Both Muhammad Ali Jinnah and President Pervez Musharraf, as early as 1947, had grasped the knot of the Jammu & Kashmir issue.
Let the people of Kashmir independently choose the way that leads to cohesion and not to the crushing of that country, a land of ancient traditions and culture and a place of transit for populations without restrictions on their freedom of thought and movement.
The embarrassment, of which we are silent spectators, worries us even more in the face of the events that, starting from the Indian curfew of 5 August 2019, from the violent demonstrations in Srinagar, to the mass arrests of opposing politicians, has recently seen a worrying escalation in New Delhi with episodes of intolerance against the Muslim minority.
Will this last episode be the escalation that will lead Hindu nationalists to crackdown all the other minorities? What is now happening for the removal of the Christ statue in Bengaluru after ‘Hindu groups’ had claimed cemetery land was misused a Christian symbol?
They started against the Muslims, now against the Christians and then against other minorities.
But the real gap is not ethnic but intellectual and unfortunately the Hindu nationalists are showing that they have not yet evolved at the humanitarian level to the detriment of technology and computer engineering
But the history teaches us that, under the apparent religious significance, the hegemonic pretext is the real maker of events in the world. In fact, the current Indian power managed to transmit to the people hate against minorities in the guise of a religious issue. After all, every war always has an economic-geopolitical matrix under the apparent religious mask.
In all this controversial scenario, in which ferments seem to prevail in India that take it back in time on positions antithetical to those taken by Mahatma Gandhi, Kashmir appears to be the cornerstone of all the disputes between India and Pakistan since 1947.
The various wars and skirmishes that broke out, in past and recent periods, between the two atomic superpowers to overcome each other, were not enough to solve Kashmiri problem. In truth, it seems that the escalation attributable to the Hindus, under the aegis of PM Modi, is pointing out how India has taken such anti-democratic and anti-human rights positions that it provokes indignation in the whole world and sentences also by the UN.
But what the nationalist Indians, especially RSS, are fomenting with impunity, by putting people against ethnic minorities perhaps to divert general attention from the pressing economic problems of the sub- continent, will turn against them with the disintegration of an by now fragile and disjointed social structure.
Without a doubt the various souls that compose it were kept together above all by Gandhi who had managed to preserve different political groups, ethnic groups and castes.
The circumstance that Modi is attempting to annex definitively Jammu & Kashmir to India – perhaps to emulate an operation of the Palestine type, with a transfer of Hindu population to the country that boasts water wealth, fertility of the earth and natural beauties – is unquestionable given his tenacity not to deal with the problem through diplomatic channels with Pakistan. Basically he continues to maintain that it is a fact that Kashmir belongs to India.
After the scenario of 11 September 2001, Pakistan has taken on a significant geostrategic position. The security agreements about the western part of the region and lately the role attributed to it by USA in controlling the recent pacts between the Talibans and the local government of nearby Afghanistan, puts Pakistan in a hegemonic position in the South Asian area, not welcome in India.
Is this perhaps Modi’s real checkmate? To take over Kashmir after so many years (72) of unsuccessful UN resolutions? The coup of August 5, through tightening, imprisonment of political leaders, violence against women, torture, kidnappings, destruction of orchards to weaken local economy, faded the resistance of the Kashmiri people, proud and tenacious over the centuries, today exhausted and tired.
The recent protests and blockages to the internet and press communication system of the whole country which claims a presence of over 60% of Muslims, have tried to make their voices heard in a world that seems to be made up of deaf or dormant people.
The truth is that the Gordian knot to be solved upstream always remains the Palestinian problem. The unresolved issue of that suffering people from years now (also in that case consequence of an unfair partition), is becoming like an contagious disease that also infects Kashmir, not for nothing called the “Palestine of Asia”.
The instrumental discredit, often used by India against Pakistan referred as a forge of jihadism, is functional to hold Kashmir in the grip of the terror. Anyway it remains confined in the sterile discussion that makes the Indian subcontinent ̶ especially after the recent disturbing nationalist uprisings in New Delhi causing a lot of Muslim dead ̶ a place no longer safe for minorities and certainly no longer a fully-fledged democratic country.
Smoke and mirrors no longer work and a social detonator is about to set off a chain reaction that will then be difficult to stop. Will Kashmir be able to break free from this deadlock and emerge unscathed from the Indian noose, returning to its historically stratified independence of values and traditions?