FOREIGN Secretary Mr. Vijay Gokhale put things in perspective when he said that Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi would not discuss Kashmir issue at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), but focus on India’s contribution to the global activity that the UN conducts, such as peace and peace-keeping forces, balanced development, comprehensive growth and multi-front security as a responsible member-nation. This approach makes great sense in the present overall context when the world is grappling with much larger issues of general interest. Secondly, the Kashmir issue is India’s internal affair and no other country can meddle in it. At the most, Pakistan has an adverse possession of Kashmir through illegal occupation, and its locus standi in this regard is limited only to the illegality of its presence in occupied Kashmir. New Delhi has decided rightly that the Prime Minister will not discuss such an issue at the United Nations.
In the past some time since the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, Indian leadership has been making increasingly assertive statements as regards Pakistan’s illegal occupation of Kashmir. The boldest -- and most appropriate -- statement came from Minister of External Affairs Dr. S. Jaishankar that India looked to having physical possession of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) ‘one day’. This assertion, though quite unaccustomed to Indian habit, makes India’s stand clear. Any discussion on Kashmir at the United Nations, thus, runs counter to the spirit of India’s current stridency on the issue. Hence the need not to discuss the issue at any global forum.
Most countries have been ticking off Pakistan’s effort to raise Kashmir issue with them. They assert that Kashmir is a bilateral issue and they do not have any say in that matter. Though this may be treated by India as a victory of sorts vis-a-vis Pakistan, time has come for New Delhi to decide once and for all that Kashmir, including PoK, is India’s totally internal matter and no other country has any right even to touch it. A definitive step in this regard came when the Government withdrew Article 370 of the Constitution through a very lawfully conducted legislative process in the highest representative forum of the country. And as the process was set in motion, nobody could do anything about it because of its stark legality and patriotic emotionality.
In tune with that, it is time India started refusing to accept Kashmir as a bilateral issue between New Delhi and Islamabad. This straight-forward refusal will put things in the right perspective and throw Pakistan even outside the fringes. Of course, Pakistan will not cease its efforts to needle India every now and then. Yet, there is little need to pay any heed to those efforts since they will be the indulgences of an imposter without locus standi. Pakistan’s rogue status, its sponsorship of terrorism, its rapidly sinking economy, its position as an eternal client-state (nay, a beggar-state) have earned that country a global bad name. For India, there is no need to have an insane engagement with such a country.
The worst part of the Kashmir issue is Pakistan’s unholy presence through illegal occupation of part of the region. In the present context post-370, it offers the best chance for India to act tough and straight. India’s first and foremost concern should be to take PoK back. This will not happen tomorrow morning, as it is going to be a long haul. But the world also realises that the Indian effort has already begun in that direction. And that offers a sense of relief -- that India’s thinking on the issue is radical, logical and truthful. The world will never see an Indian advance into PoK as war-mongering whenever it happens. But as part of that preparation, India will have to weave a strong developmental narrative in Kashmir so that the people in PoK start feeling uncomfortable in the undeveloped area neglected by Pakistan.