After New Delhi abrogated Article 370, Prime Minister Imran Khan has kept his promise to raise the issue of Kashmir in every international forum. He started off by doing so during his first ever US visit and when US President Donald Trump offered to mediate on Kashmir, it looked like Khan had finally broken the seven-decade old mediation jinxof bilateralism on Kashmir that has consistently been plaguing the issue of Kashmir.However, just when Khan was comparing this success with winning the world cupand Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshiwas proudly announcing thatTrump’s mediation offer was “more than what Pakistan expected,”the US State Department upset the apple cart by clarifying it continues to regard Kashmir as a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan, because of this President Trump would consider mediation only if Prime Minister Narender Modi would request him to do so.
However, though Pakistanimedia continued to hail Trump’s mediation offer as a pathbreakingmovethat was in keeping with Khan’s prediction that by abrogating Article 370, India had ended up “internationalising” the Kashmir issue, the reality is different. The end result of Khan bringing up the Kashmir issue in Washington was that even Trump,whomthe PM of Pakistan described as leading “the most powerful country in the world,” appeared helpless when it came to mediating on Kashmir since he didn’t have New Delhi’s concurrence.So, would it be wrong to say that Khan’s taking up the Kashmir issue only highlighted Trump’shelplessness as far as mediation was concerned? And hasn’t thishas only strengthened New Delhi’s stand of Kashmir being a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan without any scope of any third-party intervention?
Pakistan Foreign Ministerwrote to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres complaining that by abrogating Article 370, India had violated UNSC resolutions on Kashmir. However, after a meeting with Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi, when the media asked UNSC President Joanna Wronecka for her views on Islamabad’s complaint, her curt reply was “no comments”!The UNSC meet called by Pakistan to discuss abrogation of Article 370 was turned into a joke when it was downgraded to an informal discussion in which no record of proceedings was maintained, nor was any statement issued on its conclusion.To make matters worse, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres recalled the Shimla Agreement of 1972 under which both India and Pakistan decided to bilaterally resolve their differences and this statement too matches New Delhi’s stance.
Even before the UNSC meeting on Kashmir took place, Qureshi told the people of Pakistan not live in a "fool's paradise" because UNSC members “are not waiting for you with garlands in their hands.” Thus, if Islamabad already knew beforehand that nothing would come out of its move to take the Kashmir issue to UNSC, then what was the logic for doing so? And since UNSC didn’t express any support for Pakistan’s claim that abrogation of Article 370 was “illegal” because it violated UNSC resolutions on Kashmir, hasn’t this ill-conceived diplomatic move only given a shot in the arm to New Delhi’s contention that abrogation of Article 370 was its “internal matter”?
On Pakistan’s requestfor an urgent meeting, Permanent Representativesof the OIC Contact Group met at Jeddah on August 6 to discuss the post Article 370 abrogation situation in Kashmir. And though theydid express human rights concerns arising due to the lockdown, but rather than collectively stand behind Pakistan and condemn India on this issue, all the OIC did was to repeat its call for peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue through bilateral talks between India and Pakistan.Even at the UNGA, expect for Turkey and Malaysia, no other OIC member endorsed Pakistan’s stand on Kashmir. Thus, even though Pakistan showed great concern by calling for an emergency meeting on Kashmir, FM Qureshi failed to convincingly put across Islamabad’s point of viewforgalvanising OIC to rebuke India and thus, didn’t this initiative too end up reinforcing New Delhi’s narrative that abrogating Article 370 was its internal matter?
The reality is that despite all-out efforts Pakistan hasn’t succeeded in getting international support for its claim that abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A are “illegal actions” and thus there’s a need for Islamabad to seriously reflect on what is wrong with its Kashmir policy since it hasn’t yielded any positive results for over seven decades. One of the glaringdrawbacks is the official recognition that Islamabad has given to ‘armed struggle’ in Kashmir by unilaterally declaring that it “can’t be equated with terrorism”. And Khan knows this very well, because why else would he humiliate the Kashmiri boy who attained martyrdom in a suicide car bomb attack on a CRPF convoy by referring to him as a “radicalised” person instead of a being dedicated “freedom fighter”? And if the “Kashmiri struggle” can’t be equated with terrorism, then why has he warned his countrymen against “crossing the LoC to provide humanitarian aid or support for Kashmiri struggle”?
Islamabad needs to overhaul its Kashmir narrative because while its incessant flip-flops are politically taking us nowhere, the ‘armed struggle’ is not only alienating Kashmir from the international community but also taking a heavy toll of young lives. Our leaders too require to be more assertive on how to independently take the ‘self-determination’ struggle forwardto ensure that Islamabad’s policy of convenience doesn’t harm this movement. While Pakistan’s moral support for the Kashmir cause is praiseworthy, it’s the moral responsibility of our leaders towards the people to ensure that the Kashmir cause doesn’t lose its direction or is not compromised in anyway!