• I HAVE just returned from Kashmir but what was meant to be a relaxing holiday catching up with family and friends turned into an alarming few weeks as my divided country was plunged into its latest crisis.

In August, India placed the part of Kashmir it administers into lockdown, pouring thousands of troops into the region, imposing a curfew, and shutting down telecomm­uni­cations.

This comes just months after border skirmishes and tit-for-tat attacks between India and Pakistan, which administers the other half of Kashmir.

As India ups the ante, the fear is that it will try to annexe more Kashmiri territory, prompting Pakistan to retaliate. Both countries are nuclear powers and while a nuclear exchange between the two sides is unlikely, anything is possible.

There have been mass protests on both sides of the border and a number of political leaders and journalists have been arrested.

Kashmir has been a flashpoint for more than 70 years since Pakistan and India went to war over it in 1947. In separately occupying the region, they have completely ignored the wishes of Kashmiri people for independence.

I grew up in Pakistan-administered Kashmir but I have never considered myself Pakistani, just as most of those living on the Indian side don’t see themselves as Indian.

We may be Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, but we are all Kashmiris, with a distinctive language, history and culture, emanating from the centuries-old princely state of Kashmir.

Pakistan and India both want Kashmir for their own. Each is unwilling to relinquish territory. Located at the foothills of the Himalayas, Kashmir is an important regional water source and a treasure chest of gem stones and other minerals.

I grew up during the 1980s when the Kashmiri fight for independence was stepped up, particularly in the Kashmir valley, which India administers.

The insurgency was secular in character and revolved around the demand for a referendum to decide the future of the territory, a move that both Pakistan and India vehemently opposed because the majority of people would have voted for independence.

India’s response was to launch a brutal crackdown, which has led to many thousands of deaths and frequent accusations by the United Nations of human rights violations.

The area has in effect become a militarised zone, overseen by 600,000 Indian troops. Pakistan and India have frequently exchanged fire over control of the territory after one peace deal after another broke down.

In recent years India has accused its neighbour of aiding and abetting Kashmiri separatists by funding Jihadist organisations. Since 2015, when India’s Narendra Modi was first voted into power, this war of words has been stepped up.

Let us be clear on two things. Pakistan is no friend of the Kashmiri independence movement, which it seeks to sabotage, while India’s characterisation of Kashmir as another front in the war on terror is a convenient way of masking the real reasons for internal resistance.

Kashmiris remain committed to a democratic and secular nationhood and will continue to demand a referendum to decide our future, come what may.

Throughout our struggle the world has looked away, even as our blood was shed again and again. I am deeply fearful of the fate of my beautiful homeland. Whatever blows are traded, it will be ordinary Kashmiris who will pay the biggest price.

AFTAB KHAN
NW1