The world community must act before Balochistan is turned into Pakistan’s killing field and made a slaughter house for its own indigenous inhabitants. Baloch right are also human rights and Baloch too deserve a peaceful, prosperous and dignified life like any other nation of the world. —Faiz M Baluch, London based human rights activist and affiliated with International Voice for Baluch Missing Persons – http://www.bygwaah.com/
Jammu and Kashmir is an ‘integral part’ and it is a bilateral issue, has been the standard position of Bharat. On the other hand, ‘Kashmir’ being only Muslim majority State, Bharat uses force and violates human rights in the northern most State and therefore, Pakistan supports the ‘Kashmiri’ struggle there, is the usual Pakistani narrative. Though the case of Bharat is legally, morally and politically strong, unfortunately the Pakistan narrative dominated the discourse. On this background, PM Modi mentioning Baluchistan and Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), including Gilgit-Baltistan, not only in the Independence Day speech but also in the all party meeting held a couple of days before, disturbed conventional understanding of the issue in three significant ways.
The new narrative reiterated a clear message that Bharat is ready to address the grievances of all sections in J&K within the framework of the Constitution. It also highlighted the fact that Pakistan abetted terrorism is the root cause of violence and instability in the ‘Kashmir’ Valley. More importantly, this narrative reinforced the
situation of human rights violations in the PoJK, where basic democratic and legal rights are denied to the people. Asking answers from Pakistan on bombing its own
citizens and ‘the atrocities committed by it against the people in Baluchistan and PoJK’, Bharat has given voice to the unheard voices within Pakistan on humanitarian ground. This will also create a moral pressure on China that has high economic stakes in the region with China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in the making.
It is a well known fact that, as per the Constitution of Pakistan, there is no legal status to PoJK. Due to the absence of independent media or human rights groups in this region, the plight of these people is completely unreported. The situation in Gilgit-Baltistan is even worse where systematic ethnic cleansing and forceful alteration of the demographic composition of the region has taken place. Now the miserable condition of the people in this region will come to the fore in discussion.
The history and freedom movement of Baluchistan is complicated and Pakistan’s track record in this allegedly occupied region is more than worse. Irrespective of legality and historicity of the Baluch region, exploitation of resources of the region and cleansing of the Baluch leadership are the real issues which never get prominence in the discourse. According to the records maintained by the indigenous human rights organisation comprising the family members of enforced-disappeared Baluch, Pakistani security forces have abducted about 14,000-18,000 Baloch activists. More than 7,000 people among the stated figure have been killed under the custody of Pakistani forces. With such pathetic record, does Pakistan have any right to talk about ‘human-rights’ situation in the Valley, which is nothing but the outcome of its terror promotion policy? Internationally, this question will certainly haunt Pakistan. No wonder, Baluch nationalist leaders poured messages of gratitude to Bharat and PM Modi.
Pakistan, with open support to terrorism and separatism, in words and actions, had been crossing the diplomatic red lines time and again. In contrast, PM Modi did not get into the internal affairs of Pakistan nor talked about supporting any movement there. He just staked the legal claim over PoJK in a vociferous manner and questioned Pakistan’s moral right on human rights issue. Pakistan is completely exposed on the terror front and regarded as one of the worst reputed countries in a recently published RepTrak index report by the Reputation Institute. On the contrary, the economic, political and moral stature of Bharat is ascending with pragmatic and decisive policies. In this scenario, it is high time for Pakistan to get out of the Cold War mindset and tune to the new reality with redefined red lines. @PrafullaKetkar
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