A never-ending sentence

It has been over two months now since the people of Indian-Occupied Kashmir were incarcerated in their own native land by Narendra Modi’s government. More than two months since they last made contact with friends and family not in their immediate vicinity.

And yet, their plight shows no signs of subsiding any time soon. With world leaders turning a blind eye despite immense negative coverage in global media, Modi and his government seem more emboldened than ever in their repression of Kashmiris.

Shamelessly, they continue to peddle the patronising narrative that the lockdown in Occupied Kashmir is for the ‘Kashmiris’ own good’. Before the world and its own people, the Modi regime keeps on insisting that the repeal of articles 370 and 35-A – the last vestiges of protection the people of Occupied Kashmir had – were essential to ‘fully integrate’ the region into India.

So brazen is Modi in the face of muted reaction to his increasingly totalitarian bent that he has dared his own opposition to try and restore the two articles. At his first rally to drum up support for his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the October 21 Maharashtra assembly elections, he challenged other parties in India to put that very thing in their manifestos. In the same speech, Modi insisted that Occupied Kashmir is not just a ‘piece of land’ for him and his government. Likening the Himalayan territory to a ‘crown’, the Indian prime minister announced it would take at least four months for ‘things to return to normal’ in Occupied Kashmir. One wonders whether Modi realises the irony in his comments. How Kashmiris view what is ‘normal’ is vastly different from what he and his BJP ilk see. For the last 30 years, all that has been normal for Kashmiris is a state of near total repression. As for Modi’s insistence that Occupied Kashmir is more than a piece of real estate to him and his government, all evidence points to the contrary.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2019.

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