Daily Times

With two coronavirus related deaths reportedly occurring in Occupied Kashmir – although it’s very hard to get facts out of the valley these days – surely it’s time for the international community to finally take a long hard look at what’s been happening there since at least Aug5 last year, when New Delhi stripped it of its special status. With a brutal curfew in place, there was no way for people to prepare in advance and stock up with essential items; especially the hundreds, perhaps thousands of political workers facing house arrest. People have not been allowed out on streets properly in months. And now they must face the isolation of the virus without being prepared for it.

For months now there have been reports from Kashmir of people being unable to get medical treatment, even bury their dead on occasion precisely because of the brutal nature of the curfew. Pakistan rallied the case as much as possible, even shouting out at the UN for everybody to hear, but it soon became clear that India’s large market was a bigger concern for the international community than the fate of a few million Kashmiris. But now, as the whole world has been brought to its knees by the coronavirus pandemic, perhaps countries will view entire communities forced to live in never-ending shutdown with a little more sympathy and empathy.

Traditionally even the worst disasters have had little impact on the world’s propensity for war and occupation. And the people like Palestinians and Kashmiris have continued to suffer regardless of the way the rest of the world is doing. But this time could be different. The coronavirus is a killer the likes of which the world has not seen in a long, long time. And that is primarily because, for all its advances in all sorts of sciences including medicine, the whole world is still helpless against the advance of this particular virus. If the world sits idly by as the Indians let it spread in Occupied Kashmir, slowly but surely it will spread among the occupying forces and then, most likely, within their military as well.

This tragedy provides as good a time as any for the world to finally knock some sense into New Delhi. Already India is preparing for a massive outbreak. The government will be stretched thin, and will most likely end up requiring the services of the military as well. It would be a sad day for ordinary Indians when soldiers that could have protected them were busy oppressing other people elsewhere. But the world will only do something if it even still remembers Kashmir. *