Politics

Propaganda Falls Flat: Why The Kashmir G-20 Event Irks Usual Suspects

Arshia Malik

May 22, 2023, 02:57 PM | Updated 05:45 PM IST


Srinagar at the eve of the G20 summit
Srinagar at the eve of the G20 summit
  • With international delegates in Kashmir, a particular group of politicians and journalists thinks that its propaganda will get international attention. 
  • This disinformation by 'vulture activists' is not going to cut it anymore though.
  • A "false construct" typically refers to something that is perceived or believed to be true but is based on false or inaccurate information. One such example is the reiterative lie, or false construct that Kashmir is an ‘international dispute', as the recent tweet of an Indian journalist-author displayed. 

    Why this disinformation is being circulated now is because after 37 years, an international event (G20 Meeting) is being hosted by the J&K Administration on May 22-24, as part of the series of working group meetings that India is hosting in the country in 2023. 

    With international delegates in Kashmir, the 'pro-370' group thinks that its propaganda will get international attention. 

    The propaganda itself however, is not new. 

    This narrative started in 1947 when the political machinations of the Muslim League, in alliance with the receding British colonial powers, outwitted the politicians of the Indian National Congress (INC) who had little experience and were not being advised by the shrewd Ottoman Caliphate-supporting thinkers, ended up partitioning the Indian subcontinent into two - East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan.

    The various secessionist movements today in Pakistan for a Sindhudesh, Baluchistan, and Pashtunistan indicate those populations were also not happy either with the Radcliffe Line, hastily drawn, and its implementation leading to numerous disputes and conflicts over the years. Neither were the Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir inhabitants when the cease fire ended in the 1947 war and the Line of Control (LoC) came into existence after the first Indo-Pakistani war in 1947-1948. 

    This war was more of a tribal raid, sponsored by the Pakistani Rangers, if Major Akbar Khan's book is to be believed, much like the three-decade proxy war by Pakistan ISI lasting from 1989 to August 5, 2019. 

    The whole of Kashmir, along with its Maharaja, Queen, political leaders which included Sheikh Abdullah, his rivals, and leaders from all creeds, joined in resisting the invasion. Young men and women formed the Kashmir militia, training under the supervision of Queen Tara and Jawaharlal Nehru, to repel the marauders who were raping and pillaging, the Baramulla Mission on the way to Srinagar.

    The Pakistan Army's war room military strategists do not consider the continued civilisational connection Kashmir and adjoining areas have with the Indus Valley Civilisation sites of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. They deliberately erase all facts and figures and archaeological evidence of a Buddhist Kashmir where King Harsha held the 4th Buddhist Council. The Kashmiri King Lalitaditya's military campaigns in present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and parts of Central Asia never figure in the ISI-propaganda materials. 

    That King Lalitaditya (724 CE to 760 CE) was establishing his empire from the Punjab in the west to the borders of China in the east, right at the time Islam was a fledgling empire on the Arab Peninsula is beyond the comprehension of Pakistani Punjabi mohajirs (refugees fleeing from United Provinces or Uttar Pradesh). Or that he established alliances with regional powers and maintained diplomatic relations with empires like the Tang Dynasty of China and the Arab Umayyad Caliphate.

    General Zorawar Singh will never figure in Pakistani history textbooks, who consolidated the kingdom of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh in the 19th century under the Dogra ruler Gulab Singh. The Reasi district-born General's expeditions into the Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh, Tibet, and other areas in the Tibetan Plateau, as well as successful campaigns in areas like Spiti, Kinnaur, and Lahaul, which were historically part of the Tibetan cultural sphere are part of the history of Jammu and Kashmir which even Leftist historians in India tried to whitewash. 

    Pakistan's so-called claim to the territories of Jammu and Kashmir is its unfinished business of Partition, which it has repeatedly tried to solve by Islamic Jihad and indoctrination of the youth of Kashmir since the 1970s, through Maududi's Jamat-e-Islami Kashmir chapter. Maududi's Two-Nation theory failed in Bangladesh and Kashmir, with the former splitting away from Pakistan in 1971 due to linguistic "disputes" and Kashmiris rejecting it time and again. 

    The videos, photographs, street protest scenes, reams of articles, books, podcasts, and social media support that the agenda groups keep sharing on international fora are manufactured consent taken on the barrels of AK-47s. The indigenous Kashmir Hindus (Pandits) were ethnically cleansed of the various districts of the Valley and secular Muslim and Sikh Kashmiris were targeted through high-profile assassinations and hit lists to silence the rest of the "silent majority" into coercive consent for Azadi. 

    Only few elite, families, progeny of the separatists of the 1960s and 70s al-Fatah, and Muslim United Front (MUF) sponsored by anti-India networks demanded the secession of Kashmir, in clear violation of the Instrument of Accession (IoA) which the Maharaja signed with Government of India in 1947 and the subsequent UN Resolutions which demand that Pakistan remove itself from all occupied territories before a referendum is conducted; the resolutions not binding on India.

    Article 370 which was nullified by the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act of 2019 integrated the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Ladakh with the rest of India, removing all discriminatory laws which were applied before under the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC). 

    Which meant Kashmir women who married men not ‘state subjects’ (dual citizenship) of the former state would not be disinherited from their inheritance; the Northwest Pakistan refugees and Tibetans were Indian citizens with full rights now; the safaai karamcharis who could only get menial jobs despite being literary and qualified were empowered. 

    The agenda groups and the vulture activists like who thrive on Muslim blood being shed in communal riots, mob violence and terror incidents do not like the fact that Kashmir has been at its most stable in years. The G20 working group meeting is not just about showcasing the peace and culture of the region but also about employment, developing infrastructure, establishing coordination between various departments, and holding the offices of the Government of India accountable to the people of Kashmir.; which clearly the Muslim League 2.0 adherent will not want since it doesn't fit their Muslim victim narrative. 

    Abrogation of Article 370 changed everything, which even Pakistan admits. The G20 is uplifting the psyche of JK-ians who were under siege from within by Islamic takfiri terrorists (takifirsm means calling the dissenters of "Azadi" not a true Muslims or apostate hence liable to be killed). 

    It is unfortunate that progressive Muslims from Indian heritage who are integrated into the ethos of India and assimilated in the idea of India are not mainstream. APJ Abdul Kalam, our Missile Man and former President, revered by Indians across the spectrum is often only Muslim for TV debates, and rest of the time he is institutionally cursed by mullahs and Muslim social influencers.

    As is Arif Mohammad Khan, current Kerala Governor who resigned in the wake of the Shah Bano controversy when the Supreme Court judgment was overturned which gave respite to a triple talaq Muslim woman with four children and provided her alimony; an INC Muslim appeasement policy by giving in to the gangsterism of the AIPLMB and other Muslim politicians who bat for Sharia laws. 

    Hamid Dalwai, a fierce secularist from a small village in Maharashtra understood the Kashmir dilemma more than anyone else. In the interviews which Dilip Chitre translated into English, 'Muslim Politics in India', he says outrightly that 'the creation of Pakistan cannot be attributed to Muslim dynamism. Pakistan was created by the Muslims in collusion with a third party'.

    He was for the scrapping of the special status of Kashmir repeatedly in his interviews and secular integration of all the peoples of India. No wonder he was not allowed to speak in an inter-religious meeting presided by co-founder of the Indian Secular Society, A B Shah—witnessed, defended unsuccessfully, and subsequently recorded by author Sitaram Goel in his book Muslim Separatism

    This disinformation by vulture activists is not going to cut it anymore, in the digital age where the democratic social media platforms will push back against the agenda groups who try to silence native Kashmiris as they once more resist Pakistan's digital warfare. 

    Arshia Malik is a columnist and commentator on social issues with particular emphasis on Islam in the Indian subcontinent.


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