countries becoming 100 percent Muslims after less than two decades of conquest and brutalization, India after a thousand years of massacres, mayhem and rape remained dominantly Hindu. This is a living affront for the fundamentalist Muslim, and in their seminaries and madrassas in Iran and Saudi Arabia, they even today debate and agonize over it.
Contrary to the British imperialist propaganda, Hindus did not just lie down and be conquered by foreign invaders. Hindu fighting spirit had never dimmed even if weakened by traitors within. Periodically Hindus rose in revolt symbolized by the Vijayanagaram empire[which lasted 300 years] or in Shivaji’s bravery, or Guru Gobind Singh’s campaigns or the Mahratta national onslaught.
Most of us thus remained Hindus, defiant, even if in poverty and misery singing Vande Mataram. This the true history of India which the fundamentalist Muslim and the British imperialist historians cannot bear to acknowledge.
Accommodation and compromise with Islamic terrorists is self-defeating and suicide. We have instead to fight back, for which Kashmir is the starting point. Hindu renaissance, long overdue, will be nurtured if we look for an opportunity to seize back the occupied areas of Kashmir, and make the jehadis feel that in India there can only be Darul Ahad for Muslims. We had opportunities earlier to demonstrate that: e.g.,in 1948, 1971, 1999, and 2001. But we let it go.
Hence, let there be no more intellectual confusion about the identity of India as a Hindu Rashtra, which means a land of Hindus and those others who acknowledge proudly that their ancestors are Hindus. If Muslims acknowledge this truth, then they are welcome as a part of our family. And those who do not so acknowledge cannot be equal citizens in India. Hence, we shall not agree to any more truncation of Indian territory
We have to therefore disown UN Resolutions and India-Pakistan treaties such as signed in Simla]1972] as unauthorized Nehruvian policy blunders. The legality of the Instrument of Accession signed in favour of India by the then Maharaja of J&K on October 26, 1947 has to prevail. Otherwise it will create a plethora of legal issues including what will become the status of the Maharaja if we abrogate this Instrument. Will Dr. Karan Singh, the son of Maharaja Hari Singh, have then a claim to be regarded again as an independent and sovereign King of J&K ? In the Junagadh issue, Pakistan had held the Instrument once signed is “final, irrevocable, and not requiring the wishes of the people to be ascertained” . That is the correct position. But the Junagadh Nawab after signing the Instrument in favour of Pakistan, invaded the neighbouring princely states, states which had acceded to India. So when the Indian Army was moved by Patel to defend these
areas, the Nawab ran away to Pakistan. His subjects were mostly Hindu who then welcomed the Indian army.
Furthermore, on what legal basis can we de novo seek to ascertain the wishes of the people of J&K when the Indian Independence Act[1947] passed by the British Parliament makes no provision for the same ? After all it was this same Act which created a legal entity called Pakistan, carved out from the united India. India under the Act was a settled and continuing entity out which the British Parliament made a new entity called Pakistan. Never in previous history there was ever a country called Pakistan. The concept itself was formulated only in 1947.
By what mechanism can then Pakistan today seek to amend or even de-recognise the Act without unwittingly undermining the legal status of Pakistan itself? That is, if the Instrument of Accession is called into question, will not Partition itself be subject to challenge as without legal basis on the same consideration? I raise this question also because in the case of Beruberi in Eastern India, the transfer of that area to Bangla Desh although agreed to, has been enmeshed in prolonged litigation in the Indian Supreme Court because of Article 1 of the Indian Constitution which bars de-merger of any Indian territory after 1950.
Indian army jawans created Bangla Desh out of Pakistan. But despite that, and drunk with their Darul Islam status, the Bengali Muslims have not only driven out the Hindus or butchered them or forcibly converted them but millions of Bengali Muslims have sneaked into India and are happily working with Hindus in India. Partition was agreed to by Hindus only for those Muslims who could not bear to live under Hindu hegemony. And now after getting their territory, they cannot now say that they are happy to live in India with Hindus.
Hence, a virat Hindu Rashtra should tell Bangla Desh to take back their Muslims or hand over one-third of Bangla Desh territory as compensation. If they do not agree, then we must send two divisions of Indian army from Sylhet to Khulna and annex one third of north Bangla Desh as our due for bearing the economic and political burden of Bangla Deshis in our country. This will make our access to Assam and Northeast much easier too.But most of all it will send a powerful and salutary signal to Pakistani terrorists: that Hindus will no more be passive.
These actions are possible if we gear up diplomatically for it. Today the world is sick of the terrorism and the greed of Muslims nations to make money out the sale of oil which they have got by sheer accident of geology. Hence, we must make strong allies. Israel is one such country. We must find ways to make China see our interests. It can be done if we know how to come to an understanding with them. This is essential for isolating Pakistan. At present China has begun to see the tinder box that Pakistan has become. Uighurs from Xinjiang have been to madrassas of Pakistan for training in subversion in Urumuchi and to sabotage the Beijing Olympics This worries China. It should concern us too.
Hence to lay the foundation for the liberation of Kashmir, we must have President’s Rule for some time. India should refuse to engage in any dialogue on Kashmir in which the other side does not accept the whole of Kashmir as an integral and inalienable part of India. The people of Kashmir should be left in no doubt in their minds where the citizens of Hindu Rashtra stand on the future of the state: that it lies with us. Every Hindu has a claim on Kashmir. I for one claim it because my gotra is Kashyapa. It was rshi Kashyapa who invented Kashmir out the Dal lake. Hence my claim.
We should undo the “cleansing” of the state of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits by sending 1 million ex-servicemen and families into the Kashmir valley for re-settlement. Article 370 of the Constitution will have to be removed for that purpose, but according to the Constitution itself, it is supposed to be a “temporary provision” not requiring a Parliamentary two-thirds majority for amendment. It can be erased by a Presidential Notification on the recommendation of the Union Cabinet.
Then we await a war. We do not have to go to war with Pakistan on Kashmir because a Talibanised Pakistan will provide us with the opportunity. What I am advocating here is that we prepare mentally and militarily for that eventuality, and having been provided that opportunity, go for the jackpot– to use an American slang.”

Police said the tight security was prompted by undefined information about a possible attack.

“We have intelligence inputs about extremist groups planning to target prominent leaders and symbols of national importance,” Joint Police Commissioner S.N. Srivastava told a news conference late Thursday.

Elite commandos were called out to join 17,000 paramilitary soldiers and New Delhi’s 70,000-strong police department.

Security was also high in Indian Kashmir, which has been engulfed in deadly protests over a land dispute that has inflamed religious tensions and stoked a long-standing separatist campaign.

Touching on the Kashmir violence, Singh used his speech to attack those intent on “dividing people in the name of religion” — an apparent reference to both Hindu and Muslim hardliners.

In Mumbai, thousands of police searched the city as a precaution against copycat attacks after serial blasts rocked Ahmedabad and Bangalore last month.

At least 50 people were killed and 170 others injured in the bombs, which Singh said in his address demonstrated that “terrorism, extremism, communalism and fundamentalism” threatened the future of India.

Following a long-standing tradition, troops at the border crossing between Amritsar in India and Lahore in Pakistan exchanged sweets as a gesture of friendship.

Beside Kashmir Problem, I love India, as much as you do. All the success stories, rapid economic growth, development, and news of India becoming a super power, makes me really proud. I am attached to India, it’s in my blood. Every good news from India makes me happy, and any bad news hurts me.
Unfortunately, Indian occupation of Kashmir by force, is a bad news for me, and it make worse when India, and poeple like Jahann, don’t solve it, and blame it on Pakistan. After partition of the subcontinent in 1947, Kashmir was expected to go to Pakistan, as other Muslim majority regions did, Simple as that.
Do some soul searching,
No matter how hard you try, and play the blame game, it won’t go away, It will haunt you, hurt you, and make you suffer, untill resolved. You have no idea, the big trouble you are in, and when you suffer I feel sad.

Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un
To Allah we belong and truly to Him we shall return

O Allah! Forgive them and have Mercy on them and give them strength and pardon them. Be generous to them and cause them entrace to be wide and wash them with water and snow and hail.
Cleanse them of their transgressions as white cloth is cleansed of stains. Take them into Paradise and protect them from the punishment of the grave (and of the fire)

O Allah! Forgive our living and our dead, those who are with us and those who are absent, our young and our old, our men and our women. O Allah! Whom ever you keep alive from us keep him alive on Islam, and whomever you take away from us, take him as a believer. O Allah! Do not leave us bereft of his good and do not send us astray after them.

O Allah! Surely Sheikh Aziz, and all other Shaheed in Kashmir, are under Your protection, and in the rope of Your security, so save them from the trial of the grave and from the punishment of the Fire. You fulfill promises and grant rights, so forgive them and have mercy on them. Surely You are Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.

We the people of Pakistan and our government and politican are all busy squabbling over eah others head money not realizing that whatever is happening in Kashmir for now id detrmiental to its future course of wether it would eventually gain independence or Auntonomous status.

We fail to realize that it has always been us who have brought the Kashmir issue on limelight and today when we are busy fighting like stray **** over each others piece of meat the Kashmir issue has been put on backburner.

My only hope and pray can be for this moment that each drop of blood that has gotten mixed in the soil of Kashmir of Sheikh Abdul Aziz and others like him who embraced martydom over this years may give rise to a moment which should infact be the determining factors for the lives and generation of Kashmiris to come.

Ameen.