By Tariq Ahmed

Mar/Apr 25

Kashmir continues to bleed and determine South Asia’s power relations due to its framing as a national security issue. Surrounded by multiple nation-states, the former princely state has long been and continues to be adversely affected by its location. 

Its strategic significance can be traced back to the 19th-century Anglo-Russian conflict, when Central and South Asia were frontlines of the Great Game. British India and Russian-controlled Central Asia surrounded Kashmir. Russian influence made the British anxious, whereas the Russians saw Kashmir as a conduit between Central Asia and India. 

Kashmir’s transition from Afghan rule to the Sikh empire (1820-46) was a turning point. Kashmiri Muslims passed through miserable conditions under the reprehensible Sikh rule: Adhan was banned, the obligatory five daily prayers were prohibited, mosques were sealed, cow slaughter was banned, and heavy taxes were imposed.

The Sikh dynasty fell into disarray, after Ranjit Singh death in 1839. Meanwhile, British-Sikh tensions escalated due to their mutual distrust as regards territorial matters. Two successive wars erupted and ended only when the Sikhs were subjugated under the Treaty of Lahore (March 9, 1846) and required to pay an indemnity. Failing this, the Sikh Empire was forced to cede territory and its rights and interests. Resultantly, Punjab and Kashmir under direct British colonial rule. 

Selling Kashmir for Money and Merchandise

Britain, impatient to offload Kashmir due to its financial difficulties, sold the princely state to Gulab Singh, a Hindu ruler of the nearby province of Jammu, through the infamous Treaty of Amritsar on March 25, 1846. This was only days after signing the Lahore Treaty, relieving the British of all their direct control responsibilities. Besides the paltry sum of £750,000 (today about $31,040,131), the sale included people, land, crops, mountains, and rivers. In exchange for security guarantee, the British royalty required annual gifts of a few fabled Kashmiri shawls and cashmere goats.

The treaty formalized Gulab Singh’s loyalty to the British East India Company during the 1845-46 Anglo-Sikh war, and his relative munificence paid him dividends: He was installed as the Maharaja of the Jammu and Kashmir region, although neither he nor the British had any moral, political, cultural, or legal claims to Kashmir. This bizarre transaction was met with outrage and disbelief by the local population, whose homeland had been arbitrarily exchanged without their consent. This sense of injustice fueled unrest and resistance throughout Kashmir. The cries of Moha’id-e-Amritsar na- Manzour! (The Treaty of Amritsar is unacceptable!) reverberated throughout the skies. 

This manipulative and exploitative treaty ushered in a century of ruthless Hindu rule. In Jammu, Gulab Singh was notorious for brutalizing Muslims. For geostrategic, political, economic, and military reasons, the British needed him and so simply ignored his brutality. Sounds familiar, right? This treaty also enabled the British Empire to indirectly incorporate this region. Gulab Singh’s authority as a colonial agent was limited, and British agents closely monitored and influenced his administration. 

Scholars have wondered how two parties could sign a “sale deed” without any legal right to do so. The legal ownership of property – let alone a territory– is a prerequisite for selling, bartering, or forming territorial alliances. Whose land were they trading? Did they consult the real owners, the Kashmiris? Moreover, the Indian Independence Act of 1947 dissolved all agreements, arrangements, and treaties, including the Treaty of Amritsar, thereby invalidating any legitimacy derived from it.

Creating a buffer zone between the British and Russian empires minimized military risks and costs for the financially struggling East India Company. As both Russia and the Company secured their interests, Kashmiris’ daily lives changed dramatically. Gulab Singh levied heavy taxes, and inhuman forced labor caused economic and mental hardship, and Hindu culture was imposed upon the Muslims. While guarding an unwanted and unscrupulous ruler, the British ignored the Kashmiris’ suffering.

Partition

Hari Singh, a descendant of Gulab Singh, took over the government (r.1926-47) and plunged Kashmir even further into the darkness of repression. Forced labor, prisons, torture, land confiscations, taxation, and police violence against protesters amplified.

During Partition in 1947 – a time of horrendous communal hostilities and the call for a separate nation (Pakistan) – reached a crescendo. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs of both genders and all ages were killed in one of modern history’s most traumatic events. Characterized by violence and displacement, families were torn apart, causing irreparable economic and social damage. Thousands of Muslims were massacred in the Jammu Massacre of Oct.-Nov. 1947 (Khalid Bashir, “Kashmir: A Walk-through History,” 2018).

Under the Indian Independence Act 1947, all princely states were given the option of joining either India or Pakistan; Gulab Singh refused to join either. As a result, Kashmir remained an independent territory for a few months. Due to the Partition plan, Muslim-dominated parts became Pakistan, which led to Pakistan’s rightful interest in Kashmir.

To aid Kashmir’s oppressed Muslims, armed militias from northwest Pakistan entered the princely state. According to this Partition logic, Kashmir should have gone to Pakistan, as the state has a close to 77% Muslim majority (British Census of India of 1941, The Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of [British] India). In response, Hari Singh requested military assistance from the Indian government, then under Governor-General Lord Mountbatten.

As Jammu and Kashmir was an independent kingdom, Mountbatten refused to intervene. Taking advantage of the situation, India coerced the maharaja to sign the “Instrument of Accession.” Mountbatten inserted a referendum clause, to which Indian leaders agreed, that any accession must be ratified by the Kashmiris. The original document, which India claims is untraceable, has been questioned for its legal or moral validity, whereabouts, and originality. 

Alastair Lamb has convincingly demonstrated in his “Birth of a Tragedy: Kashmir 1947” (Roxford Books, 1960) that India sent its troops to Kashmir before the alleged document was signed. They also co-opted and later installed Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (d.1982), a popular local leader, as prime minister to manufacture the people’s consent. Soon, his insistence on a referendum led to his dismissal on the flimsy excuse of losing his cabinet’s confidence and the equally false charge of the Kashmir Conspiracy Case (Aug. 8, 1953). He spent the next 22 years in prison.

India and Pakistan fought their first war in January 1948. At India’s request, the UN intervened, and a ceasefire was called. But all subsequent Indian governments have demonstrated their inflexibility by not holding a referendum despite UNSCR 47’s (1948) calling for one. India fears that a truly democratic free and impartial plebiscite will favor Pakistan; although by definition self-determination implies all possible options including independence. 

The UN failures in Kashmir are akin to those in Palestine. It emphasizes human rights and international law, while the international community – often perfunctorily – advocates dialogue and diplomacy. As in the Great Game, geopolitical considerations and trade interests complicate decisive action.

The Securitization of Kashmir

This conflict has resulted in a dangerous deadlock. Pakistan perceives any compromise as a threat to its identity and water security, whereas India sees any concession as a threat to its national security. In this battle of two nationalisms, Kashmiris are exposed to human rights violations, economic hardships, psychological trauma, and attempts at identity erasure. Indian-occupied Kashmir is now facing the juggernaut of settler colonialism. 

This deadlocked conflict continues to have a widespread impact throughout South Asia, particularly in Kashmir, in terms of thousands of deaths, socioeconomic disruptions, limited and manipulated political representation, threats to cultural heritage, and strained sociopolitical relations. 

Political territorial conflicts don’t just disappear, as we have seen in the Middle East and Ukraine. They endure. Unresolved conflicts cause prolonged suffering and instability and often lead to radicalization and violence. The international community’s benign neglect or Prime Minister Modi’s facile muscular nationalism is no substitute for an equitable and peaceful dispute resolution. 

All that Kashmiris would like to see is an end to this zero-sum game. A civilized and just solution would be to determine what the people of Kashmir desire. 

This self-determination is long overdue for us! 

Tariq Ahmed is a freelance writer.

The post Kashmir’s Cartographic Misfortune and the Infamous 1946 Treaty of Amritsar appeared first on Islamic Horizons.

Jan/Feb 25

Many Pakistanis consider the army the root cause of all problems. However, few are aware that it’s far superior to other Pakistani institutions. 

It is crucial to understand that the army is being managed or utilized by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Founded in 1948 with the contribution of three services – army, air force, and the navy – the ISI, whose director-general theoretically reports directly to both the prime minister and the COAS (chief of army staff), has  evolved into a powerful juggernaut that controls all the county’s institutions, including the judiciary, bureaucracy, the private and corporate sectors, and its economy and politics. 

This subtle spy organization has become so vast that its boundaries are now indiscernible. Given the popular belief that the country’s troubles are rooted in the army, only a few realize that the ISI is in control. The officers and soldiers know that it is detrimental to the army itself. The field army, including its officers, remains antagonistic and indifferent to this spy organization. This is a significant source of frustration for the entire army, for the ISI is at odds does with the field army. Not surprisingly, the current army-backed coalition government formally legalized intercepting wiretapping on July 8, 2024, giving ISI, the authority under Section 54 of the 1996 Act that gives the government broad powers to intercept calls and messages or trace communications through any telecom system in the name of national security, regardless of existing privacy protections in other laws. Ironically, collation partner Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had contested their chief, Benazir Bhutto, phone tapping in 1997, the Supreme Court had termed the Act “reprehensible, immoral, illegal and unconstitutional”. This civilian surrender despite, “since 2013, the Investigation for Fair Trial Act has mandated that phone-tapping operations must be approved by a commission or the Supreme Court on a case-by-case basis, limited to six weeks per authorization”.

No area of life is free from the influence of the intelligence agencies. On March 26, six Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges wrote to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), urging it to convene a judicial convention over the alleged interference of intelligence agencies in judicial affairs. The letter by the IHC judges’ letter came days after the Supreme Court voided the firing of IHC judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui who SJC had sacked on Oct. 11, 2018, based on a speech at the Rawalpindi Bar Association where he accused ISI of influencing court proceedings and forming benches of choice. On 1 May, the Peshawar High Court told the SC that some judges had reported direct approaches from intelligence officials seeking favors in political cases. The Sindh High Court told the SC the necessity of investigating interference in the judiciary by intelligence agencies and suggested prohibiting direct access to judges.

The Methodology

The spy organization’s unique methods enable it to hide behind the army. In fact, they resemble the East India Company’s tactics. A small entity, it controlled all that region’s 500+ princely states through blackmail. The Company stationed a resident in each state to oversee their governance. However, one of the resident’s covert jobs was to entice the rulers or maharajas into wrongdoing while secretly gathering evidence against them and converting the same into personal files. These files were then used to blackmail them into compliance. 

Similarly, the ISI entices and encourages institutional heads to engage in misconduct. This includes arranging stays in five-star hotels and providing escorts and liquor, in addition to hefty bribes. The organization maintains compromising videos and corruption files on not only military officers, but also judges, bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen, artists, actors, writers, and journalists.

For generals, ISI employs a different strategy. It owns and maintains numerous palace-like safehouses in various cities, with young female models and actresses on its payroll, also maintaining secret files on them to ensure their compliance. They are assured of the safehouses’ safety and secrecy. These compromising encounters – which are videotaped – typically happen on weekends under the guise of official duties to ensure their future compliance. The Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), reportedly, routinely spends weekends in ISI managed army guestrooms in Lahore Cantonment. All roads leading to the guestrooms are cordoned off, with alternative routes marked for the public.

A Political Accessory

Ironically, ISI’s political wing – headed by a brigadier within Directorate C – was established (and abundantly used) by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who became Pakistan’s “elected” prime minister by default when the country split in the aftermath of the 1971 war that India waged to carve out Bangladesh. 

The India-based Indo-Asian News Service quoted defense minister Ahmed Mukhtar of then ruling Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party May 4, 2018, that ISI has always had a political wing.During Gen. Kayani’s tenure, it was stated that like the ISI, the Military Intelligence (MI) too had closed its political wing (“MI closes its political wing”, Sept. 20, 2010, The Express Tribune).

Dawn newspaper, drawing from a declassified U.S. embassy source quoted the then national security adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani telling visiting U.S. ambassador Shirin Tahir-Kheli on Nov. 28, 2018, that ISI, is an “institution that can change based on how the political leadership chooses to use it”.

Sher A. Faroukii is a freelance writer.

The post An Agency Gone Rogue appeared first on Islamic Horizons.

By Anime Abdullah 

Nov/Dec 2024

The horrific and savage carnage the world painfully witnessed during the fall of Bangladesh’s fascist regime under the ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in July was beyond belief. Thousands of young lives from infants to college students were brutally killed. Their bodies, dreams, and futures were hastily buried in unmarked graves to conceal the gruesome reality of fascism. Death registries were removed from hospitals to obscure the true extent of the dictatorship’s cruelty. Thousands more vibrant, promising young lives were assaulted and permanently disabled to scar and mar a nation’ future forever. This sheer massacre was not a result of any foreign invasion, like Palestine’s occupation by Israel, but a state-sponsored atrocity carried out by a ruthless, power-obsessed regime, hellbent on maintaining its grip on power with a callousness bordering on madness.

The suffocating stench of these deaths sickened humanity across continents. Their blood-soaked images of bodies strewn on streets seared into the memories of the diaspora worldwide. The heart-wrenching cries of grieving families reverberated across the Atlantic. Millions of American Bangladeshis spent sleepless nights glued to social media, scrolling through harrowing updates, praying for an end to the violence.

Yet there was one exception. 

Standing atop a mountain of corpses, bathing in their blood, and inhaling their dying breaths, Hasina Wajed remained untouched and unmoved. Her insatiable desire to cling to power eclipsed all else. To crush any remnants of youth resistance, she sought to unleash more military force on August 5, when she sensed the risks of her own life and cowardly fled to India. Nothing – destroying a 16-year dynasty, abandoning all complicit cabinet members in danger, or leaving behind a nation in utter ruin –  could stop her.

More appalling was the fact that all this violence, destruction, and downfall of the Hasina Administration erupted over a seemingly trivial and non-political issue: the job quota system, which was designed in 1972 as a temporary recognition for the 1971 war veterans, who constituted less than 0.25% of the population. However, 50 years later, this administration, notorious for its staggering corruption, crafted a controversially long list of “freedom fighters” and expanded the allocation 120-fold through a 30% quota to disproportionately benefit the mostly party supporters. What was once a tribute to veterans became a convenient backdoor for party loyalists to secure government jobs.

The Bangladesh Awami League (BAL), which led the 1971 war, had long capitalized on its war legacy, seizing the role of the sole spokesperson for the nation’s war sentiment. Overtime, this legacy was weaponized to create a single-party democracy. The BAL government even executed several leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami and other opposition figures, branding them as “war criminals” through a controversial “kangaroo court“. Millions from opposition parties were imprisoned with a label of religious extremist to silent dissent. Indeed, the legitimacy of both the trials and convictions remain controversial. Such continued exploitation of religious and war sentiment created a societal cult and left ordinary citizens too terrified to speak out, lest they be labeled traitors.

However, the students remained defiant. Since 2008, they have been protesting the exploitation of the veterans’ quota which gained momentum in 2018. Desperate to quell that unrest, Hasina overstepped her authority and abruptly canceled the total quota system. When the protesters sought a revision, such wholesale cancellation seemed merely a ploy, which became evident by the Supreme Court’s reinstatement of the quota system in July 2024, claiming “justice takes its own course.”

Whereas, the pervasive lack of transparency in thousands of cases involving murder, crossfire killings, and harassing innocents has already exposed the judiciary’s complicity in propping up the government’s tyrannical rule. The courtrooms still echo with the anguished cries of the families of over 900 forcibly disappeared individuals. Being aware of judicial independence as a facade, designed to deflect the government’s responsibility while secretly advancing its agenda, the students continued to protest the job quota system. 

Their non-political and non-violent protest could have easily been addressed through dialogue and discussion, which unfortunately didn’t exist in the Hasina Administration’s democracy. The government opted for force over dialogue. It responded to the protests with derogatory remarks and threats and unleashed its militant student wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), to brutalize the demonstrators with police backing. 

These tactics were not new. For 15 years, BAL has systematically silenced dissent, eroding democracy bit by bit, and cementing its autocracy. The tipping point came when an unarmed student, Abu Sayeed trusted the administration and raised his hands in surrender to avoid violence, still he was gunned down in cold blood. Disbelief etched on Sayeed’s face as his body shuddered after the first shot. He tried to stand, but another bullet came, and then another, and yet another, all from close range. 

Sayeed was not alone. Mir Mahfuzur Rahman Mugdho, another unarmed student, was shot in the head while offering water to fellow protesters. Within days, hundreds of students met the same fate and fell victim to the regime’s bullets. 

Abu Sayeed and others’ televized murders became a damning indictment of a rogue government that had long lost its legitimacy. Its common pattern in cracking opposition became evident, which reignited the rage of past massacres, including the 2013 killing of madrasa students in the name of Hefazat Islam extremists, and the 2009 killing of 57 high-ranking Army officers in the name of the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles mismanagement. On top of these, Hasina’s demeaning tone and cold disregard for these fallen lives, not even pretending to show remorse, laid bare the deep-rooted fascism festering within the government. 

Ali Riaz is a professor at Illinois State University, aptly stated, that Hasina’s regime embodied “the arrogance of autocracy” that numbed and blinded the ruling party government to the nation’s pain and to the pulse of its younger generation. Without addressing grievances, the BAL government doubled down, shutting down the internet and mobile networks countrywide, deploying border forces and the military, and imposing a curfew. On July 18, a “shoot on sight” order was issued.

What exacerbated this tragedy was the government’s attempt to justify the killing by branding these students as “Razakars”— a term loaded with the highest treachery, referring to collaborators with Pakistan during Bangladesh’s 1971 War of Independence. This attempt to frame the protestors as traitors backfired and unarmed citizens from all walks of life joined students in solidarity, which morphed the veteran quota-based protest into a broader challenge to the government’s authority. The nation became split into two factions — BAL loyalists and those seeking justice. 

The quota movement, while justified, was merely the tip of the iceberg, that revealed the deep-seated autocracy and fascism rooted in corruption, suppression of citizens’ rights, and manipulation of religious sentiments for 15 years. The perceived injustice of guaranteeing jobs to pro-Awami League supporters was further exacerbated by rising inflation, a dismal job market for university graduates, and rampant corruption. Hasina even boasted about her office helper amassing $40 million and traveling only by helicopter — an outrageous example of corruption among pro-government individuals. 

Most of the banks are ‘owned’ by influential businessmen and leaders of the ruling party, which allowed the BAL government to smuggle over $150 billion over the last 15 years. 70.9% of households reported being victims of corruption, and 40.1% having paid bribes to receive any service. The obvious consequence was prices of essential goods skyrocketed, pushing the people to the brink. 

But there existed no way to express their discontent through free elections, as the Election Commission scandal had unveiled widespread electoral fraud. The people had no choice but to take the streets to bring down the BAL government. Unlike typical political defeat, this was the collapse of a regime — epitomized by Sheikh Hasina’s humiliating flight to India. Her escape drew striking parallels to the hasty run away of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to the UAE in 2021, and Sri Lanka’s Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022. Although the context could be different, future of these dictators may not differ. 

Ousted for corruption, injustice, and inhumanity, Hasina’s exile was met with widespread joy. Even sweets were distributed which mirrored the celebrations that followed the assassination of her father and family on August 15, 1975 for similar dictatorship and fascism. It wouldn’t be surprising if BAL is eventually banned in Bangladesh, or if Sheikh Hasina faces execution by the very “kangaroo” court system she established to exterminate her political opponents. Indeed, history seems to have its own way of serving justice to those who abuse power. 

Exposing every facet of the Hasina administration’s fascism is vast, and many organized efforts are already dedicated to documenting it. 

In the background looms the larger geopolitical involvement of U.S.-China to disrupt India’s influence. These global power plays will continue to shape the political landscape, and the region will continue to witness the changes.  They will make governments rise and fall, but the grief of mothers waiting for their martyred sons and daughters will never end. The longing of spouses for their brave partners will remain eternal, and orphaned children will forever bear the scar of loss. The laypeople pay the ultimate cost and remain long after political shifts. 

So, this is a moment of reckoning. Sheikh Hasina alone is not responsible for the irreparable losses suffered by the nation. Her enablers — those who stood by silently, those who looked the other way as illegal and undemocratic actions unfolded, and those who ignored the killings in 2009, 2013, and the random casualties in between — are equally complicit. Every life lost, every drop of blood spilled, matters. Let our collective conscience awaken to hold every government, even our favorite one, accountable (4:135). Our religious ruling makes it a fard stance, even if it involves a Nobel laureate like Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the current chief of the interim government of Bangladesh.

Anime Abdullah is a freelance writer.

The post The Fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Fascist Regime and a Nation’s Reckoning appeared first on Islamic Horizons.