Khalid Saleem
NEWS has it that the “Special Representative of the
OIC Secretary General on Kashmir” has been on
an extended tour of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. If the usual charade of the past several years is followed – and there is no reason why it should not – the Special Representative will have met many leaders of Pakistan as well as Azad Kashmir; then paid a flying visit to Azad Kashmir and this side of the LoC. He will undoubtedly consider, as in the past, that having done this he will have done his duty as per his mandate. This charade has been going on for umpteen years ever since the appointment by Secretaries-General of OIC of ‘Special Representatives on Kashmir’.
This said, one wonders if the perspicacious reader has discerned the catch in this whole charade. The Special Representative is appointed with the mandate to report on the situation in the whole of Jammu and Kashmir – and not just Azad Kashmir. What has happened over the years, however, is that the personage – this refers to the current Special Representative and his predecessors – has yet to pay a visit to Indian-Held Kashmir. The charade unfolds something like this: each year the OIC Secretariat General simultaneously approaches the governments of Pakistan as well as India in connection with the mandate of the Special Representative. While the government of Pakistan welcomes it with open arms (as is its wont), the Indian government has invariably refused permission for a visit to India or Indian Held Kashmir. The most interesting aspect of the whole rigmarole is that neither the Special Representative nor the Secretary General OIC ever lodge a protest against or make an issue of the Indian rebuff! They quietly accept the rebuff and the Special Representative consequently restricts his inspection tour to just Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, where, needless to add, he is received and feted like a VVIP. At the following Islamic Conference, the Special Representative proudly presents an incomplete and lopsided report of his visit – just to one side of the Line of Control. He merely puts on record the refusal of the Indian government to let him visit IHK. The ICFM, on its part, promptly adopts the usual inane resolution and there the matter rests.
The successive governments of Pakistan have quietly accepted this state of affairs and so the charade has unfolded year after year. The question also arises as to why the OIC has been acquiescing in this essentially unacceptable situation for so long. Is it that this is the limit of its involvement in Muslim causes? And, should not the Special Representative have been advised betimes to abort his mission when India refused permission for him to visit IHK – where, incidentally, all the action is and where the human rights violations are taking place? Should it not have been logical (but is logic the controlling force here?) for the Secretary General to report failure of this Mission once the Indian government had rebuffed it?
What, then, is the great fun (pun intended) in the Special Representative’s visit only to Pakistan and Azad Kashmir year after year? And where does lie the utility of his presenting an incomplete and lop-sided report to the Conference? Logic demanded that he was duty bound to resign from his mission after not one but a series of rebuffs by the Indian government. What is more, why did the OIC Secretary-General not forcefully take up the issue with the Indian government? What they have been doing thus far can only be characterized as a classical cover-up. Coming as it does after Prime Minister Modi’s midnight strike in IHK, makes it worse!
The lackadaisical attitude of the OIC vis-à-vis Muslim causes should send a quiver of alarm around the Muslim World. The OIC is an organization of some fifty-seven states (second in size only to the United Nations). It has, or at least should have, enormous clout, if only it plays its cards right. And yet it or its decisions are never taken seriously, least of all by the powers that be. The Muslim world today is in a bind. It is faced with grave challenges that present it with stark choices. Not that any Muslim country has exhibited any untoward ambition of late. No Muslim nation has coveted land or resources that belong to non-Muslims. All in all, Muslims have exhibited no tendency to cast an evil eye on the riches and resources that are not rightfully theirs. If anything, Muslim states are guilty of criminal over-indulgence in their dealings with the states of the industrialized world. A close look at the international economic scene of the past few decades would indicate a net transfer of resources from Muslim states to the industrialized West.
Why, then, should the Muslim World be in the dire straits that it finds itself today? The fault lies not in our stars but within. We need to cultivate the edifying habit of taking a good hard look at the mirror every now and then. We have nurtured the somewhat unsavory habit of blaming others for our own failings. It is time that we also cultivated the habit of self-appraisal. Islam is today under flak from all directions. Muslims around the world are being branded as “terrorists”, without even the formality of indictment, trial or proof. The omnibus phrase “Islamic extremism” has been expressly coined to suit the vested interests. Responsibility for any and every act of terrorism is conveniently laid at the door of “Islamic extremists”. And what, one may ask, are the Muslim states and their stellar organization doing to stem the bleeding? “Playing at charades” readily comes to mind!
— The writer is a former ambassador and former assistant secretary general of OIC.
