Centre needs to do more in Valley to avoid diplomatic onslaught

Arun Joshi
Tribune News Service
|Jammu, October 23

The US lawmakers’ alarming description of the situation in Kashmir as “humanitarian crisis” in the manner in which the implementation of the scrapping of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir was implemented spotlights the greater role that the Americans want to play in the region.

But, it is for Delhi to do something more in the Valley to ensure that such diplomatic offensives against it are not repeated in future.

Washington was always interested in knowing everything happening in Kashmir and uses it as a diplomatic tool to assert its supremacy in offering mediation between India and Pakistan over the Himalayan territory. It was clear by the observations made by the Congressmen in the hearing on the “Human rights in South Asia” on Tuesday.

The American argument that its diplomats were not given access to Kashmir is flawed. Not only the American diplomats, but also the envoys of other countries were not allowed. No special permission could have been given to any particular country.

Assistant Secretary for South Asia Alice G Wells failed to mention that the situation in Kashmir also made the government to deny permission to the most prominent faces of Opposition, including former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, to move out of Srinagar airport.

This time, the situation was quite different and it could have turned explosive as the people angry with the scrapping of the special status of the state had prepared to storm the streets.

No two situations can be compared, whether those which existed in 1990s, when everyone or anyone standing for India — Hindus, Muslims, political activists and police officials — were targeted by radicalised militants. Nor the current situation can be compared to what had happened during the street protests and clashes in 2010 and 2016.

The August 5 morning had opened with an unprecedented clampdown, with all channels of communication blocked, and when even shouting across the bylanes in the congested areas could have been misunderstood a call for protests. There was curfew, but curfew passes were denied on the assertion that there is no curfew.

The US lawmakers’ questions and the answers reflected that they wanted to showcase Kashmir as an extreme case of its own kind, and have repeated their age-old cliche that let India and Pakistan talk in the spirit of Simla Agreement of July 1972 that obligates Delhi and Islamabad to settle all their issues bilaterally.

However, what cannot be undermined is that the political leadership, including three former Chief Ministers, one of them sitting member of the Indian Parliament, have been under detention since August 5, and there is no word about their release.

The post-paid mobile services have been animated. Unless Internet is not there, the narrative in Washington, would remain the same.

US hearing on ‘Human rights in South Asia’

The US was always interested in knowing everything happening in Kashmir and uses it as a diplomatic tool to assert its supremacy in offering mediation between India and Pakistan

The American argument that its diplomats were not given access to Kashmir is flawed. Not only the American envoys , but diplomats of other countries were not allowed. No special permission could have been given to any country.

The US lawmakers’ questions reflected that they wanted to showcase Kashmir as an extreme case and India and Pakistan talk in the spirit of Simla Agreement of July 1972