Why jingoism will not save Kashmir

In a recent speech during Kashmir Hour, Imran Khan said, ‘if India does something, we will not remain silent. We will respond, brick with brick’. 

My dear Prime Minister Khan, India has already done ‘something’. India has, in its own words, internalised and consumed Kashmir, and it’s own democratic justice system will not stand in the way. Now India is only consolidating the annexation, dividing IOK into smaller pieces and planning new business encroachments. The war is economic. The Indians say to Pakistan, you can consolidate Gilgit Baltistan; you can have CPEC; we can do the same in Indian Occupied Kashmir. 

This is their bloody parallel.  

Conversely, the only battle Pakistan can fight is through state-led protests, lobbying international media, human rights groups and the United Nations - all unfortunately notorious for their limited influence on India and her statecraft.   

Excuse me if I am insulting your intelligence reiterating an established truth, but ‘superpowers’ exercise influence when they have something to gain, or lose, from a global conflict. Pakistan is calling Kashmir a ‘potential nuclear flashpoint’ to lend credit to its campaign, so that the latter is highlighted. India, on the other hand, is saying it’s ‘internal’. The Indian Army is managing things ‘professionally’. The unrest is ‘isolated’. 

Human rights issues mired in debate and misinformation are easier to stall. And the resolution on Kashmir is stalling. Stalemate.  

India one. Pakistan zero. Kashmir negative. 

The broader problem with the Kashmir conflict is that a large part of its 72 year old narrative is about two belligerent, territory-obsessed armies and their right to Kashmir. Understanding and acknowledging the ‘will of the Kashmiri people’ was always contingent to demilitarisation. In 72 years, the will of the people hasn’t fully surfaced because demilitarization is the major disagreement. Neither India nor Pakistan will make the first move. 

Until Modi ‘played his last card’ - as Imran Khan puts it - the Kashmiri voice for complete autonomy was suffocating under the weight of two hyper nationalist narratives. In this respect, and despite a strict communications blackout, Modi has highlighted the plight of the Kashmiri populace. And it’s a calculated risk, predicated on a fairly safe assumption that neither the muslim world nor the superpowers will shame or choke India for holding 8 million individuals hostage. Not to mention blinding, beating, raping and ruthlessly killing thousands in the history of its occupation.

Even today - in Pakistan - a protest for Kashmir is coupled with ‘Kashmir Banay Ga Pakistan’ (Kashmir will become a part of Pakistan - again). On the other side of the border, BJP Home Minister Amit Shah said to the parliament, ‘Jaan Day Dein Gay Kashmir Ke Liye’ (we will die for Kashmir). Meanwhile, the Kashmiri political leadership - by far the only leadership that really matters - is behind bars, gagged, because their narrative will make Modi look like the bloodthirsty tyrant he is. Also, it will compete with India’s narrative and Pakistan’s narrative.   

Pakistan will argue, ‘but the Kashmiris on our side are happy; we are not killing them’. And I agree. We are peaceful in our occupation of a people who still yearn for autonomy. That does not discount the inherent, unspoken violence, of an occupation. I urge you to visit Azad Jammu Kashmir. If you are from Pakistan, AJK will thank you for your support in the aftermath of the devastating 2005 earthquake. Then they will say, ‘How are things in Pakistan?’ 

Kashmiris have an unmistakably distinct identity and it’s not inextricably linked to Pakistan. 

Meanwhile, in both India and Pakistan, governments lay strong claims to Kashmir and the brainwashing starts with elementary geography so that young people grow up feeling strongly about ‘their territory in trouble’ because a ‘nosy neighbour’ will not stop interfering. And thus, the mainstream Kashmiri narrative is again suppressed under the weight of two nationalist narratives. 

It is important to ask why two nuclear powers are petrified about the complete autonomy of a tiny little state perched between them? But before we delve into that, I want to stress more on the futility of hypernationalism. 

India and Pakistan have converged to speak of peace on more than one occasion. Consumed by a sense of self-importance, the two governments have often attempted to resolve the conflict through bilateral dialogue. The conflict, however, has many stakeholders, and far more shades than the two governments could ever responsibly represent. 

I apologise again if I am insulting your intelligence by stating the obvious, but the first fundamental rule to conflict resolution is to assign a seat to all stakeholders on the negotiation table. Unfortunately, when governments are consumed by their ‘sense of ownership’ over a territory and emboldened through growing hatred for their opponents, the less powerful stakeholders never make it to the negotiation table. 

When tensions escalate, Pakistanis and Indians who don’t categorically hate their neighbours are traitors. Diplomats of peace are on the neighbour’s payroll. The conflict is reduced to the black and white bush-doctrine: ‘you’re either with us or against us’. The world is split in a simplistic two-frame binary, that lacks the nuance to deal with a complex issue, involving multiple stakeholders.

Examples: Pakistanis accusing Malala for not using stronger language condemning India, or not condemning India soon enough; Indians accusing Arundhati Roy for opposing Modi’s human rights violations, betraying India. 

The late Asma Jehangir, a broker of peace between India and Pakistan, and a human rights activist at large, was often labelled as an Indian agent in Pakistan. Perhaps if she was here today she might have tried offsetting the growing hatred in the subcontinent. 

Politicians often forget that human rights are without borders; that these rights do not belong to any single faith or people, but to all people.   

Kashmir has been bleeding and burning for seventy two years. Today - after more than seven painful decades - the human rights emergency in the region is marked by the annexation of a semi-autonomous territory and it’s increasingly difficult to think about one without the other. 

Indeed, ‘it's never too late to do the right thing’. Better now than never. Dissatisfying cliches because they fool us into thinking we actually care about human rights while state actors fixate on zero-sum, geostrategic ambitions, that typically revolve around borders, not the people who live within them. 

Last year, in January 2018, Gautam Bambawale, India’s Ambassador to China said, ‘The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through Indian claimed territory and hence violates our territorial integrity. This is a major problem for us.’ Also - let us not forget that Pakistan’s entire freshwater supply flows through Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir (both Indian claimed territories). For the subcontinent, Kashmir is also the ‘gateway’ to Central Asia and Europe. In short, Kashmir’s geostrategic importance is simply undeniable. 

So what is at the core of the problem? Territories. People. You choose. 

While India unashamedly denies human rights violations in Kashmir, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, Pakistan aids Saudi Arabia in fighting Yemen - both muslim countries. Somehow, Pakistan still plays the muslim card while defending Kashmir and has yet to declare a human rights emergency on Palestine. Perhaps the Foreign Office can explain. An office that has had ambiguous leadership - and at times no leadership at all.      

In January 2018, when India was objecting to CPEC, Nawaz Sharif - a man who carried printed notes on what to say to world leaders - was presumably ‘heading’ the Foreign Ministry of Pakistan. Perhaps he missed the memo from India.  

Later, in August 2018, when Shah Mehmood Qureshi took charge, there were concerns about the Foreign Office decision making process, and he said with great conviction in his inaugural press conference, ‘the foreign policy will be made at the foreign office’ and that ‘a dialogue is the only way to resolve matters with India’. Today, that dialogue, as Mr. Qureshi admits, is unlikely. ‘The Kashmiris are behind bars. How can we have any meaningful dialogue with the Kashmiri political leadership imprisoned? Who will we talk to? And why?’. 

Mr. Qureshi is more generous than his predecessors to keep the Kashmiris at the center of the conversation. But if he encouraged Imran Khan to call BJP fascist and racist in a recent New York Times article, did he not ask his Prime Minister to play his last card? How do two state leaders who are engaged in name calling sit across the table and resolve their differences? 

The international media is already condemning Modi. Pakistan can push a barrage of new stories to support its case. You pitch a story to the press. They fact check it. They publish it. Job done. Imran Khan’s latest expose, however, robs him of any diplomatic bandwidth with Modi. Not that Modi is in any mood to talk either, and his long-standing excuse remains the same: Pakistan is not doing enough to fight terrorism, which feels like we are back at square one.     

Pakistan will return India’s air force pilot but it will not take affirmative action against a terrorist outfit that openly claims responsibility on striking Indian Occupied Kashmir. The sentiment echoed by a former Commander in Chief of the Pakistan Army is, ‘why should we agree to anything if they don’t’. These are Musharraf’s words, from an interview on Samaa TV. 

The two countries - or should I say militaries - cannot reconcile their mountains of mistrust which is why all peace initiatives fall dead in the tracks. This stalemate forms the basis of the army’s raison d'etre and it fuels fascist sentiment on both sides.   

History - and recent events - provide evidence: when two military giants negotiate the needle doesn’t move. Jingoism triumphs at the cost of dialogue. 

Both India and Pakistan must get out of Kashmir. They have failed the Kashmiris and the entire people of the subcontinent. Anyone who dives into the India vs Pakistan debate is doing a disservice to the people of Kashmir. There should only be one demand: Leave Kashmir Alone. Demilitarise. Un-occupy an innocent people who have no interest in your zero-sum-game.  

India and Pakistan must accept mutual defeat and seek help from a third country, someone with a proven track record in conflict resolution, to step-in and moderate the modalities of a mutually assured exit. 

All other efforts to ‘save’ Kashmir are hogwash.