Barely minutes had passed after India suffered a grave intelligence lapse that allowed militants to attack an army camp near Uri town in Indian-occupied Kashmir when a chorus of anti-Pakistan voices was heard. Despite not having any information about an impending attack, everyone in the Indian government somehow immediately knew the perpetrator was Pakistan. The Indian media didn’t take long to pick up the baton and start beating the war drums. Amidst this outpouring of hate, there was little time for introspection. There are many questions that the government there should have asked itself before hurling accusations. If the militants were sent from Pakistan, how were they able to cross the heavily fenced and guarded Line of Control and shouldn’t India be blamed for allowing them to move so freely? How were these militants simultaneously so cunning as to be able to attack a heavily-fortified camp and kill 17 soldiers in a suicide bombing and yet so dense as to leave behind items that, according to the Indian DGMO, had “Pakistan markings”? The DGMO never explained what he meant by “Pakistan markings” and it is absurd to think militants supposedly sent by our side would be carrying Pakistan-specific paraphernalia. Above all, there is one question the entire Indian nation needs to grapple with: Doesn’t the brutal Indian occupation of Kashmir ensure that such attacks are inevitable, no matter how deplorable they might be? The consistent assault on Kashmiri people since July this year since a widely revered militant leader was killed by Indian forces, triggering an uprising, has already left a hundred dead and thousands injured – many of them blinded by the use of pellet guns. The discovery of a schoolboy’s dead body has further heightened tensions.
Narendra Modi is not one for introspection and will surely be leading the charge of the anti-Pakistan brigade. The technique employed by India after such attacks is a familiar one. It begins by scapegoating Pakistan and whipping up a frenzy and then it tars the home-grown Kashmiri movement by association. India will likely make this connection at the UN General Assembly meeting and it is one we should counter by focusing on the genuine aspirations of the Kashmiri people and how India is trampling all over that. So far, the Pakistani response to the Kashmir attack has come from the Foreign Office, which told India to stop levelling baseless accusations without a shred of evidence – tall claims of finding “Pakistan markings” not counting as evidence. Our de facto foreign minister Sartaj Aziz, who is already in New York, has said such attacks are inevitable given the brutality of the Indian occupation. These responses have the virtue of being true. The problem for the Kashmiri people is that the international ‘community’ has mostly ignored their plight out of ‘deference’ to India, and India will try to wipe away any sympathy created by its mass killings by pointing to the Uri attack as proof that the resistance in Kashmiri is terroristic in nature. India should not be allowed to pull off this old trick so conveniently yet again.