It is for the first time that a Civil Disobedience Movement(CDM) of a peopleagainst the military regime has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Six professors in social science at the University of Oslo in Norwayhave nominated the Civil Disobedience Movement of Myanmar for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.The deadline for nominations for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was 31 January. This is why the Civil Disobedience Movement has been nominated for 2022.Civil Disobedience Movement is working for peace and democracy through non-violent means.
The spokesperson for the nominators Kristian Stokke said, “The supporters of the Civil Disobedience Movement are risking arrests, torture and death, yet have chosen to fight for their freedom through labour strikes, peaceful assembly, and non-violent resistance. The nomination is also a recognition of the Civil Disobedience Movement’s role in forging a forward-looking agenda for substantive democracy and peace in Myanmar.”
On February 3 medical staff initiated civil servant strikes by refusing to work under the military regime with rail, transport, education, energy, police and foreign affairs staff joining the movement.Ambassadors and other diplomats, including the ambassadors to the United Nations, United States and United Kingdom joined the CDM and are supporting the elected lawmaker’s Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Union Parliament) or CRPH.
India kept her course and we did not. If we had banged pans and pots like Myanmar people in civil disobedience India would have been on her knees and the academia would have been nominating the people of Kashmir for Nobel Peace Prize as well
Protesters have banged pots and pans every evening, marched at dawn, held candlelit vigils at night and street performances, painted murals, joined general strikes, arranged protester-free demonstrations with placards and staged silent strikes.By acknowledging the striking civil servants’ bravery and determination, the nomination showed that the world stood with the people’s struggle for freedom and a better future.
The fact that the world of academia decided to turn its attention towards Myanmar people’s two month old civil disobedience, should be a cause for the people of Kashmir, to ponder over the behaviour of their political and militant resistance against Indian rule from 1990. Kashmiri struggle has a UN template, a Hurriyat constitution, a militancy and the political, moral and diplomatic support of Pakistan.
Kashmiris succeeded to open a Kashmir Awareness Bureau in Delhi (First Kashmir Embassy) and then folded it up. Our political and militant leadership has caved in and today we have no traces or very unimpressive traces of the rise of Kashmiri movement that we saw at the Islamic Summit in Casablanca in December 1994, during the Human Rights Commission Sessions in Geneva, many capitals of the world and in Delhi and Islamabad. Jammu and Kashmir resolution passed by the Islamic Summit (OIC) in December 1994 in Casablanca and its item 10 remain the land mark in the Kashmir movement.
A strong Kashmiri contingent comprising of Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, Dr. Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani, President AJK Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, Prime Minister AJK Sardar Addul Qayyum Khan, Chairman Hurriyat Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and senior member Maulana Abbas Ansari prevailed during the summit. Kashmiri delegation supplemented the diplomacy conduct by the Prime Minister of Pakistan and her delegation during the summit. There were initial hiccups as the Moroccan Government would not allow the President and Prime Minister of AJK to leave the hotel and attend the Islamic summit.
Pakistan delegation raised their hands in helplessness and were not ready to help the AJK President and the Prime Minister, on the grounds, that they had a commitment to their own Prime Minister. It fell upon Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai and Dr. Nazir Gilani to negotiate with the foreign ministry of Morocco and secure permission and passes for Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan and Sardar Addul Qayyum Khan to attend the Islamic Summit. Prime Minister of Pakistan agreed that the two Hurriyat leaders from Indian occupied Kashmir, should be received by Dr. Fai and Dr. Gilani.
Myanmar people started banging the pots and pansfrom 01 February 2021 and have succeeded to turn the world attention towards their peaceful civil disobedience. On the contrary the people of Kashmir with all their tools of UN template, Hurriyat constitution, a robust militancy, a brief stretch of peaceful defiance and the political, moral and diplomatic support from Pakistan have failed to build on the early success. India ran barefooted after Kashmiris and offered ‘sky is the limit’ and formed working groups to bring them around and listen. India offered a cease fire and we rather locking India into an exchange of formal papers, to have the Kashmir militancy recognised as an indigenous fighting force, mishandled it and killed our own man heading the militancy.
India was no match to the tools available and the spirit with which these elements of challenge were driven. Something somewhere went wrong in all these disciplines. There is someone in Hurriyat, someone in militancy and one or more in charge of political, diplomatic and moral support in Pakistan who could not deliver for one or the other reason.
Hurriyat degenerated into a painful mediocrity, militancy had no sense of a military science and the political, moral and diplomatic support constituent did not have its hand on the handle. Palestine and East Timor had one or two political and militant disciplines to fight Israel and Indonesia, while as in no time 30-35 kinds of political and militant disciplines emerged in Kashmir. Hurriyat lost itself in the wilderness, militancy lost its sting and the political, diplomatic and moral support hooked itself on the hanger.
India kept her course and we did not. If we had banged pans and pots like Myanmar people in civil disobedience India would have been on her knees and the academia would have been nominating the people of Kashmir for Nobel Peace Prize as well. We misused our tools and provided India an excuse to kill a generation of Kashmiris. Indian soldier freed himself of all disciplines and restraints and came down from jungles and hills – to dishonour us and inhabit in our homes.
My grandmother had never seen an Indian soldier all her life until her death. She would have died of a heart attack in December 1995 when Assam Rashtriya Rifles came and arrested my father, my two uncles and my brother, on the excuse that the family was feeding militants and hiding ammunition in the fields. (UN Report E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.1 dated 20 December 1996). It was an attempt to stop and silence me from raising the Indian atrocities at the UN Human Rights Commission sessions in Geneva. The police until 1990 would never enter our village, unless allowed by my uncle as head (Nambardar) of the village. Now it is free for all – the Indian soldiers and the Kashmir police.
The three people in charge of the three variables namely Hurriyat, militancy and the political, moral and diplomatic support owe an explanation to the people of Kashmir, for turning the status of the State upside down and hurting the dignity of the people. It may seem beyond repair at the moment but not impossible. Running away from their accrued moral and if not criminal liability, is no option. Peace and good relations between India and Pakistan have no alternative and do have a price.
However, the people of Kashmir would not allow any one in India and in Pakistan, to slaughter them for their respective pounds of flesh. There may be some in the debris of Hurriyat and militancy, who would not hesitate another round of sale for a number of reasons. One of them is that they have left Kashmir lock, stock and barrel.
There is no spiritual, physical and assets interests left for them. We have a duty to challenge and expose such, auctioneers of “Rights and Dignity” and “Security and Self-Determination.” India may have won the first round but she can’t remain in the ring for the full 12 round fight. We have to check our tools and keep faith. Faith can move the mountains.
The writer is President of London based Jammu and Kashmir Council for Human Rights – NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations