Modi’s Kashmir ploy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent meeting with pro-Indian Kashmiri leaders was all optics and achieved nothing. Almost two years after his government illegally annexed Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019, the Indian Prime Minister invited 14 handpicked Kashmiri politicians to parleys in Delhi. For a start this so-called outreach was to leaders of the Gupkar alliance of seven parties who have traditionally collaborated with Delhi. The genuine representatives of the Kashmiri people, who are part of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) were excluded from the meeting; their leaders languish in jail or under house detention. The APHC denounced the Delhi conference as nothing but a drama. 

The purpose of Modi’s move was to consolidate the Aug 5 action by seeking to establish a facade of ‘normality’ through a face saving way for Gupkar politicians to re-join a revived political process. Some of them were jailed in the wake of the August 5 action that stripped Kashmir of its autonomous status and bifurcated the state into two federally-run Union territories. 

By showing he was initiating a political process Modi wanted to convince people at home and abroad that the situation was ‘normalizing.’ This flies in the face of reality as the situation in Indian-administered Kashmir remains dire under the yoke of sweeping repressive measures, a military siege and with the continuing suspension of fundamental freedoms.

Modi’s gambit may principally be aimed at the Biden Administration that is reported to have exerted ‘quiet pressure’ on Delhi to normalize the situation. US deputy assistant secretary of state Dean Thomson told a Congressional hearing in May that Washington had asked Delhi to “return to normalcy as quickly as possible” in Kashmir. 

Modi’s maneuver may also be designed to take the edge off criticism by international human rights organizations who have been scathing about India’s human rights abuses and repressive actions. Some Indian analysts attributed the move to a host of “geopolitical reasons” including pressure from the US and tensions with China. Others linked it to “strategic imperatives” from changing dynamics ensuing from the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s ascendency as well as the need to stabilize relations with Pakistan being urged by Washington.

Modi’s gambit may principally be aimed at the Biden administration that is reported to have exerted ‘quiet pressure’ on Delhi to normalize the situation.

Maleeha Lodhi

Whatever the motive, the meeting produced no outcome and ended in failure. There was nothing even for Gupkar leaders to take back with them. Several of them called for a return to the pre-2019 status quo during the meeting. But what Modi wanted was their agreement for his delimitation plan in Kashmir to pave the way for so-called elections, which in turn would ‘endorse’ his August 5 action. Kashmiris see delimitation as a means for Modi’s government to give Jammu a majority in the assembly and thus shift the political balance to Hindus. 

An ostensible assurance was held out by Modi that at the “appropriate time” restoration of Kashmir’s statehood could be considered. But even this vague offer was shorn of meaning without revival of Articles 370 and 35A that had given Jammu and Kashmir its quasi autonomy. Restoring statehood only meant it would be a state like all the others in India and was hardly a concession to even pro-Delhi Kashmiri politicians many of who had demanded Kashmir’s return to its pre-August 2019 ‘autonomous’ state.

As a former chief minister of Kashmir, Mahbooba Mufti put it after the meeting, abrogation of Article 370 and 35A was “unconstitutional and immoral” and had to be taken back. She would continue to struggle for this for as long as it took as there could be no compromise on it. On redrawing of constituency boundaries most political leaders expressed reservations and opposed delimitation.

This sham move by the Indian government comes on the back of controversial administrative and demographic changes that have been underway in Indian-administered Kashmir. Since August 2019 the Indian government has issued 3.4 million domicile certificates to (non-Kashmiri) outsiders who would have been ineligible for these if so-called constitutional protections had not been done away with. This is in brazen violation of UN Security Council resolutions and international law. Such actions bear striking similarity to Israel’s illegal settlement policies and are typical of the methods used by occupiers. 

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmud Qureshi dismissed Modi’s Kashmir conference as futile, which would do nothing to mend Modi’s international reputation. He said from discussions in Delhi it was clear that even pro-Indian Kashmiri leaders demanded the “release of political prisoners, restoration of fundamental rights, end to extra-judicial killings and reversal of illegal and unilateral steps.”

The Delhi conference and similar meetings in the past by previous Indian leaders have been a deliberate distraction or subterfuge, not a roadmap to the solution of a dispute that has its roots in denying the people of Jammu and Kashmir their inalienable right to self-determination and to decide their own destiny. The Modi government refuses to acknowledge the fact that Kashmir is an international dispute as reflected in numerous UN Security Council resolutions. It has openly flouted these resolutions which call for self-determination for the Kashmiri people and has instead turned Kashmir into the world’s most militarised area. His Kashmir policy was recently described by leading Indian journalist Siddharth Varadarajan as a “dead end policy” which has been an “abject failure.”

Unless and until the Kashmir issue is resolved in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people and UN resolutions the tragedy of Kashmir will not end and peace will continue to elude South Asia. No amount of political machinations and round table conferences can change that reality. 

*Maleeha Lodhi is a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, UK & UN. Twitter @LodhiMaleeha