About Modi and Netanyahu
In many ways, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have a lot in common. Both believe in a similar, right-wing ideological agenda, and one which often plays with the fates of millions.
Last month, Prime Minister Modi, in defiance of international law abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. He also divided the territory into two union territories, namely, Jammu and Kashmir; and Ladakh. Anticipating his unilateral decision would trigger a massive public reaction, a curfew was imposed a day before the abrogation with a complete lockdown that cut off over eight million Kashmiris from the rest of the world.
The curfew continues, and Internet services have still not been restored. Reports have emerged of Kashmiris living in towns that have become prisons, with over 800,000 security personnel on active duty in the area. Indian-administered Kashmir has been turned into one of the world’s most militarized zone.
Modi ultimately fulfilled his electoral promise of revoking both Articles 370 and 35-A of the Indian constitution, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir as provided for in the Instrument of Accession of October 1947. Controversies about the instrument aside, the arrangement between the State and the Indian Union was clear. The latter would be responsible only for foreign affairs, defense, and communications. India also committed itself to ensure the demographic nature of Jammu and Kashmir, which was over 80 percent Muslim in 1947, was not altered over time.
As a fierce and known votary of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which is the ideological fountainhead of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Modi is obligated to reject the partition of the subcontinent and openly impugn the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, for his many “blunders” related to Kashmir. According to Modi, Kashmir was always an integral part of India and its special status as an anomaly which had to be removed as specified in his party’s manifesto. India’s lone Muslim majority state was difficult for the RSS, and BJP, to swallow.
If the world does not move now, and help resolve the long-standing Jammu and Kashmir dispute, it will see more and more oppression in Indian-administered Kashmir, more cease-fire violations along the Line of Control and escalating tensions between two nuclear-armed neighbors.
Abdul Basit
By unilaterally changing the status of Jammu and Kashmir, India has demonstrated that the world’s ‘largest democracy’ couldn’t care less about its own constitution; and its commitments to Kashmiris, Pakistan and the international community at large.
If the world does not move now, and help resolve the long-standing Jammu and Kashmir dispute, it will see more and more oppression in Indian-administered Kashmir, more cease-fire violations along the Line of Control and escalating tensions between two nuclear-armed neighbors- which can never be an acceptable proposition.
Then there is Israel’s Netanyahu, who brazenly moved Israel away from the two-state solution, and has now called for the annexation of the Jordan Valley and West Bank Jewish settlements should he win snap elections scheduled for 17 September.
Already pushed to the wall, the Palestinians are finding themselves in a desperate situation, especially when the Arab world is in seemingly intractable disarray and conflict, and the US is willingly giving Netanyahu carte blanche to take away from the Palestinians their right to live, let alone to live in freedom.
The situations, as they are unfolding in South Asia and the Middle East, have been brought to the precipice by two men who seem to hold very little respect for the UN Charter and international law. Modi is replicating in Kashmir what Israel and Netanyahu have been doing to the Palestinians for decades.
In essence, both are marginalizing indigenous populations to almost non-existence in their own homelands.
Unfortunately, there does not seem any sense of urgency or concern in major world capitals where commercial and economic interests reign supreme. The international community must remember that around the world, people struggling for their right to self-determination and freedom, will often willingly sacrifice everything for their cause. For too long, both Kashmiri and Palestinian struggles have been propagated as militancy.
The world must wake up before it is too late. The agendas of Hindu nationalism and Zionism deny dissent and pluralism and must be stopped before irreparable catastrophes emerge for the entire world.
*The writer is President of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. He was previously Pakistan's ambassador to Germany and Pakistan's High Commissioner to India.
