Akbar Jan Marwat
THE unilateral revocation of Articles 370 and 35-A of the Indian Constitution, to abolish the autonomous status of India-occupied Kashmir is the most audacious and provocative move by India in the last 72 years. Pakistan seems to have been taken by surprise by this surreptitious Indian move. Pakistan now needs to take a hard-nosed stock of the options available to us. These options will have to be of diplomatic and legal nature. Any adventurism through non- State militant actors has to be completely ruled out, due to the hock-eyes surveillance by the FATF. The Indian move has unwittingly brought the Kashmir issue once again to the centre of the world stage from the back burner, where it was perched for the last many years. The Indian government by revoking Article 370 of its Constitution that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir dividing the state into two union Territories — Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. Jammu and Kashmir is to be ruled by the centre, having an elected assembly with limited powers. Ladakh on the other hand will be ruled by the Centre without any elected Assembly. Scrapping of 35-A takes away the exclusive right of ownership of property by Kashmiris in Kashmir. Big corporate interests are said to be behind this move. These business houses and corporations want to gobble up some of Kashmir’s Pristine and Virgin real estate to set up environmentally disastrous tourism projects.
India’s unilateral move had turned occupied Kashmir into a garrison. Citizens are being forced to stay inside the four walls of their houses to prevent mammoth protests against the decision. The unprecedented restriction on movement and speech of Kashmiri people only demonstrates how unpopular this Indian decision has been with the Kashmiris. Kashmiris living across the nearly 700 km long Line of Control are bearing the worst brunt of the quickly deteriorating relations between the two rivals. According to some reports, the Indians have even started using clustered bombs from across the boarder against civilians for maximum damage, in clear violation of Geneva accords. Indian Home Minister Amit Shah made a claim, ‘’India will continue to claim the territories of Jammu and Kashmir under the occupation of Pakistan. Had our army been given freedom, all the areas would have been ours”. This statement raised Pakistan’s hackles and prompted Pakistani premier to comment that India would be given a befitting reply, if they ever think of casting an evil eye on Azad Kashmir. As mentioned earlier in the column, Pakistan has to be very practical in choosing the options available to it against this recent move by India in the IoK. To begin with, Pakistan has acted wisely, and succeeded in taking the Kashmir issue to the United Nations Security Council through its all weather friend China. This by itself is no-mean achievement, as it was after almost fifty years, that the Kashmir issue was discussed exclusively in the Security Council behind closed doors. It is true that no joint statement was issued by the Security Council. But the delegates of Pakistan and China spoke at length about the Kashmir issue and called upon both India and Pakistan, to resolve the issue according to the wishes of the people of Kashmir and the UN Resolutions. By this one move Pakistan was successful in bringing the Kashmir resolution to the front and centre of the world public opinion, from a position of relative obscurity in which it had been laying for the last many years.
Pakistan has also taken the wise middle-of-the-road option of downgrading diplomatic relations with India, by asking its Ambassador to leave Pakistan, and calling its Ambassador back from India. A complete severance of ties with India would have been dicey, as it would have led to a complete breakdown of communications between the two nuclear powers. The hard fact is that Pakistani’s options after the Indian move in occupied Kashmir are limited. But these are options, which we must avail. We must agitate the issue as it develops, at all world forums as we successfully did at United Nations Security Council. Similarly, we must protest the issue at all human rights forums. We must, however, not give India or the world the excuse by overtly or covertly helping any non-state militant outfits operating in occupied Kashmir. This would not only undermine the indigenous struggle of the Kashmiris, but also cause big setback to Pakistan being closely watched by Financial Action Task Force. Kashmiri Diaspora can be effectively used to lobby for genuine Kashmiri rights. We should be undeterred by possible temporary setbacks as we are in this for a long haul. If the situation worsens drastically, the world and regional community will have no choice but to get involved.
—The writer is a former Health Minister, based in Islamabad.
