Shaikh Muhammad Bilal
Kashmir remains a long pending unresolved issue on UN agenda since 1948. Decades of atrocities by Indian occupation forces have failed to suppress ever strengthening legitimate freedom struggle. Determined Kashmiris shall succeed. Internal dynamics Indian society continue to exacerbate towards religious extremism with a carefully crafted infrastructure of spin doctored news media of fear, hysteria and dark uncertainty about future survival. Despite the World Bank’s revelations of 23.6% or about 276 million people living below $1.25 per day, India remains the top military spender. With the world remaining silent on the issue and economic considerations taking precedence over human lives, Indians have become emboldened that their grave Human Rights violations will remain immune to accountability.
While Indians grind in poverty their establishment has set up a gigantic Military-Industrial-Informational Complex based on the correlation that Indian army and paramilitary forces may keep on committing crimes while the informational aspect will reported these as counter terrorism operations against violent non-state actors and terrorist groups.
The abuses range from massacres, disappearances, torture, rape, political repression, suppression of free speech, etc. Thousands of Kashmiris have also been killed in custody, extrajudicial execution and enforced disappearances, and these violations of human rights are said to be carried out by Indian security forces under complete impunity. Civilians, including women and children killed in “repression” attacks by Indian security forces. An international NGO, as well as the US State Department registered human rights violations including disappearances, torture and arbitrary execution, carried out during the counter-terrorist activities of India.
United Nations has expressed serious concern about the large number of killings by Indian security forces. In June 2018, in a first ever report on the Human Rights Situation in Kashmir, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner stressed an urgent need to address past and ongoing human rights violations and abuses and deliver justice for all people in Kashmir, who for seven decades have suffered a conflict that has claimed or ruined numerous lives.
The High Commissioner said this is not a conflict frozen in time. It is a conflict that has robbed millions of their basic human rights, and continues to this day to inflict untold suffering. It is also why High Commissioner will be urging the UN Human Rights Council to consider establishing a commission of inquiry to conduct a comprehensive independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir.
It is essential the Indian authorities take immediate and effective steps to avoid a repetition of the numerous examples of excessive use of force by security forces in Kashmir.
The report also notes that the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act 1990 (AFSPA) and the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act 1978 (PSA) have created structures that obstruct the normal course of law, impede accountability and jeopardize the right to remedy for victims of human rights violations.
There is also almost total impunity for enforced or involuntary disappearances, with little movement towards credibly investigating complaints, including into alleged sites of mass graves in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region.
Chronic impunity for sexual violence also remains a key concern in Kashmir. An emblematic case is the Kunan-Poshpora mass rape 27 years ago when, according to survivors, soldiers gang-raped 23 women. Attempts to seek justice have been denied and blocked over the years at different levels.
In India today there are at least 135 active separatist movements, this justifies that Human Rights is not just a problem in Jammu-Kashmir but also elsewhere within India. In political philosophy, the right of revolution (or right of rebellion) is the right or duty of the people of a nation to overthrow a government that acts against their common interests or threatens the safety of the people without cause.
Stated throughout history in one form or another, the belief in this right has been used to justify various revolutions, including the American Revolution, French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Iranian Revolution. Self proclaimed biggest democracy has failed to give basic rights to its own citizens who have taken up arms while it war mongers with Pakistan to give these rightful movements the coloring of an external hand. Learning from international best practices Indians it appears have a specialized complex informationization center established likely in New Delhi to hide the right of revolution of Indian citizens, this is the main aim of this center.
Apart from this the current Pulwama attacks and then Indian surgical strike propaganda on Balakot, Pakistan were meant also meant to fulfill this very aim while certain political pundits have analyzed it as Modi’s attempt to sway the election vote. True to that Modi definitely wants to swing the election but the staging Pulwama and Balakot as response has deeper roots:
a. To transform legitimate and popular Human Rights and Secessionist movements in India as International Terrorism and built public opinion on this leading to international resolutions as legal cover.
b. To create further ingress and further space for intangible and tangible Indian informational infrastructure inside the Pakistani public sphere so that Pakistani public opinion can be influenced and made to merge with Indian interests. Already a certain segment of Pakistani urban and rural population is immersed with Indian world view and likely in future might unwittingly be supportive of Indian interests inside Pakistan.
Despite speculations that Pulwama was staged for Modi’s political gaining, this cannot be denied. However, another more viable aspect is that Pulwama was staged as a minor operation for de-legitimization of Kashmiri freedom struggle, influence politico-legal processes in Pakistan and for further ingress of Indian Informational Infrastructure inside Pakistan. Rather than maintain cordial and peaceful relations based on respect and equality India attempts regional domination which causes distrust not only in Pakistan but in the entire neighborhood, generating a sense of threat to regional security and prosperity.
This leads to the intensification of attempts by the regional countries to strengthen their position in global arena who rightly believe that peace will come only through holistic efforts of the international community and specifically the great powers, to play their due role in resolving unresolved conflicts in the region.
However, the current ruling circles of India consider the problem of ensuring their security as similar to that of the entire South Asian region, hence the constant desire to dominate and consolidate India’s position in South Asia. Thus, India strongly opposes the role of external forces, especially of the great power as partners in solution of regional problems. In India, they believe that attempts to find solutions to controversial issues arising in bilateral relations and putting them on the agenda of international forums and attracting external forces, only impede peaceful political settlement and strengthening of regional security. India’s neighbors, by contrast, do not usually see a security threat from outside.
This leaves India’s regional position in peacemaking vague and non productive. Great powers and the international community should push for this change inside India for the betterment of the entire South Asian region.
