G20 turns G17!
A diplomatic duplicity feast is underway in India. The G20 summit meeting in the insurgency-hit occupied Kashmir, nonetheless, stands diminished to a G17 affair. China, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye by exhibiting their principled stand over the dispute of Jammu & Kashmir have boycotted the summit, and there are also reports that many other countries of the elite club have limited themselves to local diplomatic representation. This must act as a Clarion call for India, as its efforts to showcase its might by ignoring morality has backfired. The fanfare on the shores of Dal Lake in Srinagar is nothing but a grand get-together in complicity as member states often prefer sticking to multilateralism over bilateralism.
India, the G20 president for the ongoing year, acted smartly by hoisting a tourism summit in the held Valley. Its intention was to portray an image that decades of warfare and crisis have normalised, and its political stunt of abrogating Article 370 and 35A is working. This is a crude drama enacted behind the excuse of the G20 chair in Delhi, and is devoid of ground realities. It’s no surprise that journalists and international visitors have been granted a Srinagar-specific visa with the express conditionality of not commenting on freedom struggle in the region. Likewise, media reports show the military and police check-posts, wrapped in metal mesh and barbed wire, have been dismantled, and G20 hoardings used to camouflage the sites of death and destruction. This is hypocrisy and does not bode fair for a rising power like India to erect an order over the trampled lives of millions of Kashmiris.
As for G20 members, they should take this as an opportunity in disaster to grill India with some soul-searching questions. The developed world owes a responsibility to ensure fair play and address the human rights issues of over 10 million Kashmiris under the Indian yoke. Taking a leaf from history, Sudetenland appeasement must not be repeated by the world powers. This is not 1938, but 2023, where social media rules the roost.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 24th, 2023.
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