Hoax Kashmir Committee ?

PUNCHLINE

Salahuddin and Beyond

By

Z.G. Muhammad

On Saturday morning, the moment I sat at my desk to write my weekly column the news alert on a corner of the computer read: “No change in Kashmir policy, says the US.” The news item, with Washington dateline, read that the US State Department has stated that the designation of Hizbul Mujahedeen leader Syed Salahuddin as a “global terrorist” does not reflect a change in the US policy on Kashmir which it sees a disputed territory. The State Department has designated Salah­uddin a “global terrorist” for some of his statement in 2016 in which he had allegedly “vowed to block any peaceful resolution to the Kashmir conflict etc.”  

 Many analysts failed to mark two important points in the US statement. One it has described the part of the state under India’s control as the “Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir,” thus amply recognizing Kashmir as a Disputed territory and second, it has not declared the  Hizbul-I-Mujahedeen as a “terrorist organization” as it had done with the Jaish-e-Mohammed and score of other organizations. In this column, I am not debating if Washington has been just in its decision designating 71-year-old Salahuddin a “global terrorist”   and offering it as a diplomatic kickback to Prime Minister, Modi for selling 24 Guardian drones, 100 Boeing jets and other military hardware to India.

However, I will endeavor to analyze why the State Department has taken such decision at a time when Kashmir struggle has shifted to as New York Times had called “Intifada,” a non-violent resistance movement. That was widely reported by the Western media during 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2016. In the nineties when over thirty thousand guerrillas were active all over the State of Jammu, Interestingly   at the time, Washington had revisited its 1962 Kashmir policy, and categorically stated ‘entire Kashmir was in dispute and US did not recognize the Instrument of Accession.’

Does designating Salahuddin as “global terrorists” indicate a paradigm shift in the US policy about Kashmir or it reflects failure of the Nawaz-Sharif’s – otherwise lackluster Kashmir policy. New Delhi has been rejoicing the decision. It has every reason to see the development as its diplomatic victory and setback to Islamabad-    after all, it had been striving for achieving this objective for past many years.  To see it done, some of its senior diplomats and aides of Modi frequented Washington immediately after Donald Trump occupied the White House. For Kashmir, this decision of the State Department is not of much of significance as Manoj Joshi wrote in this newspaper on Saturday other than “symbolic”.   

It is a historical reality, India and Pakistan are parties to the dispute. They are signatories to the UN resolutions and international agreements and couple of bilateral agreements promising to hold of a plebiscite in the state.  Initially, India was the strongest advocate for holding a UN-supervised referendum in the state, after a decade or so it backtracked from its commitment instead pleaded settling the dispute bilaterally through dialogue. In as much as living up to its international pledges and public commitments to the people of the state, it is in denial mode.   Nevertheless, Pakistan continued to recognize the right of people of the State to decide their future and from rooftops talks about providing moral, political and diplomatic support for the Kashmir Struggle.

There can be no denying leaders of Pakistan have been mentioning Kashmir at the annual meetings of UN General Assembly, at the OIC or of and on have been issuing statements on Kashmir. But the reality is that Kashmir has ceased to be a thrust area for the Pakistan Foreign Ministry. In fact, Kashmir related offices are used as a political bribe for taming estranged or troubling politicians. That reminds me of two Kashmir Committees constituted to win support for the cause of people of Jammu and Kashmir.

On 25 July 1931, just a week after news of massacre outside Srinagar Central Jail reached neighboring Punjab twelve prominent citizens of the province assembled,   at the Fair View, Shimla to deliberate upon the miseries of Muslims of the state and evolved a strategy for mobilizing support for their movement in British India. Among others, the citizens included Sir Dr. Mohammad Iqbal, Mirza Mahmud Ahmed, Khawaja Hassan Nizami, Noor-ul-Haq and Maulana Mohammad Ismail Ghaznavi and they launched the All India Kashmir Committee.  Immediately after starting of the committee many outstanding leaders and intellectuals joined the committee. The committee extended moral, legal and material support to the suffering Kashmir and organized a Kashmir Day throughout the Subcontinent. There was hardly a metropolis, a city or a small town that did not echo with slogans against killings in Srinagar and support of the cause of people of the state.  It sent delegations to the British Viceroy in New Delhi and succeeded in mounting pressure on Indian Government for ensuring justice to the subjugated people of the state. The committee without any official support had made a significant contribution to the Kashmir cause and mitigating sufferings of people. The success of this committee was sincerity of purpose of the people who volunteered to work for the cause of Kashmir.

Since the early nineties, the Government of Pakistan has been establishing one after another Kashmir Committee with members of the Pakistan National Assembly and senators as its members for furthering the cause of the Kashmir at the international level. The present committee was constituted by the Pakistan National Assembly on 19 August 2008, and Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman is its chairman for past nine years enjoying the status and perks of a federal ministered. This committee for its zero-performance is a cruel joke with the people of the state across the divide. The committee does not have even a website to tell an honest Kashmir story, and it speaks of the lackadaisical attitude of the powers that in Islamabad towards the Kashmir that pinpricks the much-inflated balloon of diplomatic support.

Many diplomatic offensives can be defeated if Kashmir Diaspora in USA, England and other parts of world work for building stronger institutions for articulating their cause. 

Published in Greater Kashmir on Monday 3-7-17