Most citizens of this country probably feel they already have quite enough on
their plates dealing with Hizbullah and Hamas without pondering what’s happening
way off in the Himalayas. Current events in Kashmir do, however, deserve serious
consideration, if only because dark and dangerous parallels between that
conflict and the Israel-Palestinian one are being drawn by global jihadists, as
well as by some influential international opinion-formers who should know
better.
An “intifada-style popular revolt” is how
The New York Times has
portrayed the latest popular uprising against Indian occupation which has swept
through this predominantly Muslim province this summer, making the
breathtakingly beautiful Kashmir Valley appear even more of a paradise lost.
Although not clad in keffiyehs, young Kashmiri teenagers can sometimes resemble
their Palestinian peers as they throw stones at army patrols and dodge tear-gas
canisters on the streets of the state capital, Srinagar.
But what the
world is never told by
The New York Times, nor by most other supposedly liberal
organs, is that New Delhi’s response to such civil disobedience has been far
more savage and brutal than anything authorized in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv,
leading in the past to serious armed insurrection (often incited by
Pakistan).
The Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra justly observed recently:
“The killing fields of Kashmir dwarf those of Palestine and Tibet. In addition
to the everyday regime of arbitrary arrests, curfews, raids and checkpoints
enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers, the valley’s 4 million Muslims are
exposed to extrajudicial execution, rape and torture, with such barbaric
variations as live electric wires inserted into the penis.”
A LEADING
local NGO, the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in
Indian-Administered Kashmir, has reported that extrajudicial killings and
torture are commonplace there. It claims that the Indian military occupation of
that state between 1989-2009 has resulted in more than 70,00 deaths, and many of
these killings were deemed “acts of service” by India’s feared Central Reserve
Police Force, leading to promotion and financial reward (bounty is paid after
claims made by officers are verified, apparently).
Still, there are no
serious moves afoot in editorial corridors or academic campuses anywhere in the
Western world to transform India into an international pariah. No calls for
boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions against the world’s largest
democracy.
The deafening silence over Kashmir speaks volumes about the
double standards by which different governments around the globe are judged on
their human rights records.
Partly this stems from the post-imperial
guilt complex which continues to afflict so many citizens of the
West.
The atrocities committed by former colonies are endlessly excused
by loose-thinking liberals in London and Paris, however flagrant and ugly such
abuses might be. On the extremely rare occasions when repugnant regimes are
taken to task, the real responsibility for their brutality is usually reported
to lie with external agents.
The Pakistani Marxist polemicist Tariq Ali
recently regaled readers of the zealously anti-Zionist
London Review of Books
with the claim that the real cause of Kashmiris’ current suffering is the
ever-evil IDF. “It has been open season on Muslims since 9/11, when the
liberation struggle in Kashmir was conveniently subsumed under the war on
terror,” he wrote. “Israeli military officers were invited to visit Akhnur
military base in the province and advise on counter-terrorism
measures.”
Ali gleefully quotes the Web site India Defense, which noted
in September 2008 that “Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi paid an unscheduled visit to the
disputed state of Kashmir last week to get an up-close look at the challenges
the Indian military faces in its fight against Islamic
insurgents.
Mizrahi was in India for three days of meetings with the
country’s military brass, and to discuss a plan the IDF is drafting for Israeli
commandos to train Indian counter-terror forces.”
The concern isn’t that
such conspiracy theories are recycled on the pages of the LRB – a small,
self-important literary journal – but they are also plastered across countless
Islamofascist Web sites, reinforcing the dangerously warped worldview of some of
the most dangerous people on the planet. In her days as director-general of the
British security service MI5, Eliza Mannigham- Buller observed how jihadists are
driven by “a powerful narrative that weaves together conflicts from across the
globe, [including] long-standing conflicts such as Israel-Palestine and
Kashmir.”
What this leading spook didn’t add is that the crazed fury
which results from such communal paranoia isn’t directed with equal vehemence
and violence against the various alleged perpetrators. The once heavenly Kashmir
Valley has become hell on earth for many of its inhabitants, but Indians are
unlikely to have to endure the same hellish condemnation as Israelis. The sole
Jewish state on the planet is proving a wonderful lightning rod for Islamic
militants – and their misguided liberal-leftist allies – in a way that the
Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir could never be.
Raw
economic factors reinforce such inconsistencies.
People may be killed
like poultry in Kashmir, as in Tibet, but even “progressive” Western politicians
are too chicken to jeopardize their countries’ rapidly expanding commercial
connections with either India or China. Of course, little Israel isn’t anywhere
near as lucrative a marketplace. Consequently, a Kashmiri (or a Tibetan) life
will continue to count for far less than that of a Palestinian.
The
writer is a British journalism educator, currently based in Ireland, who has
been a visiting professor in India and has personally observed the situation is
Kashmir.