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How is Israel-occupied Palestine any different from India-occupied Kashmir?
It was truly heartening, albeit a little confusing, to watch India come out in support of the Palestine cause earlier this week. In a statement given at the United Nations Security Council debate on “the situation in the Middle East”, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T.S. Tirumurti delivered his remarks, establishing on record India’s position of “unwavering” commitment to the two-State solution. Ambassador Tirumurti stated that “the events of the last several days have resulted in a sharp deterioration of the security situation”, while also reiterating India’s strong support to the “just” Palestinian cause.
Let us now magically teleport ourselves to Indian Occupied Kashmir, where Muzzamil Waza, a resident of Sopore, said: “We’re wearing these flags to show our solidarity with the people of Palestine” as he wore a Palestinian flag on his jacket. “What India is doing in Kashmir is similar to Israeli atrocities imposed on Palestinians, and like our Palestinian brothers we too bear the consequence of Indian occupation.”
It then becomes quite the conundrum for us to try to understand how the sheer hypocrisy of global states works when it comes to selective condemnation, and support being extended to one “just” cause while they continue to oppress people under their own rule. It was not too long ago when we were reading about the plight of the Kashmiris when they were stripped of their rights and left to rot in the world’s largest open-air prison. Now, they too, raise their voice for their Palestinian counterparts who live under perpetual siege. World leaders have not only acted as mute spectators in this latest onslaught of bloodshed in Palestine, but they remained of the same negligible decibel level even when it came to what happened in Kashmir on 5 August 2019. Sri Lankans are no strangers to violence and conflict; watching the rest of the world burn should most definitely act as a reminder for us too, to remain conflict-free in a region where turmoil seems to be waiting at every corner.
The very widely debated “Article 370” in India was a law that had promised the Kashmiri State autonomy within the Union, but the reality remained that Article 370 failed to live up to its purpose and Indian-occupied Kashmir never truly enjoyed the autonomy it was promised. This failure can be attributed to the lack of intent demonstrated by the political actors concerned at the time and it could also be said that they used Article 370 merely as a “tunnel in the wall”, to increase the union’s domain within the Kashmiri state by carefully eroding the Article of its contents, leaving nothing but an empty shell, bereft of the rights it had purported to give.
Indian Occupied Kashmir is no stranger to violence. What is happening to the people living under the constant threat of violence, fear, rape, and death, leaves us to wonder how in the world “pot” can so brazenly call the “kettle” black. Despite marveling at the sheer audacity of it all, the world watched as Tirumurti continued his statement to state that “immediate de-escalation is the need of the hour, so as to arrest any further slide towards the brink. We urge both sides to show extreme restraint, desist from actions that exacerbate tensions, and refrain from attempts to unilaterally change the existing status-quo, including in East Jerusalem and its neighbourhood”. Let us dissect this statement further, and deconstruct what he meant when he said “refrain from attempts to unilaterally change the existing status-quo”. When India abrogated Article 370 nearly two years ago, it did so unilaterally. Did that change the status quo? It most certainly did. India did not do anything to show that “de-escalation [was] the need of the hour”. Did this exacerbate tensions within the region? Undoubtedly so. Then how is it that they can sit there and condemn what has happened in Gaza, while throwing a veil of darkness over their issues of human rights violations, and the utter inhumanity with which their Kashmiri prisoners are treated? And prisoners, they most certainly are.
The UN said quite vociferously that the restrictions imposed on Kashmir by India were deeply concerning and “will exacerbate the human rights situation”. A UN spokesperson highlighted a telecommunications ban, the arbitrary detention of leaders and a ban on political assembly, when Article 370 had initially been abrogated. The region had been put into lockdown well before anyone knew what Covid19 lockdowns even meant, and all communication had been cut off. This wasn’t just a case of former President Maithripala Sirisena shutting down access to Facebook because he was having a mood swing; this was far more sinister, and far less farcical. It was echoed in the barbaric actions of Israel this month when they bombed down media houses and did their utmost to stifle dissent and the dissemination of information to the world about the ground realities of what was happening in Gaza. It just goes to show that Muzzamil Waza was right; he does indeed have plenty in common with his Palestinian counterparts.
India’s controversial decision to remove Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status came at the expense of human rights and an entire populations’ right to live freely and without the threat of persecution and violence. Yet again, we see parallels between these occupational forces and their deadly tactics, aiming to control and make their prisoners submit. But the main point to ponder at the end of both these atrocious situations of human rights violations is this: will the world forget to post about Palestine, the same way it let Jammu and Kashmir disappear into the oblivion of a short attention span?
Palestine and Israel have now reached a ceasefire agreement. Despite this latest development (one that has already been broken by Israel when they stormed the Al Aqsa mosque yet again, a few hours into the ceasefire), we must ask ourselves whether a ceasefire in Palestine, and silence surrounding the occupation of Indian Occupied Kashmir is truly what is fair on the people being killed in cold blood. What will it take to administer accountability to terrorist policies pushed forward by states who have no respect for International Law, and act with total impunity? This unfortunately, remains anybody’s guess.
(Mahum Kidwai is a Lawyer and Teacher based in Colombo, Sri Lanka who was born in Pakistan. She can be found on twitter at @writergirl_11)