by Shamsa Nawaz 26 September 2019
Reverent towards the regional integration, gracious of international order, Kashmiri freedom fighters in the Indian Occupied Kashmir are unjustifiably complicit in the torture and mass detention. On the other hand, “Howdy Modi” is devotedly welcomed by the veneered US President Donald Trump as his cherished “modern day fascist”. Modi was assured of not to be complimented as a “favorite dictator” by Trump like he did to General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, of Egypt. Perhaps, trading goods and services of $142.1 billion (2018) with India is more worthwhile than the lives of 1.47 crore (2019) humans besieged by savagery and truculence, depravity and inhumanity in a curfew ridden region of IOK for the last almost two months. Brutally pelted by pellet guns, the Kashmiris are persistently intimidated by over 8, 00,000 Indian soldiers and the black laws for the last several years. Who would win at the UN this year —the ambassador of peace, an envoy of humanity, the representative of regional connectivity, the legate of international order from Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan or the tyrant of a mercantile world, an emblem of ferocious philosophy of Hindutva and a lifelong soldier of an extremist group, Rashtriya Swayemsawak Sangh (RSS), Prime Minister Narendra Modi? The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had never faced a riddle of choosing between its objective and compulsion ever since its inception in 1948. The non-consummation of its Security Council Resolutions is already embarrassing keeping its members tight lipped except for China. Its basis of maintaining international peace and security by encouraging bilateralism or through arbitration is collapsing. To develop friendly relations among nations on the basis of equality and the principle of self-determination by cheering worldwide cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural and humanitarian values are severely jolted by one of the strongest economies of the world. India has undoubtedly pushed the world into a blind alley.
Though, IOK is a state where Indian governments have successively stationed one soldier for every 12 people approximately, however, unchecked, unpunished and legitimised in an environment of polarised society by decades of conflict, the question of self-determination could not have been more difficult for the world community to define as it is today. The revocation of Article 370 by India, which gives a special status to Kashmiris to decide for their own fate has no legal or constitutional justification. This change of the status of Kashmir is in violation of the commitment made by its own member, India, in the United Nations on the Kashmir issue for sure.
UN Resolutions on Kashmir
| 01 Resolution of the Security Council of April 21, 1948 |
| 02 Resolution of the Commission of August 13, 1948 |
| 03 Resolution of the Commission of January 5, 1949 |
| 04 Resolution of the Security Council of March 14, 1950 |
| 05 Resolution of the Security Council of March 30, 1951 |
| 06 Resolution adopted by the Security Council on 24th January 1957, concerning the India- Pakistan question |
| 07 Resolution adopted by the Security Council at its meeting on 20th September 1965. |
Source: “UN Resolutions,” Kashmir Valley, kashmirvalley.info
Similarly, its brazen and systematic crimes against humanity infringe Article 12 of the flagship human rights treaty of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) also. India has ratified it itself. Bharatiya Janata Party’s decision to settle 200,000 to 300,000 Hindus in the IOK in the three disclosed and two undisclosed composite Hindu townships for the non-Kashmiris is already in contrast to the Article 370 of the Indian constitution. Similarly, acceded by India itself, a socio-economic customary international law and the International Covenant on Social and Cultural Rights (ICSECSER) have been ruthlessly jeopardized by India. Both are international laws since 1976.
Going back into the history, The Instrument of Accession (IoA) signed on October 26, 1947 by the then ruler Raja Hari Singh, it is clearly mentioned in Clause 5 that accession terms cannot be varied by any amendment of the Act or of Indian Independence Act unless such amendment is accepted by him by a supplementary instrument.
Moreover, Article 35A of the Indian Constitution, which stemmed out of Article 370, gave powers to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly to define permanent residents of the state, their special rights and privileges.
Nevertheless, Indian government has done everything to subvert, restrain, misrepresent, discredit, interpret, intimidate, humiliate, disgrace, purchase or simply execute the people of Kashmir and their rightful desire for self-determination. Kashmiri peoples’ sullen silence under curfew cannot be considered acquiescence. One may agree with Arundhati Roy in her belief that when governments are openly supportive of pogrom against members of a minority community, they are fascists and clearly fall in the premise of state terrorism. It chillingly transforms the democracy into Demon-cracy.
The world must realize that justice delayed is justice denied. It creates even bigger problems like it has done today by bringing the two nuclear states at Cuban Crisis like situation. Realpolitik ‘pick and choose’ approach is utterly inappropriate. When terrible things are happening you cannot simply look away – and that’s what the United Nation’s Security Council has been sadly doing particularly in case of Kashmir. The deep reluctance of Western powers to criticise India for strategic, geopolitical and economic reasons have dangerously deepened the crisis further afield. It is about Kashmir, and the first right goes to Kashmiris and not to India or Pakistan.