For a short moment final week, it seemed as if hostilities among us and the Islamist Republic next door have been starting to wane. Pakistan showed interest in importing Indian sugar and cotton and this would have meant the revival of trade even if diplomatic relations stay suspended. Then all of a sudden Imran Khan’s Cabinet declared that till Article 370 was restored there would be no trade. After Article 370 was abrogated, on August 5, 2019, the Prime Minister of Pakistan has produced it his enterprise to attempt and get the Islamic globe to censure India for ending the unique status of the former state of Jammu & Kashmir. He went to the extent of appointing himself ‘Kashmir’s ambassador’ but failed to drum up a lot help.
From an Indian point of view, the removal of Article 370 became important due to the fact it had served largely to give Kashmiri Muslims the false impression that secession was nonetheless a possibility. It has in no way been a genuine possibility. Nor has ‘azaadi’, and there is a lot significantly less likelihood of either taking place now. For the Hindutva lunatic fringe that continues to think that ‘Akhand Bharat’ (undivided India) is nonetheless feasible, the very same message applies. If we have to move towards genuine peace with Pakistan, saying clearly that Kashmir is not up for discussion has to be the basis of future dialogue. Too several horrible issues occurred behind the wall that Article 370 had turn out to be among Kashmir and the rest of India. We need to not overlook.
The ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits need to in no way be forgotten. It must shame just about every Indian that this occurred, and it must shame us more that no Indian leader was in a position to reverse this terrible tragedy. Once the Valley became populated only with Muslims, it was uncomplicated to overlook that Kashmir had been a very important centre of Indian civilisation lengthy, lengthy ahead of Islam. The Valley’s magnificent, ruined temples bear testament to this. The ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus would not have occurred if Pakistan’s jihadi military guys had not actively promoted jihadi tips in the Valley and changed the quite nature of Kashmiri Islam.
The other issue that we need to not overlook is that regardless of the ethnic cleansing of Hindus, our very first BJP prime minister attempted tougher than any other Indian leader to make peace with Pakistan. I was amongst these who waited on the Pakistani side of the Wagah border when he arrived in that gilded bus. Ahead of the Indian Prime Minister’s bus came a man in a lengthy coat and a formal Indian turban carrying a basket of sweets on his head, and just behind him a troop of Punjabi girls wearing lengthy skirts of orange, yellow and red that shone in the afternoon sunlight as they danced across the border. Vajpayee’s speech in Lahore the next day was emotional and eloquent and Pakistanis in the audience wept as he spoke. Everyone hoped that the Lahore declaration he signed marked a new starting.
Instead, months later came the Kargil war, and hope died. But not for Atalji, who months later invited General Pervez Musharraf to India. The talks that have been held in Agra ended with Musharraf throwing a tantrum due to the fact all he had come to speak about was Kashmir.
After 9/11 Pakistan was dragooned into the war against terrorism, but the jihad against India continued. Three months just after 9/11 came the attack on our Parliament. Other jihadist attacks followed but the one that convinced most Indians that peace with Pakistan was not possible was the 26/11 attack. It is challenging to recognize why attacking Mumbai’s hotels, restaurants, railway stations, hospitals and Jewish establishments was important to additional Pakistan’s claims on Kashmir. Harder nonetheless to recognize why regardless of strong proof of its involvement in this cowardly attack, Pakistan has not produced a critical try to punish these accountable. This is the explanation why it is not incorrect to describe Pakistan as an Islamist Republic and not an Islamic one.
India has several more causes to continue hostilities, particularly today when we have a government whose spokesmen and supporters use the word Pakistani as a term of abuse. Some of them are defined by their hatred for Islam and Muslims and spit out the word ‘Pakistani’ just about every time they seem on tv. And there are far also several popular anchors who permit abuse of Pakistan to define their shows. So, it is challenging to think that a peace approach can start in the close to future, but it has to. When and if it does, we need to hope that the Modi government will be as ruthless about defining India’s position as it was about removing Article 370.
As a person who wrote a book sympathising with the Kashmiris for obtaining endured decades of fraudulent elections and a brutal denial of their fundamental democratic rights, I lost sympathy when the result in changed. For a quite lengthy time now it is not fundamental democratic rights and unique autonomy that Kashmiri secessionist groups have been fighting violently for. The result in has turn out to be the establishment of Shariat in the Valley, and to do this, young guys have been recruited in a lot the very same way that the Islamic State recruited their jihadists. It is madness to think that any Indian prime minister, leave alone Narendra Modi, could permit the creation of an Islamist state inside the borders of India. These issues need to be produced clear ahead of a peace approach starts.