This Is What The Head Of Amnesty India Said About Kashmir In 2010

Amnesty International’s India chapter has recently been accused of sedition after slogans calling for Kashmir’s independence were chanted by some attendees of the organisation’s seminar on the Kashmir issue in Bengaluru. Himanshi Matta, Amnesty International India’s spokeswoman in India said that the allegations against the organisation were unsubstantiated:

“The allegations mentioned in the complaint are without any basis. The event was an open door event and people were coming and going. No staff members were involved….”

As a result of the controversy, Amnesty has momentarily closed its offices in India. Now, Amnesty’s India chapter is headed by the famed columnist Aakar Patel who claimed that the charges of sedition shows the kind of campaign, launched across the nation, to curb freedom of speech and expression. Amnesty has often been seen to have a one-sided approach on the issue of violence in Kashmir.

Recently, however, it is interesting to see Patel accusing the government of curbing freedom of expression with regard to the Kashmir issue. His earlier stances on the issue were quite closer to what he derides as the “ultra-nationalist” side.

In an article he penned for Livemint on 6 August 2010, Aakar Patel accused the warriors of independence from India as “Islamists.” He went further and even said that the Kashmiri separatist movement is nothing but “Sunni-fundamentalism.”

In Patel’s view, there are three types of Sunnis in Kashmir— Unionists, Separatists, and Neutrals. Leaders like Omar Abdullah who, in Patel’s view, are secular see the beauty of the Indian Constitution making them “Unionists.” Neutrals, like Mehbooba Mufti, will accept the Indian Constitution when in power but speak against it when in opposition. Lastly, the Hurriyat are the violent Islamic separatists.

But it is Aakar Patel’s take on plebiscite which makes one think of his intention of supporting pro-azaadi slogans:

India’s liberals are defensive when debating Kashmir because of our unfulfilled promise on plebiscite. But they shouldn’t be. There is really no option to secular democracy, whether one chooses it through a plebiscite or whether it is imposed. It is a universal idea and there is no second form of government in any culture or religion that works.

He reiterated this view again in 2012:

The freedom fighter is a mujahid, his cause is jihad against Hindus. Will azadi from India mean Kashmir will be relocated to Arabia? No, it will remain on the Indian subcontinent, north of Jammu, west of Ladakh. Kashmir’s azadi means freedom from India’s secular constitution. Azadi is the right of Kashmiri Muslims to persecute Kashmiri non-Muslims because that is what Shariah stands for in Pakistan…

The readers can now decide whether the current stand of Amnesty India on Kashmir is at variance with the views held by its head earlier.