Uyghurs seek India's support in struggle against China

Uyghurs still count on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hope for India’s support for their struggle against China, even as New Delhi cancelled visa issued to their frontline leader Dolkun Isa.

Uyghur leader Ilshat Hassan, who attended a conference of Chinese dissidents at Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh this week, recalled a poem recited by the prime minister during his visit to Kazakhstan last year. The poem was been penned by legendary Uyghur poet Abdurehim Ötkür. “It is not by an accident that the Prime Minister of India chose to recite a poem penned by a Uyghur poet during his visit to Central Asia. It rather has some meaning and we should not miss it,” Hassan, the president of Uyghur American Association, told DH on Saturday. 

He was quoting from his own speech at the conference, which was attended by not only the representatives of religious and ethnic minorities of China, but also activists seeking democracy in the communist country. Modi recited a few lines of the English translation of poem by Ötkür towards the end of his speech at Nazarbayev University in Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) on July 7, 2015. “Our tracks remain, our dreams remain, everything remains, far away, yet…Even if the wind blows, or the sand shift, they will never be covered, our tracks, And the caravan will never stop along the way, though our horses are very thin; One way or another, these tracks will be found someday, by our grandchildren; Or our great grandchildren,” Modi quoted from the poem after vowing to work with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev to build “Silk Route of the 21st century” for reviving connectivity between India and Central Asia. He said that India and Central Asia would redeem the promise of the poem.   India has been opposed to One-Belt-One-Road initiative of China and has of late been stepping up effort to revive its ancient trade and cultural linkages with Central Asia.

Hassan said that Modi had possibly chosen to recite the poem to drive home the point that Uyghurs and their homeland “East Turkestan” (Xinxiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China) were the “ancient bridge between west and east”.  Member of US body attends meet

The United States Commission of International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has sent a representative to attend the conference of Chinese dissidents at Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, reports DHNS from New Delhi.

Katrina Lantos Swett, a commissioner at the USCIRF, attended the conference, which of late came up as yet another irritant in India’s relations with China, sources told DH on Saturday.