Raqif Makhdoomi
The government of India (GOI) has always been tough on its stand regarding Jammu and Kashmir. They have always avoided the third party getting involved in it and at certain times they refer to saying that there’s nothing like Kashmir issue. In 2008 while Congress led UPA was ruling at the center the UK government passed resolution to help India in investigating the unmarked graves but the government of India rejected it by referring to those graves as of “Foreign Militants”. The UK government had even offered funds but GOI didn’t agree. As the government changed in 2014 NDA took over UPA and Narendra Modi became the PM. This government took even more harder stand. On August 05, 2019 the central Government abrogated special status of Jammu and Kashmir and changed it to a UT and made ladakh a separate UT . There seemed to be a shift in hard line policy. The elected parliamentarians when tried to visit Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 were not allowed to come out of Srinagar airport and were sent back. This move attracted much criticism by the opposition parties but Modi used his old method of getting Pakistan as a shield and accused opposition of helping Pakistan . Well this thing raised many eyebrows, how can those sitting in the Indian parliament help Pakistan but no one could counter the NDA as they were left speechless by the modi tactics. Then they had to move to Supreme Court to seek permission to visit the valley. Ghulam Nabi Azad was allowed to visit but conditions were imposed on him. But as the time went on no other opposition leader or any opposition delegation tried to visit valley. In all this clampdown came the ending of October which saw a visit of a delegation to Kashmir that too a foreign delegation comprising of 15 EU delegates . The visit came when Kashmir was in its 88th day of curfew and total internet clampdown. The delegation landed in Srinagar on 29/10/19 at aroud 12:30 PM and before coming to Srinagar the delegation met PM Modi on 28/10/19. The visit of the delegation attracted enormous amount of criticism even the NGO that had organised the meeting of the delegation with the Prime Minister of India also was a controversial one. The website of the NGO when checked by an Indian News channel didn’t had much and when the details mentioned on it were verified it also gave rise to many questions but their was no one to answer. The office address when verified arose many more questions but they are still left unanswered. Some of the delegates stepped out saying that they had asked for free access to people but they were denied and so on.
People were confused on seeing delegation enjoying ride instead of reaching out to people who are under many restrictions but both the delegations seemed to enjoy ride.
Those who visited seemed to be interested in enjoying more than finding out what’s the truth. The shikara ride of the EU envoys drived much more criticism. The visit looked much more scripted than the Indian dramas. The people who met were either people of bjp or the B team people, the common masses were not allowed to meet them and they were not allowed to meet people on ground. They had to meet the 15 GOC of the army stationed in Srinagar where they were briefed about the Cease fire violations and the infiltration across the LoC. This must be noted when the whole mainstream leadership was detained under Preventive detention only then the delegation made a visit at that time. People didn’t even had the information that the delegation was on a visit at that time. Well the irony is they weren’t allowing their own parliamentarians to visit the valley but they got people from other parts of world to visit Kashmir and give them illusion of normalcy which was really strange. The BJP that never allowed anyone to speak or criticize them on Kashmir is getting people to give them certificate of normalcy. When Yashwant senha led concerned citizens group came to Kashmir they were not allowed to move south Kashmir citing security reasons. The thing that must be noted is that the members of the delegation had serious charges on them some even had chargers of supporting crimes. Well now what could have been expected from that delegation was open to everyone. People didn’t took the visit any seriously as it looked scripted from top to bottom. Davies one of the delegate who backed out of the delegation that made visit to valley in October 2019. When asked about his reasons of stepping out of the delegation he said that he wanted to meet the common people. But he wasn’t allowed to do that!. What an irony! And went on saying that he wasn’t ready for the PR stunt. He even raised questions on the credibility of the NGO that had arranged the meeting of the delegation with PM Modi. He even said that he’s surprised to know that the NGO has links with PM of India. Another EU delegation landed 3 months after the first ever visit of foreign delegation after abrogation of 370. They landed in Srinagar on 12th of February when the three former CMs were booked under PSA. This delegation was welcomed when at the same time Kashmir had become a place which was witnessing the world’s longest internet shutdown. This delegation had nothing different. It had the same schedule. Meeting Army, Meeting LG Murmu and selected people which have no dissent views on abrogation 370. They were the ones who spoke the words of Government of India. Delegation member Tahir Qadriy of Afghanistan who’s tweets got him to huge criticism. What hit the people of Kashmir the most was how’s this guy able to tweet when whole Kashmir has become Alien to social media. People went on asking him about which VPN he’s using. Tahir came under criticism of his tweet in which he mentions about Kashmir being normal and he seeing school students going to school. He termed traffic jams as an indication of normalcy in Kashmir. To which people asked him to visit other conflict zones where he will be caught in traffic jams. Well he being himself from Afghanistan he must be knowing that how conflict goes like. This delegation had nothing different this delegation started their tour with shikara ride and that delegation also enjoyed it. People were confused on seeing delegation enjoying ride instead of reaching out to people who are under many restrictions but both the delegations seemed to enjoy ride. Nothing was different and in the same schedule same outcome came as people were unmoved by the visit. One of the delegate member said that he’s here as a tourist and the other one refused to speak. I spoke to a person who had met the delegation and he said that when I asked them about UN resolutions on Kashmir and to my surprise they were not aware about it. Now how can someone be a delegate who doesn’t know about the UN resolutions on Kashmir?
(The author is a human rights defender. Views are his own, [email protected])