Indian security forces have martyred at least Kashmiri six civilians in recent days, labeling all of them militants and terrorists, despite little evidence to suggest this was the case. Pakistan’s Foreign Office also noted that the victims of Indian state terror were later buried at unknown locations and without the presence of any family, which is against religious and cultural traditions. The recent killings took the December death toll in Occupied Kashmir to 18, with almost a week still left in the month. Some of the victims were actually teenagers and university students rather than Daesh affiliates, which India claimed.
The truth is that the renewed brutality is just a small part of a broader campaign of arbitrary detentions, night raids, coercion, harassment and humiliation of Kashmiris, and extrajudicial killings in fake encounters. Meanwhile, for two years since the controversial repeal of Article 370, Kashmiris have not even been allowed to pray at Srinagar’s Jamia Masjid, the city’s main mosque. All of these aim at breaking the Kashmiris’ spirit and desire for freedom from New Delhi’s oppressive rule.
What is most unfortunate, however, is the Indian government’s inability to accept that the Kashmiris’ spirits cannot be broken. Prime Minister Modi and his cronies may have upped the violence, but their ignorance — particularly of Kashmiri history but also of basic policymaking in general — has led them to believe that people who could not be broken by decades of violence coupled with empty promises will be fazed just because the violence has been upped and the empty promises are withdrawn.
Instead of empty promises to the local populace, Modi has opened up IIOJK for ‘investment’ to the rest of India, something no previous government was willing to do because it flies in the face of New Delhi’s international obligations. We must also note that the ‘investment’ is primarily allowing Indians to buy up land in the disputed state, in many cases as summer properties, which will make housing even more expensive for actual Kashmiris. These violent and non-violent attacks on the rights of Kashmiris are exactly why pro-Pakistan and pro-independence sentiment has actually increased in the face of Modi’s reign of terror in the disputed territory.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 28th, 2021.
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