Pressure mounting on India over Article 370

Pressure is continuously mounting on India over the abrogation of Article 370 in Held Kashmir and there is no denying it. The Indians are in much panic and have started realising that the world will not keep silent on the issue. On August 16, President Trump told Prime Minister Imran Khan that he would speak to Narendra Modi on Kashmir and India-Pakistan tensions. Modi and the Indian establishment was in such panic that it didn’t wait for the call and reached out to the US president itself.

Then the United Nations Security Council’s consultative meeting in New York on the “India-Pakistan questions” is not going to go away. It was a major diplomatic victory for Pakistan that the UNSC took up the issue after 50 years, showing the Kashmir issue was not an internal matter and was not dead.

According to one Indian diplomat: “Despite the brave face put on it by New Delhi, the fact of the matter is that it couldn’t prevent such a meeting, and that alone becomes a diplomatic setback with likely downstream consequences, especially if the ground situation in Jammu and Kashmir deteriorates and India-Pakistan tensions cascade – and all this when Trump is in some urgency to reach an agreement with the Afghan Taliban.”

Then surprisingly Modi is still unwilling to refute President Trump’s claim that he was approached by the Indian prime minister to mediate on Kashmir. This speaks a lot about the pressures the Indian establishment is already facing on the volatile Kashmir issue.

The Indian Prime Minister’s Office is taking the usual line on the Trump-Modi phone call: “In the context of the regional situation, the prime minister stated that extreme rhetoric and incitement to anti-India violence by certain leaders in the region was not conducive to peace. He highlighted the importance of creating an environment free from terror and violence and eschewing cross-border terrorism without exception.” The problem is that nobody is listening to Modi Sarkar anymore. MK Bhadrakumar, a former diplomat, has warned the Modi Sarkar: “The roof is not likely to come down if Trump can lend a hand to tamp down tensions and nudge the Indian and Pakistani leaders to talk. The point is, the Kashmir issue has been internationalized, and if the downhill slide in India-Pakistan relations continues, UN intervention becomes all but certain, and it may turn out to be intrusive. Of course, that doesn’t mean that India will buckle under pressure, but attrition is bound to set in over time, and statesmanship lies in anticipating events and assessing whether on balance such developments would be to India’s advantage.”

There have been smart diplomatic moves by Pakistan on Kashmir and the trend should continue.