India will assume its two year term as a non-permanent member at the UN Security Council from First January 2021. She has a berth at the Forty Seven member UN Human Rights Council until 2021. The number of votes that India has secured in the General Assembly against these two positions has remained impressive.
India could have been rightly heckled and its prestige badly hurt during both elections. We did not work in that direction at all. I have represented Kashmir at the UN since January 1990 and have a considered view that we had a strong case against India under Articles 3, 4, 5, 6 and 143 of UN Charter.
Government of Azad Kashmir does not have any mechanism at any level of its administration that could have monitored the situation and made a robust input, in the thought process of Islamabad, in regard to Indian elections at UN HRC and UN SC. The remote hope that was inducted into Azad Kashmir, has been the gifting by Islamabad of a former diplomat of Kashmiri origin as President of Azad Kashmir. Did he deserve this slot at this point in Kashmir history? The answer is, not at all. He has remained involved in selling the four point formula of President Musharraf and would not hesitate to pick up the basket once again.
After playing his long inning as a servant of the State, he does not have the grit to head as the President of a State, which has assumed duties under UNCIP Resolutions, for a UN supervised referendum. It serves his interests that genuine and credible people are kept at bay and malleable people are retained in his regiment. He has mastered the art of striking a quid pro quo. So are we shooting ourselves in the foot? The answer is, yes, we are.
The political machinery in Azad Kashmir and the diplomacy in Islamabad have failed to come up with a pointed and proportionate response to vacate the Indian aggression and re-occupation. India has succeeded to find a constituency in Pakistanis and Kashmiris who continue to put up a challenge against Pakistani record of human rights in Azad Kashmir at the UN Human Rights Council and at other forums.
There is a growing suspicion that something sinister might have happened behind the closed doors and that is why Pakistan seems to be half hearted and off its feet in not bumping into Indian belly. Otherwise Pakistan has a strong constituency in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, in Azad Kashmir, GB and in the Diaspora. India has lost all the vestiges of a very small constituency that it had in Kashmir until 4 August 2019.
We seem to have shot ourselves in the foot. We are very slow and not seen gearing up to help Kashmiris and confront India. There is no stir or any activity in Azad Kashmir, except political statements. Government of Pakistan, its main discipline of Parliamentary Kashmir Committee and Ministry of Kashmir Affairs, have taken Indian actions as a slap on the wrist. We must admit that the experiment of our political alliance and the science of our militancy have failed in Kashmir. India succeeded to turn it around and we seem to have lost the oar. We did not fail because India was too clever. We failed because we had recruited a barber to plead in the court and hired a lawyer to shampoo and shave in the barber’s saloon.
We have entered into a political cul de sac and ahead is a political wilderness. There is a need to make hard choices and the beginning has to be made with an audit of the framework within which we have conducted ourselves from 1987 on the political, militant and diplomatic front. India was driven into its mouse hole for a long time, used to beg and offer ‘sky’ as the limit. Today India has locked us up since 5 August 2019, has dismembered the State under its control and is busy in hurting the demography of a Muslim majority State.
As a human rights defender and one who gave up all luxuries of life, namely, rich history and lead role in a lead family and left to fight the Indian rule, would not blame Pakistan for all. The blame lies with the Kashmiri leadership in Azad Kashmir Government. It lies with the twelve refugee members elected for the AJK Assembly, to advance the interests of Kashmir cause and the interests of 2.5 million Kashmiri refugees living in the four provinces of Pakistan. AJK Government and the leaders left it too late to take a stir until the Hurriet and militancy collapsed in Kashmir.
There is an argument that Karachi Agreement of 1949 with Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir Act 1974, are the hindrances created to keep the people of Kashmir as a sub-ordinate people (slaves) by Islamabad. The argument has no merit. Azad Kashmir Government and leaders have failed to carry out their share of duties listed in the Karachi Agreement of April 1949 and their share of duties assumed under UNCIP Resolutions in Act 1974. For example the institutional duties listed in respect of Plebiscite in Section 8 of Act 1970 and Section 11 in Act 1974, have not been touched upon by the Government of Azad Kashmir for the last 50 years.
The President who has been gifted to Azad Kashmir by Islamabad would not take upon the constitutional responsibility because, he is tailored to push files and reconcile according to the times. He does not have any direct sense of hurt or pain to lose his sleep. Prime Minister and the speaker are members of a divided family and may share a genuine feeling of pain inflicted by Indian security forces and the administration. But on balance, their collective interest is embedded in perpetuating a status quo. We need a Diogenes and his lamp, to lead us through the howling winds. Azad Kashmir and Pakistan Governments have to act now and act in unison.
The writer is President of London based Jammu and Kashmir Council for Human Rights – NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations
