A poignant remembrance

Pakistani nation on Sunday observed a black day in somber remembrance of the October 27, 1947 event when, in sheer disregard of the popular will, the marauding Indian forces foisted Indian rule on the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Seventy-two years down the line, the Kashmiris have not accepted New Delhi’s rule as a fait accompli and their resolve to wrest back their right to self-determination has not cooled. In fact, the more time passes, the stauncher their resolve to defy India becomes. All this while, Islamabad has continued to lend its Kashmiri brethren moral and diplomatic support in their just struggle to throw off the Indian yoke.

This year’s black day comes at a time when New Delhi has turned all of Kashmir into, what India’s own celebrity author Arundhati Roy famously described as, “a giant prison camp”. Seven million Kashmiris have been barricaded and a communications blackout imposed since August 4, a day before an amendment to the Indian Constitution was proposed and quickly passed by parliament, which stripped the State of Jammu and Kashmir of its special status — which includes its right to have its own constitution and its own flag. It also stripped it of statehood and partitioned it into two Union territories.

The entire Kashmiri leadership was also rounded up or put under house arrest. To condemn the twin incidents, Pakistanis around the world and Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) vented their fury and indignation through major events and shutdowns. Prime Minister Imran Khan, on this occasion, held out an assurance to the Kashmiri people that ‘all of Pakistan is standing by you’. In a recorded statement aired on Sunday, he presented himself as their counsel and spokesperson. He reiterated his apprehension that the Modi government was looking for an excuse to unleash military power on Kashmiris through staging a Pulwama-style incident. But, as is always the case, the show of support was not at government level alone. It transcended the political divide, with PML-N’s President Shehbaz Sharif and PPP’s Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari also pledging full support to Kashmiris for attainment of their right to self-determination.