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Friday March 29, 2024

Redeeming outcome

By Akram Shaheedi
September 02, 2019

The redeeming outcome of the historic blunder of Modi government to annex the Indian Held Kashmir is the immediate internationalisation of the Kashmir dispute that was regretfully relegated to the backburner by the international community during the past many decades. The United Nation Security Council discussed it in its all forms and manifestations, the European Parliament is likely to discuss it on September 2 (today) and OIC has issued the bold statement urging India to lift curfew in the Valley and seek the resolution of the Kashmir issue in accordance with the UN resolution. The issue is also being echoed in the US Congress and Think Tanks there attracting elaborate coverage in the international media engrossed on the grave human rights violations perpetrated by Indian forces in the Indian Held Kashmir since August 5, 2019 in particular. The whole gruesome developments in the Indian Held Kashmir may prove as blessing in disguise because of the urgency being felt in the world capitals to resolve the dispute in the largest interest of the world peace and security in general and of South Asia in particular.

Pakistani leadership may tread carefully to capitalise on the emerging international propitious scenario. The people may not take any more of the vagaries of the incumbent government on the issue of Kashmir as its leadership’s incongruity continues to keep the nation confused and worried.

The nation is already gripped in the sense of loss over the annexing of the Indian Held Kashmir into Indian Union by the BJP government. The prime minister in his recent article in the New York Times has asserted that there would be no talk with India unless it reversed its decision of August 5, 2019, with the caveat to the international community that its apathy in perpetuity towards the predicaments of the Kashmiri people would have serious implications for the world peace and security right across.

Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in his talk with BBC, as reported, toned down the position of the prime minister as he stated that talk with India was depended upon the lifting of curfew on the Kashmiri. It might be deciphered as confusion swirling around the corridors of power. Regretfully, the back to back pacing up and down of mandarins might be too much for the people of this country to digest who were so much committed to the cause of Kashmiri people in their struggle to get rid of the Indian illegitimate occupation.

Clarity may surely guide the government without exception in this case because the whole nation was deeply engaged and as such meal-mouthing is not acceptable. The requirement of an excellent two way communication and understanding between the PM House and the Foreign Office was the need of the hour. The foreign minister’s contention might sound worthwhile to pursue because disengagement might be justified tactically but not as a policy in the international affairs due to its lack of maintainability. Disengagement is anathema to diplomacy because it presumes deadlock as the faith accompli. The quest of breakthrough is the bedrock of the vibrant diplomacy.

More than three weeks have gone past since the Indian government clamped down curfew in the entire Valley. It was indeed a brazen attempt to preempt the uprising that was bound to occur because the people of occupied Kashmir could not tolerate the snatching away of their special status by the Indian Prime Minister Modi in a sudden move in pursuance of BJP election manifesto. It is not difficult to imagine the plight of the Kashmiri people who have been besieged in their homes because of intrusive and heavy presence of Indian troops deployed all over.

The total communication blackout in the entire Valley making it impossible to figure out the exact magnitude of their miseries those must be appalling while living in conditions analogous to an open air jail. The people were even not allowed to say their Juma prayers what to talk of going out to buy essential goods required for the sustenance of subsistence.

Indian prime minister’s claim of situation under control in Kashmir during G7 countries meeting in France deserved the opprobrium of the highest order as he was lying through teeth because the curfew was still there. The people were finding it hard to buy food stuffs, medicines and other essentials items without which living could be like inching towards starvation. The complete black out of news due to the lack of internet and telephone including other means of communications facilities in the Valley have been circumventing the world of knowing the scale of hell perpetrated by the Indian troops.

Arguably, UAE’s declaration and Saudi Arabia’s expediency on the Kashmir issue was least expected by the people of Pakistan. It sadly reinforced the fundamental of state interests were the major factor driving the state relations.

The ideological affinities could be conveniently relegated to the back burner in case of clash of interests. Pakistani leadership should calibrate its focus and realistically strive to make the country relevant to the other countries economically, politically and diplomatically as ‘kin brothers’ syndrome’ stood discarded when chips were down.

For that Pakistan may accord requisite priority to geo-economic interests because without economic development the country will be bullied from all sides jeopardising its sovereignty with serious implications to the security. Today, economic strength lends strength to the national security. Without economic security national security may continue to teeter on the brink of crisis looming larger with the passage of time.

It may be recalled Shaheed Benazir Bhutto had stressed upon the relevance of the indispensability of the state interests while developing relations with other countries. All other considerations were myth than reality.

She substantiated her point by quoting Iraqi military occupation of Kuwait by Saddam Hussain. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi rightly observed, though with heavy heart, that the countries had the right to develop their bilateral relations, and Pakistan could not and should not expect to deny the sovereign states of their privilege. Better to learn to get along to reconcile with the fundamentals of international diplomacy instead of cursing the same.

The inalienable right of self-determination cannot be denied forever to the people of Kashmir who are determined to get it from the oppressor no matter whatever the cost. The Kashmiri people in general and youth in particular have overcome the fear of death and the Indian troops brutalities in the form of heinous human right violations. They have been keeping the flame of “Azadi” burning in their hearts and the use of brute force could not extinguish it.

It seems the revocation of the special status of the Indian Held Kashmir by India may prove as blessing in disguise for the Kashmiri people struggle for ‘Azadi’ because it will give new impetus to their struggle against the Indian occupation as the pro-Indian Kashmiri leadership has also joined the fold of freedom movement.

It may also jolt the conscience of the international community that had been in slumber for many decades bordering to their forgetfulness of the plight of the Kashmiri people who had been undergoing cascade of curdling nightmares at the hands of the Indian successive governments and more so during the incumbent BJP government led by Narendra Modi.

The rescinding of the special status of Kashmir state had indeed put the issue in the focus of the international community as manifested in the UN Security Council meeting to discuss the situation. The virtue of self-determination to the Kashmiri people may be realised out of the vice of India’s revocation of the special status of Kashmir. Tyranny pathologically is not tenable forever and it has to come to an end after all. It seems the situation in Kashmir has reached the threshold.

The Modi government unilateral decision foisted on Kashmir people has poured enough mortification on India by the international media and the human rights organisations hurting badly its image of the largest secular democracy of the world. The international human rights organisations and above all the United Nations have expressed their grave concern over the grim human rights situation in the Valley and especially after the August 5, 2019 as Kashmiri leadership have been put under the house arrest. Even Indian opposition leaders including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were not allowed by Modi government to see by themselves the situation on the ground.

The combined opposition leaders were sent back to Delhi after enduring an hour waiting at the Srinagar airport. Such extreme measures only exposed the Modi government’s ‘historic blunder’ that might lead to the redemption of the people of the Indian Held Kashmir who had enough of Indian servitude, and no more.

muhammadshaheedi@yahoo.com