Indian designs for AJK

India is out to destabilise Azad Jammu and Kashmir after illegally annexing the illegally occupied part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. India is splurging on the destabilisation project in Azad Jammu and Kashmir quite munificently, in perfect accord with the Modi-Doval doctrine of politico-economic subversion of the recalcitrant foes. A revisionist Hindutva ideology that drinks deep from the well of a mythical past where the high caste Hindus held low caste inhabitants of the sub-continent in permanent bondage nourishes the BJP politics. The apotheosis of such politics is the Modi cult that like a Frankenstein’s monster has outgrown its own creator i.e. Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS supremo.

Why India covets disputed territory and what drives its quest for territorial and geopolitical domination in the region is a result of a belief system that brooks no diversity of thought and faith. Hate is being used as a rallying cry to corral the believing herd of Hindu extremists into a stockade of acrimony, where the low caste Dalit community and non-Hindu Indian minorities are made the target of majority’s tyranny. Modi has now risen above Mohan Bhagwat as a Vishwa Guru, becoming a brand name for Indian resurgence. Modi has cleverly played on the Hindu community’s subconscious persecution complex, embedded in the collective Hindu psyche since centuries.

The derogatory allusions to Muslim community as ‘Babur Ki Aulad’ touch a raw nerve with the Hindu masses who take a vicarious pleasure out of the discomfiture of Muslim and Christian minorities, the co-religionists of their past oppressors and colonists. It is for above reason that Crenshaw’s famous ‘Theory of Radicalization’ applies to Indian context. According to the theory, the apogee of radicalisation is reached when the government does not do anything itself, but a radicalised society takes up the job. India has reached that stage where the society has become so radicalised that the state finds it very convenient to outsource the violence against minorities by the radicalised citizens.

Cow vigilantes go around freely smelling beef in shanty towns to pick up and administer the rough and ready mob justice in the shape of public lynchings. In twelve Indian states, the anti-conversion laws apply whereas in all states barring eight the cow slaughter is prohibited. The Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) which is a disputed region has been annexed in August 2019 in flagrant disregard of the international law. The reign of terror unleashed ever since then, including the world record of 213 weeks of internet blackout, and incarceration of the political leadership, including those leaders that were once sympathetic to India, has converted IIOJK into one of the largest open-air jails in the world.

The property rights law has been changed to allow non-subject Kashmiris to purchase property, leaving Kashmiris to suffer the fate of Red Indians in their own land. The domicile law has been altered illegally to allow over 1 million Indians including 7,346 bureaucrats to settle in IIOJK, according to Dr Mubin Shah, a Kashmiri entrepreneur, now in exile. The gerrymandering of electoral constituencies in Jammu and Srinagar Divisions has added 6 seats in Hindu-dominated Jammu and only 1 seat in Muslim-dominated Srinagar Division, despite a preponderant Muslim majority in Srinagar. The aim is to disenfranchise Muslims and to elect a BJP Chief Minister who could give further fillip to illegal Indian occupation.

Now after letting loose a reign of terror and subjugation in IIOJK, the Doval doctrine targets Azad Jammu and Kashmir. A very clever propaganda campaign has been launched by India and its proxies in AJK, exploiting public discontent over removal of subsidies on wheat and electricity rates. The present electricity consumption rates in Pakistan for certain consumers are as high as Rs65/kwh whereas the same are Rs6/kwh in AJK. Similarly, a 40kg flour bag costs Rs3,900 in Pakistan whereas the government subsidy ensures that it sells for Rs2,000 per bag in AJK. The present government has announced a subsidy package worth Rs23 billion for AJK, accommodating all demands of Joint Awami Action Committee.

Despite accommodation certain elements operating on a foreign agenda are trying to stoke the fires of unrest in AJK. While genuine economic grievances need to be assuaged, the mischief makers operating, in the garb of protesters, also need to be identified. Indian RAW under Doval doctrine has launched a full-fledged covert operation to destabilise AJK in order to divert the world’s attention from the tragedy unfolding in IIOJK. Indians are changing the demography and sociology of IIOJK through the force of 0.95 million bayonets, as quoted in an Indian publication, Asian Age. Keeping an alarmingly high troops-to-people ratio in IIOJK, the Indian government has now started operations inside AJK and Pakistan. Two Kashmiri activists have been assassinated in Sialkot and Rawalakot exactly on the same template used against Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

The Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary during a press briefing has exposed two Indian agents, Akash and Yogesh, linked to RAW and involved in the murder of two Kashmiri activists on Pakistan’s soil. Credible evidence was also provided linking these assassinations to RAW. Along with above, the incendiary statements of Indian Interior Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, coveting AJK, clearly indicate a method in Indian madness. Shah’s statement of 11^th May was on cue after the AJK protest marchers clashed with LEAs and was followed up by Singh’s offensive statement claiming AJK territory.

While someone should launch a crash course for the two Indian luminaries to learn the basics of international law and Indian obligations to abide by the UNSC resolutions calling for a plebiscite in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan needs to take all possible protective measures to ward off the fresh onslaught of subversion by RAW. The patriotic people of AJK who had thrown out the yoke of Dogra slavery through their grit and resolve should not fall prey to Indian machinations.

The Indian assault is coming for sure, and contrary to Pakistan, it would be a Hybrid Plus in case of AJK. Let us not allow the Indians to creep through the crevasses of our internal differences to breach the dyke. The most effective way to counter Indian aggression is to forge unity through good governance in AJK. Our very best political and administrative talent should serve AJK and that service should be seen on ground.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2024.

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