How Kashmir Was A Victim Of Global Geo-Politics Of Pakistan

Modest Kashmiri population was made a victim of Pakistan’s iniquitous and nefarious geo-political ambitions, from 1947 for about seven decades. During this period their aspirations, future and contemporary conditions were subjected to being hostage to Pakistan’s vile intentions through its mercenaries in the garb of a well-planned proxy war. The Kashmiris were exploited in numerous ways right from 1947 to the present day. Waging three full-fledged wars against our mainland by Pakistan is one strong instance of Pakistan’s craze for its geo-political interests to wrest control over the valley. They never let Kashmir to enjoy stability or its affiliated economy which could have been mind boggling in Asia given the picturesque and mesmerizing topography. The first and the foremost priority of Pakistan, has been to shatter the backbone of Kashmiri Economy. Terrorism struck a blow to the economic independence of the valley. From time to time, they sponsored soft secessionism through their affiliates trained for instigating youth while exploiting the religion for the same purpose. Unfortunately, there are and were least chances of staying away from the great game play from these organizers of willful violence, a large chunk of Kashmiri youth fell to the sweetish yet poisonous speeches and sermons of the radicals.

While this has been the problem for Kashmiri population, Pakistan has exploited, lured and radicalized the youth to drive them towards a state of emotional bankruptcy. They cried hoarse for gaining a capital to run their state and arm the gullible youth of valley. Not all fell to their emotional propaganda, so they were attacked, maimed, tortured and killed mercilessly. Thus, over seven decades, Kashmir has witnessed an intellectual crisis due to its misguided youth. This was fueled by Pakistan’s free rein to radicals who spread hatred against the peace lovers, killed liberals, seculars and in addition to this disseminated communalism of religion and intolerance. However it was not long before the world got a whip of these vile intentions of Pakistan and the state thus received extreme criticism, with words like, “a supplier of terror ideology throughout the world” and its economy got hit with sanctions from all over the world including restrictions from IMF and WB. Hence, it lost all its luster and was thus forced to appeal to the world with a plan to gain sympathy of the world in name of Kashmir. It thus started to be vocal on Kashmir issue and then started to spread false propaganda at international level. However, the propaganda was countered by the sane voices of Kashmiri populace, who are now well aware of our adversaries intentions and are doing a commendable job by exposing their whole engineering and campaigning.

Since Pakistan is a drained economy, due to the crises that it met since its formation, it tries to reach out to the international community through the conception of sympathy. As it is a Muslim majority state, it tries to woo countries with similar religious bend, but these states are now wary and are maintaining their distance from such advances from Pakistan. Notwithstanding this set back, Pakistan is unlikely to show any change in its twisted narrative on Kashmir. It has set the narrative way back in 1947 and still continues to rake it as an international issue meddling in the internal affairs of our country. Kashmir holds an extremely valuable position for Pakistan. Its relationship with China is significantly dependent on Kashmir. China itself has many core interests in Kashmir which can be maintained by having a hand in glove relationship with the Pakistan. It uses Pakistan for raking the issue and thereby safeguarding its own national security, given the advancement in aeronautical and defence sector of our country. The geopolitical importance of Kashmir between three nuclear powers makes it a strategic requirement for both Pakistan and China at the same time. The interests in Kashmir’s natural resources and minerals, tourism potential and river systems are also at stake.

Pakistan is wary of the India’s control over its major river systems which are the backbone of its agricultural output which forms a major chunk of its economy with 20% of GDP and accounts for 37.4% of employed labor force as of 2022. And agricultural produce is the largest source of foreign exchange earnings. A review of Pakistan’s history makes it clear that it has always faced economic difficulties due to several reasons as it is basically an agrarian economy, lacking industrial infrastructure and it has been disproportionately diverting a sizeable chunk of its financial resources for the maintenance of military machinery. In the last 76 years of its existence, Pakistan launched four armed conflicts against India and has been also been fuelling proxy war in this entire duration through its ISI separatist movements all over India, which requires sizeable resources and has had its toll on its financial condition.

Terrorism supported by Pakistan led to increased violence in Kashmir. Bilateralism became increasingly irrelevant as a policy for Pakistan since low intensity conflict brought about the required policy dividends. The significance of Shimla Agreement as a reference point to bilateral ties became a dead issue. Pakistan saw a role for it in the internal situation of Kashmir. Since the situation was volatile, the objective of the Pakistan army became to engage in low intensity conflict without evoking a full scale war in Kashmir. For Pakistan its Kashmir policy is still controlled by the army, the same was also signaled by the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif who was reluctant to hold any talks with India. Military factors continue to dominate the policy formulation of Pakistan, probably since its creation as a separate state. Their hegemony in the civil matters results in meddling in the affairs of the state, even during the reign of democratically elected governments. Thus the issues remain unresolved, due to this meddling by the men in uniform in Pakistan, under the garb of democracy. However, this has had a cascading effect in PIOK and Gilgit-Baltistan province and now the regimes in Pakistan are facing similar situation, which they were propagating over the decades on Indian soil.

Ideas, Opinions and Views expressed in articles are Writer’s own and may not be in accord with those of The Morn