The War on Kashmir’s Identity
By Abdul Jabbar Memon
Consul General of Pakistan, Los Angeles

 

Today will be 730 days since the present Indian Government introduced arbitrary laws that robbed the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir of their distinct status.

 

For the uninitiated, Jammu & Kashmir, a legacy of the subcontinent’s partition, is one of the oldest internationally recognized disputes, the resolution of which has been on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for more than 70 years.

 

The UN Security Council has passed a number of resolutions recognizing the disputed status of the region. These resolutions mandate the holding of a free and impartial plebiscite to determine the will of the Kashmiri regarding their own future.

 

Owing to the denial of India of the right of Self-determination of the Kashmiri people, the Jammu & Kashmir dispute remains unresolved ever after the passage of 70 years.

On August 5 2019, the present far-right ultra nationalist Government of India, initiated a series of illegal and unilateral maneuvers, that in essence reversed a number of makeshift steps that had been put in place to preserve the distinct demographic structure of the region in the light of the various UN Resolutions.

 

In more ways than one it constituted an attack on the very identity of Kashmir.

 

India however has been guilty of violating the fundamental human rights of Kashmiris for seven decades. Owing to the denial by India of their right to self-determination, which is recognized by numerous United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions, the innocent people of Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir have had to render immense sacrifices in the face of illegal Indian occupation.

 

During this struggle, 100,000 innocent Kashmiri civilians have been martyred, more than 22,000 women have been widowed, 108,000 children have been orphaned and over 12,000 Kashmiri women have been raped or gangraped by Indian occupation forces.

 

However as mentioned before, what made India’s actions of August 5, 2019 and subsequent steps even more reprehensible was that this was the first time the Indian Government tried to obliterate not only the identity of the Kashmiri people but the very essence of ‘Kashmiriyat’.

 

Through enactment of a series of illegal domicile laws in the region, the Indian Government has tried to change the actual demographic structure of occupied Kashmir. It has actively tried to do this by issuing millions of new domiciles to non-Kashmiris, mostly non Muslims, to change the Muslim majority of the region into a minority.

 

These illegal steps are in clear violation of the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions and international law including the 4th Geneva Convention as well as bilateral Agreements between Pakistan and India which categorically prohibit any type of demographic change in the disputed territory.

 

Over the course of the past two years, thousands of Kashmiris have been arbitrarily detained. Kashmiri youth have been particularly targeted through abductions, incarceration at undisclosed locations, indiscriminate use of pellet guns, and extra-judicial killings in fake ‘encounters.’ This is a manifestation of Indian state-terrorism against innocent Kashmiri civilians.

 

In this premeditated pogrom, since 5 August 2019, almost 400 innocent Kashmiri civilians have been martyred by the Indian Occupation Forces. During 2021 alone, the Indian Occupation Forces have extra-judicially killed more than 80 innocent Kashmiris including young boys and women; arbitrarily arrested and detained over 500 people; and destroyed more than 30 houses belonging to Kashmiri families.

 

Thankfully the world has taken notice. For the first time, India has been exposed before the international community as a serial violator of fundamental human rights and basic freedoms. Its façade of democracy and secularism has been exposed as barefaced totalitarianism with a thin veneer or political correctness. If any Kashmiri supported India before August 5, 2019, now no one does.

 

The international community, especially the media and human rights organizations have been near unanimous in their condemnation of India’s naked aggression and its rank despotism.

 

Multiple United Nations Security Council deliberations on the Jammu & Kashmir dispute have been held since 5 August 2019. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) has published two reports in June 2018 and July 2019 that have been instrumental in internationalizing the Jammu & Kashmir dispute.

 

Owing to this almost universal international condemnation for its actions of August 5, India has felt increasingly isolated both diplomatically and politically. Furthermore, The UN Secretary General in his statement of 8 August 2019 reaffirmed the UN’s position that the Jammu & Kashmir dispute is governed by the Charter of the United Nations and applicable Security Council Resolutions.

 

Encouraging as these successes maybe, they are clearly not enough. Indian occupation forces continue to exert a vice like grip over Indian occupied Jammu & Kashmir. The Kashmiri people continue to live under constant fear of their lives and their honor, treated as aliens in their own land with the constant threat of violence and vengeance around the corner.

 

International humanitarian and intergovernmental organizations have condemned the Indian Government’s oppression of the Kashmiri people and raised voices against it, but in the absence of actions these words are in danger of being construed as little more than ‘lip service’ given the gravity of the situation on ground. India’s perceived economic potential continues to be a more important consideration for international players than moral scruples.

This is why the international community needs to work together to ensure not only justice for the innocent Kashmiri men, women and children but also for an equitable solution to this long-standing dispute.

 

A single nation, no matter how economically relevant cannot be allowed to blatantly flout international law and the global order in pursuit of its own vested interests. This would be tantamount to giving up on the very idea of an international community, a complete disavowal of any semblance of justice and morality, even fundamental human decency.

 

For the sake of our future generations and for the sake of our children, it is our collective responsibility, to never allow this to happen.

The international community has the responsibility to put pressure on India to ensure the implementation of the UNSC resolutions, enabling the people of Indian occupied Jammu & Kashmir to exercise their right to self-determination for a peaceful resolution of the Jammu & Kashmir dispute.

 

Pakistan of course, would continue providing political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people until they achieve their legitimate right to self-determination as recognized by the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.

(The author is the Consul General of Pakistan, Los Angeles, California)