Daily Times

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is quite blessed for enjoying a peep into the future but there remains a phenomenal difference between weaving castles in clouds and taking credit for their grand designs before a thumping–very real–rally.

Pakistan has “categorical rejected,” this “delusional” resolution to the internationally recognised Jammu and Kashmir dispute said to be in accordance with the ideals of former Congress leader Sardar Vallabhai Patel. However, New Delhi does not need any outsider to point to the gaping cracks between the tolerant narrative it paints in front of the entire world and the deplorable stench reeking of its bigotry.

If Mr Modi actually believed in “setting the Kashmir turbulance right,” as plain-facedly remarked by his emphatic lieutenants, he would have considered the naked irony in letting a leading pro-freedom leader Altaf Shah languish in an Indian jail just a day after tooting the victory horn. If all is well in Kashmir, his so-called “atoot ang,” what phenomenon explains the menacing presence of brigade upon a brigade of anti-terrorism units of army and police on top of the ever-strengthening security agencies?

Does his interpretation of defeating the wolf of mayhem even remotely include honouring the commitments his predecessors made to Kashmiris? Not only has the Indian leadership refused to fulfil a very clear UN demand for a free and impartial plebiscite, but it continues to smugly stomp on the fundamental freedoms through its reprehensible and illegal revocation of the valley’s special status since August 2019.

Staging highly-televised state visits and ribbon-cutting ceremonies of mega developmental projects are nothing but a good salt rub into the wounds of millions forced to live as subordinates in their own homeland. Incredible India’s fast-climbing economic rankings might have caused others around the world to hold their tongues and turn their gazes away but Pakistan has always championed the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination and would continue to do so at all costs.

There should be a limit to the tragedies innocent people are forced to endure just because some hawks love stroking their egos. The miseries of the masses as they suffer through abject poverty, the harshest crackdowns, and media blackouts in the largest concentration camp in the history of mankind cannot be allowed to go on forever. *