It is highly contradictory that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hosting the G-20 summit in the disputed territory of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) to show to the international community that circumstances are normal there, while Kashmiris’ indigenous freedom struggle still continues.
However, India will conduct its third G-20 Tourism Working Group meeting in Srinagar between May 22 and 24, 2023. The summit in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) will be the first significant international event since August 5, 2019, when the Modi-led Indian extremist government revoked articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution, which gave a special status to the IIOJK.
Indian government bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to be ruled by the federal government, and the strict military lockdown was imposed in the IIOJK which continues unabated.
In this regard, under the caption: India Projects Image of Normalcy From Kashmir-Brings the G-20 to Kashmir, Kugelman Michael wrote on April 13, this year in the Foreign Policy Com: “India recently released a list of upcoming G-20 meetings it will host as this year’s president of the group…includes a tourism working group meeting in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir, in May…the first major international event in the disputed region since August 2019…By hosting the meeting in Srinagar…New Delhi wants to signal that Indian-administered Kashmir is stable, peaceful, and ready to engage with the world after the 2019 decision.”
Kugelman elaborated: “Taken at face value, some recent developments suggest a return to normalcy in Kashmir. Militant violence has subsided, although the Hindu minority has suffered a recent spate of deadly attacks. However, by other measures, little has changed. The region remains heavily militarized, with continuing crackdowns on the right to protest and freedom of speech. One Kashmiri who requested anonymity said that India’s G-20 meeting in Srinagar is just an “attempt to fake normalcy”, while repression persists.”
Meanwhile, Indian defence sources admitted that five Indian soldiers were killed in first of its kind ambush attack on a moving military vehicle on April 20, 2023, by the militants in Jammu region’s Poonch district, while a massive hunt has been launched in the area to nab the attackers—the terrorists laid down the trap in a planned manner, leaving very little scope of reaction time for the trained Rashtriya Rifles, who were traveling in the truck.
The assault came at a time when the Jammu and Kashmir government has been preparing for the G-20 conference in Srinagar. Indian Union Home Minister Amit Shah took a detailed security review earlier for the success of the event.
Like the past practice, without any investigation, Indian officials and its media started a blame game against Islamabad and the Pakistan-based insurgent group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)—its affiliated Peoples Anti-Fascist Front regarding the attack, while Pakistan has already banned the JeM outfit and has taken action against it.
Notably, Islamabad on June 25 last year opposed India’s plans to hold some G-20 events in Kashmir in the run-up to hosting the summit in 2023. In this context, in a statement, Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) said: “Pakistan completely rejects any such attempt by India…Contemplating the holding of any G 20 related event in Jammu and Kashmir, in utter disregard of the globally acknowledged ‘disputed’ status of the territory, is a travesty that the international community cannot accept under any circumstances.”
The statement added: “Pakistan also urged the international community to ask India to revoke its actions of August 5, 2019, and free all political prisoners. The only way to lasting peace in South Asia is to grant the people of J&K their right to self-determination.”
New Delhi manipulated the FO statement by allegedly stating that through the terror attack in Poonch, Jammu and Kashmir, Islamabad wants to disrupt the upcoming G-20 summit in Kashmir.
And in a foreign ministry statement on April 11, 2023, Pakistan expressed almost similar thoughts, mentioned in the FO statement.
Nevertheless, the recent attack in Poonch came after a chain of terror strikes and encounters occurred in Jammu and other regions in the last two years.
It is mentionable that despite the deployment of more than 900,000 military troops in the IIOJK, who have martyred tens of thousands of the Kashmiris, including women and children through brutal tactics-fake encounters—employment of various draconian laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the Public Safety Act (PSA) for arbitrary arrest of any individual etc., Kashmiris have accelerated the war of liberation, being waged for their right of self-determination, which was recognized by the related UN resolutions.
It is noteworthy that a year after India abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, UN human rights experts on August 4, 2020, called on India and the international community to take urgent action to address the “alarming” human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
Amnesty International also said on September 29, 2020, that it is “stopping its work in India because the government has frozen its bank accounts” on September 10 for highlighting rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir” and “the government had sought to punish it for that”.
In the recent past, the UN Security Council in its meetings has thrice reiterated that the Kashmir issue requires it to be settled in accordance with the principles of the UN charter and the related Security Council resolutions.
In fact, ignoring the facts and the ground realities in the IIOJK, Indian Premier Modi intends to show that with G-20 leaders—pledging a joint crackdown on terrorism and its financing, as well as vowing to destroy terrorist safe havens in every part of the world and in this connection, Islamabad should come under global scrutiny.
While, Indian intelligence agency RAW which is in collusion with Israeli Mossad, supports the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other terror groups such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) and Balochistan Liberation Army, and their linked outfits like Jundullah has been fully assisting terror-activities in various regions of Pakistan, including China, Iran, Bangladesh etc. These terror groups claimed responsibility for many terrorism-related assaults.
Particularly, with the secret scheme of New Delhi, TTP formed an alliance with militant outfits Jamat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) and Hizb-ul-Ahrar (HuA) in Afghanistan in August 2020 to foment trouble in Pakistan. Recent terrorism-related assaults on Pakistan’s security forces and their installations by the TTP might also be cited as instances.
The UN report of July 26, 2020, and 27th report released in the recent past pointed out that after the “reunification of splinter groups [of TTP] in Afghanistan, the terrorists continue to target Pakistan.”
So, it is quite surprising that PM Modi is hosting the G-20 Summit in the IIOJK to display to the international community that circumstances are normal there, while Kashmiris’ indigenous freedom struggle still continues.