Support on Kashmir

Prime Minister Imran Khan forcefully exposed Indian atrocities in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) at the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly last year. He informed the world about Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s hateful and vengeful ideology towards Muslims and other religious minorities in India. Despite a powerful projection of Kashmir’s cause unfortunately no moral and legal support could be won from the august gathering of the world’s leaders against Indian brutalities and illegal annexation of IOK. Few trusted friends, China, Turkey and Malaysia, however came along. Rest of the world and particularly Arab countries remained indifferent. Why? The answer is: it is not the age of alliances based on ideologies and religions. International relations are dictated by economic interests. India has succeeded in creating an impression that it is a huge growing market with a large consumer base that paved the way for convergence of its economic and strategic interests with America and Western Europe, particularly against the rising economic power of China. It is a high time to rethink and recast the strategy to effectively help millions of unarmed Kashmiris who are struggling for their survival in the midst of terror and repression of Indian Army. Had there been oil wells, gold or diamond mines, then like East Timur and Darfur, the UN would have realized its mandate and held a plebiscite in Kashmir.

The policymakers at home must have studied this tectonic shift in the world politics. They must also have aligned themselves with the reality to achieve a better response this time by improving upon their narrative particularly by adding to it the issue of violations of human rights by India in IOK. Human rights violations are used by the Western countries against the Muslim societies and states. The UN has several standing resolutions on Human Rights. Its Human Rights Charter is binding upon all its member states. This time around a seasoned diplomat represents Pakistan at the UN who has supposedly done his homework.

Pakistan is a declared nuclear power. It has proved good deterrence so far. However, the world remains apprehensive of this capability despite continued assurances over the safety and control over the nuclear arsenal. The command and control system has even been highly praised by many countries, but the fact remains that Pakistan is a Muslim state and therefore streaks of prejudice and undercurrent of distrust greatly undermine any independent assessment and trust. Kashmir is recognized as a flashpoint with a potential of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, but it could not shake the world’s conscience to do something to bring peace in South Asia. Many millions died during the famine of 1943 but the ‘white man’ hardly bothered. Our ‘friends’ in the Middle East and rest of the Muslim world are busy fighting their own wars and looking after their economic interests hence neither we should expect nor raise any hope that any state will support us over our disputes with India for merely having a commonality of faith. We need to create an environment for investment.

Owing to our continuous economic woes and vulnerability since inception Pakistan’s true stature and place amongst nations could not be achieved. Thus, it is high time to redirect our self towards an economic independence that will eventually ensure our safety and peaceful existence as India has never accepted Pakistan as a reality. This perception is based on the literature on the partition of India mostly written by Indian authors and politicians.

Huge credit goes to the military leadership that assured the defence of Pakistan by entering into different military alliances. The 1947-48 Kashmir war fully exposed Pakistan’s limitations of its defence equipment that started with the denial of fair share in the assets of British India by the new Indian Government. Pakistan was forced to look for help all around the world. Pakistan and its civil and military leadership had assessed it and realized from the very beginning that without Kashmir Pakistan and its agriculture-based economy would not survive and therefore it was right in declaring Kashmir its jugular vein. India on the other also knew that strategically it was important to occupy Kashmir to strangulate Pakistan. Events starting from the arrival of Mountbatten to liquidate Indian Empire to the farce annexation of Kashmir on 27 October 1947 made it abundantly clear that India and its leadership were willing to resign from all principles of international law to hurt Pakistan. After illegally occupying and faking an annexation of Kashmir it then rushed to the UN crying foul and since then it has been gaining time to strengthen its illegal occupation and change the world opinion in its favour. Having put Pakistan at a great disadvantage India has been forcing Pakistan to expend tens of billions of dollars on its defence at the cost of welfare of hundreds of millions people living near the poverty line.

Pakistan’s agrarian economy is fast shrinking due to tremendous urbanization and townships built on rich agriculture land. Irresponsible successive governments did nothing to protect it from greedy developers. Existing Agri-economy cannot sustain huge defence budget and debt service. Moreover, the little industry mostly based on agriculture products (textile, fertilizer, sugar) has no capacity to take that burden as its growth is heavily undermined by excessive taxation and unscrupulous entrepreneurship involved in the flight of precious capital due to hitherto ineffective foreign exchange regime. Income tax base is still less than 3 million in a country of over 200 million. In these circumstances, it is high time to shift from a defence paradigm to a development paradigm and achieve self-reliance. Something out of box needs to be thought out and implemented like Turkey and China.

Pakistan has a good case on Kashmir. It can win huge support if it can assure peace, certainty and independent judiciary and corruption-free bureaucracy and clean Government at all levels that will attract investment. There are many untapped sectors. Once other states perceive Pakistan as a growing economy they are bound to take note thereof and come to the rescue of poor Kashmiris. Pakistan needs partnerships and not alliances.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020