- The world must act
By Usman Masood
As the Kashmiri people go through disappearances, torture, and deaths, in a suffocating lockdown, how our suave world– eager to rise for all kinds of fancy causes– has chosen to react is embarrassing. We hear a piercingly loud and excruciating silence.
The little reaction we have had seems to be rather felicitous towards Indian PM Narendra Modi. Whether it’s US President Donald Trump reneging on his oft-repeated offer for mediation on Kashmir only to get cosy with Modi at the G7 summit, and wallowing in their newly-found camaraderie at Houston; the (aspiring?) leader of the Arab (and possibly African) world, Mohammed bin Zayed, bestowing the hate-spewer with the highest honour of his nation for his supposed services to the blessed land; or Russian President Vladimir Putin, standing out as always to make a statement of his dandy-rogue brand by signing an arms deal at the peak of Kashmir crisis, the shameless display of the hypocrisy of our world could not have been any more obscene; only so, if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had not decided to award Mr Modi for his “Clean India Mission”.
Here is the largest foundation in the world ready to honour a Hindutva ideologue in the midst of lockdown, information blackout, abuse, and utter humiliation of the Kashmiri people, which he happens to be overseeing– and relishing in (ref: Houston). The timing of the award, coming from the hugely influential Gates Foundation, otherwise a champion of rights of the underprivileged, is chilling to the bone.
The United Nations General Assembly session is a chance for the world to strike while the iron’s hot. Will Trump succeed in using his leverage over Modi to rise as a world-class leader, or keep embarrassing himself with disingenuous offers of mediation– punctuated, of course, by praise for his negotiation skills– that only make him look all the more vacuous
Never mind it has been over 50 days since the over 7 million people of the Jammu and the Kashmir valley remain in a lockdown with restrictions on movement and virtually no communication with the outside world. Over 2000 young men and children have been detained since the abrogation of Article 370 on 5 August, only to add to the tally of tens of thousands of disappearances before. Some who go never come back, and this is what is driving the anxiety of many Kashmiri mothers, whose children have been picked up.
These ‘detentions’, under the Public Safety Act– which, ironically, was recently used to arrest the lifelong pro-India leader Farooq Abdullah– are largely arbitrary. Humiliation, torture and custodial deaths are a norm, as documented by Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International calls it a “lawless law”, and has many hair-raising first-hand accounts in multiple sequel reports.
How young men are being tortured in the current crisis has been documented by the BBC, The Independent, Al-Jazeera, the TRT world, various research reports, and credible activists like Shehla Rashid. But the brutalities of the Indian occupation forces have a long history with several reports produced by independent organisations– including some based in India– which are available online in plenty. Out of 432 people who were interviewed for the report, “Torture: Indian State’s instrument of control in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir“, published in 2019, the legs of 56 were stretched at 180 degrees, 101 had their heads dunked in (chilli) water, and 231 were electrocuted, sometimes in their private parts.
But even in the open, young people have faced horrifying violence with the world’s reaction limited to the usual automated condemnations. In addition to the killing of 90 people, in reaction to the protests in 2016, the Indian forces injured 17,000 people, and blinded about 100 people with ‘pellet’ guns in their most vicious use under Mr Modi’s leadership.
The non-lethal, benign-sounding pellets are metallic birdshots which pierce through the eyes and tear apart the retina, as they did in the case of 20-month old Hiba Jan, and 14-year-old Insha. According to a report by the think tank, IndiaSpend, metal pellets, “killed 18, blinded 139, injured 2,942 and caused eye injuries to 1,459 between July 2016 and February 2019.” In other parts of the world, these pellet guns are used to kill animals.
Because of the information blackout, no one knows how many people have actually been blinded, or have lost their lives in the current crisis. But pellet-ridden dead bodies are otherwise the new normal in such anti-protest measures of Mr Modi’s India. We do know of the 16-year old Asrar who lost his life, with pellets all over his body, about a month ago. There will be many more cases, as the doctors have shared how they are operating on tens of cases every day. But the information blockade has already made it a war zone for journalists, and little, if any information, can pass.
Jammu and Kashmir is a human rights disaster. Worryingly, however, this may only be the start of a new era of Kashmiris’ struggle and resistance in the face of brutal oppression. The Kashmiri people have forcefully repudiated India’s decision stripping away Kashmir’s autonomy, and any pro-India voices have now completely been disenchanted as well. The instability emanating from such occupations elsewhere in the world, as in the case of Israel, tells how these initially localised conflicts can eventually take the whole world into their fold.
Leaders like Donald Trump can build a legacy if they could press India to immediately stop the human rights abuses in the region, initiate open dialogue with the Kashmiri leadership, and agree on a timeline to conduct a free and fair plebiscite in the Kashmir region. The camaraderie with Mr Modi could actually have waited; perhaps for a time when he came cleaner.
The United Nations General Assembly session is a chance for the world to strike while the iron’s hot. Will Trump succeed in using his leverage over Modi to rise as a world-class leader, or keep embarrassing himself with disingenuous offers of mediation– punctuated, of course, by praise for his negotiation skills– that only make him look all the more vacuous.
The writer is a freelance columnist.
