Srinagar, November 16 (KMS): In occupied Kashmir, the increasing chill after fresh rains and snowfall has added to the miseries of the people of Kashmir Valley who have already been suffering immensely due to strict military siege since 5th of August.
Due to continued lockdown, people have more difficulties to face in the coming days as they have not been able to stock essential commodities for the harsh winter – a centuries-old practice as Srinagar-Jammu Highway, the only surface link of the territory remains closed for months. The situation in Kashmir Valley and Muslim majority areas of Jammu and Ladakh regions was far from the normal for 104th consecutive day, today. There is no let up in the restrictions imposed under Section 144 in the territory amid massive deployment of Indian troops. The ban on internet, text messaging and prepaid mobile connections remains in force. The residents of Valley continue to show their resentment against New Delhi by observing civil disobedience over its anti-Kashmir moves. As part of this movement, the shopkeepers keep their shops closed in most part of the day while students are not attending the educational institutions. The offices are also witnessing a very thin attendance.
The Srinagar-Jammu Highway remained closed for the 3rd day, today, due to snowfall and landslides at various places. An official of traffic police said that around 2,500 vehicles were stranded on the highway.
Human Rights Watch’s Asia Advocacy Director, John Sifton, expressing serious concern over the prevailing grim situation in occupied Kashmir has said that human rights are under threat in Kashmir and in India. John Sifton said this in a written submission to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, which conducted a hearing on human rights in Kashmir on Thursday. He said, the Members of Congress should communicate to Indian government officials that their actions in Kashmir are adding to the human rights problems. He said, the Congress Members should insist that political leaders and others arbitrarily detained Kashmiris are released, restrictions on communications are lifted, and independent observers, including diplomats, foreign journalists and rights activists are allowed to travel freely to Kashmir
Speakers at a seminar in London expressed deep concern over the continued siege of eight million Kashmiris and worsening humanitarian crisis in occupied Kashmir. The seminar was organized by Pakistani High Commission and the speakers included Pakistan’s High Commissioner to UK, Mohammad Nafees Zakaria, Dr Syed Nazir Gilani, Ben Emmerson QC, Anthea McIntyre, Professor Nazir Ahmed Shawl, Ms Uzma Rasool and Mrs Sahmim Shawl.
On the other hand, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation raided the Bengaluru and New Delhi offices of human rights group Amnesty International India. Reacting to the CBI’s action, the Amnesty International India said that the organization was being targeted for speaking out against human rights violations in the country.
US-Australia-Japan alternative to Belt and Road helps explain why the US sent a junior delegation to Thailand and why India opted out of RCEP
China’s President Xi Jinping waves during the opening ceremony of the China International Import Expo in Shanghai on November 5. Photo: AFP/Hector Retamal
Chinese President Xi Jinping six years ago launched New Silk Roads, now better known as the Belt and Road Initiative, the largest, most ambitious, pan-Eurasian infrastructure project of the 21st century.
Under the Trump administration, Belt and Road has been utterly demonized 24/7: a toxic cocktail of fear and doubt, with Beijing blamed for everything from plunging poor nations into a “debt trap” to evil designs of world domination.
Now finally comes what might be described as the institutional American response to Belt and Road: the Blue Dot Network.
Blue Dot is described, officially, as promoting global, multi-stakeholder “sustainable infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”
It is a joint project of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation, in partnership with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
Now compare it with what just happened this same week at the inauguration of the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.
As Xi stressed: “To date, China has signed 197 documents on Belt and Road cooperation with 137 countries and 30 international organizations.”
This is what Blue Dot is up against – especially across the Global South. Well, not really. Global South diplomats, informally contacted, are not exactly impressed. They might see Blue Dot as an aspiring competitor to BRI, but one that’s moved by private finance – mostly, in theory, American.
They scoff at the prospect that Blue Dot will include some sort of ratings mechanism that will be positioned to vet and downgrade Belt and Road projects. Washington will spin it as a “certification” process setting “international standards” – implying Belt and Road is sub-standard. Whether Global South nations will pay attention to these new ratings is an open question.
The Japanese example
Blue Dot should also be understood in direct comparison with what just happened at the summit-fest in Thailand centered on the meetings of East Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
The advent of Blue Dot explains why the US sent only a junior delegation to Thailand, and also, to a great extent, why India missed the RCEP train as it left the pan-Asian station.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still between a rock – Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy – and a hard place – Eurasia integration. They are mutually incompatible.
Blue Dot is a de facto business extension of Indo-Pacific, which congregates the US, Japan, Australia – and India: the Quad members. It’s a mirror image of the – defunct – Obama administration Trans-Pacific Partnership in relation to the – also defunct – “pivot to Asia.”
It’s unclear whether New Delhi will join Blue Dot. It has rejected Belt and Road, but not, finally and irrevocably, RCEP. ASEAN has tried to put on a brave face and insist differences will be smoothed out and all 16 RCEP members will sign a deal in Vietnam in 2020.
Yet the bottom line remains: Washington will continue to manipulate India by all means deemed necessary to torpedo – at least in the South Asian theater – the potential of Belt and Road as well as larger Eurasia integration.
And still, after all these years of non-stop demonization, the best thing Washington could come up with was to steal Belt and Road’s idea and dress it up in private bank financing.
Now compare it, for instance, with the work of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia. They privilege the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, an original Indonesian idea, instead of the American version. The institute’s president, Hidetoshi Nishimura, describes it as “a guideline for dialogue partners” and stresses that “Japan’s own vision of the Indo-Pacific fits very well with that of ASEAN.”
As much as Nishimura notes how “it is well known that Japan has been the key donor and a real partner in the economic development of Southeast Asia throughout the past five decades,” he also extols RCEP as “the symbol of free trade.” Both China and Japan are firmly behind RCEP. And Beijing is also firmly stressing the direct connection between RCEP and Belt and Road projects.
In the end, Blue Dot may be no more than a PR exercise, too little, too late. It won’t stop Belt and Road expansion. It won’t prevent China-Japan investment partnerships. It won’t stop awareness all across the Global South about the weaponization of the US dollar for geopolitical purposes.
And it won’t bury prevailing skepticism about the development project skills of a hyperpower engaged on a mission to steal other nation’s oil reserves as part of an illegal Syrian occupation.
Srinagar, November 09 (KMS): In occupied Kashmir, people of the Kashmir Valley and Muslim-majority areas of Jammu continue to suffer immensely due to military siege on 97th consecutive day, today.
The occupation authorities intensified restrictions and ordered closure of schools and colleges, today, ahead of the Indian Supreme Court’s verdict on the Ayodhya (Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid) case. The authorities deployed Indian troops and police personnel in strength in every nook and corner of the territory and ordered closure of schools and colleges to prevent demonstrations against the handing over of the Babri Masjid land to Hindus for construction of a temple. The residents are already suffering immensely due to suspension of internet and prepaid mobile services.
On the other hand, Voice of America in a report said that three months after Indian government revoked the special status of occupied Kashmir, cut off internet service and censored media coverage of the situation, isolated reports from the territory indicated that the situation remained tense with a continuing heavy military presence.
The Chairperson of Kashmir Centre for Social and Development Studies (KCSDS), Professor Hameeda Nayeem, told the VOA in Srinagar that shops open only for a few hours early in the morning because of the atmosphere of fear and intimidation, with people mainly staying indoors. “Drones are flying above our homes, the army is deployed at every corner, and they have already arrested thousands of young men to preempt them from potential agitation,” she said.
Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi during the 16th ASEAN-India Summit in Nonthaburi, Thailand, on November 3, 2019. Photo: AFP / Anton Raharjo / Anadolu Agency
Biggest story at ASEAN was convergence of moves toward Asia integration, leaving Delhi out for now
A pan-Asia high-speed train has left the station – and India – behind. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which would have been the largest free trade deal in the world, was not signed in Bangkok. It will probably be signed next year in Vietnam, assuming New Delhi goes beyond what ASEAN, with diplomatic finesse barely concealing frustration, described as “outstanding issues, which remain unresolved.”
The partnership uniting 16 nations – the ASEAN 10 plus China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and, in theory, India – would have congregated 3.56 billion people and 29% of world trade.
Predictably, it was billed as the big story among the slew of high-profile meetings linked to the 35th ASEAN summit in Thailand, as RCEP de facto further integrates Asian economies with China just as the Trump administration is engaged in a full spectrum battle against everything from the Belt and Road Initiative to Made in China 2025.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng was blunt: “It’s the 15 nations that have decided to move forward first.” And he added “there won’t be any problem for the 15 nations to sign RCEP next year,” when Vietnam takes over as the chair of ASEAN.
It’s not hard to figure out where the “problem” lies.
Mahathir ‘disappointed’
Diplomats confirmed that New Delhi came up with a string of last-minute demands in Thailand, forcing many to work deep into the night with no success. Thailand’s Commerce Minister, Jurin Laksanawisit, tried to put on a brave face: “The negotiation last night was conclusive.”
It was not. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad – whose facial expression in the family photo was priceless, as he shook hands with Aung San Suu Kyi on his left and nobody on his right – had already given away the game. “We’re very disappointed,” he said, adding: “One country is making demands we cannot accept.”
ASEAN, that elaborate monument to punctilious protocol and face-saving, insists the few outstanding issues “will be resolved by February 2020,” with the text of all 20 RCEP chapters complete “pending the resolution of one” member.
RCEP dwells across a large territory, covering trade in goods and services, investment, intellectual property and dispute resolution. The Indian “problem” is extremely complex. India in fact already has a free trade agreement with ASEAN.
RCEP, in practice, would extend this agreement to the other big boys, including China, Japan and South Korea.
New Delhi insists it is defending farmers, dairy owners, the services industry, sectors of the automobile industry – especially hybrid and electric cars, and very popular three-wheelers – and mostly small businesses all across the nation, which would be devastated by an augmented tsunami of Chinese merchandise.
Agriculture, textile, steel and mining interests in India are totally against RCEP.
Yet New Delhi never mentions quality Japanese or South Korean products. It’s all about China. New Delhi argues that signing what is widely interpreted as a free trade agreement with China would explode its already significant US$57 billion a year trade deficit.
The barely disguised secret is that India’s economy, as the historical record shows, is inherently protectionist. There’s no way a possible removal of agricultural tariffs protecting farmers would not provoke a social cataclysm.
Modi, who is not exactly a bold statesman with a global vision, is between a heavy rock and a very hard place. President Xi Jinping offered him a “100-year plan” for China-India partnership at their last informal, bilateral summit.
India is a fellow BRICS member, it’s part of the Russia-India-China troika that is actually at the center of BRICS and is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Geopolitically as well as geoeconomically, it hardly makes sense for India to be out of RCEP – which means excluded from East Asia and Southeast Asia integration. The only feasible solution might be an elaborate bilateral India-China deal within RCEP.
Questions remain whether both players would be able to work that out before the Vietnam summit in 2020.
Putting it all together
India was only part of the story of the summit fest in Thailand. At the important East Asia Summit, everyone was actively discussing multiple paths towards multilateralism.
The Trump administration is touting what it calls the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy – which is yet another de facto China containment strategy, congregating the US, India, Japan and Australia. Indo-Pacific is very much on Modi’s mind. The problem is “Indo-Pacific,” as the US conceives of it, and RCEP are incompatible.
ASEAN, instead, came up with its own strategy: ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) – which incorporates all the usual transparency, good governance, sustainable development and rules-based tenets plus details on connectivity and maritime disputes.
All the ASEAN 10 are behind AOIP, which is, in fact, an original Indonesian idea. It’s fascinating to know that Bangkok and Jakarta worked together behind closed doors for no fewer than 18 months to reach a full consensus among the ASEAN 10.
The biggest story in Thailand was, in fact, the convergence of myriad moves towards Asia integration. Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang was lavishly praising the prospects of integrating Belt and Road with something called the Master Plan of ASEAN Activity, which is the connectivity part of AOIP.
South Korea’s Moon Jae-in jumped in extolling the merits of his Southern Policy, which is essentially northeast-southeast Asia integration. And don’t forget Russia.
At the ASEAN business and investment summit, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev put it all together; the blossoming of the Greater Eurasian Partnership, uniting the Eurasia Economic Union, ASEAN and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, not to mention, in his words, “other possible structures,” which is code for Belt and Road.
Belt and Road is powerfully advancing its links to RCEP, Eurasia Economic Union and even South America’s Mercosur – when Brazil finally kicks Jair Bolsonaro out of power.
Medvedev noted that this merging of interests was unanimously supported at the Russia-ASEAN summit in Sochi in 2016. Vietnam and Singapore have already clinched free trade deals with Eurasia Economic Union, and Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia are on their way.
Medvedev also noted that a trade and economic cooperation deal between China and Eurasia Economic Union was signed in late October. Next is India, and a preferential trade agreement between the union and Iran has also been signed.
In Thailand, the Chinese delegation did not directly address the United States’ Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy. But Medvedev did, forcefully: “We are in favor of maintaining the effective system of state-to-state relations which was formed on the basis of ASEAN and has shown a good track record over the years.
“In this regard, we believe the US initiative is a serious challenge for ASEAN countries, since it can weaken the association’s position and strip it of its status as a key player in addressing regional security problems.”
Summits come and go. But what just happened in Thailand will remain as another graphic illustration of myriad, concerted moves leading towards progressive, irreversible Asia – and Eurasia – integration. It’s up to Modi to decide when and if to hop on the train.
October 27 is the darkest day in the history of Jammu and Kashmir and the Kashmiris living on both sides of the Line of Control and across the world observe it as Black Day. This year, the day is being observed in the backdrop of India’s illegal and unconstitutional move of scraping special status of occupied Kashmir and annexing it on August 05, 2019. India put the occupied territory under military siege and imposed curfew, restrictions and communication blackout which was continuing even after several weeks when this write-up was written.
It was on October 27 in 1947, when India had sent its troops to Jammu and Kashmir and illegally occupied it in total violation of the Indian Independence Act and Partition Plan and against the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. According to the Partition Plan, the Indian British Colony was to be divided into two sovereign states – Pakistan and India. The Hindu-majority areas were to constitute India while the Muslim-majority areas of Western provinces and east Bengal were to be included in Pakistan. At the end of British suzerainty over Indian sub-continent in 1947, more than 550 Princely States had become independent but with a choice to accede either to Pakistan or India. However, India illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir by military invasion. Being a Muslim-majority state, with 87% Muslim population, Jammu and Kashmir had a natural tendency to accede to Pakistan. However, the evil designs of the Hindu ruler of Kashmir and the leaders of Indian National Congress and Britain led to the creation of the Kashmir dispute, which continues to haunt the peace and stability of the entire South Asia even after the passage of more than seven decades.
India claims that it signed ‘Instrument of Accession’, which was drafted in Delhi and presented to the then ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, on October 26. However, a prominent British historian, Alistair Lamb, challenging the Indian invasion in Kashmir, in his book “The Birth of Tragedy” wrote that the successive events after the partition of the united India strongly suggested that Indian troops had invaded Kashmir prior to the signing of the Instrument of Accession. He argued that this has been the sole reason that the Indian government never made the so-called document public at any international forum. This was corroborated by noted Kashmiri researchers, Abdul Majid Zargar and Basharat Hussain Qazilbash. They have proved that the “Instrument of Accession” was fake and no such genuine document ever existed. Even Indian Archives Department has now declared that the document is lost and the announcement has put question marks on the very existence of the document.
Kashmir in the United Nations
The Indian occupation faced stiff resistance from the people of Kashmir who launched a mass struggle against it. The Kashmiris’ resilience forced India to knock the doors of the UN Security Council on 1st January 1948, seeking help of the World Body to settle the dispute. Successive resolutions passed by the UNSC and accepted by both India and Pakistan nullified the Indian invasion and called for settlement of the Kashmir dispute by referring to the Kashmiri people to ascertain their aspirations through an impartial plebiscite to be conducted in Jammu and Kashmir under the UN’s supervision. However, Indian rulers later backed away from their commitments and declared Jammu and Kashmir an integral part of India. Modi-led communal government moved a step further and illegally merged the territory into Indian union through the August 05 move.
Kashmiris’ revolt against Indian rule
The failure of all the efforts aimed at resolving the Kashmir dispute through peaceful means since 1947 caused severe resentment and anger among the Kashmiris and they intensified their freedom struggle in 1989 to secure their right to self-determination. This movement pushed the Indian authorities to the wall, forcing them to sit around the negotiation table with Pakistan. However, the fact remains that India had always been averse to the negotiations to settle the dispute and present Indian leaders – like their predecessors – have not responded positively to Pakistan Prime Minister, Imran Khan’s repeated offers for dialogue.
Mass uprisings
In 2008, the Kashmiris’ struggle to get rid of Indian bondage took a new turn. They started taking to the streets in large numbers and expressing their anti-India and pro-liberation sentiments in a peaceful manner. This mass uprising continued for three consecutive years. The extrajudicial murder of a young liberation leader, Burhan Muzaffar Wani, on July 08, 2016 by Indian troops triggered another mass uprising in occupied Kashmir. People in large numbers hit the streets in every nook and corner of the occupied territory on daily basis, demanding their right to self-determination. But most of the time during all these mass protests, Indian forces’ personnel used brute force on protesters, killing hundreds of Kashmiris and injuring thousands others.
Indian state terrorism
New Delhi has exhausted all its resources during the past seven decades to intimidate the people of occupied Kashmir into submission but failed in its nefarious designs. Indian troops in the unabated state terrorism since January 1989 till 30th September 2019 martyred 95,454 innocent Kashmiris. Since the killing of Burhan Wani alone, Indian troops have killed 1,037 Kashmiris, tortured 27,739, arrested 12,010 and molested 933. During this period, at least 10,298 people have suffered pellet injuries and 147 of them have lost their eyesight in both eyes while 215 in one eye. However, all these brutalities have failed to suppress the Kashmiris’ resolve for freedom.
India’s 5th August onslaught
Modi government has put the regional as well as global peace at stake by abrogating Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP government took the extreme step via a presidential order that superseded a 1954 proclamation, which had added Article 35-A to the constitution. The announcement regarding the repeal of the Article 370 was made by the Indian Home Minister, Amit Shah, in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament. He also introduced a bill in the Parliament to bifurcate occupied Kashmir. The bill was passed later under which the territory will be divided into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. After repealing the Article 370, India placed the occupied territory under strict lockdown. Millions of Kashmiris were confined to their homes while thousands were arrested. Continued curfew, restrictions and communication blackout led to humanitarian crisis in occupied Kashmir.
Pakistan’s support to Kashmir cause
History stands testimony to the fact that Pakistani leadership and people have always supported the Kashmiris’ just liberation struggle. Prime Minister, Imran Khan, since assuming his office in August 2018 has time and again warned that the Kashmir dispute and India’s recent actions in occupied Kashmir could lead a nuclear war if the world does not work for the settlement of the lingering dispute. Army Chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, has declared at several occasions that Pakistan army and nation will go to any extent in support of the people of occupied Kashmir and would fulfill its commitment towards Kashmir till last bullet, soldier and breath. The fact remains that despite facing the worst Indian military aggression for supporting the Kashmiris during the past several decades, Pakistan never gave up its support to the Kashmiris and continues to advocate resolution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with their will.
Encouraging developments
The grave situation of occupied Kashmir following India’s August 05 move forced the UN Security Council to convene a special consultative session to discuss the matter. This was for the first time in fifty years that the World Body held an exclusive meeting on Kashmir. The holding of this session rejected India’s claim that Kashmir is its internal matter rather it testified the fact that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally-recognised dispute concerning the right to self-determination of Kashmiris. World leaders and organisations including UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, US President Donald Trump, French President Amanuel Macron, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, European Union, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch expressed concerns over the grave human rights situation following India’s inhuman actions in the occupied territory. UN Chief Antonio Guterres and US President Donald Trump have offered mediation to settle the Kashmir dispute. Even Indian people like opposition leaders, Rahul Gandhi, P Chidambaram, Shashi Tharoor, Priyanka Gandhi, Sitaram Yechuri, D Raja, Sharad Yadav and Manoj Jha, journalists, Barkha Datt and Nirupama Subramanian, as well as Nobel laureate, Dr Amartya Sen, criticised the imposition of continued curfew, restrictions and communication blockade in occupied Kashmir.
Conclusion
These are the reasons of the observance of October 27 as Black Day by the Kashmiris all across the globe. The observance is aimed at reminding the world of its obligations towards resolving the Kashmir dispute for the peace and stability in South Asia and the world at large. At the same time, it is intended to send a loud and clear message to New Delhi that the Kashmiris reject its illegal occupation of their homeland and that they will continue their struggle till they achieve their inalienable right to self-determination promised to them by India and the international community. After India’s action to change the disputed status and demographic composition of occupied Kashmir, the observance of October 27 as Black Day has become more important for the Kashmiris to send a loud and clear message to India and the world community that they would never accept India’s subjugation and would not rest till they achieved their cherished goal of freedom from it.
Srinagar, November 03 (KMS): Life continues to remain paralyzed in the Kashmir valley and Muslim majority areas of Jammu region on the 91st day of lockdown and communications gag, today.
Internet and pre-paid mobile services remain suspended while public transport is off the roads. Since the abrogation of Article 370, the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry has suffered losses to the tune of Rs 15,000 crore. Besides, the lockdown has broken the backbone of IT sector in the Kashmir Valley by rendering as many as 25,000 IT professionals jobless. Around 32 IT companies, which have their units in Srinagar, now bear a deserted look.
Since 31 October, the day when India officially deprived Jammu and Kashmir of its special status, the valley has witnessed several protests. IOK administration has imposed ban on more than 450 people including businessmen, journalists, lawyers and political activists to travel abroad. The list was prepared in the wake of the revocation of special status and downgrading of J&K into two Union Territories on 5th August.
Meanwhile, the Gulf News in an article published in today’s edition said that a lockdown in occupied Kashmir is the order of the day and people have no access to the Internet. The article written by award-winning journalist and author, Swati Chaturvedi, said that the increasingly worried world has started asking the Modi government how locking up citizens is compatible with a democracy. The newspaper points out that the Modi government has no end game for Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir. The article emphasized that the Indian government’s decision to scrap Article 370 has internationlised the Kashmir dispute.
The article while describing the conducted tour of Far Right EU lawmakers to Kashmir as a self-inflicted foreign policy disaster said that the balloon of the EU Members of Parliament’s trip was totally punctured when German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a forthright stand during her trip to India and said that “the Kashmir situation was unsustainable” and added that the “lockdown was not good”.
The Chairman of Kashmir Council Europe Ali Raza Syed, addressing an international Sikh convention in Geneva said, Indian authorities, who committed the massacre of Sikhs 35 years ago, are involved in genocide of the people in the occupied Kashmir.
India unintentionally internationalised the Kashmir issue when it revoked the region’s special status in August.
Demonstrators protest in solidarity with the people of Kashmir outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, US, September 27, 2019 [Shannon Stapleton/Reuters]
On October 22, the US House Subcommittee on Asia held an historic hearing on Human Rights in Asia. While the hearing covered human rights concerns in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Indian state of Assam, the bulk of the discussion was on the ongoing siege in Indian-occupied Kashmir. It was the first time so much attention had been devoted to Kashmir in the US Congress.
Ever since the Indian government revoked the region’s special status on August 5, imposed a communication blockade and precipitated fears of a settler-colonial project, the world’s most militarised zone has been internationalised in an unprecedented way.
The US hearing marks a critical shift in how the Kashmir issue has been discussed in policy circles.
Witnesses were able to highlight the immense amount of state repression in Kashmir, and not just after August 5. Amnesty International’s representative, Francisco Bencosme, spoke of the detentions, the lack of press freedoms and the worrying attacks on religious freedom in India. Members of Congress asked difficult questions about the justification for the communications blockade. As Susan Wild, a representative from Pennsylvania, stated: “To me, if there is no transparency, there is something that is being hidden.” Expert scholars on Kashmir, including Nitasha Kaul and Angana Chatterji, spoke about the rise of Hindu majoritarianism and its relationship to Nazism, as well as the prevalence of enforced disappearances, rape, extrajudicial killings and torture in Kashmir.
While admitting that US diplomats had not been allowed into Kashmir since August 5, officials from the State Department, including assistant secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells and assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Robert Destro, demonstrated an apologetic approach to India’s talking points, emphasising the importance of US relations with India.
Nonetheless, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did for Kashmir overnight what the movement for Kashmiri self-determination had struggled for more than seven decades to do.
Last month, for the first time in 50 years, the United Nations Security Council held a closed-door session on Kashmir. During his visit to the US, Modi was met in Houston and New York with the largest protests ever seen in the US over Kashmir.
Dozens of elected officials in the US have spoken out against the unfolding humanitarian crisis.
Modi’s actions have also reinvigorated an otherwise politically complacent Kashmiri diaspora, who are now fully aware of the existential threat their families face under the Hindu nationalist government. They have been at the forefront of urging the international community to centre Kashmiri perspectives and aspirations, and to move away from seeing the issue solely through the lens of a bilateral dispute between India and Pakistan.
Hundreds of cities around the world have held protests, vigils, marches and teach-ins. People who might have never heard of Kashmir before August 5 are now mobilised and want to take action. Progressive and interfaith coalitions are becoming aware of the links between Kashmir and other anti-fascist, anti-colonial, anti-occupation and anti-war struggles around the world.
Most importantly, however, India’s miscalculation has managed to highlight the right to Kashmiri self-determination, and the realisation that Kashmir is indeed a disputed territory awaiting a political resolution.
For years, India hid behind the rhetoric of the so-called war on terror, treating Kashmir as an “internal” law and security concern. It bragged of its status as the world’s largest democracy, while brutally repressing the pro-freedom sentiments of the Kashmiri people.
Given that the international community rarely spoke out when dozens of Kashmiris would be killed or pelleted, or when reports of torture and human rights violations were released by human rights organisations, the Indian government, perhaps, thought that this time the response to such state aggression would be no different.
Instead, US presidential contenders like Bernie Sanders are calling for the implementation of UN resolutions on Kashmir that “respect the wishes of the Kashmiri people,” and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom has also passed an emergency motion on Kashmir calling for party leader Jeremy Corbyn to seek international observers to “enter” the region and demand the right of self-determination for its people.
Despite its best efforts, the Hindu nationalist government in India has struggled to combat the international condemnation. While they have certainly been on the diplomatic offensive, they have been unable to provide coherent answers for the gagging of over eight million people, besides resorting to the age-old tropes of Pakistani interference and terrorism.
It has become difficult for even the most vociferous allies of India to justify a siege that is implemented in the interest of the region’s people. Amnesty’s Bencosme said as much during the hearing when he stated: “It’s completely unthinkable that you will detain children, political leaders and youth adults, close down all communication, put people under a curfew to bolster tourism in a region.”
Nonetheless, the Indian lobby and its apologists never fail to raise the bogey of Pakistan. While India’s talking points on Kashmir have always been to posit mass civil resistance as “proxies for Pakistan,” they now parrot the same narratives for those mobilising outside of Kashmir. Indian journalist Aarti Tickoo Singh, who defended India’s actions at the hearing, described the Kashmiri diaspora-led grassroots solidarity group Stand with Kashmir as “Pakistan’s ISI team.”
It is this kind of attitude, and the inability or sheer refusal to see the writing on the wall, that has marked India’s position on Kashmir. But the unravelling of this position is giving way to a new movement – one that can no longer be contained.
![Demonstrators protest in solidarity with the people of Kashmir outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, US, September 27, 2019 [Shannon Stapleton/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/10/24/35d2fe6f5cd246b6a0e29f94fe5e63bb_18.jpg "The day the story of Kashmir changed forever")
