Kashmir mayhem: Internationally rehabilitated Pakistan can only advocate Kashmir cause, says speakers

Say out of box ideas needed for supporting Kashmiris

Pakistan needs to reform itself and repair its image abroad for effectively advocating Kashmir’s freedom struggle, said speakers.

While speaking at the conclusion a round table discussion, they said that the current disconcerting situation in Indian controlled Kasmir required more than an array of inconsequential statements and resolutions from Pakistan, according to a press release issued by the Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), an Islamabad based think tank, here on Saturday.

The discussion was attended by retired diplomats, representatives of think tanks, academics and journalists. The roundtable had been convened in the backdrop of the recent wave of protests in the Indian Kashmir.

SVI President Dr Zafar Iqbal Cheema called for a fundamental review of the strategies used in the past for supporting the Kashmir struggle that have failed to achieve the desired results.

The speakers also said that instead of just addressing the Indian government, Pakistan should also engage other opinion groups in India, who do not necessarily share Delhi’s position on the situation in Kashmir.

Former ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi said, “We have to strengthen Pakistan in a way that it can put across its point on Kashmir and the world recognises it as a reasonable and developing country, which does not promote instability and whose opinion carries weight”. He said that it was “the only way we can draw the world’s attention towards Kashmir. We would be mistaken if we think that the world would censure India because of morality and values”.

Besides, improving its international image and improving ties with India, Pakistan, he said, would have to keep the Kashmiris united on the agenda of freedom.

The bottom line, he said, was that Pakistanis need to be sincere about Kashmir.

Former foreign secretary Salman Bashir said that more needed to be done on Kashmir than just the diplomatic outreach of the Foreign Office.

“We should use social media more effectively. Youth should reach out to the world to show Indian brutalities against Kashmir. Ugly face of India and hollowness of its democratic credentials need to be exposed,” Bashir, who has remained high commissioner in India, said.

Bashir, who fears that Pakistan was out of touch with changing international realities, said, “Our views about India are also clouded; we do not understand what India is. India is not just Delhi; it is a multi-ethnic, multi-culture and multi-religion society. Moreover, it is a union of several states”.

Noting that “lip-service on Kashmir” through inconsequential statements was no longer an option, he asked for thinking out of the box for ways for supporting the Kashmir cause.

Director School of Politics and International Relations at Quaid-e-Azam University Dr Ishtiaq Hussain suggested that Pakistanis needed to take up the Kashmir issue as a humanitarian one instead of looking at it from the narrow lens of patriotism.

“Kashmir is about people and their aspirations and not territory, religion and culture,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 17^th, 2016.