What is the government’s Kashmir policy?

• How is it going to support the Kashmiris?

Those ruling the country cannot afford further miscalculations. Despite reminding the people again and again that US President Donald Trump had a long session of friendly talks with the PM, and the COAS had been received at the Pentagon with a 20-gun salute, President Trump has made it clear that he is not going to mediate between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. He has instead called on both countries to reduce tensions and maintain peace in the region irrespective of the ongoing Indian atrocities in Indian occupied Kashmir. If Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi is to be believed, the guardians of the Ummah have made heavy investments in India and they too are not likely to support Pakistan on the issue. China alone has gone to great lengths in support of Pakistan by promising to uphold justice for it in the international arena. It also supported Pakistan’s decision to approach the United Nations Security Council in the wake of India’s annulment of Kashmir’s special status. The members of the UNSC however heard the latest reports on Kashmir and dispersed without issuing even a statement.

With the world moving towards another recession, big powers do not want war anywhere. They are thus likely to discourage India from attacking AJK. But they are unwilling to go beyond this point. Prime Minister Imran Khan has belatedly discovered that the Indian PM he had been courting all this time is a fascist and racist Hindu supremacist. He is too naïve if he hopes that the world can be convinced to bring India’s nuclear arsenal under international control through the indictment.

As was the case with Hitler’s followers when the Führer launched attacks on neighbouring countries and massacred Jews, millions of fanatical Hindutva supporters welcomed Modi’s illegal and immoral annexation of Kashmir. In years to come, the BJP government will get tens of thousands of non-Muslim outsiders settled in the Valley. Heroic uprisings by Kashmiris, despite their being peaceful, will be drowned in blood. The people in the Valley will look up to Pakistan for support. Unless those ruling the country have a realistic policy to deal with the emerging situation, they will turn into passive bystanders.