Distance between Kashmir and Delhi

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi did the right thing by rebutting Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s incorrect statement that Kashmir stood with Delhi. The only thing you really need to look at to test if there’s any truth at all in the claim is the situation on the ground, especially in Indian Held Kashmir. If Kashmir indeed stood by Delhi and its policies, why has the Indian government imposed the strictest curfew in ages over there? If people really warm up to India, as the Indian minister has claimed so boldly, then why all the hostility? And what Qureshi said about Azad Kashmir was also very apt; inviting Singh to visit Muzaffarabad and see the situation for himself. And once he’s done that he should also invite his Pakistani counterpart to the Indian side.

That would really put things in perspective, wouldn’t it, and make everything clear for everybody. But everybody knows that the Indian government will not allow anybody to see what is really happening on the ground. If its wild accusations about terrorists and dens were really true, it would have gladly invited the foreign press, observers, and pretty much everybody who would come, to authenticate its position. Yet it is always Pakistan that is open to foreign observation. And the international community must also finally realise that the time has come to force India to open up about what is really happening in the Occupied Valley.

It is, of course, not just Pakistan that is having to endure border disputes because of India’s aggressive regional policy. China, too, seems to have had enough of India’s unacceptable claims about their own mutual border, and the situation in the Laddakh region is deteriorating by the day. Indeed, international media has already started to warn about prospects of a real skirmish if Delhi does not back down immediately. Of course, India has the backing of USA right now, but that has more to do with Washington’s hatred of everything Chinese than anything India might have to say or do to America. But Washington, too, can only lend solid support till the reality of the oppression in Kashmir is deliberately kept hidden from much of the world. The PTI government must be credited with taking this problem to the UN more forcefully than before. But a lot more clearly needs to be done. And the more the world looks into this matter the more everybody will realise that the distance between Kashmir and Delhi is indeed very large, and it is not just physical.