English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Russian
Spanish
Urdu
For decades, Kashmir has been like a coin with two contrasting faces. One face reveals the real Kashmir, a land striving for peace, development, and growth. The other presents a manufactured Kashmir, crafted through propaganda, terrorism, and extremist narratives nurtured from across the border. While one side bears witness to changing realities and progress, the other attempts to drown those truths in violence, lies, deception, and terrorism.
Kashmir acceded to India on 26 October 1947 through the signing of the Instrument of Accession supported by will of Kashmiris following a Pakistan-sponsored tribal invasion of the region. The invasion was valiantly resisted by the brave sons of Kashmir. It marked the first attack by Pakistan on Kashmir, and since then, the pattern has continued for decades through terrorism, proxy warfare, and extremist violence. These vile actions pushed Kashmir into prolonged darkness, devastating the Valley’s youth, its future, and severely damaging tourism and the economy for generations.
Ever since receiving its first blowback at the hands of ordinary Kashmiris, Pakistan has been unable to digest the simple fact that Kashmir rejects Pakistan. It has continued to push the bogus Kashmir propaganda wherever it felt possible, using every means at its disposal to lay claim to the region through propaganda, terrorism, proxy networks, and wars against our country. Yet, every such attempt has been met with a strong response and eventual failure. Despite this, Pakistan continues to repeat its rhetoric that “Kashmir Pakistan ki shah rag hai” Kashmir is Pakistan’s jugular vein, the same jugular vein, that has suffered a thousand cuts at Pakistan’s own hands, a land whose sons and daughters were ruined by the very country that claims to care for them.
Even after so many setbacks internationally, with multiple defeats at the hands of India and clear-cut rejections by the people of Kashmir repeatedly, the question is: why is Pakistan still obsessed with Kashmir? Why does Pakistan’s unfair, illegitimate, unwanted, and unnecessary obsession and meddling never end? Why does it continue to make headlines?
It has a simple answer: because Kashmir is Pakistan’s survival; its policies, politics, and defence survive on this. Pakistani politicians use Kashmir to divert the attention of their own citizens from their failures. Pakistan has deep financial woes, surviving on loans and IMF bailouts, reeling with unemployment, poverty, food crises, and internal security concerns. Pakistani politicians use Kashmir to brush all these national issues under the carpet, allowing them to evade accountability.
The issue is not limited to Pakistani politicians only. Common, innocent, and gullible Pakistani citizens have been fed such an emotive narrative since Pakistan’s inception. Pakistan has instilled a doctrine among its public that Kashmir belongs to Pakistan, Kashmiris want to be with Pakistan, Pakistan and Kashmir are connected via Tawheed: La Ilaha Illallah, we are brothers in Islam, Kashmiris face this and that, we have to fight for Kashmir, and Pakistanis need to stand for Kashmir. But none of this is true by any stretch of the imagination; all of this is baseless and senseless. Thus, by hijacking its citizens emotionally and exploiting their emotions, politicians use Kashmir to hide their failures and political leverage to gain seats.
When we talk about Pakistan, how can the army stay behind or remain unmentioned? Pakistan Army is often called a state within a state, but I think, given the power it holds, it is the supremo; it is a state above a state. The army uses Kashmir to justify its heavy budget despite the clampdown on the national economy. With Pakistan’s worsening economy, the army still enjoys a heavy defence budget and advanced weapons procurement that many stable countries would consider ten times before buying, but Pakistan does. For this, they use Kashmir. We have to fight for Kashmir, a war with India is inevitable to take Kashmir, and all those stories with no head or tail. Despite economic strains, the army is the richest, with the Fauji Foundation, Pakistan Army’s money-minting machine. The so-called Kashmir optics is used to divert the public from that. The army enjoys absolute immunity and power in Pakistan only because of Kashmir. So how can the Pakistani army or politicians not use Kashmir rhetoric time and again? It is their trump card.
Coming to recent times, Pakistani ministers have once again mentioned Kashmir in their statements, calling it the unfinished business of the 1947 Partition and a dispute. We are not a dispute. We decided our fate in 1947 with a secular, democratic India, and we rejected Pakistan right after it was created. We cannot be with a country that kills minorities, uses Islam to justify extremism and terrorism, has fuelled Islamophobia and has built its identity around terrorism and intolerance. Calling us a business? Are we a business? Yes, for Pakistan, because Kashmir keeps them in power and gives the army money. But we are a nation, a history, and a culture that is happy and satisfied under the shade of the Tricolour.
A country that has unleashed terror, violence, and extremism in our land, made us suffer for decades, put our innocents into graves, orphaned our children, widowed our women, turned our heaven into hell, and destroyed our future, education and economy for decades should not lay its unpleasant claim on us.
Today, Kashmir is on the path of peace, stability, and growth. The Kashmir that Pakistan left no stone unturned to ruin bears scars that are still fresh, and we have not forgotten any of it. We are India, we are with India, and we are an integral, inalienable, and inseparable part of the democratic and secular Republic of India. We are India’s crown, Earth’s paradise, and we shall remain so till the dawn of Judgment Day. Recent remarks by Pakistan are misleading and a distortion of facts. They not only violate the territorial sovereignty and integrity of India but also hurt the emotions of Kashmiris, who see them as unwarranted interference and a violation of Kashmir’s choice of acceding to India.
I, on behalf of my fellow Kashmiris, reject Pakistan’s claims of all sorts on our Kashmir and urge international bodies to stop Pakistan from doing so and direct it to look into its domestic issues, Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and PoJK/PoGB, the occupied regions that actually belong to Jammu and Kashmir and, eventually, to India.
ALIZAROON112@GMAIL.COM
