Kashmir will be India's cemetery

** Munir Akram and Farhan Mujahid Chuck

Afghanistan is known as the “tomb of empires”; after 19 years the United States is still fighting its longest war there, and is trying hard to find a way out that will save its face. For India, Achilles' heel is Kashmir, and when the history of modern India is written it is likely that "Hindu expansionism" is dead in Kashmir.

India's war in Jammu and occupied Kashmir is more than 70 years old, in which an estimated 700,000 occupation forces, or seven times the maximum number of troops deployed at any time by the Soviet Union, or US and NATO soldiers, fought In Afghanistan.

Now, including tens of thousands of additional troops recently sent to Kashmir, some estimate that number at 1 million. This is the largest concentration of military forces anywhere in the world. The Kashmir war will only end when New Delhi realizes that it cannot break the will of the Kashmiri people and inflicts heavy damage on India.

First, there is widespread recognition of the illegality of India's occupation of Kashmir. The Security Council and the UN Secretary-General have reaffirmed UN resolutions demanding a referendum in Kashmir.

Besides, one can think about how Indian opposition leaders were mistreated and how they were prevented from entering Kashmir. If India has nothing to hide, why does it reject the views and positions of its opposition?

Kashmiri Muslims will strongly oppose their conversion to a minority in their homeland. Article 370 of the Indian Constitution was supposed to include the conditions under which the Maharaja of Kashmir should have joined India. By abolishing this article, India has eliminated the only legal argument it has made itself to justify its claim to Jammu and Kashmir. By the legal standard of India itself, there is now a clear occupation of Kashmir.

Second, the Narendra Modi government has closed all doors to a peaceful and negotiated solution to the dispute. It has refused to hold bilateral dialogue with Pakistan, as well as third-party mediation. After its unilateral actions on August 5, India says there is nothing to negotiate with Pakistan except for the "return" of Pakistani-occupied Kashmir to India. This kind of "arrogance" would be too expensive for India.

Such arrogance is manifested by the Indian government, to the point that it cannot even consider a negotiated relationship with the Kashmiris, who will now be ruled directly by the followers of Delhi. India has now clearly opted for a military solution, with Kashmiri Muslims now facing an existential threat. Kashmiri Muslims will be strongly opposed to becoming a minority in their homeland by the Hindu colonialists, and have no choice but to intensify their struggle for freedom.

The fascist plan of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to impose a "final solution" by changing the demographic composition of Kashmir would lead to serious violations of human rights and humanitarian laws and could lead to genocide in occupied Kashmir.

As the non-governmental genocide watchdog said in its Kashmir warning, responsibility for genocide and genocide by Hitler would turn India into a pariah state globally, disrupting its social fabric, and weakening its capacity. To stick to Kashmir.

Thirdly, India's arrogance, hostility, racial "Hindu" and the apparent suffering imposed on the Kashmiri people have turned Pakistan into a bold ally of the Kashmiri struggle for freedom. Kashmir was once again declared as a key issue for Pakistan. The BJP actions have radically diminished hope within Pakistan that relations with India could be normalized and the Jammu and Kashmir dispute resolved through negotiations.

India's recent repression and the expected suppression of the Kashmir uprising will create considerable internal pressure on the Pakistani government to support the Kashmiri struggle for freedom. Such assistance would be perfectly legitimate; the referendum principle set out in Security Council resolution 47 of 1948 and subsequent resolutions reflected the legal recognition of the right of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to self-determination.

The United Nations General Assembly, in resolution 2649 of 1970 and several subsequent resolutions, has repeatedly affirmed the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial and foreign domination, and that it has the right to self-determination and "to restore this right by any means, including armed struggle."

Furthermore, these resolutions also recognize the right of these peoples to “receive and receive all kinds of moral and material assistance”, within the “legitimate exercise of their right to self-determination”.

No matter what Pakistan does, it is likely that India will accuse Pakistan of "cross-border terrorism" and threaten to use force or even resort to air strikes and / or military incursions. The world is now well aware that the Pakistan-India conflict could turn into a catastrophic war with a nuclear dimension. To avoid this, members of the Security Council, other States and international institutions are likely to resort to preventive measures.

Major powers and the United Nations will make efforts to persuade India to reverse course and engage in a credible peace process with Pakistan and the Kashmiri people. Moreover, Kashmiris and Pakistan need the support of Gulf states - particularly Qatar, Kuwait and Oman - to rein in Indian Prime Minister Modi.

Vamudi and his faction (such as Amit Shah and Ajit Duval) in the Hindu National Organization (Rashtriya Sawaya Misvak Sang, widely regarded as the parent organization of Moody's Bharatiya Janata Party) are convinced that the suppression of Kashmiris and aggression against Pakistan is a winning strategy within India. .

They are likely to ignore calls for restraint and dialogue, and will be even more encouraged as the UAE is shamefully given a prize to Moody, accused of massacres against Muslims. The temptation of the international community may then be to take the "easier" path of forcing Pakistan to refrain from helping the struggle for freedom in Kashmir and accepting the Indian "reality" imposed on it in Jammu and occupied Kashmir.

However, unlike previous governments, the current Pakistani leadership - especially under Imran Khan's presidency - will not yield to such coercion. There is a growing sense in Islamabad and around the world that the hateful BJP strategy is likely to backfire, leading to a major indigenous Kashmiri insurgency that is difficult to defeat.

Should India resort to the threat or use of force, there is renewed confidence in Pakistan that it can neutralize New Delhi if necessary by resorting to credible nuclear deterrence. India's long occupation of Kashmir is likely to turn into a quagmire resembling Afghanistan, eroding the morale of India's armed forces, splitting its political system and eroding its economy.

Like colonial powers in the past, India will ultimately lose the debilitating war against a steady popular insurgency. This may take another ten or even 20 years, but the heroic people of Kashmir - like the famous Hindu Kush mountains - will eventually bury the dreams of the Hindu Empire of India.

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* Munir Akram is Pakistan's former ambassador to the United Nations.
Farhan Mujahid Chuck is associate professor of political science at Qatar University.