India is trying to hoodwink international community through malicious propaganda against Pakistan, aimed at lending legitimacy to Narendra Modi’s unilateral approach of dealing with the Kashmir dispute.
At a time, when India has received extremely hostile press in the global media due to its litany of human rights violations in different parts against minorities and the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), it was trying to malign Pakistan as an aggressor party. Every passing day in IIOJK tells tales of tyranny, subjugation and heart rending tortures and international organizations are witness to it. But, India was shamefully trying to portray these subjugated masses as its own people through cosmetic overtures like inauguration of a museum.
The Indian authorities are mistaken to think that such initiatives would erase the imprints of sufferings from the minds of Kashmiri people. India cannot distort history through frivolous tactics as Kashmiri have not forgotten the hundreds and thousands killing occurred in IIOJK since 1947. This fresh move is yet another creation of ‘Hindutva’ mindset that always tried to influence global opinion on human rights violations in IIOJK.
A two-day event was organized last week in Srinagar to ‘document, reconstruct and bring alive the historic narrative of Pakistani ‘aggression’ in IIOJK in 1947 is meant for falsely portraying Pakistan as an aggressor.
But history reveals otherwise, back in 1947, the ruling Dogra establishment connived in overseeing the massacre of Muslims in Jammu as part of the elimination of the indigenous population and settling of a predominantly Hindu population. The death figures range from over 300,000 killed and two million displaced. The freedom fighters struggled for their just right due to Dogra rule’s human rights violation against fellow Muslims and to liberate the land as per the will of the people. Maharaja of Kashmir ignored geographical contiguity and religious demographics. The Instrument of accession was illegal and done against the political aspirations of the Kashmiri people in IIOJK.
Over the decades, successive Indian government pursued the agenda of subjugating Kashmiris and denying them their just right to self-determination.
The most lethal blow to the identity of Kashmiri people as well as their right to self-determination was the amendment in Indian constitution wherein the Modi’s fascist regime changed the articles 370 and 35A that guaranteed a special status for Kashmiris.
The current changes in domicile laws were an attempt to complete the agenda of demographic changes started back in 1947.
In the post de-operationalisation of Article 370, where Urdu used to be the official language, has now raised serious concerns that it might not remain so.
This belief was strengthened when the Indian functionaries said, “All special provisions have been thrown into the dustbin of history where they always belonged.”
Radio Kashmir was changed to All India Radio and the Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre dropped the reference to Sheikh Abdullah from the name. Kashmir’s water supply department was officially renamed Jal Shakti Department. It was also announced that history textbooks (which would otherwise take years to update particular events) would be updated to incorporate chapters on the reorganisation of the former state into union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
This renaming of places and departments and further promotion of state-sponsored narratives in the long run has the potential to legitimize the claims of the Indian state of its historical “ownership” over Kashmir. The erasure of Kashmiri narratives and promoting statist discourse is also a part of this exercise. A 2017 report of India’s interior ministry had also noted that the control of mosques, seminaries, and the media was necessary for “perception management.”
But, India forgets that Kashmir is a disputed territory and it is India who was an aggressor and not Pakistan. India is continuously making the mockery of UN Security Council resolutions and since India holds no moral legitimacy in IIOJK, it relies on unilateralism and unbridled brute force to suppress Kashmiri voices.
Therefore, it is prime responsibility of international community to keep vigil on Indian illegal actions in IIOJK and stop it from inhuman acts against innocent Kashmiris.
Kashmir issue is flashpoint of South Asia that may lead to heightened confrontation between two nuclear powers endangering regional peace and lives of over two billion population in the region.
