Protesters hold 'Free Kashmir' demonstration outside London's India House
Around 60 activists gathered for a Free Kashmir rally outside of the India House in London as part of a solidarity demonstration organised by a coalition of groups including the London-based World Kashmir Freedom Movement (WKFM) and a number of Muslim, South Asian, and pro-Palestine organisations.
Protesters demanded an end to the “Indian occupation of Kashmir,” and called on the international community to “stop arming India”.
Shamoley Hoque, a London-based activist and representative of WKFM told MEE that the rally was initially set up as an emergency response to recent events unfolding in Kashmir.
On 22 April, gunmen attacked tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 25 tourists and one local Kashmiri.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Indian law enforcement embarked on a campaign of mass detentions and punitive home demolitions in Indian-controlled Kashmir, detaining more than 2,000 people under anti-terror laws that have been described as repressive by human rights organisations.
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Last week, the Indian military launched air strikes across sites in Pakistan that it designated "terrorist" facilities.
It described the strikes as retaliatory measures for the April attack but the Indian government has not yet produced any evidence for a Pakistani connection to the attack.
Following India strikes on Pakistani military bases, the Pakistani military launched an operation targeting six Indian military bases.
Indian strikes killed 36 people in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while 21 have been killed by Pakistani shelling in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The Indian strikes on Pakistan are believed to have come at a further cost with the downing of at least two Indian fighter jets, including a French-made Rafale aircraft.
The two countries agreed to a ceasefire on Saturday.
An unnamed Kashmiri speaker at the rally decried the lack of attention on Kashmiri voices in media narratives, saying “no media is showing what is happening in Kashmir”.
“We are not a place to check your jets and bombs,” he added.
Muzzammil Ayyub Thakur, director of WKFM, told MEE that there is a long history of Kashmir advocacy in the United Kingdom, beginning with migrants from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, who began settling in the UK in the 1970s and 80s.
His organisation, he explained, has long advocated for “the implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions that guarantee our right to self-determination”.
Thakur described India’s treatment of Kashmir as a “war on identity,” tying the Kashmiri struggle to the targeting of minorities, particularly Muslims, within India’s own borders.
“Kashmir has been a laboratory experiment for India for many years and then they exported those trials to mainland India.”
Shared Solidarity: Kashmir and Palestine
Protesters also discussed solidarity between Kashmir and Palestine, with many attendees wearing keffiyehs, traditional Palestinian scarves associated with Palestinian liberation.
Speakers brought attention to the parallels between India and Israel, and specifically the similarities between Hindutva– or the Hindu nationalist ideology espoused by India’s ruling government– and that of Zionism in Israel.
Umer, who preferred not to share his last name for safety reasons, spoke to MEE as an activist with Palestine Action, an organisation that uses direct action tactics to disrupt factories and companies supplying arms to Israel.
He explained that he became vocal for the Kashmiri cause after “discovering [that] the same factories in the UK have been supplying India with weapons”.
India is the largest buyer of Israeli arms, and Israeli drones, particularly, have been used for surveillance in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Hoque told MEE that much of the student support for Sunday’s action “comes from the back of the Palestine encampments”.
According to a student representative from the Indo-Pak Development Forum at King’s College of London, one of the groups organising the protest, student awareness and interest in the Kashmiri cause had been increasing year after year, due to sustained political programming.
During the demonstration, a UK-based Kashmiri student led a series of Kashmiri chants calling for “Azadi,” or “freedom”.
The student, who preferred anonymity due to safety risks, told MEE “people need to recognise that both Pakistan and India are problematic in this issue, and they need to centre Kashmiris”.
The student added that she “[loves] to see the parallels that people make” between Kashmir and Palestine, and the actions of the Indian and Israeli states.
“It is very clear, it's very right," she said, but explained that "also, people need to see the violence of Kashmir, as a bit more insidious, and a bit more indirect in some ways.”
Despite Saturday’s ceasefire, she shared that violence persists for her family members in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
“This type of violence is very normal for Kashmiris. This is how Kashmiris have been living life for at least 30 years.”
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