It has been a good week for China and Pakistan, with Big Brother helping out its poor cousin at the UN Security Council on the Kashmir issue and even paying off its ‘EMI’ with Saudi Arabia. But the question Islamabad should be asking itself this week is, ‘Is its obsession with Jammu and Kashmir losing it both friends and influence?’
Certainly, there was little left of J&K’s special status under Article 370 even before 5 August 2019, except the fig leaf that it was somehow exceptional – although the diminishing of the state’s obligations to its citizens ever since are both immoral and unconstitutional. But of that, another time.
This week also belongs to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who on the first anniversary of the scrapping of Article 370, tweeted that “a transformation is underway” in J&K and in Ladakh, in the “application of progressive laws, delivery of social justice, advancement of women’s rights and empowerment and support for vulnerable sections”.
Sometimes it seems like the good minister has outsourced his Twitter handle to someone who lives in the Land of Gup. Salman Rushdie surely needs a sequel to his brilliant novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories to properly explain the inversion of reality where everything is somehow the opposite of what it is supposed to be, at least in the Kashmir valley.
Also read: Who needs a Google Map? Naya Pakistan is Naya Mapistan
‘Youm-e-Istehal’
Significantly, the inversion of reality has long been a hallmark of the Pakistani state, which has believed its own stories of planting the crescent moon on Srinagar’s Lal Chowk over the decades, from Operation Gibraltar in 1965 to Kargil in 1999.
Since that is never going to happen – whatever India’s own multiplicity of views on what’s happening inside J&K – it was interesting to see Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi marching down Islamabad’s main avenue on 5 August marking ‘Youm-e-Istehsal’ or Kashmir Siege Day.
Only days before, Pakistan’s infamous Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) media wing, ISPR, had asked Shafqat Amanat Ali, the Pakistani singer who has sung dozens of Bollywood songs in better times (Mitwa to Manchala), to sing about the continuing atrocities in J&K. He is said to have been paid Rs 3.8 crore for his efforts.
In fact, nothing illustrates the massive change in India-Pakistan relations than Ali’s superlative performance of Gandhi’s favourite bhajan, ‘Vaishnava jan toh”, in 2018, commissioned by then High Commissioner in Islamabad Ajay Bisaria in the hope that culture could join at least a few hearts and minds, despite surgical strikes and cross-LoC infiltrations.
Also read: India slams China for J&K remark, says don’t comment on internal affairs of other nations
Saudi closes tap, on Kashmir too
We don’t know if Ali was finally paid or not by ISPR, but Pakistan has increasingly been reduced to paying lip-service to a cause its own establishment knows is increasingly hopeless. None other than Qureshi admitted that the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) was not paying heed to the Muslim world’s pain on Kashmir and not even convening a meeting, which would rap India on its knuckles.
The enormous irony of this statement cannot be underestimated. The OIC is headquartered in Saudi Arabia, which has remained the foremost and fiercest Muslim brother of Pakistan these past several decades. From bustard hunting in Pakistan’s Thar desert to setting up the 39-nation Islamic Military Counter-Terrorism Coalition in 2015, first headed by former Pakistan army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif, the Saudi-Pakistani relationship has been a thick bond.
Ironically, most nations part of this Islamic military coalition are members of the OIC.
The day after Qureshi & Co’s frenzied march in Islamabad, Pakistan was embarrassed enough by its Saudi brother, which asked it to pay back $1 billion out of the $3 billion cash it had borrowed in October 2018. This was in addition to $6.2 billion in oil the Saudis had promised to loan to Pakistan.
Except, the Saudis seem to have lost patience with their little Pakistani sibling. Two months ago, they turned off the oil tap when Pakistan was unable to pay back that EMI. So, guess who signed a cheque last week to keep Pakistan’s izzat intact? China.
Also read: Not all Muslim nations love Modi. This is why Iran, Malaysia, Turkey don’t
A win for India
Meanwhile, on 5 August, China tried to bring back Jammu & Kashmir to international attention again. It sought a meeting of the Permanent-5 at the UN Security Council, under the rubric of ‘Any Other Business,’ like it had done twice before this past year. With the US and China at daggers and the rest of the world equally furious with the impact of the Wuhan-originated virus on their economies, the Kashmir mention died as quickly as it was raised. No one was remotely interested.
In the ‘dangal’ or contest of Big Brotherhood, the Chinese have certainly trumped the Saudis this week. Remember, though, that Saudi, Emirati and increasingly the OIC’s disinterest in Pakistan is as much a victory of the Modi government’s outreach to the Islamic Ummah – Sushma Swaraj’s invitation to the OIC foreign minister’s meeting in UAE last year and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman visit to India are proof.
For the time being at least, neither the OIC, the UAE or the Saudis are paying serious attention to Pakistan’s tantrums on Jammu & Kashmir – as recently as 1996, the last three were the only countries in the world to have recognised the Taliban when it took power in Afghanistan.
Still, the prize for the biggest irony this week must be awarded to four Chinese labourers who beat up Pakistani soldiers because they wanted to work on a new site on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Pakistani havildar ostensibly protecting them couldn’t make out a word of what the Chinese were saying. Before he could call the local military camp, he was assaulted by the furious Chinese not used to being told to wait for permission.
In its obsession with Jammu & Kashmir and the constant iteration of its friendship with China being ‘higher than the mountains, deeper than the seas and sweeter than honey’, Pakistan forgot the basic slogan that trumps everything else: Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
Views are personal.
Article was just meh. I am surprised that Jyoti continues to be a journalist. Mediocrity written all over the place. I am not sure what she would have done in Kashmir? I would like to see her enunciate a policy. She seems to think that Abrogation of Article 370 was somehow a disservice to Kashmiris. She believes that such a thing is unconstitutional. Why? What happened to Kashmiri Pandits was constitutional?
Once a state fails to protect its citizens, it is incumbent on the center to respond, respond it has. To now come back and claim unconstitutionality of the act is preposterous.
Of course Jyoti is entitled to her Brown Mem Sahib opinons. However such mediocrity should be kept away from the main news media.
The debate on J&K can be easily and quickly closed thus : Let’s really implement UNSC resolution. Therefore, Pakistan must first pull it’s forces out of Kashmir. If that happens…ever, we can talk.
This writer is changing historical facts and leaving behind unforgivable human rights violations done by the racist hindu government in India against the Muslim majority in Kashmir and all around India, such a suck up to American politics where if your an ally to the U.S.A and your willing to go against China you are allowed to break all laws such as the case in Palestinian occupied lands (Israel ), Saudi Arabia and India. Where they can do whatever they like as they support American politics in the region. That ladies and gentlemen is called democracy ! Yay !
Pakistanis changing their names to indian names and english names to damage india’s reputation. Remember pakistan is born fyom india. A son cannot be stronger or wiser than his mother.
Pakistan is not a country which has any self respect. It’s not even a country, just an alphabet soup of a name with many confused identities forced to live under the same flag for want of a different geography. Expecting anything else is foolhardy.
It’s shame writer ignored human rights violation extra judiciary killings & abductions and continuous one year lockdown in Indian occupied Kashmir by modi Sarkar . Being Journalist he should be honest but on both sides of border there are Piad journalists who provoke hate hide facts this is the story of indo Pak since 72 years
May be you are looking for 72 Virgins.
Creation of Pakistan itself was uncalled for. What is the point in arguing as Indian occupied Kashmir. Don’t live in fool’s paradise.
Writer/journalist is a “she”, not a “he” as you, who is definitely a Pakistani, have labelled ‘her’.
Indian propaganda to deflect from their state sponsored terrorism in Indian occupied Kashmir. Now China has entered the UN recognized dispute where Kashmiris are denied their right to choose their status for Independence
Younger brother of China?
Relationship is like Master and servant.
Lowly Chinese laborers could thrash soldier of Pak Army.
A soldier is pride of the nation, only if that nation has any pride left in it.
You are a typical indian propaganda journalist with no mind of your own. At least try to fake some objectivity!
All this is due to failed modi diplomacy remember times before india will loose many of arab countries support if it does anything to Pakistan on spreading terrorism in india and great Congress parties diplomacy where it was back stabbed by every nation from china to srilanka failed modi diplomacy ahah one thing is clear anything written against this government policy by these secularists would be for the larger good of this country
If India is serious about its outreach to the Islamic Ummah, the domestic approach to the minorities should change. This is one contradiction that is impossible to manage.
we, Indians, are not interested in Ashok Swain.
Can you elaborate on this? How india’s approach to it’s minorities has changed? Yes the only change is , they are no more pampered and appeased.This change is a welcome change as it kept them under developed for long. India’s current disposition is driven by national interests. It has got nothing to do with religion.But the pseudo secularists are really trying to misinterpret for their own vested interests.
Dear Columnist, Let me flip the proposition : Is India’s obsession with Kashmir losing it both friends and influence ? Consider what India’s diplomats have been doing in global fora since 5th August 2019. Our growing isolation in South Asia. Of the deep disappointment the US and EU feel about the human rights situation in the Valley, never 24 karats to begin with. Leading tragically to the warlike situation in Ladakh. If a lot of substance had been drained out of Article 370, what was the harm in retaining the facade. Except to score a political / ideological point. Replacing G. C Murmu with Manoj Sinha will change nothing. We have painted ourselves into a corner.
Swain, India should learn from China to suppress local Muslims while maintaining good relations with Muslim countries.
Get lost you idiot.
MSBs is not final word and need not be celebrated. The author seems too short sighted in this regard. The sensational stories donot pay in long run. Ultimately he is a killer where nature takes its revenge if not his relations. Times change and with it whole dynamics. I would rather advice cautious and objective reporting.
You fifth grade converts are slaves of Arabs and whose religion your fools follow.