Pakistan’s foreign secretary recently briefed an 18-member delegation of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) parliamentarians and civil society members on the continuing human rights violations in Kashmir by India. Just a few days ago, the Pakistani Prime Minister called upon the international community to play its role in ensuring an immediate end to the ongoing siege of India-held Kashmir. Despite all these efforts at telling the world of the bleak situation in Pakistan, while we were engaged in an aerial dogfight with India, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation was honouring the Hindutva government of New Dehli as the guest of honour in its Abu Dhabi summit.
All sustained efforts by Pakistan to show the world the writings on the wall regarding Kashmir have fallen on deaf ears as the world is listening but not acting. These circumstances call for some introspection in Islamabad on how this verbal rhetoric needs to be put to action. Maybe, the starting point of this introspection is whether in the face of Hindutva adventurism, at the cost of the blood of the Kashmiris, Pakistan has performed the best moves out of its arsenal or something even better needs to be done?
Pakistani officials, both seniors and juniors, have repeatedly pushed rhetoric on Kashmir, including calling Kashmir Pakistan’s jugular vein; assuring that the world is taking Kashmir seriously; that we have pushed it on the agenda of the Security Council and numerous Human Rights bodies and organisations; that we have agitated the issue before the French and American parliaments and that the speech of Imran Khan at the UN will ultimately bring peace to Kashmir. The ground reality, however, is very different, while the world has listened attentively it has refused to act. All of the “moral pressure” we have tried to mount has not led to any impact on Modi’s Hindutva adventure, we have been confronted with realpolitik. Each state is only concerned with its vested interests.
We have moved Modi to a corner, to the point that he not only owned the Kartarpur project but even inaugurated it on his side of the border
We have been playing the moral card in many shapes, and it is not something to be criticised. Even after souring relations over Kashmir and Pakistan declaring the Indian High Commissioner persona non grata, Pakistan did the best that it could over the Kartarpur corridor. The narrative on Kartarpur survived even in times when war looked like a real possibility, including the time immediately following the Pathankot and Balakot attacks. Pakistan’s initiative has immense public support in the Indian Punjab and is worthy of praise diplomatically. We have moved Modi to a corner, to the point that he not only owned the project but even inaugurated it on his side of the border. This is multiplied by the fact that Punjab is Congress territory at the moment, ruled by a Congress Chief Minister. Navot Sindhu, a former cricketer and Modi’s chief critic on the Hindutva project, has publically owned it as a gigantic good-will gesture to the Indian Sikhs.
Yet, India has not moved one bit on its transgressions. The Modi-led government introduced a new map, one that exists in the Hindutva doctrine but not on the ground, in violation of internationally and legally recognised geographical borders by showing Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan as Indian territory. As it works in the world of international politics, Indian transgressions are backed by vested interests of other nations. India is well aware of the lack of unity in OIC on matters of human rights violations, including both Palestine and Kashmir. While the OIC has moved a resolution on Kashmir, it is but empty rhetoric. Indian trade with OIC stands at $262 billion and 80 per cent of Indian oil needs are brought through the OIC countries. Muslim majority countries even in the region, including Afghanistan and Bangladesh, have not supported the Kashmir cause. Modi was honoured by the highest civilian awards of both UAE and Bahrain. Saudia Arabia’s Aramco concluded a $75 billion deal with Modi’s favourite child, the Reliance Group. This is leaps and bounds ahead of any investment deals between Saudia Arabia and Pakistan in its entire history.
Only Turkey and Malaysia have taken principled stances and Pakistan has to move beyond a few strategic partners. The greater support of China, especially in the light of Chinese investment in Pakistan, with Russia based in the Iran and Saudi crisis and America based in the Afghanistan end-game, has to step up.
It is no hidden fact that international politics and law always favour the status quo. The principle of “uti posseditis” will always favour effective borders over self-determination claims. We have to realise that the Indian plan to neutralise the Kashmiri struggle by dividing the disputed territory and subsequent land capture and demographics game will mean that Pakistan will keep waiting without fruit, just like the repeatedly violated UN resolutions. We cannot wait and have to take extreme steps.
Kartarpur was a brilliant gesture, which proved that Pakistan was a reasonable and tolerant member of the comity of nations. This holds especially true in the face of the Indian Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict, which legitimised the demolition of the Babri Masjid by a Hindu mob in 1992 and came on the same day as Kartarpur corridor’s inauguration. We have to push the genuine struggle of Kashmir more proactively. We have to be consistent. If nothing works out, some sort of military intervention will be required, without which India will maintain permanent effective control over Occupied Kashmir and the Kashmir struggle will die. However, one can only hope that the world wakes up before extreme measures become necessary. Pakistan, nonetheless, will have to do a lot more, collect irrefutable evidence of human rights violations in Kashmir and keep challenging India at all forums.
The writer is a barrister, who has an interest in Pakistani current affairs, economy, constitutional developments, foreign policy and international law