Kashmir

Simon Danczuk Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) for securing this very important debate. When the issue of Kashmir is debated in this House and in other places, the focus tends to be on the diplomatic and military situation. We talk about India, Pakistan, the line of control and escalating tensions, but what sometimes gets lost in the discussion are the voices of the individual Kashmiris who live their lives on both sides of the line of control. Today I want to tell the story of one of those people, Parveena Ahangar.

Parveena is an ordinary Kashmiri. She is also one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met. On the night of 18 August 1990, Parveena’s son Javed was abducted by the Indian army; it seems that they mistook him for a militant. He was just 17. Since that day, there has been no sign of Javed, but Parveena has not given up hope of finding him.

First, Parveena took her case to the authorities in Kashmir and in India. She was met with a wall of silence. The authorities denied that anything had happened to her son. She started protesting, holding rallies and staged a sit-in on a road for a full day in the baking heat. Eventually, she was offered money as compensation, but there was still no explanation of what had happened to her son. She rejected the money and carried on campaigning.

During her campaign, Parveena began to see how widespread the issue of arbitrary abduction was in Kashmir and she established the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons. That campaign, I am pleased to say, has gone from strength to strength and Parveena is now an international activist on these issues. Every month, members of the association meet in Srinagar to demand answers. They call on the authorities to return their children, or at least to tell them where they are buried. Despite that, the arbitrary actions of the military authorities in Kashmir continue to this day.

Currently, estimates for the number of disappeared people in Kashmir stand at around 10,000. That is not the number of people killed, but simply the number of people who have vanished off the face of the earth, with no explanation and no justice. I can imagine nothing worse than someone having their child taken from them and not knowing what has happened to them. As Parveena says,

“the relatives of the disappeared have nowhere to go. Not even a graveyard.”

In the face of such senseless violence, I think it is fair to say that most people would have given up the fight—but not Parveena. I was lucky enough to meet her recently in London. Sitting across from me in Portcullis House, I could see her resolve and hear the emotion in her voice as she talked about her son. There was sadness and anger—how could there not be? There was also hope that she would, one day, see her son. She has a determination to see her country change for the better.

What we need to see is more positivity in relation to Kashmir. I am still filled with optimism about what can be achieved and what is currently going on in that country. Look at organisations such as Conciliation Resources, which is promoting trade across the line of control. That is vital in building confidence between local communities and promoting peace and stability in the region.

We also need to work closely with the large Indian, Pakistani and Kashmiri diasporas in the UK in terms of aid and development. I am proud to have worked on that with the Kashmir Development Foundation, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned; it is based in Rochdale and does an excellent job in bringing people together and creating some energy and enthusiasm within the diaspora in this country to support meaningful projects on the ground in Kashmir. Obviously, we must also now redouble our efforts in light of the terrible flooding that has taken place in Kashmir, as he pointed out.

I want to finish by returning to Parveena. When I met her earlier this year, I had the great pleasure of showing her around the Palace of Westminster and explaining the history of this place. I was reminded that the rights and freedoms that we now enjoy here were not given to us by chance. They were fought for and won by people who campaigned for what is right and did not give up—people like Parveena.

I started my speech by describing Parveena as an ordinary Kashmiri, and I mean that as a compliment. She is an ordinary Kashmiri because she wants peace, justice, freedom and security for people in Kashmir. She is an ordinary Kashmiri because she resents the military presence in her country and has no quarrel with those on the other side of the line of control. Tragically, she is an ordinary Kashmiri because she and her family have suffered terrible human rights abuses in the course of this conflict. But while Parveena is ordinary, she is also extraordinary—she is extraordinary in her persistence, her passion and her quiet determination to change her country. Kashmir may not have a Parliament as grand as ours, but it is the people that make a country, not the buildings. What Kashmir does not lack are people committed to making a better future for their country.