Ehtisham Amir
An old quote reads, “a lie gets half way around world while the truth is still
tying its laces”. So true it is. And this adage is applicable in all spheres of
life with equal ease. Be it our mundane human activity or be the highest form of
statecraft. Goebbels is credited or accused of turning lies into an art of
propaganda. Few countries are so fond of this lie making that it seems there is
no thread of truth in their DNA.
Rhetoric aside, we must give what is due to the devil. India shares some common
chromosome with Hitler’s Nazi party. After all it is no coincidence that
swastika is commonly used in Indian political and religious landscape. Swastika
holds special place in Hindu religion and is proudly painted and displayed in
temples. Hindu India has taken many lessons from fascism of Hitler and his
ideology. And the greatest among them is to follow Goebbels in true letter and
spirit.
What was Goebbels’s fame? He presented lies in such a twisted way to the world
and bombarded them so often that truth got lost under the heap of lies. BJP is
good at assimilating any and all lessons when it comes to deceiving the world
about dark side of India.
Take the example of “shining India”. This was the election slogan of BJP in
2004,when 50% of India was living below poverty line. India had one of the
highest rates of suicide among peasants. But world was made to believe that
India was next china in making and a safe place to invest. Lure of a billion
plus customers is too difficult to resist for businesses.
India has hidden an ugly truth about the plight of its minorities. Gross
violation of fundamental human rights is most visible when it comes to Kashmir.
India has used its soft power and Goebbels philosophy hiding its ugly face in
dealing with Kashmir. This is the oldest point on agenda of UN Security Council
since 1948. It is an unresolved international dispute and not a bilateral clash.
Kashmir was raised in UNO by Indian side and the world body promised to resolve
it on points of principles.
That dream is yet to be realized but we can accept whatever meager efforts the
UN has done in this regard. It has raised an observer group, composed of
multinational military officers, to observe and report any incident of violation
of ceasefire agreement. UNMOGIP (United Nation Observer Group in India and
Pakistan) as it is called, is deployed in both India and Pakistan. Both
countries are required to facilitate this group to move freely along LoC to
monitor and report a violation. Pakistan has been cooperating with them since
then. India has always been reluctant to give UNMOGIP free access to LoC for
obvious reasons. Freedom of move within Kashmir would expose Indian
highhandedness and atrocities in Kashmir.
Before Modi’s coming to power, India was never in flagrant violation of UN
resolutions on Kashmir. But since 2016, the Indian government has denied UNMOGIP
any semblance of cooperation in performance of their mandatory work. This is
occurring in complete disregard to international treaties and resolution of the
most respected international body. And India is able to not attract any flak on
her belligerency.
It is not very hard to find out reason of Indian reluctance. Since 2014, Kashmir
has been subjected to a sinister campaign of terror by Indian forces. Kashmir is
up in flames since 1989. It is third generation of Kashmiris that is protesting
for its rights. Indian state has applied every nefarious tactic to stem the rise
of peaceful political demonstrations, but in vain. Indians have now taken a leaf
fromIsrael and implanted in Kashmir. Indian forces use pallet guns on
protesters. It is considered a non-lethal weapon but Indians have used it to
intentionally blind the protestors. A complete generation is being blinded a s a
punishment to demand one’s inalienable right.
When all coercion has failed India has tried to play another oft tested card of
“alleged” infiltration from across LoC. How ironic that Indian media and state
mouthpieces have forgotten that India has heavily fenced the LoC and fence is
guarded by nearly half a million military and paramilitary forces. Kashmir is
the most heavily militarized region in the world.
Indian forces resort to incessantly heavy firing. This is again used as smoke
screen to mask the bitter reality of Indian atrocities.
World is worried about two nuclear armed neighbours and makes all efforts to
deescalate tensions, but it conveniently ignores atrocities in Kashmir. This is
what desired by India. There is a method behind this madness of escalating
tensions on LoC. The moment news on tensions between Pakistan India hits across
globe, firing across LoC shrouds the Indian crimes against civilians in Kashmir.
Firing across LoC has been a favourite ploy of Indian forces to divert the
attention of the world from real issue. But under Modi’s extremist government,
it has been used to a degree unknown in South Asian context. A few statistics
would reveal the extent of misadventure across LoC by Indian forces. Pakistan
Foreign office reported 1300 incidents of firing along LoC in 2017 alone. These
firing incidents resulted in loss of 52 lives and injured some 175 innocent
civilians. And start of 2018 has seen an abnormally high firing incident by
Indian forces.
Since PM Modi took over office, there have been nearly 7000 firing incidentshave
occurred. This Is in sharp contrast to roughly 1100 violations of LoC from 2003
to 2013, a period of 10 years. 1100 violations in 10 years makes 110 incidents
in a year and Modi govt has raised this volume of violations to nearly 2000
violations a year. This is the true face of secularist, moderate, peace loving
democratic India. Any casual reader can also deduce the plight of people living
along the LoC. How much disruption of daily life would they be undergoing? No
media reports this horrific state of affairs of these civilians.
India refuses UNMOGIP to patrol the LoC to verify the “alleged infiltrations”
from Pakistan. World would not believe the version of India since she is party
to the conflict and words of a neutral body like UNO carries the weight. India
is unhappy with UNMOGIP since it flatly refused to verify the Indian “alleged
surgical strike” in Pakistan in October 2016 since it had never occurred. How
could India tolerate an independent minded world body? But how could UNMOGIP
verify something which never occurred.
India is continuously firing across LoC which is causing unimaginable misery and
suffering to civilians living along LoC. Pakistan is displaying patience and
restrains of highest degree but there are limits to everything. Pakistan
government and Army are trying not to respond India in the same coin. World has
to take notice of this unprovoked violence and firing across LoC before it gets
out of hand and turns into a conflict nobody can control.
(The author has served Pakistan Army as Brigadier)