Moment of truth

The moment of truth is upon us. Who are we? What do we stand for? What is the worth of our word? Narendra Modi’s miserable decision of August 5, 2019 to eviscerate the political identity of Kashmiris confronts Pakistan with these questions.

Pakistan’s effort to awaken the international community to its responsibilities has been praiseworthy but insufficient and, so far, not very successful. Modi cannot and will not reverse his decision unless enormous international pressure is brought to bear on him, which is most unlikely.

Modi will expect India’s aggrieved and arrested political ‘puppets’ in IOK, who supported India against their own people but saw August 5 as the final straw, to eventually accept the new political situation. It will be difficult for them without restoring Article 370. That will not happen. Accordingly, they have a choice: to remain Kashmiri quislings or become Kashmiri patriots.

The resistance in IOK will not be cowed. Whenever the curfew is lifted the people in the Valley will hit the streets in towns and villages across the Valley in hundreds if not thousands of protests against Indian occupation and atrocities. One million Indian security forces, acting with the total impunity and immunity provided to them by black laws such as the Public Safety Act (PSA) and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) will escalate their repression resulting in an exponential increase in casualties, rapes, torture, disappearances, etc. The information blackout will be reimposed.

Pakistan’s policies and arguments should rest on the overriding imperatives of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. India’s escalating atrocities have already compelled Genocide Watch to issue a Genocide Alert regarding the situation in IOK. This raises the inherent risk of war between two nuclear weapons countries. Significantly, India has chosen to reconsider its no-first-use of nuclear weapons against Pakistan.

But the international community has mendaciously chosen to warn Pakistan – not India! – to desist from exacerbating the situation and instead seek a peaceful settlement through dialogue with India. This may reek of hypocrisy but is a position that defines the stance of most of the Western powers, and even of friends of Pakistan. This problem is rooted in the international image Pakistan has built for itself over several decades, largely through bad and dysfunctional governance and domestic and external policy failures about which every politically informed Pakistani is well aware, but feels helpless to do anything about. Accordingly, Pakistan has ‘disappointed’ its Kashmiri brethren on more than one occasion.

The resistance in IOK is rooted in the people and society of the Valley. This allows it to appear, disappear and reappear as circumstances require, thereby frustrating Indian attempts to eliminate it. This is the reason why a furious and frustrated Modi ran out of patience and decided to target the people of the Valley who provide sustenance and viability to the resistance. This targeting of the people is the essence of genocide which is legally and precisely defined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948.) Genocide Watch, a Germany-based NGO applies the criteria of the convention to specific situations. It has issued a Genocide Alert concerning the situation in IOK.

Modi, however, cannot afford to let the Kashmiri resistance persist for long as that would undermine his decision of August 5. Pakistan, on the contrary, must use all legitimate means (and international law provides them) to ensure that the Kashmiri freedom struggle, including armed struggle, is not snuffed out by the illegitimate use of overwhelming force, including atrocities amounting to genocide.

Within Pakistan two broad views exist. One favours a more or less exclusive reliance on a comprehensive and intensive diplomatic campaign, including ‘lawfare’, to expose the horrible human rights situation and the illegality of Indian actions in IOK, and to urge the international community to consider a whole range of effective pressures on India to reconsider its policy of coercion and repression.

This approach assumes that, given Pakistan’s challenges and vulnerabilities, it cannot be expected to do much more than this without seriously jeopardizing its own security and survival. This view reflects the current political, economic and military realities of Pakistan. It suggests that Pakistan can only exercise a very limited range of options vis-a-vis India in support of the Kashmiris of IOK. It cannot include them in its nuclear deterrence which is limited to the defence of Pakistan, AJK and GB.

The other view regards this approach as insufficient and potentially treacherous – especially if it is seen as essentially walking away from a developing genocidal situation in IOK. Pakistan has forever proclaimed IOK as “the unfinished business of partition” and its “jugular vein”. Three of the four wars it has fought with India have been over IOK. It has also been argued Pakistan has remained an insecure security state instead of achieving the security of a democratic development state precisely because of its transcending priority to ensure “Kashmir banega Pakistan!”

The 1971 war was not directly related to Kashmir. Nevertheless, despite the result of the 1971 war, Pakistan still successfully maintained its stance on the Kashmir dispute in paragraph 4(ii) of the Simla Agreement. Since then Pakistan’s political and economic development has been fundamentally constrained by the national priority to liberate IOK or at least achieve a principled compromise settlement acceptable to the peoples of Kashmir, Pakistan and India. It developed some interim ‘understandings’ in the 2005-6 ‘back channel’ talks which, however, excluded direct Kashmiri participation.

Pakistan became a nuclear power precisely because the unresolved issue of Jammu and Kashmir threatened war between it and its much larger adversary, India. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and within a year of Pakistan acquiring nuclear weapons status the Kargil conflict occurred. Since then Pakistan has faced increasing accusations of terrorism, undergone sanctions and lost credibility with many people in IOK.

August 5 has restored Pakistan’s credibility in IOK – for the time being. The Kashmiris of IOK know empty rhetoric will resolve nothing even though they appreciate Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts in their support. Nevertheless, contradictory statements have emanated from Pakistan. There have been vows to shed the last drop of blood and to go to any extent to support the Kashmiris against India’s criminal violence. However, there have also been pledges never to go to war unless Pakistan itself, or AJK and GB are attacked, as war solves nothing and those who march to the LOC are enemies of Kashmir. That the speech of the prime minister of AJK criticizing this view was censored became the subject of social media talk.

So what will be Pakistan’s response in the event that genocide becomes a reality in IOK? Genocide, like death, defines itself. When it happens it will be clear. Will Pakistan “do its best” within its capabilities and the overriding imperative of preserving itself? Or will Pakistan, after first exhausting every peaceful option under the UN Charter, let the world know through both word and action that it will never countenance genocide in IOK? This may in fact be the only way to prevent genocide in IOK and war between two nuclear neighbours.

Pakistan must decide: can it betray itself again and remain credible at home and abroad, and survive? Or must it finally stand up for its existential commitments, withstand the costs, make Naya Pakistan, and be true to Quaid-e-Azam’s vision and achievement for the first time? Words alone cannot provide an answer.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, India and China and head of UN missions in Iraq and Sudan.

Email: ashrafjqazi@gmail.com