Kashmir

Debate between Paul Bristow and Philip Davies

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Westminster Hall

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate, Mr Davies, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) for securing it.

For the sake of time, I will not give hon. Members a history lesson on this part of the world. The central point I want to make is that what happens in Kashmir matters in the UK. It matters in Peterborough, because my home city has a large and vibrant Kashmiri population. That diaspora has many friends and family members on both sides of the line of control. Whatever community they are from, people cannot grow up in Peterborough without being touched by this issue. If it matters to the large Kashmiri diaspora, surely it matters to British parliamentarians and the British Government. The area is bordered by three nuclear powers and the UK also has an historical responsibility for the region.

Most of all, this is about human rights, murder and torture. The Government take seriously what is going on in China with the Uyghur Muslim population, and the same must apply in this case. I stand with the hundreds of millions of Indians across the world who are equally concerned about human rights abuses in Kashmir.

It certainly cannot be in the interest of the Indian Government for allegations of human rights abuses to be made repeatedly. Why do they not allow them to be independently investigated? My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) was planning to raise that point today, but, regrettably, he is self-isolating. Muslims in the UK must feel that atrocities and crimes affecting fellow Muslims across the world are a priority for this Government. What the Government have done with the Rohingya and Uyghurs, as well as persecuted Christians, they must now do for Kashmir.

India is a friend of the UK, and friends should be able to talk honestly and openly with one another, so I would urge Ministers to raise with their Indian counterparts the arbitrary detention of Kashmiri political leaders, the 18-month arbitrary enforced lockdown on the Kashmiri people, the ban on access to 4G and the internet in that part of the world, the crackdown on a free and fair media and the allegations of appalling human rights abuses.

Finally and briefly, I would like to counter a narrative that I have heard many times before, which is that the resolution to this dispute is a bilateral approach between India and Pakistan. On the Falklands, the UK Government assert that self-determination is a universal right enshrined in the UN charter and applies in the case of the Falkland Islanders. On Gibraltar, Spain insists on a bilateral agreement with the UK over sovereignty, whereas this Government will discuss sovereignty only if the Gibraltarians themselves are included in these discussions. Surely, what is good for the people of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar is also good enough for the people of Kashmir.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

We will keep the five-minute limit for Jim Shannon.