Daily Times

In September 2023 Prime Minister Narendra Modi willhold the G20 international summit in Indian-occupied Kashmir to announce India’s ownership of the disputed state. Tacit international approval is sought through attendance.

Almost all member countries of the G20 are increasingly pro-India.

Brazil is an Indian ally in BRICS, BASIC, G-4, IBSA, and International Solar Alliance. Australia and Japan are QUAD allies. France and Germany are hoping to replace Russia in economic and technological ties with India. Russia is a long-time ally of India, which desperately needs India’s support for the costly ongoing war with Ukraine after being financially sanctioned by the west. The United Kingdom generally toes the line of the US, when it comes to strategic interests. The US itself is depending upon India as a counterweight to China. Saudi Arabia under Muhammad Bin Salman (MBS) is seeking new international alliances. India’s fast-growing renewable energy sector makes for a natural ally for MBS’s brainchild, Neom, a $500 billion smart city of the future. India is one of the largest buyers of coal and crude palm oil from Indonesia and is thus an important trading partner. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was the guest of honour of this year’s “Raisina Dialogue,” India’s flagship annual geopolitical conference. South Korea’s historic first, “Strategy for a Free, Peaceful and Prosperous Indo-Pacific,” shows enhanced momentum in South Korea’s strategic ties with India. Mexico and India have recently increased mutual trade. South Africa is a BRICS partner of India. Turkey is undergoing a big economic crisis with historically high inflation of 80 per cent, the devaluation of the Turkish Lira as well as being grey-listed by FATF. This has made President Erdogan shift gears and rethink strategic alliances.

The best approach for Kashmiris under siege in India would be to hold peaceful but powerful protests using creative and brilliant tactics.

Canada holds an Indian Sikh diaspora supporting Khalistan, and their mutual trade is not seeing a boom. Argentina does not have any significant relationship with India. China is the only G20 member nation, with strained relations with India.

The world in general has no sympathy for Muslim suffering. The words Islam and Muslims are synonymous with terrorism, extremism and misogyny.

Even in the world of international diplomacy, Samuel Huntington’s loaded phrase, “Islam’s bloody borders.” is less known but it reverberates across the global corridors of power. Cyril Radcliffe created a permanent faultline of Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Similarly, the Sykes-Picot secret agreement for the imminent dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, during the first world war in 1916, created permanent fault lines in the Arab world.

The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) is a toothless tiger. The Islamic world is of no interest to the rest of the world, except for oil-based economies.

India has the fourth-largest army in the world. However, despite its mammoth size, the Indian military has shown weakness time and again. PM Modi blew the war trumpet to gain political mileage. In 2019 the Indian Air Force (IAF) made surprise surgical strikes inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. However, both the IAF’s aircrafts intruding Pakistani air space were shot down by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the one surviving pilot was captured by Pakistan. When the PAF led a much-anticipated counterattack, not only was the IAF unable to defend its airspace, but it also shot down one of its own Mi 17 helicopters in panic -killing six IAF personnel and a civilian.

The PAF did us proud by teaching India a lesson. The IAF responded with false claims. India created much hoopla around their fictitious victory.

Pakistan, however, lacked a strong and charismatic head of state like Musharraf. This emboldened Modi. The special status of Kashmir was revoked in August 2019 through the revocation of Article 370 of the Constitution. Due to administrative changes in India, Kashmir is now the only Muslim-majority state in the country.

Modi is feeling overly confident by the Russian-made Brahmos, and the recent international interest in India, which is further aided by the appointment of Indian origin and Indian heritage individuals as the UK’s prime minister and the US Vice President respectively. He has therefore decided to make a public proclamation of Kashmir as Indian territory by holding the important G20 summit there.

Pakistan’s support is oxygen for the cause of Kashmir. However, Pakistan is presently close to sovereign default, being the most indebted country in the world. Personality politics has created a cesspool. An ousted narcissistic head of state is defaming his military, terming his ouster a western conspiracy and jeopardizing the country’s nuclear weapons program. His mesmerized groupies are causing massive civil unrest. The serving PM is guilty of massive corruption and nepotism. His followers are equally vile in their behaviour. Pakistan has thus lost prestige in the global community.

The move to hold the G20 summit in Kashmir is a disaster waiting to happen. It would only take one instance of militancy with any of the visiting dignitaries to cause an international crisis.

Perhaps Modi is hoping for such an unfortunate event to transpire to gain sympathy for India. This would whitewash his reputation as a fascist. Modi knows that such an occurrence can permanently close the Kashmir file in the UN. It would also lead to compassion fatigue for Indian Muslims who face imminent genocide.

The best approach for Kashmiris under siege in India would be to hold peaceful but powerful protests using creative and brilliant tactics.

Kashmir must become independent. This is the only solution to settle the volatile border between India and Pakistan. Not only would this benefit Kashmiris but also greatly benefit both India and Pakistan. It is the only way India can prevent another 26/11 from happening. It will curb militancy in Pakistan and enable progress.

RSS-BJP’s India is scapegoating Indian Muslims to feel dominant. They see an example in Israel as a successful apartheid state. The RSS-led BJP ia turning India into a fascist state like Hitler’s Germany, by learning from the Nazis. They are digging their own grave, as we all know how that ended.

The writer is an independent researcher, author and columnist. She can be reached at aliya1924@gmail.com