Kashmir

Debate between Bob Blackman and Khalid Mahmood

Thursday 11th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Bob Blackman]

I will not give way, as we do not have injury time.

As has been mentioned, there is democracy in Jammu and Kashmir. There is actually a Muslim majority, and as the hon. Member for Brent North said, they voted overwhelmingly in the elections and came up with a decisive result. It may not be the one everyone wants, but it was decisive. When we debate such issues just as Jammu and Kashmir is about to go to the polls, the risk is that we inflame tensions between the communities. We should understand the position of the various groups. The Shi’a Muslims do not support the right of self-determination, and nor do the Gujjars and Bakarwals, Buddhists, Hindi Dogras, Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs or Christians. The only issue is that part of the Muslim population support it; but they are a minority. Far from wanting secession, either to Pakistan or as a separate state, the vast majority of people in the state want it to remain part of India. I have a solution to the problem, which is that the Pakistani forces illegally occupying part of Kashmir should leave and unite Jammu and Kashmir as one state under the auspices of India, and then it should be decided what is to happen.

The Hindu Pandits were forced out in a process of ethnic cleansing. The reports that I hear give a figure of 700,000 of them still living in refugee camps having been forced out. It would be ridiculous to reward those who engaged in ethnic cleansing—

[Mr Khalid Mahmood]

rose—

[Bob Blackman]

I will not give way.

It would be ridiculous to reward those people by saying, “We will get rid of all the people who might vote the wrong way, and then have a plebiscite.” It is absurd to represent the question in that way.

There are humanitarian matters in the conflict that need to be concluded. The victims are the Pandits who were forced out of their homes and the women who were forced at the point of a gun to convert from Hinduism to Islam, and were left to suffer. The populations in Jammu and Kashmir trust the secular state of India, which of course has a growing Muslim population, and Sikh and Christian populations, to administer their country rather more than they trust a predominantly Muslim Pakistani Administration. Minority groups in Pakistan—Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and others—are deliberately persecuted and they suffer at the hands of the Government.

It is now some 25 years since the worst atrocities in the Kashmir valley, when Hindus were driven out by the Islamic fundamentalists. We should be on the side of the people who suffered and make sure that the people who are in exile have the right to return to the homes that they occupied for centuries. Without doubt, that is the position we should take. I look forward to hearing the Minister say that this country stands full square behind the Indian Government and army, to ensure that there is peace and stability in the region.