Observer Report
Islamabad
Sardar Masood Khan, President Azad Jammu and Kashmir, has said that the current international order is chaotic and broken. The new world order has evolved from the traditional Westphalian system to the League of Nations and then the United Nations. The sad reality, he said, is that the rising trend is ‘exceptionalism’ or ‘exemptionism’ for big powers. He said powerful countries go scot-free even if they commit major crimes; an example being India. The world has lost its ‘rule-based’ character, he said.
The President made these remarks while addressing the Margalla Dialogue 2019 organised by the Islamabad Policy and Research Institute on “Peace and Development in South Asia, Middle East, Central Asia”. The President said that there are some fundamental postulates for conflict resolutions. This, he said, firstly includes recognizing that there is a conflict by the parties directly involved; secondly, if one or more parties don’t recognize then third party countries or the UN; thirdly, at least the United Nations must accept and recognize that there is a conflict that needs to be resolved, and lastly, he said that there should be accepted and recognized regimes for conflict resolutions.
In this context, the AJK President informed his audience that in the case of India and Pakistan, the bilateral regime – Simla Agreement, the Composite Dialogues – has broken and the nuclear deterrence acquired by the two nations has made the resolution of the Kashmir dispute intractable. This has left us to reach out to our own constituencies, the international community, global civil society, International political parties and Parliaments, he said.
President Masood Khan has said that post-1945; the west had a universalistic agenda that was thought to be the best. Right now, the situation has changed and the citadels of the new world order have a parochial agenda. China instead has also advocated a universalistic agenda based on economic development and inclusivity and emerging nations are demanding a pluralistic world order.
Lamenting the eerie silence of global powers, the AJK President said that India has taken a series of steps on August 5 by annexing, bifurcating and colonizing the disputed territory of IOK. They are also hell-bent on changing the religious character of the territory. India’s Hindutva policy is not limited to Kashmir but instead, they disenfranchised 1.9 million Muslims in Assam and in recent days the Indian Supreme Court in a highly controversial and prejudiced verdict has decided to build a Ram Temple on the demolished site of the Babri Mosque, he said.
“India will continue such steps and adopt further similar measures. Make no mistake about that!” said Masood Khan. The President went to say that other than the 200 million Muslims in India who are being threatened by the Indian government, they have also threatened to ‘take back’ AJK and use nuclear weapons against Pakistan.
This drift towards war has to be avoided and India should not be appeased by the international community. A war between Pakistan and India will lead to a war that could very well spiral into a nuclear exchange with dire consequences. This appeasement, he said, was symptomatic of the malaise of the existing world order.
