A Gaggle of Knaves and One Little Knight (Sualeh Keen, 2019)

At the sham of a hearing by the US Congressional 'Sub'-Committee on Human Rights in South Asia, our cash-strapped neighbour Islamic Republic of Pakistan, used its cost-effective strategy of employing a bunch of cheap Hindu NRIs to attack ‘Hindu’ India, as if these perennial direct beneficiaries of the Kashmir Conflict Industry have more than an ounce of credibility. This inconsequential sideshow, which majority of US Congress members skipped, was not hosted in this incestuous little forum with little influence on US foreign policy to 'defeat' India per se; no, it was merely meant to reassure Pakistani and Kashmiri jihad supporters back home and abroad that even after losing badly in the Battle of UNSC, the never-ending War was still on.

As things stand today, Pakistan has far more pressing domestic affairs to attend, than the absence of 4G connectivity in the enemy state. Pakistan had been busy feeding the ‘Kashmir Banega Pakistan’ steroid to its jihadi audiences ever since the Government of India made the progressive decision of reading down Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on August 5 this year. But now, with FATF breathing down its neck, Pakistan is being forced to roll back its own rhetoric of 'Jihad in Kashmir' to talk of 'Human Rights of Kashmiris' instead, so that their jihad supporters are tapered off the drug slowly, while injecting them with optimum levels of optimism. 

Notwithstanding the long-term willingness and determination of Pakistan to sponsor such terror-condoning circuses in the US and elsewhere, such efforts will henceforth yield diminishing returns. Such contrived low-profile sideshows are intended to distract the Pakistani public and Kashmiri separatist crowd from the salient fact that Pakistan has nothing to show for its 30 years of proxy war and propaganda against India. Instead, now there is a new worry that they might lose control over Pakistan Occupied J&K. And looking at its economy, soon it will be a case of ‘Paisa hazm, khel khatm’, in that order. 

Now the poor Pakistani PM Imran Khan may well beg the rich Pakistanis and Kashmiri separatists living abroad to sink all their zakat money in the Kashmir pot to keep it boiling in their own localities. Yes, having burnt its fingers with the Fai Fiasco, Pakistan seems to have placed its bets on wealthy US-based Kashmiri proxies, especially those holding Indian citizenships, to fund such sideshows locally in some institutes and universities, to circumvent legal issues vis-à-vis foreign funding in the US. Some academic-activist proxies sponsored by some US-based Kashmiri businessmen will now operate such 'Kashmir Cells' against India inside US territory, giving Pakistan plausible deniability. 

Such cultivated academics, on the credentials of their sponsored education, will frequently visit colleges and universities in the Kashmir valley as guest lecturers, to lure the valley youth with the benefits of foreign education. Such proxies operating outside Pakistan will create virulent campaigns in which mobs will be transported to protest venues to march and to heckle and physically attack people and property, including the embassies of friendly countries, thereby creating diplomatic tangles and law and order problems for the host nation.

Oh, they have done all this already? Perhaps I was asleep. Like India.

However, henceforth, all such efforts by Pakistan to keep Kashmir burning in foreign lands will come at the additional fixed cost of India exposing Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism and for violating human rights in its own territory. Sadly, rogue states like Pakistan (and China) cannot sue others without inadvertently inviting scrutiny into their own dirty affairs. Sindh, Balochistan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, anyone? 

Indeed, adding to Pakistan’s already compounding woes is the fact that after 30 years of inaction, bungling, and internal sabotage, the Indian side seems to have finally pulled up its socks and resolved to defend its national interests at all costs, including countering the Pakistani fake narrative on Kashmir in every forum of the world. Already, the Government of India has managed to comprehensively defeat Pakistan ISPR diplomatically where it mattered the most in terms of perception: the UNSC.

Also, the world will eventually come to realise that Global Jihad works like an MLM company now: decentralised, with little micromanaging required. All that is required is an autonomous Jihad-dispensing center in every region of the world; it could be a madrassa or it could be an elite college. India, which has continuously been a victim of terrorism long before 9/11, knows the costs of terrorism better. And since Kashmir was the main theatre of Pakistan's proxy terrorism against India, we Kashmiris suffered more than any. Hopefully, nations that are hosting hostile anti-India events, will be moved enough to clamp down on such dubious 'Kashmir Cells' with terror-links. 

Now, coming back to the sham of a 'hearing' in which members shut their ears to the truth. If there is one thing that this charade has confirmed, it is that the Pakistani fake narrative on Kashmir can be busted quite easily in a fairly moderated debating platform. Placed on a level playing field, all their lopsided and crooked narratives will fall like skittles. Peddling a fast-talking concoction of lies, half-truths, exaggerations, cover-ups, and some truths, requires a safe space and a lot of support and handholding. That is why terror apologists and normalisers thrive only in echo chambers and survive only by ganging up against opponents who come up with inconvenient facts. 

Pakistan may be exchanging lessons and more with Turkey. But just like Turkey miserably failed to hide the Armenian genocide, the cheap ploy adopted by ISPR and Kashmiri separatists of fielding a useful NRI Pandit idiot will never succeed in whitewashing the Pak-sponsored ethnic cleansing of the entire Pandit community from the Kashmir valley in 1990. Or in convincing the world that the Islamofascist ‘freedom’ movement in Kashmir is 'secular'. 

Manufacturing a hoopla over "Niazi-like (pun intended) 'Hindu' India's communications blackout and siege in Kashmir" by making loud noises about the now almost-completely lifted government restrictions that prevented loss of life, Pakistan hasn't even succeeded in distracting the world from the ongoing terrorist enforced shutdown and terror killings on the ground. Presented with hard facts by the Indian side, no wonder, no country supported Pakistan at the UNSC. 

Nevertheless, it was interesting to see two Pandit women appearing as witnesses at the hearing, one the useful NRI Pandit idiot sponsored by Pakistan and another an independent journalist from Kashmir. Both were playing for Kashmiri Muslims, albeit from opposite sides: the NRI was batting for the Pakistan-sponsored proxies in the valley, while the second Pandit woman was fielding for the Muslim victims of terror. 

I did wonder what it would have done to the optics, had one Kashmiri Muslim dissenter or victim of terrorism, the courage to face the Pakistani sponsored gang and give them a reality check. However, that desirable Kashmiri Muslim witness was barely missed at the US Congressional hearing. All thanks to the second Pandit woman, the journalist Aarti Tikoo, who was the one truly dispassionate witness in the entire room and the only person who had extensively reported from the ground including after August 5 and who was actually born and brought up in Kashmir. 

Aarti Tikoo presented an accurate and proportionate picture of the Kashmir ground situation wherein an entire population is under the siege of the terrorists, their OGWs and sympathizers. She also admitted to grave human rights violations by the Indian armed forces. Frankly, even at the risk of sounding callous, we the peace-loving people are not as concerned about the detention of known troublemakers and past tyrants (who probably deserved what they got), as we are far more worried about the irreversible loss of life. We expected all hell to break loose after August 5. Therefore, we are extremely relieved that the government, for the first time, has handled the situation in such a calibrated manner that not a single person has died in mob violence in these months (unlike in 2016). Not a single person has died, that is, apart from the almost daily murders of Kashmiri Muslims by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists, which, of course, does not concern human rights champions.

As a Kashmiri Muslim, I am therefore eternally grateful to Aarti Tikoo for speaking on behalf of the besieged population in the valley who are being threatened and killed by Pakistan-backed terrorists for resuming daily activities and trying to earn an honest living. Kashmiri Muslims have been the main victims of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Sadly, we have also had to deal with the suspicion of us being on the side of the terrorists. All that we want is to go about our jobs, enjoy a normal life with our families, like people outside the valley in the rest of India. Maybe it is this love of life that prevented a Muslim journalist from nominating himself as a witness. Look what they did to Shujaat Bukhari, who, ironically, was sympathetic to them. No, it is too risky to speak against terror while living in the valley.

In her witness statement, Aarti unveiled the widespread fear psychosis of the silent majority in the valley. Pandits have been exposing Pakistan's proxy war in Kashmir in front of hostile and ignorant audiences all these decades tirelessly. This they could do freely from outside the valley, as they had already been driven out by the terrorists in 1990. On the other hand, we Muslims, with families in the valley, could not and still cannot speak freely, except in private. The atmosphere of terror in the valley is still the same as it was in 1990, though now the terrorists don’t need to kill us all; now they only have to send us occasional reminders by selective killings to create examples. Now we Muslims cooperate on our own ‘free-will’. Kashmir is supposed to be a 'police state', but here even policemen dare not visit their families or attend weddings, lest they be murdered like Lt Ummer Fayaz. Each single life is precious, especially in a place that has seen tens of thousands of deaths following the rise of terrorism in 1990. We cannot afford to let anyone sacrifice our children anymore. But who among us will stick his neck out at the terrorists living among us? If not of ourselves, we have to think of the safety of our families. Lives need to be saved at all costs.

As for the few ignorant US Congress members endorsing a misleading picture of the ground situation in Kashmir, without actually knowing who is the victim and who the perpetrator or if Srinagar is in Jammu or Kashmir, they will never comprehend why in our terror-torn part of the ‘Third’ World, a security measure to safeguard life and maintain peace has far more preponderance over their First World problems, like not finding a WiFi signal in the toilet. Internet connection is a ‘fundamental right’ and there is no right to life? Which world do you live in? "An entire population under siege..." Yes, but not the way the Pakistani panel falsely propagated. After the historic decision, all the deaths so far have been at the hands of Pakistan-sponsored terrorists and their OGWs. To this day, shopkeepers, transporters, and apple growers are being attacked for trying to ply their trades, schools and offices being shut down or burned, private vehicles being attacked and set on fire by gangs. This is the siege they will find Kashmir in, if they were not so motivated or misinformed or both.

I won’t say anything about the constitutional propriety of reading down of Article 370 by both houses of the Parliament. Let the Supreme Court of India decide. But I must say that it was infuriating to hear the Pakistani panel shamelessly lying that Article 370 promoted human rights and was not gender discriminatory. Ilhan Omar's performance wasn't a simple case of suppressio veri, suggestio falsi; it was an elaborate setup to suppress the truth and to deliberately tell lies, simultaneously. She set up her act in such a way that she not only suppressed the truth by gaslighting and gagging Aarti, she also amplified the falsehood by getting the Pakistan-sponsored cohort of fake feminists to bear false testimony in US Congress and vociferously defend an expired temporary provision in the Indian Constitution, whose only documented benefit had been to secure the dominance of the privileged male elites of the Kashmir valley, while being anti-woman, anti-LGBT, anti-Dalit, anti-refugee, anti-freedom, anti-diversity, and anti-equality! 

Therefore, I once again thank Aarti, this time not just for lending voice to us Muslims rendered powerless and impotent in the face of incessant terrorism for the last 30 years, but also for speaking on behalf of all the voiceless minorities and mistreated people of the whole State... Union Territory... of J&K!

I don't know who gets to write history, but I will always remember that once upon a time in a faraway land, there was a gaggle of knaves who had invented a fog machine installed with mirrors reflecting mirrors to present a distorted picture to the world. The knaves maintained this illusion for decades. They continued killing Kashmiris and exploiting their spilt blood. One day, a little knight named Aarti Tikoo came and stepped alone into their echo chamber of secrets and single-handedly smashed all their recursive mirrors and blew away all the fog of misinformation in the very little time she was allowed. And she did it with much calm and clarity.

. . .

This is my first blog post. Inspired by Aarti Tikoo's bravery, I am breaking my silence. Dedicating this blog to document the stories of the victims of Pakistan-sponsored terrorists and their proxies in Kashmir valley.

--- Khamosh Kashmiri

I wasn’t allowed to finish my speech, to raise points of objection, to rebut the untruths that Pakistan supporters peddled at the US Congressional hearing on human rights violations in South Asia. The far Left-Islamist nexus gagged me. I put it up here. https://t.co/C21qSR9i4D

— Aarti Tikoo Singh (@AartiTikoo) October 24, 2019