League for the Fifth International
Ahurandati Roy, award winning Indian author of the God of Small things faces possible arrest after speaking at a public meeting in which she advocated the separation of Kashmir from India.
She condemned the pro western policies of India and the endemic poverty of the nation, referring to “bhookhe-nange (beggar nation) Hindustan where more than 830 million people live on Rs 20 per day”.
Roy was speaking at a packed meeting of mainly students in Delhi when she called for Azadi, meaning separation, between Kashmir and India. India has occupied Kashmir since 1947, shortly after independence from Britain, and has maintained a permanent military presence there every since.
The meeting had been organised by Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners, a campaigning organisation which is fighting for the release of several human rights advocates and activists who have been detained by Indian authorities.
Many pro-Kashmiri figures, like Mian Abdul Qayoom and Ghulam Nabi Shaheen, both prominent lawyers, who were detained under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978, a reactionary law which allows Indian police to detain someone for up to 2 years if they might cause a ‚breach of the peace‘.
This comes after a summer of resistance by Kashmiri people which has seen 112 killed, mainly young people, as they fought heavily armed police with sticks and stones.
Kashmir is rapidly becoming India’s own “Palestine”, an occupied country which is fighting for its independence in the face of an aggressive foreign power which is trying to absorb it into its own nation state.
As she said in a subsequent paper article “I said what millions of people here say every day…. I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world.” Roy’s comments come in the context of an increasing number of people in India who are critical of their government’s repressive actions in Kashmir. Roy was right to make the comments that she did; India should leave Kashmir and allow the people to decide their own national future.