- Hindutva rules supreme
Pakistan achieved a major milestone in diplomacy by inaugurating the Kartarpur Corridor safely on November 9. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the corridor from the Indian side while Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan opened the transit on the Pakistan side. India and Pakistan had on October 24 signed an agreement on the modalities for operationalizing the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, paving the way for its inauguration ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of the Sikh faith founder Guru Nanak Dev.
The move was welcomed by the hundreds of thousands of Sikhs all over the world and even the USA, EU and China appreciated the peace move by Pakistan. Among the prominent Indian Sikhs who graced the occasion were former Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Indian Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, cricketer –turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu and actor-turned-politician Sunny Deol. The visiting jatha of Sikhs, who attended the inauguration ceremony of the Kartarpur Corridor in Pakistan, expressed happiness after visiting the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur and hoped it would help in bringing peace between India and Pakistan.
Indian Muslims need to decide if they want to repeat 1947 for their survival as a community. As long as organizations like Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, the counterpart of JUI (F), continue to support Hindutva, parroting the Indian line of Kashmir being an integral part of India, the Muslims there will continue to be brutalized by the Modi regime with impunity
The Kartarpur Sahib Corridor links Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan, the final resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev, to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Indian Punjab’s Gurdaspur district. Indian media and the BJP were incensed by Pakistan’s bold move and tried their best to create doubts about the peace corridor. The “Free Press Journal” published a fake news claiming, ‘Security increased at Kartarpur Corridor after ‘terror camps’ were spotted near Gurudwara Darbar Sahib’. The false narrative stated that Pakistan’s ISI wants to create trouble in both Punjab and Kashmir and in this regard, it is not only trying to infiltrate its terrorists but also boost the Khalistan movement in Punjab. India is finding it difficult to respond to Pakistan’s master stroke in the shape of Kartarpur corridor. Other than achieving high moral ground, Pakistan has created sympathy in Sikh community as well as it serves as reasonable foreign exchange project. India is hell bent to make the project controversial and raise unnecessary security concerns to restrict Sikh community from visiting their holiest shrine.
On the very day that the Kartarpur Corridor was being inaugurated, India’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of a Hindu temple on a disputed religious ground in Ayodhya and ordered that alternative land be given to Muslims to build a mosque– a verdict in a highly contentious case that was immediately deplored by a key Muslim body.
The dispute over land ownership has been one of India’s most heated issues, with Hindu nationalists demanding a temple on the site in the town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state for more than a century. The 16th century Babri Masjid mosque was destroyed by Hindu hard-liners in December 1992, sparking massive Hindu-Muslim violence that left some 2000 people dead. Top leaders of RSS were entrenched in New Delhi weeks before the verdict to ensure that the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Hindutva. In a travesty of justice, the Indian Supreme Court delivered a verdict in favour of the Hindus, which proves that Hindutva rules supreme, while justice can flee to brutish beasts.
On October 31, the day Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s Freedom March was to reach Islamabad, taking advantage of Pakistan’s and the world’s attention being focused on the protest rally, Indian PM Narendra Modi took his heinous step of the annexation of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) and Ladakh a step further. Both were amalgamated into Union Territories and fresh maps were issued, which showed Gilgit-Baltistan as part of Ladakh and Azad Jammu Kashmir also as part of India. To provide a cover to its odious acts, the Indian media continued to churn out dishonest news items. Francesca Marino wrote in The Quint, ‘Pakistan State Support to Jihad Continues, Jaish Recruitment is On’. The news item stated that Prime Minister Imran Khan simply had no idea as to what was happening in his country. The news is an attempt to establish linkage with Pakistan by re-playing the terrorist card against her. The recent visit to AJK by 22 diplomats have already observed non-presence of any terror camps or related activity in the areas targeted by India and propagated as being struck by them. While the Indian High Commission in Islamabad was also invited to accompany the delegation, the proposal was never answered. PM Imran Khan has reiterated his policy in the UN that Pakistan condemns any terrorist activities as these have harmed Pakistan the most. Indian attempts to falsely accuse and implicate Pakistan are a cover to justify her brutal aggression in IOK. The world media has already noticed the faulty narrative, and recent criticism by the German Chancellor of Modi’s policies supplements Pakistan’s stance. Moreover, the much-propagated guided tour of EU members to IOK has failed miserably as EU announced it as a visit by people with a far-right mindset in their private capacity.
Ferny Manecksha’s exposé in The Wire of November 4, titled ‘In Kashmir, the Justice System Is in Limbo’ discloses that even two months after the decision to dilute Article 370, Kashmiris are finding it hard to access courts. Child rights activists– alarmed by mass arrests, many of underage persons– filed a petition in the Supreme Court expressing concern over the rights of Kashmiris to access the justice system— but to no avail. Indian minorities have already noticed that the Modi government is moving on the agenda of Hindutva, which allows no space for non-Hindus. Declaration of independence by Manipur Sate and breakdown of talks between Indian government and Nagaland reflect the practical manifestation of the concept of a Hindu state. Indian actions in IOK are likely to create a domino effect, and a blowback which the Indian state shall not be able to handle. The Indian judiciary also feels helpless in front of a radicalized Modi establishment. Indian Muslims need to decide if they want to repeat 1947 for their survival as a community. As long as organizations like Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, the counterpart of JUI (F), continue to support Hindutva, parroting the Indian line of Kashmir being an integral part of India, the Muslims there will continue to be brutalized by the Modi regime with impunity.
