Kashmir deserves greater international attention 

An important first step to build awareness of the situation in Kashmir is International Solidarity Day which is commemorated every year on 5 February writes Dr Imraan Buccus, Al-Qalam editor.

Much like the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara the Indian occupation of Kashmir seldom gets the international attention it so urgently deserves. A key reason for this is that the Indian state, long under the rule of a far right, even fascist, Hindu nationalist regime is aligned to the West.

But the Indian occupation of Kashmir is as brutal as the Israeli occupation of Palestine and requires the same sort of international awareness and solidarity. Just as Palestinians have endured the brunt of Israeli brutality since 1948, the ongoing oppression of Kashmiris began a year earlier at the time of India’s partition in 1947. 

We have seen three wars over Kashmir, resulting in a UN-mediated ceasefire along a line that was eventually named the Line of Control. Multiple layers of persecution continue to exist including the oppression being codified in section 370 of the Indian penal code which criminalizes speech that could “influence the course of public opinion” in Kashmir. A critique of India’s rule in Kashmir could land you in prison for 6 years.

As Francis Fukuyama announced the ‘End of History’ at the end of the Cold War the insurgency in Kashmir intensified. But the Kashmiri struggle has remained on the margins of world attention, an afterthought even. Kashmiris have not been presented as, to borrow a famous phrase from Noam Chomsky, “worthy victims” in the worlds’ media. 

While we are constantly called to empathy with some victims of oppression and war others remain largely invisible to the global media. This is true, for instance, of the Congo where more than five million have died over years of war. It is also true of the wars currently raging in Ethiopia and Yemen. As a result of the double standards in terms of who counts as a ‘worthy victim’ most of the world does not know that the 12 million residents of Kashmir are subjected to between 200,000 to 250,000 soldiers, between 65,000 to 80,000 paramilitary central reserve police force personnel, between 20,000 to 30,000 border security forces and other paramilitary groups, 85000 local police and 36000 special police officers. Leaving aside armed insurgents, over 15 000 Kashmiri civilians have been killed since 1990 and more than 5,000 have disappeared. These are the sanitized official figures. Many local human rights NGOs estimate that casualties are closer to 80 000. 

Many have drawn a comparison between the situation in Kashmir and Palestine as the Indian and Israeli states collaborate closely on ‘security’ matters. For many on the far right of the Hindu nationalist movement Israel offers a model for a way forward to secure Hindu domination in Kashmir. 

The aim is changing the Islamic character of the area by bringing in Hindu settlers and establishing a new architecture of Hindu domination in which Hindu temples come to replace Mosques. As in Israel this is not the normal ebb and flow of people via migration. It is a deliberate state project to change the ethnic and religious character of an area, one that has painful resonances with apartheid and colonial history in South Africa. 

As younger Kashmiris have increasingly stood up to Indian oppression, repression has escalated. A turning point came in July 2016 when a mass uprising was triggered by the extrajudicial killing of popular rebel leader Burhan Wani by Indian forces. Since then, India forces have deliberately maimed and blinded hundreds of Kashmiris with pellet guns. Some estimates suggest that over 20,000 have been injured by pellet guns since 2016, with many left blinded.

In March 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report detailing human rights violations in Kashmir. The report found that between July 2016 and April 2018, 145 people were victims of extrajudicial killings and 22 disappeared.

The United Nations resolutions on Kashmir are a means by which Kashmir’s future can be determined by the people of Kashmir through a plebiscite under UN arrangements. Resolutions have been passed by the Security Council twice, in 1948 and 1949, and have been endorsed by the General Assembly. They call for a referendum in which the people of Kashmir can choose their own government and call for the implementation of the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people. 

South Africa has a history of supporting the political rights of oppressed people in Kashmir, just as it does with Palestine and Western Sahara. South Africa will continue to support a resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would pave the way for a negotiated solution to the Kashmir dispute.

The fact that South Africa and India are both parts of the BRICS group pose some challenges. Our foreign policy needs to simultaneously be able to affirm the need to build a multi-polar world order, which requires building alliances between the strongest states in the Global South, and to hold other BRICS members accountable for their actions. 

The India state has moved to organise G20 events in illegally occupied Kashmir, as well as also illegally occupied Jammu territory, in April and May. It is clear that India is taking undue advantage of its presidency of the G20 to try to justify its illegal occupations. In the interest of justice, it would make sense for the SA government to ask India to reconsider the choice of venue for these G20 events. 

However much, much more could and should be done. An important first step is to build awareness of the situation in Kashmir. An important tool in this work is Kashmir International Solidarity Day which is commemorated every year on 5 February. Marked around the world this day has, slowly, enabled activists to begin to build some awareness of the gravity of the situation in Kashmir.  

Not too long ago, the celebrated novelist and political essayist, Arundhati Roy, wrote that “Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain’s festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modern world. Both are fault lines in the raging international conflicts of today.” She added that “One day Kashmir will make India self-destruct in the same way. You may have blinded all of us, every one of us, with your pellet guns by then. But you will still have eyes to see what you have done to us. You’re not destroying us. You are constructing us. It’s yourselves that you are destroying.” 

We must stand with all victims of oppression and there is a particular urgency to stand with those deemed ‘unworthy’ in the eyes of the international media, those whose suffering is largely invisible.

*Dr Buccus is editor of Al-Qalam.