Vivek Agnihotri declines invitation of Oxford Union Society for debate on Kashmir status. A letter worth reading over and over again!👍🏼🇮🇳🚩

Ye post share kiye?? If not then do it

Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri
Filmmaker, author

September 2, 2024

Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy
The President
The Oxford Union Society

RE: DECLINE LETTER

Dear Mr. Osman-Mowafy,

Thank you for your invitation to grace the Oxford Union with my presence for a debate. Though it is every opinion-maker's dream to speak at the Oxford Debating Society, I find myself reflecting on the irony of your invitation, and after due consideration, I have decided to respectfully decline.

Your invitation to debate "This House Believes in an Independent State of Kashmir" is a direct challenge to India's sovereignty, and it is unacceptable to me. I find it not just obnoxious but offensive—not just to 1.4 billion Indians, but also as a humiliation of the hundreds of thousands of displaced indigenous Hindu victims of the Kashmir genocide of 1990. Framing it as a debate feels like turning a tragedy into a parlour game, where the stakes are human lives and the cost is in blood, not just ink.

Kashmir’s story is not a debate topic; it is a narrative of suffering, resilience, and a quest for peace. To reduce it to a 'yes' or 'no' on independence is to ignore the complex tapestry of human emotions and history involved. The genocide of Kashmiri Hindus is a story where the cost has been paid in blood, not in witty retorts or applause from an audience.

Let us be clear:

More than 500,000 indigenous Kashmiri Hindus were victims of genocide by Islamic terrorism in the 1990s. Almost the entire indigenous Kashmiri Hindu population was forced to leave Kashmir, and since then, they have lived in exile. This was the latest and seventh exodus in their history. I am not even including the barbarity of the earlier six. This is not a debate; it is a historical tragedy.
In 2019, Article 370 was abolished, affirming without question the sovereignty of Kashmir. Kashmir has always been, is, and shall remain an integral part of India, civilizationally, culturally, and politically.
As long as hundreds of thousands of indigenous Kashmiri Hindus remain displaced from their homeland, unable to return due to threats from Islamic terrorists, there cannot be any debate on Kashmir's sovereignty.
In closing, my decision is not just a decline; it is a call for Oxford Union to step into the 21st century, where debates are about progress, not about reopening wounds for the sake of intellectual sport.

With a heart full of Bharat and a mind open for meaningful dialogue,

Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri
Filmmaker & author