Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow such a passionate and well-informed speech by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott). In common with other Members, I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) on securing this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) for making the arrangements to enable it to take place.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) said, there are significant numbers of people of Kashmiri origin across the UK. The vast majority of my constituents from the Indian subcontinent are of Kashmiri origin, so this debate has provoked great interest not just in Ladywood, but in Dudley, too. I want to pay tribute to this community’s contribution to life in Dudley—to its economic, social, cultural and political life—since the ’60s when people from Kashmir first came to the town. I want to place on the record my thanks and gratitude for their support and friendship and for their wise advice—not just on the issue we are discussing today, but on so many other issues, as well. They believe that the people of both Pakistan and India deserve peace and prosperity and that this ongoing dispute is hindering the progress that can be achieved towards both.

Prosperity and peace in the long term requires a resolution between these two nuclear forces, because the stability of the region as a whole depends on a just solution. Given the amount of bloodshed that has arisen from this issue—bin Laden used the Kashmir issue as one of the reasons for al-Qaeda’s attacks on the west—surely the only route to long-lasting peace is through the democratic route. I believe we have to be absolutely clear that the future of Kashmir must be decided by the people of Kashmir, because the only way in which we will see justice for the Kashmiri people is through the right to self-determination, agreed by India in the UN and supported by the UK Government. That is the basic democratic principle—a principle that the west has supported in other countries, and one that we should support in relation to Kashmir.

I would like to see our Government urge India and Pakistan to progress the talks that have recently started again, albeit in a low-level way. Our historic role in the region places on Britain a responsibility to do all it can to help bring about a speedy resolution to the dispute. We should stand ready to assist in the process—by encouraging economic development, by improving education and health care systems, and particularly by supporting peaceful elements in civil society.

I believe that the UK must also take a number of other steps. We condemn terrorist attacks wherever they occur—and quite right, too—but the Indian military has committed human rights atrocities against Kashmiris since the last India-Pakistan war in 1999, so we should be very clear about condemning those attacks and calling for an immediate stop to human rights violations. Human rights abuses have also been carried out by some terrorist groups against Indian targets. We need to see the enforcement and implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and UN monitoring of the situation. Crucially, people in Kashmir have as much of a right to a free press as we take for granted in the UK.

Finally, the Government could exploit much more effectively the expertise and experience in communities such as mine here in the UK, so I invite the Minister to come to Dudley to hear directly from my constituents their views on achieving a peaceful solution based on self-determination for the Kashmiri people.