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Kashmir
1.25 pm
Lorna Fitzsimons (Rochdale): It is a great honour to initiate this Adjournment debate. I understand that this is the first time that the House has discussed Kashmir since 1996. Given recent events in Kargil, it is important that British Members of Parliament have a chance to put on record our opinions and views and the work that we and the Government have been doing in relation to Kashmir and the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
I shall set out the movement that I am asking for from the Government in using the direct representation that Ministers have in their power and garnering support from the rest of the international community on several issues relating to human rights, democracy and demilitarisation in Jammu and Kashmir.
Many people will have views about my motivations as the hon. Member for Rochdale. Is the purpose of the debate pure electoral expediency because there is a large Kashmiri community within my constituency? Am I too pro-Pakistani? Might I be nice to the Indian Government? The House has to thank two people for my taking up the cause of the Kashmiri people. These are real, ordinary people in my constituency, who are British citizens. They do not represent an organisation. Their stories motivated me to take up the issue. I refer to Haji Ahmed and Amna Meir. They are two of my dearest friends.
Haji is the closest that I have ever come to someone who is genuinely a pacifist. He was imprisoned in India-controlled Kashmir for three years. He is with us now through the interventions of Neil Kinnock and Cyril Smith. To my knowledge, Haji has never done anything, not even swatting a fly, that could ever be construed as violence. The way that he stoically but passionately carries the belief still that the Kashmiris are the wronged people in everything that has happened throughout history in the territory led me to initiate the debate.
It is an historical truism that the Kashmiris are the wronged people. It was not their fault that 50 years ago their maharajah decided that, because of incursions from one side of the territory and because the state of Pakistan wanted to hurry him up in making a decision because he was doing a lot of fence-sitting, he would sign an accession agreement with India without consulting the people. The subsequent United Nations resolution recognised that and demanded that there should be a plebiscite to put the question to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the princely state.
I have always been told by those much more eminent than me that we do not know where we are going in future if we do not know our history. In the research that I undertook in preparing for the debate I had quite a big history lesson. I want to say thank you to many people because I have actively tried to be even-handed and I have been briefed by the Indian high commissioner, the Pakistani high commissioner, representatives in the United Kingdom of Sultan Mahmud Chaudhary and many of my constituents. I have genuinely sought to be balanced.
I was surprised, when talking to the Indian high commissioner, about India's non-acceptance of the 1949 UN resolution. Basically, the high commissioner said that India played the politics of the day wrong. It did
not realise that, because Pakistan was starting to be pro-western, the cookie could crumble on its side. India thinks that the agreement that it signed with Pakistan in 1972 negates any responsibility in terms of the original UN resolution. It says that despite all the problems in all the other ex-princely states that now make up India, no plebiscite or vote was offered to them. The decision was made by the maharajah of the time. India says that it could not retrospectively, no matter what the UN resolution stated, refer the question to the people of Jammu and Kashmir now.
I pay tribute to one of our international guests who, I am pleased to say, is watching the debate--the former chief justice of Azad Kashmir, Majid Malik, whose wisdom and even-handed approach to history and whose advice to me I have found extremely beneficial.
Mr. Piara S. Khabra (Ealing, Southall):
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Lorna Fitzsimons:
No. I shall make a little progress before giving way.
I am led to believe that there are two historical anomalies in the current Indian position. The first relates to Juna Garh. I hope that the House will forgive my pronunciation--I am a northern lass. Juna Garh was a princely state whose ruler was a Muslim, although the majority of the population was non-Muslim. India opposed the decision that was made and Pakistan brought the matter to the attention of the United Nations Security Council. A plebiscite was held and the decision went with the will of the people, rather than the will of the maharajah.
A second example is Hyderabad, a large state inthe middle of India. The ruler decided to declare independence rather than accede to India or Pakistan. According to some commentators, India forcibly occupied the state. A plebiscite was held and the will of the people, who were predominantly non-Muslim, favoured accession to India.
In those two examples, because of the discrepancy between the will of the maharajah and the democratic will of the majority of the people, a plebiscite was held. That flies in the face of what Indian representatives would have us believe about the problems of implementing the UN resolution.
I emphasise that I want to be seen to be even-handed, but deeds speak loudest about what is happening in India. I do not like to be told that my job is to represent my people in Rochdale, not to poke my nose into international issues. I have been requested to speak out by Haji and Amna. Their families still live in Azad Kashmir, and I represent people who still have families in Indian- controlled Kashmir. If the families of British citizens are affected by what is happening 50 years on, I have a responsibility as an elected representative in the United Kingdom Parliament to draw attention to the matter.
One of the things that brings us together, and brought the world together in the second world war, is that when human rights are denied in some part of the world, we as civilised western society have the responsibility to do
everything in our power to bring about a cessation of violence, demilitarisation and the restoration of human rights.
Mr. Barry Gardiner (Brent, North):
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene in this important debate. Does she agree that the line of control must be respected if there is ever to be peace between India and Pakistan, and that India has shown remarkable and commendable restraint in its response to the incursion by Pakistani armed forces across the line of control in their attempt to undermine India's territorial sovereignty?
Lorna Fitzsimons:
I understand my hon. Friend's position, but I do not agree with him. Aircraft were used, not in time of war. I do not call that restraint. The presence of a military person to every six civilians is not what I call even-handed.
That does not mean that I do not have views about terror organisations that do not have at heart the interests of Kashmiri people. I abhor their perpetration of acts of terror, supposedly in the name of self-determination, as I abhor violence on the part of any country or military organisation. If we criticise terror organisations, as India and Amnesty International would have us do, we should also scrutinise India's human rights record. I watch with interest.
Mr. Khabra:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
We must ask those on the Front Bench to scrutinise the new state human rights commission established by India in 1997. When I met the Indian high commissioner, it was acknowledged that, because India had such a strong and independent judicial system, it was thought thatthat would deal with any human rights petitions, disappearances and so on. Primarily because of lobbying by the Kashmiri population throughout the world, and the pressures brought to bear by the British Government and others and by Amnesty International, the human rights commission was set up.
At first the commission was not trusted, and there was no flood of people coming forward with cases to be investigated. Now the head of the commission reports that it cannot cope with the number of cases of people reported missing, in enforced detention and so on.
Ms Margaret Moran (Luton, South):
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she agree that it would enhance the confidence of the Kashmiri people in the organisations available to redress human rights injustices if the Indian Government would also recognise that scrutiny from independent human rights organisations would be helpful in matters of greatest dispute? As in my hon. Friend's constituency, people in my constituency have families who are directly affected. They can tell me of human rights violations that go on daily. Their confidence in the existing human rights organisations established by the Indian Government will not be enhanced without independent scrutiny.
Lorna Fitzsimons:
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. If it is true, as the Indian Government tell us, that the majority of human rights abuses are perpetrated by
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