Modi’s failed strategy to quell Kashmiri voices
IMAGINE a state in the comity of nations that takes immense pride in being the largest democratic state but when it comes to the rights of minorities the whole notion shatters.
India is a classical model of a state that is utilizing its whole strength to generate a false narrative of being relevant and commendable.
From defeats on the battlefield to human rights abuses in India-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), India is trying hard to mask its true face through systematic disinformation campaigns.
However, the strategy of camouflaging vileness and weakness cannot continue forever. The world has recognized that India is a sham democracy, mired in internal instability and an unreliable partner on the geopolitical landscape.
On 5 August 2019, India through its illegal and unilateral act not just violated the international law and made the life of Kashmiris miserable and terrible but also turned the entire region into destabilization and chaos.
Contrary to Modi’s claims that the situation in IIOJK is returning to normalcy remains rhetoric and deception for the international community.
In reality, the actual situation in IIOJK is completely diverse after the revocation of articles 370 and 35A.
The killing spree and the pervasive fear among civilians, minorities and other soft targets give false claims to the Indian government that they are successful in IIOJK.
India is relying increasingly on its army and illegal laws to suppress the voice of Kashmiris. Currently, India maintains almost one million troops in Kashmir, making it the most militarized zone in the world.
These heftily deployed Indian troops have been involved in crimes against humanity. India did not stop here, next came the even more controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a law that revokes the citizenship of Muslim immigrants to India.
As millions of people gathered on the streets to protest this move across India, Modi doubled down on his bet.
He allowed his right-wing party goons to terrorize and torture Muslims. People, across the world, started to recognize that Kashmir was not a one-off thing.
Modi is racist, anti-Muslim and anti-minorities. The resulting clashes across India, especially in and around Delhi, displaced hundreds of thousands of minority individuals particularly Muslims from their homes, which had been burnt to the ground by Hindutva goons.
Overnight, these minorities became the largest group of internally displaced people in Asia. India’s sham secularism stood exposed in all its shame.
Moreover, redrawing electoral constituencies is a tool to serve Hindu political interests in IIOJK.
Delimitation exercise is just a formality giving more seats to Hindus-majority Jammu was preplanned.
Modi and his henchmen are using the delimitation commission to decide Muslim votes in IIOJK.
Modi regime must remember that no amount of gerrymandering will change the ground reality in IIOJK.
India has snatched every right of the Kashmiri Muslims and Modi is using electoral redistricting to make the IIOJK’s Muslim majority ineffective.
Pakistan Parliament has also passed a resolution to denounce the delimitation exercise in IIOJK.
This brazen effort by the Indian government is a direct attack on the democratic rights of Kashmiris particularly Muslims and exposes India’s true face to the regional and international power corridor.
Delimitation exercise in IIOJK is in contravention of UN resolutions that’s only purpose is to disempower Muslims in the region.
Therefore, erasing Kashmiris’ political identity, disempowering the Muslim majority community to reduce them to second-class citizens, turning them into a political minority, and minimizing their role in the political decision-making process are the most vivid signs and processes of genocide that should serve as an eye-opener for the world community.
After unleashing a reign of terror in IIOJK, the fascist Indian regime was now shamelessly playing the religious card to get its communal agenda implemented in the occupied territory.
A certain section of the Kashmiri Pandit community under a nefarious agenda was ready to become pawns in the BJP’s chessboard of power and politics in India.
However, a silent majority of Pandits within and outside the Kashmir Valley knew fully well how the right-wing forces were using them as pawns.
The Indian government has held Kashmiris hostage by the dint of force and using colonial-era tactics to suppress the Kashmiris’ legitimate struggle.
The recent Indian court’s verdict against JKLF Chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik is also a politically-motivated agenda to silence the dissenting voices in the occupied territory.
India should understand no amount of oppression and use of force can break the will of the valiant Kashmiri people who are resolutely standing up against India’s state terrorism in IIOJK and struggling for their inalienable right to self-determination as enshrined in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
Therefore, it will remain India’s distinct dream to suppress the Kashmiri voices as much they will suppress Kashmiri voices would arise more and more.
—The author is an Islamabad-based analyst and holds MPhil in Peace and Conflict Studies.
