Ashraf Ansari
Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N has generally been considered as a party, which believes in promoting normal relations with India. But then, who does not in Pakistan. Our national consensus is that normal relations with India could only be based on the world accepted international norms of sovereign equality and mutual understanding of each other’s genuine interests. Had India abided by these principles, Kashmir issue would have been solved in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people. But India’s Kashmir policy from day one has been a saga of broken promises towards the Kashmiri people and solemn agreement at the United Nations that the Kashmir issue would be resolved through an impartial plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir under supervision of the world body. By going back on this agreement, India moved on taking suppressive measures to maintain its military occupation of the disputed region.
Details of India’s suppression in Kashmir are harrowing. Around 100,000 Kashmiris have been killed by Indian military forces in Kashmir over all these years of occupation, thousands detained, hundreds of youths blinded by pellet firings. And then came 5 August 2019 day when India under Modi threw away all shreds of human values and international norms baring its brutal face to the Kashmiri people. Innocent Kashmiris have been condemned to a lockdown, now for 18 months to break their resolve for continued heroic struggle for freedom even when their whole leadership has been jailed. UN, other international organisations, human rights bodies and world leaders have expressed concern over the tragic situation that now prevails in the Indian occupied Kashmir. Only a couple of days back, a humanist of international repute, Dr. Gregory Stanton observed that “Kashmir is on the brink of genocide”. He has called for action before it was late.
No one, even the Indians, cannot deny the fact that the Kashmiri people have never accepted Indian occupation. Indian government by deploying world’s highest civilian-military ratio forces in Kashmir prove that New Delhi occupies the land through brutal force which ruthlessly operates under the cover of black laws and impunity. So, who has lost Kashmir? It is Modi and India, non-else. Occupation does not legitimize Indian claims over Kashmir.
It is ironic that PML(N) leader Maryam Nawaz Sharif in the guise of criticizing Imran Khan delivered a sinister message to the Kashmiris in her speech in Muzaffarabad on 5 February. When she says that Imran Khan has lost Kashmir to India, she indirectly accepts Indian claim that Kashmir is part of India now. The truth is that nobody, nor Pakistan or the Kashmiri people have lost Kashmir to India. It is India who has lost Kashmir but it lives in fool’s paradise to claim a territory whose overwhelming majority rejects its claim which is only based on brutal military occupation.
Alas! Daughter oversteps father.
