Mohammad Jamil
CONVENTIONAL wisdom rules out the war between the two nuclear states, yet Indian leadership’s jingoism and bellicosity suggest that threat of war is looming large on the horizon. However, sabre-rattling will not augur well for the region where world’s majority of poorest of the poor live. Relations between India and Pakistan have never been cordial due to Kashmir dispute; however, after Narendra Modi became prime minister of India, relations are tense due to his arrogance and belligerence towards Pakistan. Of course, India is caught up in a tidal wave of war hysteria, shaped in part by the macho posturing of its political and military leaders and wild imagination of its jingoistic media. In fact, sabre-rattling had begun after militants mounted a deadly attack on an Indian military base in Uri in September 2016. However, saner voices are being drowned in the cacophony of belligerent frenzy.
Last week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi while speaking at a gathering boasted that his country could defeat Pakistan in a matter of days. Earlier, the Indian army chief had said that his troops could occupy Azad Kashmir if the Indian parliament asked them to do so. His predecessor Bippin Rawat, who is currently serving as chief of defence staff, also expressed similar sentiment. Over the past several months, India’s top civil and military leaders have been making irresponsible statements so far as Pakistan is concerned; publicly rattling sabres mainly for domestic consumption is fraught with serious consequences. Indian hegemonic designs and bullying her neighbouring countries is not a new phenomenon. Being landlocked countries Nepal and Bhutan had witnessed extreme forms of diplomatic coercion, whereas other countries of the region face India’s interference and proxy wars etc. In fact, all smaller neighbouring countries are wary of India.
Last year, in an interview with ‘Democracy Now’, India’s award winning writer and activist Arundhati Roy once again showed true face of Narendra Modi and said: “Modi is a product of the RSS which from 1925 has been working towards this moment. The RSS has hundreds of thousands of workers.” She was candid in saying that “Kashmir was one of the 500-and-something princely states, who were all required to decide whether they wanted to be with India or Pakistan. And Kashmir, of course, had a majority-Muslim population but a Hindu Raja. And it’s called the “unfinished business of partition”. Kashmir is again burning today. For the last six months, Valley looks like a jail where Kashmiris are imprisoned in their homes due to curfew, and where for eight million Kashmiris there are a million troop, which means that there is a soldier deployed for every home.
Pakistan and Kashmiris throughout the world will observe Kashmir Solidarity Day on (05 February), to pay homage to Kashmir martyrs and to express solidarity with Kashmiri brethren. On this day, the entire Pakistani nation is united in its support to Kashmiris’ inalienable right of self-determination. Though Kashmiris’ struggle continues since 1948, they took up arms in 1989 to counter India’s state terrorism and, of course, to get rid of Indian yoke. Since then, around 100,000 Kashmiris have been martyred and many more injured and maimed. However, killings and atrocities committed by Indian armed forces could not break their will or weaken their resolve, and they continue their struggle for their right of self-determination accepted by United Nations Security Council. For the last seven decades, Kashmiris have undergone untold sufferings, but international community has been found wanting in discharging its obligations in implementation of UNSC resolutions.
The partition plan of 3rd June 1947 envisaged that over 565 princely states would join India or Pakistan keeping in view the aspirations of their people and geographical contiguity. On 19th July 1947, Muslim Conference had organized a convention and passed a resolution for merging with Pakistan, which stated: “This convention of Muslim Conference has reached the conclusion that geographical conditions, 80 per cent Muslim population, important rivers of Punjab passing through the state, language, cultural, ethnic and economic relations and contiguity of the state with Pakistan make it imperative to merge with Pakistan”. India, however, occupied the State using military force and claimed it as an integral part of India. When volunteers from Azad Kashmir and other Pakistani volunteers went to Kashmir to help their brethren, it was India that took the matter to the UN under Chapter VI of the UN Charter dealing with Pacific Settlement of Disputes.
On 05 January 1949, United Nations Security Council through its resolution gave the right to the Kashmiris to join either Pakistan or India in a plebiscite to be held under the aegis of the United Nations. On June 26, 1952, then Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru told Indian Parliament that if the Kashmiri people wish to join Pakistan they may do so. But India backtracked on the commitment made in front of international community allowing Kashmiris the right to self-determination. But in later years, India amended its constitution to make Kashmir its integral part, and it was beginning of the grave human rights violations on the people of Indian Held Kashmir. In case, India continues to baulk at resolving the Kashmir dispute either on the basis of the UNSC resolutions or any other arrangement acceptable to India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir, there can never be a durable peace in the region. The international community has to understand that Tashkent and Simla agreements were signed by Pakistan under duress, and cannot supersede UNSC resolutions. According to Tashkent Declaration after 1965 War and Simla Agreement after 1971 War, both India and Pakistan had agreed to resolve all disputes through bilateral dialogue. But it never meant that UNSC resolutions had become redundant.
—The writer is a senior journalist based in Lahore.
