Making India pay

The time is fast approaching when the leaders of the international community, especially all the countries that go so far as waging wars in other countries allegedly just for democracy and human decency, will have to finally decide just where they stand on the matter of Indian oppression against Muslims and minorities in general and its actions in Occupied Kashmir in particular. The Pakistani foreign office is right that the heart wrenching image of a toddler sitting on top of his grandfather who was brutally murdered by Indian security forces for no reason will remain seared in the imagination forever. Yet, if both the past and the present are any guide, all that will happen is that human rights organizations will demand some sort of action, perhaps sanctions, but then nothing will happen and Islamabad will become the only voice demanding justice against Indian aggression.

The examples of India and Israel show so clearly how dead the shared conscience of the global community has become. Israel gets away with anything it likes in the occupied Palestinian territories because its advocates in Washington are flush with money and provide generous contributions to campaign funds. And the India is virtually granted a license to kill and maim at will in Kashmir because of its large market which gives the world’s multinationals more money than they can count. The United Nations (UN) does put out a statement now and then, but its working system is far too bureaucratic and dependent on votes that are easily manipulated to make any sort of meaningful difference.

It is, then, left to the people of the world to do something about all this injustice. This, the age of social media, is completely different from anything that has come before it. Images of that shocked little boy, sitting on top of his dead grandfather, were able to stun the world only because they went viral on the internet. It can now only be hoped that when leaders in advanced western democracies go to the people to beg for votes they will be questioned about such things and what they intend to do about them should they be voted into office. And the Indian people, too, must also have wondered about their government and its policies as they saw that little helpless boy on their smart phones and laptops. It was they, after all, that brought Modi to power; not once, but twice. And considering what it has brought them, it is up to them to decide his fate.