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Young Kashmiris want Indian forces to leave: Survey

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More than 90 percent of college and university students surveyed in Indian-administered Kashmir want a complete withdrawal of Indian forces from the region, according to a new survey.

Approximately 600 college and university students were part of the survey conducted by researchers from a university in Kashmir and New York's Skidmore College in the wake of New Delhi's decision to revoke the Muslim-majority region's special status last August.

Fearing a backlash to the revocation, India rushed tens of thousands of additional troops to the region in addition to the more than 500,000 soldiers already stationed there and suspended internet, which was fully restored earlier this month.

Indian forces have been battling separatists fighting for Kashmir's independence or merger with neighbouring Pakistan, which also lays claim to the Himalayan territory, for 30 years.

New Delhi says the military has been deployed to quell the armed rebellion that erupted in 1989. Kashmir is dubbed the most militarised region in the world.

Rights organisations, as well as the United Nations, have accused Indian forces of carrying out systematic human rights violations against the people of Kashmir, including widespread killings, torture, rape, and enforced disappearances.

According to the survey, which was conducted between October and December 2019, 91 percent of the respondents wanted a complete withdrawal of Indian forces from the region.

Plebiscite to decide future
The same percentage backed the holding of a referendum to decide the future status of the Muslim-majority region, the survey, published in The Washington Post last week, said.

While New Delhi maintains that the region is an integral part of the country, conducting a plebiscite that lets Kashmiris choose to accede to either India or Pakistan has been a long-standing demand of Kashmiris who, for the most part, consider India an occupying power.

Many who would like to see the region remain independent of both nations believe that the plebiscite, in its current form, might not adequately address popular aspirations.

In 1953, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promised to conduct a plebiscite in Kashmir to resolve the conflict, but it was never implemented.

"Other than being an inherent right, Kashmiri nationalism has a history older than both Indian and Pakistani nation-states," Haroon Rashid, a research scholar based in India, told Al Jazeera. "A Kashmir, free of both the nations, will cease to be a nuclear flashpoint in South Asia," he added.

On the question of seeking Pakistan's support in the potential resolution of the conflict, 64 percent participants responded positively, while 79 percent said they would like Western mediators to consider Kashmiris a central party in any negotiations.

'Too soon' to survey Kashmiri youth
The survey results appear to contradict the Hindu nationalist government's claim that by revoking Article 370 - which granted limited autonomy to Kashmir - it would be able to bring the decades-long conflict to an end by fully integrating Kashmir into India.

"Based on the responses [in the survey], I think it's safe to assume that many among the Kashmiri youth would prefer at least some autonomy," Yelena Biberman, an assistant professor of political science at Skidmore College and study co-author, told Al Jazeera.

But Professor Sreeram Chaulia, dean of Jindal School of Global Affairs, said it was "too soon" to gauge the opinion of Kashmiris on the effects of Indian move in Kashmir.

"It has only been seven months since the revocation of autonomy, and we will, at least, have to wait for five to 10 years to survey the nature of popular perceptions regarding this move," he told Al Jazeera.

When asked about the representative nature of the survey, Biberman maintained that she found it characteristic of the opinion within the university and college students of Kashmir.

The survey was conducted in Srinagar, the main city in Kashmir. The current number of university and college students is not available, but it is estimated to run into thousands.

Chaulia said the sample size of nearly 600 students out of a population of seven million was not representative. He did not elaborate.

Biberman defended the research methodology. "Our methods successfully went through an IRB [Institutional Review Board] process at Skidmore College," she told Al Jazeera. The IRB reviews all research involving human subjects and includes ethical, institutional, legal, scientific and social implications of a research project.

Third-party mediation

US President Donald Trump, who has dubbed Kashmir "a big problem between India and Pakistan" has offered several times to mediate on the issue. But New Delhi, which considers it a bilateral issue, has baulked at the idea of third-party involvement.

The dispute between New Delhi and Islamabad over control of the Muslim-majority region stretches back to the partition of the Indian subcontinent following independence from the British rule in 1947.

According to Hafsa Kanjwal, an assistant professor of history at Pennsylvania's Lafayette College in the US, Kashmiris feel that the framing of this dispute as bilateral has not helped.

"Given the restrictions and level of repression that exists in Indian-administered Kashmir, it is hard to gauge the extent to which Kashmiris are pro-Pakistan or purely nationalist," Hafsa added.

"I also feel that these two categories continue to be pitted against each other and, ultimately, it only ends up helping the Indian narrative."

Interestingly, the so-called "four-point formula" for resolution of the dispute in Kashmir, deemed a brainchild of former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, remains popular with the young Kashmiri respondents to the study.

The "four-point formula" advocates for greater regional autonomy, demilitarisation and free movement of people and goods across the Line of Control - the de facto border that divides Indian and Pakistan-administered Kashmir - and a joint India-Pakistan mechanism for governance.

However, Kanjwal from Lafayette College believes this can be seen as a desperate, short-term response towards India's unwillingness to engage with the core political issue in the region.

While relations between Islamabad and New Delhi are at a historical low, especially since India's moves in Kashmir last year, survey respondents were generally hopeful about sustainable peace in the region.

Although many, including Samir Ahmad, who was part of the team that conducted this survey, do not feel there is the will to find a lasting resolution.

"Given the lack of political will within India, it seems, that the conflict is not going to be resolved in near future," he told Al Jazeera.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...dian-forces-leave-survey-200310083352101.html
 
This should be the main demand of Kashmiris - complete indian military and government withdrawal from Kashmir. Forget about a plebiscite or referendum, the people have already spoken and they know what they want. By demanding a plebiscite they are legitimizing india's occupation and the previous occupation of the tyrannous Dogra regime. Just sign a declaration of independence and demand indian withdrawal, the plebiscite is a weak demand that 1)Validates india's sovereingty over the Kashmiri people 2) Grants india a chance to legitimize their occupation through the "ballot".
 
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lol, what next?

sky is blue?

and..Pakistan is a Muslim country?
 
Have Kashmiris ever got what they want even before India and Pakistan were drawn?

Words speak louder than action for them.
 
Kashmir has no long-term plan and they do not have the means to be self-sufficient.

About time the Kashmiri youth think with their heads and not hearts. They will continue to bleed if sanity does not prevail.
 
The propaganda machine goes like this...

Wait, repeat argument, wait again for a while then repeat the same argument..
Keep doing it until it becomes reality...

If all the Hindi Pandits remained in Kashmir, Kashmir would still be Muslim majority.
That is the bottom line....

During separation it was the muslims who were slaughtered first and India has hoped to change the demographics ever since then leading up to what happened in August 2019...

India is an extremist country
 
^^ also the first wave of pandits who left Kashmir for India in the 1950’s did so because of the agrarian policy introduced by the government. After this it becomes easier for relatives & friends to join them because Kashmir was being ignored by the central authorities in terms of development.
 
Kashmir has no long-term plan and they do not have the means to be self-sufficient.

About time the Kashmiri youth think with their heads and not hearts. They will continue to bleed if sanity does not prevail.

No country ever started with a "long term plan" and even if they did it would become a irrelevant within decades, you don't know anything about economics and world history.
 
No country ever started with a "long term plan" and even if they did it would become a irrelevant within decades, you don't know anything about economics and world history.

I am not well-versed in utopia so perhaps that is why I don’t see a prosperous future for an independent Kashmir.

However, in the world that we live in, Kashmir does not have long-term independent future.

Firstly, India will never give it up.

Secondly, even if pigs fly and they do, they will not let Kashmir in peace because they will have a point to prove.

Kashmir is a small, overpopulated valley with not enough means to be self-sufficient and to ward off India’s aggressive foreign policy towards them.

Furthermore, what will be their AJK policy? Will they undermine their own ideology and ignore AJK, or do they expect Pakistan to hand it over to them, which will obviously never happen?

Will they have a military, an air force?

To what extent would they ride on Pakistan’s shoulders?

Kashmir will never be at peace even if they gain independence. It is their misfortune but that is how it is.

The only realistic and sensible solution is to drop the arms and stop fighting a war that they cannot win.

Anyway, you and others can delude yourselves that Kashmir will gain independence from India.

Hopefully, your great, great grandchildren will not suffer from the same delusions and would have moved on by then, because J&K would always be a part of India.
 
And the hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri muslims murdered and raped by india? People leave during a war, that is no different to what happened in Syria and Bosnia.

so the question remains the same, who started FIRST

It all comes around
 
India is an extremist country

Isn't it a good thing to place an army contingent in a region that was attacked 4 times in the last 70 years by a hostile neighbouring country? Some people would just call it commone sense.
 
More than 90 percent of college and university students surveyed in Indian-administered Kashmir want a complete withdrawal of Indian forces from the region, according to a new survey.

Approximately 600 college and university students were part of the survey conducted by researchers from a university in Kashmir and New York's Skidmore College in the wake of New Delhi's decision to revoke the Muslim-majority region's special status last August.

Fearing a backlash to the revocation, India rushed tens of thousands of additional troops to the region in addition to the more than 500,000 soldiers already stationed there and suspended internet, which was fully restored earlier this month.

Indian forces have been battling separatists fighting for Kashmir's independence or merger with neighbouring Pakistan, which also lays claim to the Himalayan territory, for 30 years.

New Delhi says the military has been deployed to quell the armed rebellion that erupted in 1989. Kashmir is dubbed the most militarised region in the world.

Rights organisations, as well as the United Nations, have accused Indian forces of carrying out systematic human rights violations against the people of Kashmir, including widespread killings, torture, rape, and enforced disappearances.

According to the survey, which was conducted between October and December 2019, 91 percent of the respondents wanted a complete withdrawal of Indian forces from the region.

Plebiscite to decide future
The same percentage backed the holding of a referendum to decide the future status of the Muslim-majority region, the survey, published in The Washington Post last week, said.

While New Delhi maintains that the region is an integral part of the country, conducting a plebiscite that lets Kashmiris choose to accede to either India or Pakistan has been a long-standing demand of Kashmiris who, for the most part, consider India an occupying power.

Many who would like to see the region remain independent of both nations believe that the plebiscite, in its current form, might not adequately address popular aspirations.

In 1953, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promised to conduct a plebiscite in Kashmir to resolve the conflict, but it was never implemented.

"Other than being an inherent right, Kashmiri nationalism has a history older than both Indian and Pakistani nation-states," Haroon Rashid, a research scholar based in India, told Al Jazeera. "A Kashmir, free of both the nations, will cease to be a nuclear flashpoint in South Asia," he added.

On the question of seeking Pakistan's support in the potential resolution of the conflict, 64 percent participants responded positively, while 79 percent said they would like Western mediators to consider Kashmiris a central party in any negotiations.

'Too soon' to survey Kashmiri youth
The survey results appear to contradict the Hindu nationalist government's claim that by revoking Article 370 - which granted limited autonomy to Kashmir - it would be able to bring the decades-long conflict to an end by fully integrating Kashmir into India.

"Based on the responses [in the survey], I think it's safe to assume that many among the Kashmiri youth would prefer at least some autonomy," Yelena Biberman, an assistant professor of political science at Skidmore College and study co-author, told Al Jazeera.

But Professor Sreeram Chaulia, dean of Jindal School of Global Affairs, said it was "too soon" to gauge the opinion of Kashmiris on the effects of Indian move in Kashmir.

"It has only been seven months since the revocation of autonomy, and we will, at least, have to wait for five to 10 years to survey the nature of popular perceptions regarding this move," he told Al Jazeera.

When asked about the representative nature of the survey, Biberman maintained that she found it characteristic of the opinion within the university and college students of Kashmir.

The survey was conducted in Srinagar, the main city in Kashmir. The current number of university and college students is not available, but it is estimated to run into thousands.

Chaulia said the sample size of nearly 600 students out of a population of seven million was not representative. He did not elaborate.

Biberman defended the research methodology. "Our methods successfully went through an IRB [Institutional Review Board] process at Skidmore College," she told Al Jazeera. The IRB reviews all research involving human subjects and includes ethical, institutional, legal, scientific and social implications of a research project.

Third-party mediation

US President Donald Trump, who has dubbed Kashmir "a big problem between India and Pakistan" has offered several times to mediate on the issue. But New Delhi, which considers it a bilateral issue, has baulked at the idea of third-party involvement.

The dispute between New Delhi and Islamabad over control of the Muslim-majority region stretches back to the partition of the Indian subcontinent following independence from the British rule in 1947.

According to Hafsa Kanjwal, an assistant professor of history at Pennsylvania's Lafayette College in the US, Kashmiris feel that the framing of this dispute as bilateral has not helped.

"Given the restrictions and level of repression that exists in Indian-administered Kashmir, it is hard to gauge the extent to which Kashmiris are pro-Pakistan or purely nationalist," Hafsa added.

"I also feel that these two categories continue to be pitted against each other and, ultimately, it only ends up helping the Indian narrative."

Interestingly, the so-called "four-point formula" for resolution of the dispute in Kashmir, deemed a brainchild of former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, remains popular with the young Kashmiri respondents to the study.

The "four-point formula" advocates for greater regional autonomy, demilitarisation and free movement of people and goods across the Line of Control - the de facto border that divides Indian and Pakistan-administered Kashmir - and a joint India-Pakistan mechanism for governance.

However, Kanjwal from Lafayette College believes this can be seen as a desperate, short-term response towards India's unwillingness to engage with the core political issue in the region.

While relations between Islamabad and New Delhi are at a historical low, especially since India's moves in Kashmir last year, survey respondents were generally hopeful about sustainable peace in the region.

Although many, including Samir Ahmad, who was part of the team that conducted this survey, do not feel there is the will to find a lasting resolution.

"Given the lack of political will within India, it seems, that the conflict is not going to be resolved in near future," he told Al Jazeera.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...dian-forces-leave-survey-200310083352101.html

Some selected Srinagar elites voting.

I know Hafsa. She’s a good person.

However, hold a referendum. Pakistan will win easily in Kashmir valley.
 
Some selected Srinagar elites voting.

I know Hafsa. She’s a good person.

However, hold a referendum. Pakistan will win easily in Kashmir valley.

Yeah agreed.

The referendum will start with Pakistan and China vacating from Kashmir with India allowed to keep a minimum troop presence. :). Per the rules of the UN...
 
A Kashmiri plebiscite means end of Indian occupation. The worlds biggest democracy is the biggest fraud in the world.
 
Are we talking about the chaks, the Sikhs or the ikhwan

Chaks and sikhs were rulers, who ruled and eventually their reign was over. Ikhwan's were the local favorites at one point till they switched loyalties as mercenaries usually do.

But that is not the point of discussion, it was Raliv / Galiv / Tschaliv which you think never happened. That's why I said either you are too young or a liar
 
Chaks and sikhs were rulers, who ruled and eventually their reign was over. Ikhwan's were the local favorites at one point till they switched loyalties as mercenaries usually do.

But that is not the point of discussion, it was Raliv / Galiv / Tschaliv which you think never happened. That's why I said either you are too young or a liar

What about zayn al abedin
Did he never happen either
 
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