Echoes of Boots in the Valley of Saints: 27 October 1947

Echoes of Boots in the Valley of Saints: 27 October 1947

On 27 October 1947, the first Indian boots echoed through the Valley of Saints. It was not liberation that arrived with them, but occupation. The day marks the beginning of India’s military invasion of Jammu and Kashmir, a day etched in blood and betrayal, when promises were broken before they were even fully spoken. What began as a conditional accession contingent on a plebiscite was swiftly transformed into a military annexation, sealing the fate of millions under the jackboot of Indian militarism.


The accession itself was mired in deceit. Signed under duress by a Hindu maharaja over a Muslim-majority population, it was conditional on the will of the people being ascertained through a free and fair plebiscite. India’s founding leaders - Nehru, Patel, and even Gandhi - publicly pledged that the people of Kashmir would decide their future. Nehru, in a speech to the All India Congress Committee on 6 January 1952, declared, “We have not annexed Kashmir. It is the people of Kashmir who must decide.”


These words now ring hollow, buried under decades of militarisation and broken promises. The United Nations stepped in early. Resolutions in 1948 and 1949 called for a plebiscite under impartial supervision. These resolutions were not recommendations—they were binding. Yet India never allowed the vote. Instead, it entrenched its military presence, turning Kashmir into the most densely militarised zone on earth. Over half a million troops patrol a region smaller than many Indian states. The promise of self-determination was replaced by the reality of occupation. India’s arrogance grew with each passing decade. Article 370, which granted Kashmir a semblance of autonomy, was unilaterally abrogated in August 2019. The move was not just illegal—it was colonial. Kashmir was placed under lockdown, its leaders jailed, its internet severed, and its streets patrolled by soldiers with shoot-to-kill orders.


The world watched, tweeted, and moved on. The justice system in Kashmir is not just broken—it is weaponised. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA)grants Indian forces impunity. Extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, mass graves, and sexual violence are not aberrations; they are policy. The judiciary rubber-stamps detentions under the Public Safety Act (PSA), a law Amnesty International calls a “lawless law.” Children are blinded by pellet guns, mothers search for sons in unmarked graves, and courts look away. Militarism is not just a tactic—it is the ideology. Kashmir is not governed; it is managed like a colony. Every aspect of life is surveilled, every protest criminalised, every voice silenced. The Indian state has perfected the art of occupation: a fusion of brute force and bureaucratic repression. Even mourning is criminalised.


Funerals are monitored, memorials demolished, and the very act of remembering becomes resistance. The echoes of those boots from 1947 still reverberate. They are heard in the night raids, in the crackdowns, in the silence of curfews. They are heard in the cries of mothers, in the empty classrooms, in the shuttered shops. They are heard in the resistance that refuses to die, even when the world does not listen. 27 October is not just a date—it is a wound. A reminder that sovereignty was never offered, only imposed. That democracy was never practiced, only performed. That justice was never delayed—it was denied.

Facebook Twitter

Related Detail