SRINAGAR: Kashmiri historian Hafsa Kanjwal has blamed India for committing “memoricide” and repression in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
In an interview, Kanjwal said that India is trying to erase the history of the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination and to suppress dissent in the valley, according to Kashmir Media Service.
Kanjwal said that India has always tried to domesticate what has always been a global issue. It is completely rewriting that whole history, engaging in something that Kashmiri scholars have called memoricide, Hafsa Kanjwal said.
Memoricide refers to the destruction of the memory and extermination of the past of targeted people.
Indian Government Suppressing Dissent in IIOJK
Kanjwal said that the Indian government is using different tactics to suppress dissent in IIOJK, including detentions, arbitrary arrests, and internet shutdowns. She also said that the government is trying to change the demographics of the territory by allowing Indian settlers to move into the territory.
She said that Kashmiri Muslims face an immense dispossession of their land, and resources and the demographic threat now of being made into a minority. Once that happens, then the calls that Kashmiri people have been making for all of these decades for self-determination will be rendered obsolete.
Kanjwal said that the global community has not done enough to hold New Delhi accountable for its actions in IIOJK. There is a lack of political will to address the problem, as countries are more interested in using India as a bulwark against China.
