TWENTY THREE MEM­BERS OF THE EU-EU­RO­PEAN UNION, most of them seeped with Is­lam­o­pho­bia and shar­ing the far-right po­si­tion on pol­i­tics with In­di­a’s Bhar­tiya Janata Party, spon­sored by un­be­knownst shady or­gan­i­sa­tions in Eu­rope and Delhi, were happy to take a Shikara ride on the Dal lake in Kash­mir, while the peo­ple of Kash­mir were suf­fer­ing an un­prece­dented lock­down, sep­a­rated through an iron cur­tain from the rest of the world. In­stead of fact-find­ing and be­ing boldly in­quis­i­tive, they ended their visit by en­dors­ing In­dian gov­ern­men­t’s stand on Kash­mir. 

FAC­ING IN­TER­NA­TIONAL OP­PRO­BRIUM for not al­low­ing global hu­man rights or­gan­i­sa­tions, United States Sen­a­tors, In­dian par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to visit the fa­cade of un­truth and lies in In­dian Oc­cu­pied Kash­mir, the gov­ern­ment of In­dia clas­si­cally stage-man­aged an ‘un­of­fi­cial’ visit of Mem­bers of the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment to war-torn Kash­mir.

Sadly, these MEPs from Ger­many, France, Poland, United King­dom and the Czech Re­pub­lic, Bel­gium, Spain and Slo­va­kia did noth­ing but rub salt on the wounds of ha­rassed Kash­miris reel­ing un­der over­whelm­ing In­dian army bat­tal­ions but still  protest­ing through a self-im­posed ex­ile in their homes, with 1.5 mil­lion chil­dren not go­ing to schools and trade -big and small, shut since the last 90 days, when on Au­gust 5, In­dia ini­ti­ated leg­isla­tive mea­sures to deny Kash­mir its spe­cial sta­tus -ac­cepted and rat­i­fied un­der In­dian laws and UN res­o­lu­tions. Life in Kash­mir is vir­tu­ally at a stand­still. The pe­riod over, now In­dia has of­fi­cially made Jammu and Kash­mir and Ladakh as Union Ter­ri­to­ries as the Supreme Court of In­dia, un­der one pre­text or the other pre­var­i­cated and posted the hear­ing on the le­gal­ity of the gov­ern­ment of In­di­a’s move on Ar­ti­cle 370 and Ar­ti­cle 35.

The Eu­ro­pean Union Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment did noth­ing but rub salt on the wounds of ha­rassed Kash­miris reel­ing un­der In­dian army bat­tal­ions but still protest­ing through a self-im­posed ex­ile in their homes, with 1.5 mil­lion chil­dren not go­ing to schools and trade shut. Life is at a vir­tual stand-still. 

With the clear in­ten­tion of pre­sent­ing a sani­tised pic­ture dur­ing a tu­tored tour, all arrange­ments were made by lob­by­ist and in­ter­na­tional bro­ker Madi Sharma of Wom­en’s Eco­nomic and So­cial Think Tank (WESTT) and the other is Ankur Sri­vas­tava of the In­ter­na­tional In­sti­tute of Non-aligned Stud­ies, based in New Delhi, though not trace­able as re­ported by a sec­tion of the In­dian me­dia.  What is fur­ther in­trigu­ing is that even the re­spec­tive em­bassies of the coun­tries to which they be­long were also not in the know of their trip.

With civil so­ci­ety si­lenced, Kash­miri me­dia to­tally cen­sored with only a sem­blance of op­er­a­tions from the state-des­ig­na­tion In­for­ma­tion cen­tre, Kash­miri lead­er­ship in pris­ons, dis­senters be­hind bars, women and chil­dren im­pris­oned in jails out of Kash­mir, the re­marks of one MP that “we wish we had more time” pierces the heart at their cal­lous ap­proach and fo­cus. It adds in­sult to in­jury that the del­e­ga­tion met civil, po­lice and army of­fi­cials and made no ef­forts to meet the fam­i­lies of those in pris­ons, those killed, the chil­dren with pel­let in­juries and the women who live in con­stant fear.

Dur­ing and at the end of their two-day man­i­cured tour of the Val­ley, they rephrased the 5-page ad­vi­sory given to them by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia, while giv­ing their opin­ion to care­fully cho­sen jour­nal­ists or ad­dress­ing a cu­rated press con­fer­ence. They and the gov­ern­ment of In­dia de­clared that it was an ‘un­of­fi­cial pri­vate trip’, but In­dia pro­vided the rare  op­por­tu­nity of a photo-op with In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi and a brief­ing ses­sion on ter­ror­ism in Kash­mir with In­di­a’s Na­tional Se­cu­rity Ad­vi­sor Ajit Doval, not to speak of the fa­cil­i­ties and se­cu­rity to en­joy their pic­nic to the heaven on earth -Kash­mir.

One of the MEP from Great Britain Chris Davies had the belly to ask the du­bi­ous or­gan­iser that while in Kash­mir he would like to meet the or­di­nary man on the streets with­out se­cu­rity. “Per­mis­sion de­nied” was the re­sponse. Four oth­ers, for rea­sons still not pub­lic, chose not to take the flight to Kash­mir from Delhi. Per­haps, their con­science pricked them af­ter reach­ing In­draprastha and meet­ing the Lord pre­sid­ing over it.

The Eu­ro­pean par­lia­men­tar­i­ans re­ally en­joyed their all-ex­penses-paid pic­nic to the hilt. The glee on their faces be­lied the agony that was be­ing faced by the Kash­miris and served well to tell In­di­a’s story that Kash­mir is nor­mal, bar­ring ‘ter­ror­ist at­tacks’ by neigh­bour­ing Pak­istan. As In­dia al­ways does, the en­tire strug­gle for self-de­ter­mi­na­tion in Kash­mir was re­duced to law and or­der is­sue with sup­port from Pak­istan. Only their ac­cent gave away their iden­tity, oth­er­wise, it was not dif­fi­cult to mis­take them for lead­ers of In­di­a’s rul­ing Bhar­tiya Janata Party or the spokesper­sons of the Min­istry of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs or even In­di­a’s UN rep­re­sen­ta­tives over the years ir­re­spec­tive of the rul­ing gov­ern­ment, who have been par­rot­ing these lines for the last many decades.

MEA spokesper­son Rav­ish Ku­mar re­sorted to Goe­bell­s­peak say­ing, “Such an ex­change was a peo­ple to peo­ple con­tact and not an in­ter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion of the Kash­mir is­sue.” Peo­ple-to-peo­ple con­tact? Did it hap­pen on the Dal Lake or at the army head­quar­ters when  Gen­eral Of­fi­cer in Com­mand of the Sri­na­gar-based 15 Corps Lt Gen KJS Dhillon was brief­ing the EU MPs?

In­di­a’s op­po­si­tion Con­gress party and the Left and BJP’s ally Shiv Sena in Ma­ha­rash­tra saw the visit of the Eu­ro­pean Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment as a ‘de­par­ture from In­di­a’s for­eign pol­icy.’ This nar­ra­tive con­firms that notwith­stand­ing who is go­ing to trou­ble-torn ar­eas, it has been In­di­a’s pol­icy not to al­low any in­ter­na­tional pres­ence for mon­i­tor­ing civil, re­li­gious and hu­man rights.

MEA spokesper­son Rav­ish Ku­mar re­sorted to Goe­bell­s­peak say­ing, “Such an ex­change was a peo­ple to peo­ple con­tact and not an in­ter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion of the Kash­mir is­sue.” Peo­ple-to-peo­ple con­tact? Did it hap­pen on the Dal Lake or at the army head­quar­ters when  Gen­eral Of­fi­cer in Com­mand of the Sri­na­gar-based 15 Corps Lt Gen KJS Dhillon was brief­ing the EU MPs?

The In­dian state will now use this Eu­ro­pean ex­cur­sion to Kash­mir at in­ter­na­tional fo­rums that it has an open pol­icy on Kash­mir. Var­i­ous gov­ern­ments of the world and the United Na­tions, who so eas­ily buy In­di­a’s ‘al­ter­na­tive truths’ will lap up this big lie, notwith­stand­ing the na­ture of the tour and de­nial by the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment spokesper­son that this was not an of­fi­cial EU fact-find­ing mis­sion.

De­spite this mock­ery of an ex­ploratory trip, there emerged a glim­mer of hope when Mar­keta Ho­molkova, First Sec­re­tary, Del­e­ga­tion of the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) in Geneva, while ad­dress­ing the Gen­eral As­sem­bly’s First Com­mit­tee dis­cus­sion on ‘Re­gional Dis­ar­ma­ment and Se­cu­ri­ty’ said, “In a mo­ment of re­newed ten­sions around Kash­mir, we call on both par­ties to avoid es­ca­la­tion and en­cour­age them to re­sume bi­lat­eral di­a­logue, with a view to find­ing a peace­ful and po­lit­i­cal so­lu­tion.”

 “In a mo­ment of re­newed ten­sions around Kash­mir, we call on both par­ties to avoid es­ca­la­tion and en­cour­age them to re­sume bi­lat­eral di­a­logue, with a view to find­ing a peace­ful and po­lit­i­cal so­lu­tion.”

Mar­keta Ho­molkova, First Sec­re­tary, Del­e­ga­tion of the EU in Geneva

The vis­it­ing Eu­ro­pean Union del­e­ga­tion, the Eu­ro­pean Union, the United Na­tions and In­dia all have to rec­og­nize that Kash­mir re­quires a po­lit­i­cal res­o­lu­tion as it is a po­lit­i­cal con­flict and not a tem­po­rary law and or­der sit­u­a­tion or a ter­ror­ist crimes hub.

The Eu­ro­pean Union will do well to re­quest In­dia for an of­fi­cial visit soon, not only to ac­knowl­edge and doc­u­ment the hu­man rights and po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Kash­mir but also to re­pair its own im­age bru­tally sul­lied by the pre­sent visit.

The in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity must ef­fec­tively in­ter­vene to en­able a res­o­lu­tion of the po­lit­i­cal con­flict in In­dian Oc­cu­pied Kash­mir by talk­ing to the en­tire spec­trum of Kash­miri lead­ers -from the In­dia-in­clu­sive types to those who are pro-free­dom.

Now that global fo­rums -the Eu­ro­pean Union, the United Na­tions and the US Con­gress have had de­bates and dis­cus­sions on Kash­mir, there is no mis­tak­ing the fact that Kash­mir is an in­ter­na­tional sub­ject, ag­i­tat­ing every­one who is con­cerned for the peo­ple of Kash­mir and peace in South Asia. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, en­gage­ment and po­lit­i­cal con­flict-res­o­lu­tion is the only way for­ward, not man­aged ex­cur­sions mouthing plat­i­tudes of a guilty gov­ern­ment.