Is Kashmir a really humanitarian issue or is it merely a territorial dispute between two countries? This question was repeatedly asked by some foreign journalists and diplomats when I happened to visit the United Nations office four years ago, followed by another visit to USA three years ago.
It was indeed very disgusting. It was not the ignorance of this lot that disappointed me. It was rather the lack of momentum that we the biggest supporters of oppressed Kashmiri Muslims , could not build up to muster support for a cause.
Or perhaps we could not go a few steps beyond the old rhetoric because of which a large part of the world remained desensitized towards the Kashmir issue, let alone accept it as a cause.
It is now after a long time that we are seeing some departure from the hackneyed Kashmir narrative although it is just the beginning of a long journey ahead. Let us hope it really picks up the momentum. Yes, momentum is the catchword just uttered the other day by Prime Minister Imran Khan who says, ” Ahead of August 5, the anniversary of the unilateral, arbitrary Indian action to annex Indian Occupied Kashmir through an unconstitutional legislation, Pakistan would create a momentum across the world to highlight India’s brazen illegalities committed on August 5″. This is what was always needed that is creating a momentum across the world. Whether the PM Imran Khan and his governmental and diplomatic teams have the insight and the capacity to create such a momentum at the international level, the selection of the word ‘momentum’ gives the impression that the sitting government has learned the moral of our old stories on Kashmir that the world had refused to buy anymore especially because they were projected in a lackadaisical and callous manner. The very use of the term momentum means that the realization has come, at last, in our political ranks that it requires a big, sustainable endeavour to be undertaken with vigour and conviction. It is also an acknowledgement of the fact that a lot of distance has still to be traversed on this path without getting unnerved or undeterred.
The time has now come to realize the folly of continuing with the old rhetoric and bizarre, traditional diplomacy which has yielded no results other than mass apathy, all around, towards the unending sufferings of Kashmiri Muslims who are not even being treated as ordinary humans having the basic right to survive, let alone the right of self- determination
As a matter of fact, the old narrative and its repeated bombardment tended to create weariness and majestic indifference of a global scale despite the dismal situation prevailing in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ & K). If one carries out fair introspection, it can be aptly said there is no room left for trying the hackneyed options.
The time has now come to realize the folly of continuing with the old rhetoric and bizarre, traditional diplomacy which has yielded no results other than mass apathy, all around, towards the unending sufferings of Kashmiri Muslims who are not even being treated as ordinary humans having the basic right to survive, let alone the right of self- determination.
Now, there is yet greater need for launching diplomatic offensives in rapid succession. According to Information Minister, Shibli Faraz, the government has started working in this direction and “It is diplomatic offensive of the government that has exposed Indian crimes in Occupied Kashmir”.
Despite all these attempts at giving a new direction to the Kashmir cause and creating momentum, it will indeed be in the fitness of things if legal options are studied as well, as also publicly suggested by international law expert, Ahmar Bilal Soofi. Some other people in the realm of law say this area has been constantly ignored although efforts at finding newer options of international law can lead towards a big breakthrough in one of the world’s most stalemated and embroiling disputes that has endangered the lives of more than a billion-and-a-half human beings inhabiting the region called Indo-Pak subcontinent.
The writer is a senior journalist and TV analyst