N. P. Upadhyaya, Kathmandu: After the US heavy weight Bernie Sanders made some remarks that deplored the Indian aggression on Kashmir, a few more but key US Senators and Congressmen have freshly joined the chorus of Bernie Sanders and urged President Donald Trump to play a constructive role in helping resolve Kashmir and other underlying disputes between Pakistan and India.
In fact these US senators who have a say in the US national politics prefer President Donald Trump to intervene instantly and act as a reliable mediator on the Indian annexation of Kashmir as per his own announcement made July 22/2019 while meeting the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House and that too in the presence of international media.
Media agencies have said that through a letter these US political luminaries have appealed their President September 12, to use his good offices and get released the people detained in Kashmir after Aug 5-the day India annexed the occupied valley.
Those who have jointly sent the letter to the US President are learnt to be Senators Chris Van Hollen, Todd Young, Ben Cardin and Lindsay Graham who have also expressed concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in Kashmir and urged him to use his influence on Pakistan and India to come to terms and resolve the Kashmir issue to the satisfaction of the Kashmiri people.
Interestingly, the senators have also noted that on Aug 5, the Indian government “unilaterally revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which afforded autonomy to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.”
The use of the word unilateral here is meaningful which explains so many things unspoken.
In a fresh development, some Kashmiri citizens currently in the US have filed a lawsuit in the United States against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for carrying out extrajudicial killings and other crimes in occupied Kashmir.
The lawsuit, as per the available media reports, was filed just days before Modi is scheduled to speak at a major rally called “Howdy, Modi!” in Houston, Texas, where he is expected to be joined by US President Trump.
The lawsuit, according to the Houston Chronicle, was filed by a pair of unnamed US-based Kashmiris.
The newspaper has identified the attorney as Gurpatwant Singh Pannu of Kashmir Khalistan Referendum Front.
Pannu is widely known as the legal head for ‘Sikhs for Justice’ (SFJ), which is a banned outfit in India.
Besides Modi, the Wire reports dated 20, 2019, the filed lawsuit also names home minister Amit Shah and the general officer commanding of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps, Lieutenant Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon. They have been accused of “extrajudicial killing” and “wrongful death, battery, emotional distress, crimes against humanity”.
Interesting is the fact that the Indian Prime Minister Modi has been recognized “as an undesirable character till fairly recently”.
After the Gujarat massacres in 2002, under his watch as Chief Minister, many countries of the world including the United States had placed a visa ban on Modi.
Countries like the UK and many EU countries had done the same, however, it is these countries now who embrace the “massacre man” as and when they happen to meet this South Asian Hitler that he is taken by the South Asian population.
India’s satellite countries including Nepal have termed the August 5 aggression of Kashmir as “internal” matter of India to which it definitely is not.
In a dramatic development, quite in contrast with the Persian Gulf’s Arab countries, for example, the Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, which have either supported India’s abrogation of Article 370 or have had a subdued response on Kashmir, Iran has taken a position against New Delhi. Given the Islamic Republic’s tendency to balance positive relations with both India and Pakistan, its decision to oppose India in this instance is notable. It raises questions as to whether, and how, the elimination of Kashmiri autonomy could impact Iranian-Indian relations, writes Giorgio Cafiero September 20.
Iran’s express support to the Kashmiri issue is somewhat puzzling in view of the fact that the “intimate” friends of Pakistan such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE and some other countries in the gulf region have more or less just lured Pakistan.
But yet these countries helped Pakistan at a time when PM Khan needed “money” to help save the country, if one were to recall.
To recall, On August 21, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei took to social media to call on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to reverse its actions in Kashmir.
He said, “We have good relations with India, but we expect the Indian government to adopt a just policy towards the noble people of Kashmir and prevent the oppression & bullying of Muslims in this region”, adds by Giorgio Cafiero.
However, Talking to Al Jazeera TV networks September 14, 2019, the Pakistani Prime Minister much ahead of heading to the US via Saudi Arabia to take part in the UN General Assembly spoke his mind if in case of a sad event unfortunately that brings the two nuclear states, India and Pakistan, close to a conventional war then what he or his country in the given condition would do?
“If Pakistan is forced to embrace a conventional war and if a country is stuck between the choices: either you surrender or you fight ’till death for your freedom, I know my countrymen will fight to death for their freedom. So when a nuclear-armed country fights to the end, to the death, it has consequences.”
This makes it clear that if pushed to the wall, Pakistan would have no choice other than to think of the nuclear option and what would this mean is any body’s guess, so signaled the Cricketer turned Prime Minister Imran Khan.
In order to avert the disastrous consequences that may result from the choice of the Nuclear option the PM says, “So that’s why we have approached the United Nations, we are approaching every international forum, that they must act right now because this is a potential disaster that would go way beyond the Indian subcontinent.”
PM Khan however, gave a subtle hint to the Al Jazeera TV that the imminent war in between India and Pakistan could very much be averted if countries engaged now in the verbal war could see sense and understand the gravity of the emerging dangerous situation’ and act accordingly.
Khan says, “I’m glad they say I’m a prime minister of U-turns. Only an idiot doesn’t do any U-turns,” Khan tells Al Jazeera. “Only a moron, when he’s on a course and he comes across a brick wall, only that stupid idiot keeps banging his head against a brick wall. An intelligent person immediately revises his strategy and goes around it.”
This means that if PM Modi changes his stubbornness and arrogance and come to terms with what has already been specifically told and dictated by several UN resolutions in the past then the Kashmir issue could be settled. He perhaps hints at the possibility of being “flexible” if the Indian side soften its hardened stance.
To recall, very recently Pakistan went to Geneva and approached the UN Human Rights body and secured the sympathy of some forty plus countries who through a joint statement shared the concern expressed by the High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet regarding the impact of recent actions of the Narendra Modi government on the human rights of people of occupied Kashmir.
Now this issue shall very much reverberate inside the Hall of the UN General Assembly within two weeks or so.
India and Pakistan may collide at the UN general assembly lobby this September end.
Nepal may bring both the rival nations, India and Pakistan, in the same table on the sidelines of the UNGA, as the SAARC Chair, it is talked. Hope wisdom prevails on both the rival countries.
At a different plane, the Amnesty International which remained so far tight lipped on the Kashmir upon being questioned by several international bodies has, better late than never, launched a petition on its website urging people to raise their voice against the government-imposed communications blackout in India-occupied Kashmir that has been in place for over a month.
It is perhaps approaching 50th dark day in Kashmir after the August 5 illegal annexation.
The AI says, September 15, 2019, in part, that nearly 8 million people have been living through a communication shutdown since August 5,” the human rights organization stated on its website.
AI statement has come only after several media organizations alleged the Amnesty as to have been clearly taking the sides of the Indian establishment on Kashmir aggression.
While writing this story, the Octogenarian Chief Minister (former) of Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, has been arrested under a draconian law called the Public Safety Act (PSA).
He has been detained inside his house which equals now to a jail.
In the meanwhile, the Indian top court said on Monday, September 16/19 that the federal government should restore normal life in Kashmir as soon as possible, as a partial shutdown of the disputed region entered its 42nd day, so writes Suchitra Mohanty and Alasdair Pal for the Reuters, Delhi.
“We direct Jammu and Kashmir to make the very best endeavor to make sure normal life returns,” India’s Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said on Monday, after a panel of three judges heard several petitions relating to Kashmir, which is also claimed by Pakistan, adds Suchitra
Even after the Indian Court orders, situation in Kashmir remains the same. Delhi appears to have ignored the SC verdict.
It would not be out of place if we reproduce here to what the first Prime Minister of the Republic of India J.L. Nehru had stated as back as in the Indian Parliament on August 7, 1952.
Nehru had said then, according to senior analyst A.G Noorani that “It is an international problem. It would be an international problem anyhow if it concerned any other nation besides India and it does. It became further an international problem because a large number of other countries also took interest and gave advice…. We do not want to win people against their will and with the help of armed force, and if the people of Jammu and Kashmir State so wish it, to Part Company from us, they can go their way and we shall go our way. We want no forced marriages, no forced unions like this…( A. G. Noorani, The Wire).
Writes A. J Noorani in his fresh article “Is Kashmir a Domestic or International Issue? Published in the Wire dated September 15/19 in the Opinion column.
In fact, analyst Noorani recollects to what PM Nehru had stated then.
Noorani remembers what Nehru had stated on July 8, 1949, wherein he (read the Indian PM Nehru) had clearly stated that “Kashmir is a world question”.
Says Noorani, “he was all for mediation and had said on November 12, 1949, at a press conference in London that “India continues to suggest that there should be mediation and that this mediation should be under the auspices of the United Nations partly because we want to increase the prestige of the United Nations.”
Two questions arise claims A.J Noorani in the same article that “When did India resile from this stand, and why? Has the world deferred to this volte-face? The second is easily answered. At the recent G7 Summit at Biarritz, France, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ruled out mediation but not the fact that Kashmir is a dispute between India and Pakistan to be resolved bilaterally.
This was the stand he took, writes A. G Noorani, in talks with US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Modi had said that “All the issues between India and Pakistan are bilateral in nature.”
The existence of the issues is surely an affirmation implicitly of the issue–Kashmir.
President Trump said on August 25 that Modi and he had discussed Kashmir “at great length”. Clearly, Kashmir is no internal matter is this. So sums up A. G Noorani his thought provoking article in the Wire.
Abdul Ghafoor Abdul Majeed Noorani, known popularly as A. G. Noorani, is an Indian lawyer, constitutional expert and political commentator.
He has practiced as an advocate in the Supreme Court of India and in the Bombay High Court. (Source Wikipedia).
Good news for the South Asian region: PM Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan will address the UNGA the same day, on September 27.
Imran Khan is likely to speak within minutes of Narendra Modi’s speech September 27/19. Khan hopes that China remains a reliable partner even at the UNGA to get the world’s ear on Kashmir.
Nepali observers are confident that for the resolution of the Kashmir issue in between India and Pakistan, the US President Trump must jump in for mediation in between the two rival nations at the earliest if he wants to avert the threat of war that looms over South Asia.
The US President must mediate on Kashmir-dispute or else the SA region is doomed. President Trump must save South Asia from the new fascist leader in India-PM Modi. That’s all.