UN and India’s crimes

One need not have succumbed to cynicism to understand that the reason the ‘international community’ has largely ignored the ongoing atrocities in Kashmir is because of India’s status as a growing power and the greed with which the world looks longingly at its massive market. Human rights have taken a backseat to political and economic concerns and there are few countries willing to speak out on behalf of the long-suffering Kashmiris. Pakistan has now decided to approach the UN and ask it to send a fact-finding mission to Indian-occupied Kashmir. The actions being taken by Indian security forces against unarmed protesters have followed the broad contours of the nearly seven-decade long occupation, with civilians being slaughtered and basic freedoms curtailed. One new gruesome element to the current crackdown is the use of rubber pellets to disperse legitimate protesters. These pellets, although presented by India as a more humane alternative to live bullets, have caused blindness in those who have been struck by them and, shockingly, have even been used on children. There are not enough eye doctors to deal with the crisis and investigating and condemning this surely comes within the UN’s ambit.

India’s response can be guessed in advance. It will once again ignore the multiple UN resolutions calling for a referendum in Kashmir and the UN will be impotent to do anything about it because of India’s importance. The world needs to change how it looks at Kashmir. It sees it as a territory disputed by two nuclear-armed states while ignoring that Kashmir is not as much a place for regional rivalries to play out but the site of a human rights travesty. The UN needs to respect the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. The international body is a flawed outlet for being a representative of the international community, dominated as it is by the world superpowers, but if ever there was a situation which demanded UN attention it is the crisis in Kashmir. India should not be allowed to use its political and economic muscle to whitewash its crimes against humanity. The UN needs to remove from itself the taint of ignoring what is happening in Kashmir today.