MT Desk: India is celebrating its 79th Independence Day today, on August 15, 2025, marking seventy-nine years since it broke free from colonial rule and embraced the dawn of freedom. The people of India should remember that they won freedom with courage and unity & need to preserve their historical and unprecedented achievement. We extend our warm greetings to the people of India on their Independence Day celebration.

India certainly has the right to celebrate this historic day within its legal boundary. However, India persists in allying itself with a position that has no legal, moral or constitutional authority to celebrate this auspicious day in occupied Kashmir which is not an integral part of its territory. In fact, under the international law, Kashmir does not belong to any member country of the United Nations. It is recognized by the United Nations as a disputed territory whose future is yet to be decided by its people.

Kashmir was not automatically regarded as an integral part of India even by Mahatma Gandhi – the father of nation of India. Instead, Gandhi championed the principle that the people of Kashmir must be free to determine their future, whether they want to join India, Pakistan, or remain independent. Gandhi said, “They (Kashmiris) should be left free to decide for themselves.” And on October 27, 1947, Gandhi said, “Kashmir has to establish popular rule in the state… The real rulers of the state must be their people. If the people of Kashmir are in favour of joining Pakistan, no power on earth can stop them from doing so. But they should be left free to decide the question for themselves.”

Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and himself a Kashmiri wrote to the Prime Minister of Pakistan on October 31, 1947, “We shall withdraw our troops from Kashmir as soon as peace and order are restored, and leave the decision about the future of the state to the people of the state is not merely a pledge to your government but also to the people of Kashmir and to the world.”

Again, Pandit Nehru said in the Indian Parliament on August 7, 1952, “It is only the people of Kashmir who can decide the future of Kashmir. It is not that we have merely said that to the United Nations and to the people of Kashmir, it is our conviction…It is for the people of Kashmir to decide their own future. We will not compel them. In that sense, the people of Kashmir are sovereign.”

Arundhati Roy, author, activist and Booker Prize winner said on October 28, 2010 (Daily Hindu, India), “Kashmir has never been an integral part of India. It is a historical fact. Even the Indian government has accepted this.”

Columnist Swaminathan Aiyar wrote in The Times of India in 2008, “We promised Kashmiris a plebiscite six decades ago. Let us hold one now, and give them three choices: independence, union with Pakistan, and union with India. Let Kashmiris decide the outcome, not the politicians and armies of India and Pakistan.”