Iqbal Khan
INDIA is following two-pronged strategy to squeeze the people of Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K). Firstly, changing the democratic composition of IIOJ&K by granting domicile of Kashmir to people from outside Jammu and Kashmir, which is a clear violation of Article 49 of Geneva Convention IV which prohibits forcible or voluntary transfer of population from, to and within occupied territory. Drawing comparisons with Israel’s “settler” tactics in the Palestinian territories, Modi’s Hindu nationalist government aims to change the demographic make-up and identity of the Muslim-majority region. Between April and August, over 4,30,000 such certificates had been issued, and no breather is in sight. Moreover, under the Hindutva doctrine, India has already settled 1.8 million Indian Hindus in the occupied Kashmir during the last few months.
Secondly, administrative power is being transferred to non-Muslims despite the fact that IIOJ&K is an overwhelmingly Muslim State. According to Professor Ashok Swain of Uppsala University, Sweden, “Of the 66 top bureaucrats in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, at this time, 38 are from other states. Of the 12 sitting judges at the high court, only two are Muslim. And there is not a single Muslim officer in the Lieutenant Governor’s Secretariat.” This change of demographic composition and usurpation of authority are being done despite the fact that India does not have sovereign rights over Jammu and Kashmir; it is just an occupying country of Jammu and Kashmir, which is a United Nations-recognized disputed territory. The UN has already ruled to hold a plebiscite to ascertain the will of Kashmiris for joining India or Pakistan.
Kashmiris are the most valiant nation in the world. Despite suffering repression, they had been fighting the Indian occupation forces for the last 72 years. They are pitched against one million regular Indian troops. Around 600,000 people of 18,000 families of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) living along the Line of Control (LOC) are offering sacrifices on a daily basis while the AJK people who are part of the defence forces of Pakistan, are sacrificing their lives for the defence of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. AJK President Sardar Masood Khan said on October 05 that the brunt of the political blunder committed by Sheikh Abdullah and Maharaja Hari Singh shouting the slogan of sovereign Kashmir in 1947 was still being borne by the people in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir in the shape of cruel Indian subjugation. Farooq Abdullah says they [people of Jammu & Kashmir] are fighting for “the honour, the dignity, the respect that the people lost on the 5th of August last year”. They want the Government of India to “start trusting Muslims instead of denigrating them…They (Centre) still hold the land, with force, but they have lost the people”. And that is why “sentiment for Kashmir’s independence has grown sizably”.
According to Mani Shankar Aiyar‘s Oct 07 article for The Wire: “This is the extent to which Modi and Shah have driven seven million Kashmiris up the wall. And with the new domicile laws endangering the demographic composition of both Union Territories, fear and apprehension have overtaken all three regions of the erstwhile state – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, including both Muslim-majority Kargil and Buddhist-majority Leh”. He added: “If the situation is not rectified, intifada and worse can overtake the trijunction of India, China and Pakistan. This was not the situation on August 4, 2019. It is the position today. That is the measure of what the Modi-Shah regime has wrought in Jammu and Kashmir. The nation’s unity and integrity are under threat as never before”.
A massive wedge has been driven between the IIOJ&K electorate and the traditional pro-India “three families”, to the extent that a typical Kashmiri-in-the-street mocks them with the cry, “Ab bolo, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’”. Farooq Abdullah recently stated in an interview to Karan Thapar that his father had repulsed Pakistan to join India, he said, although “religion (was on) that side, the roads that side, the rivers go that side. We went against the current”. Why? “We joined Gandhi’s India, not Modi’s India”. So, what had Modi’s India done? They had broken the trust that underlay “the unity of the Muslim-majority state with the rest of the nation”, leaving the people “sick of having to put up with a soldier with an AK-47 on every street, every village”, “their dreams gone” awry, their children deprived “of a future”, “completely disillusioned…If I speak of India anywhere, they don’t want to listen”.
Farooq asked: Then why are they so quiescent, so accepting of their fate, so reconciled to their deprivation as to not take to the streets? “Would you be able to protest here in Delhi if every street was filled with armed gunmen?” “Perhaps not”. But “the minute you remove those soldiers, lakhs will be on the street”. And if the soldiers are not removed? “One day this volcano will blow”. India’s current grip over IIOJK is the weakest, comparing it with time frame August 14, 1947 to August 05, 2019. Strangely, Pakistan’s efforts towards Kashmir cause have since been patchy. Prime Minister Imran Khan needs to be rest assured that for whatever else his stint may be remembered for, he will certainly be scrutinized for what he does and what he lets slip by with regard to opportunities thrown up by Narendra Modi’s August 05, 2019 goof-up. Many viable opportunities have been allowed to slip by. Voices of a “sell-out” are now well beyond the threshold of “loud thinking”.
At times, it appears, as if, as a part of some international understanding, Pakistan government is not keen to keep the Kashmir issue alive and relevant beyond some periodic noises. The objective of Foreign Office appears to make Prime Minster deliver a speech to General Assembly each year in September and then go to sleep till next speech is due. Everyone knows that a speech in the UNGA is not worth a dime. There is no way that India will reverse its policy on J&K unless Pakistan takes a firm stand on the Kashmiris’ struggle for right of self-determination. Unfortunately, the issue of J&K has lost momentum in Pakistan’s foreign policy, and it has almost become a forgotten case. This is due to policy gap between the government’s rhetoric and actions; and the country’s inherent political and economic weakness. No wonders, India has made Pakistan ineffective with regard to its once “Jugular Vein”. Pakistan should not expect India to end its military occupation of IIOJ&K unless Pakistan adopts a courageous stance. Muslims of IOK cannot be liberated through mere dilly dallying.
—The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
