Kashmir The Case for Freedom

Kashmir is one of the most protracted and bloody occupations in the world ”and one of the most ignored. Under an Indian military rule that, at half a million strong, exceeds the total number of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, freedom of speech is non-existent, and human- rights abuses and atrocities are routinely visited on its Muslim-majority population. In the last two decades alone, over seventy thousand people have died. Ignored by its own corrupt politicians, abandoned by Pakistan and the West, which refuses to bring pressure to bear on its regional ally, India, the Kashmiri people "s ongoing quest for justice and self- determination continues to be brutally suppressed. Exploring the causes and consequences of the occupation, Kashmir: The Case for Freedom is a passionate call for the end of occupation, and for the right of self- determination for the Kashmiri people.

Arundhati Roy’s books include, most recently, Listening to Grasshoppers.

Pankaj Mishra’s new book, The Revolt Against the West, is coming out in 2011.

Hilal Bhatt was born in Srinigar and is a freelance Kashmiri journalist.

Angana P. Chatterji is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies and Co-convener of the International People’s Tribunal in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics—including Pirates of the Caribbean, Bush in Babylon, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and The Obama Syndrome—as well as five novels in his Islam Quintet series and scripts for the stage and screen. He is an editor of the New Left Review and lives in London.

Once known for its extraordinary beauty, the valley of Kashmir now hosts the biggest, bloodiest and also most obscure military occupation in the world. With more than 80,000 people dead in an anti-India insurgency backed by Pakistan, the killing fields of Kashmir dwarf those of Palestine and Tibet. In addition to the everyday regime of arbitrary arrests, curfews, raids, and checkpoints enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers, the valley’s four million Muslims are exposed to extrajudicial execution, rape, and torture. Why then does the immense human suffering of Kashmir occupy such an imperceptible place in our moral imagination? (From the introduction by Pankaj Mishra)