India’s Modi-led, Hindutva government is facing many domestic and foreign policy failures. Modi diverted Indians’ attention from his previous government’s economic failures and won the 2019 elections using the Hindutva card and by inciting anti-Pakistan sentiments in India’s Hindu majority population. He blamed Pakistan for supporting the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle and showcasing fake surgical strikes in Pakistan. Now, the Modi government is blaming Pakistan for covering up its failure in suppressing the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle, despite the genocide being done there, and to cover up its economic slowdown and the rising unemployment.
As published in “India Today,” it has been alleged that Pakistani forces have started recruiting Pashto and Afghan origin terrorists to enter the border state. The Indian allegation is not tenable with its claims of having a friendly government in Kabul, huge support within Afghan NDS and ANA and fenced LOC in the IOK. Hence, this Indian allegation is just a propaganda ploy against Pakistan, to cover its failures in the IOK.
India has failed in getting concrete support from the world over its actions in IOK. It has also badly failed to suppress the Kashmiris’ indigenous freedom struggle in IOK, despite taking away Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy; dividing the state into two union territories; locking down the Kashmir valley for the last 109 days and committing genocide there. As a consequence, the Kashmiris are now totally alienated from India. After the lifting of the curfew, their freedom struggle will likely turn into the civil disobedience movement.
Since India’s attempt to create another false flag operation has been successfully neutralised by Pakistan, it has restarted playing a terrorist card
Therefore, India has started blaming Pakistan for training the so-called Afghan terrorists and sending them to IOK. This allegation is meant to show the Indian people that the Kashmiris’ struggle has become further intense due to Pakistan’s support. In this regard, since India’s attempt to create another false flag operation has been successfully neutralized by Pakistan, it has restarted playing a terrorist card against it. By blaming Pakistan, India is also raising unfounded fears to tell the US not to restart a peace dialogue with the Afghan Taliban.
Likewise, India has also started violating the ceasefire agreement by firing across the LOC and blaming Pakistan for that. Factually speaking, India herself initiates the firing while Pakistan only responds. Currently, the main issue being criticised by the secularism supporting the people of India is the likely repercussions of India’s actions in the IOK. For example, according to the NDTV, former PM Manmohan Singh has recently criticised the BJP by saying, “The change in the state of Jammu and Kashmir should have been brought with the goodwill of its people.” Mr Singh has also criticised Modi’s failing economic policies.
Criticism by the sane voices in India as well as those around the world of the situation in the IOK is being aired in today’s Hindutva-dominated environment in India, where the BJP has demanded that the Bharat Ratna award should be conferred on a Hindutva ideologue, VD Savarkar, who justified rape as a weapon of war in the IOK. India has also been declared as the most unsafe country for the women by the international community. The social media has repeatedly labelled her as “Rapeistan.” So, the situation in the IOK is a bad signal for India’s minorities as well as those states that have a special status.
The domestic criticism in India is silenced by the state machinery. India’s secular credentials are diminishing fast as a radical India emerges. Modi’s Hindutva-guided government shall annihilate the minorities in India, as they will not get support from anywhere, as the Congress has also given in to the BJP’s pressure; supporting the abrogation of Article 370. Therefore, the only solution for the Indian minorities is to resist Hindutva’s survival. The Two-Nation Theory needs to be replicated again this time by Sikhs and Christians too.
Given the above discussion, the people of India should understand that instead of getting negatively motivated by Modi’s anti-Pakistan slogans, they should understand that Modi does that to divert their attention from his government’s domestic failures, especially in the IOK and economic field. The people of India should also realise that India’s weakening economy under Modi will bring more poverty as already almost 70 per cent of India’s population is living below the poverty line.
Therefore, the people of India should pressurise the Modi government to give up its Pakistan-enmity and sit with Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute through dialogue, so that both countries can focus on their economic development and addressal of their poverty through economic cooperation and trade promotion. This is important as both the countries are nuclear powers and their persisting enmity over the Kashmir dispute carries the danger of the outbreak of another war, which will cause irreparable damage to their economies and people.
The writer is a former research fellow of Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI)