DID PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI BETRAY THE NATION?




Mukesh Devrari

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has opened a Pandora’s box by asking Donald Trump to mediate in Jammu & Kashmir. Asking for mediation by United States is the first step of losing Kashmir. Prime Minister Nehru did the same blunder by asking for the United Nations intervention in 1948. All right-wing politicians still abuse Nehru as he acquired only half of the Kashmir and ran to UN for intervention, rather than repelling all Pakistani invaders from entire Kashmir. Pakistan still controls one-third of the Kashmir.


Why Modi has not been briefed properly by seasoned bureaucrats around him? Why did he ask for Trump’s mediation? What did he intend to achieve through US mediation in Kashmir? What are the implications of Modi’s tactical blunder? Why is he keen to internationalize Kashmir issue further? Is he such a novice on foreign policy issues? Did he think he can make a joker out of Pakistan like he did to his main political opponent Rahul Gandhi? Has he misunderstood the depth of Pakistani obsession to wrench Kashmir from India? Only Prime Minister Modi can answer the reasons for his betrayal to this country.   


This controversy started when President Trump was addressing a press conference with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan in Washington DC. On the question of mediation between India and Pakistan, Trump claimed that he discussed issue of Kashmir in Osaka, Japan with Prime Minister Modi on the side lines of the G-20 summit.


Trump said, “I was with Prime Minister Modi two weeks ago and we talked about this subject (Kashmir). And he actually said, 'would you like to be a mediator or arbitrator?' I said, 'where?' and Modi said, ‘Kashmir'. Then Trump further added there are bombs everywhere in Kashmir why India and Pakistan could not resolve it.  


It is a big jolt for us. Modi threw India under the bus by seeking US intervention in Kashmir. India and Pakistan are fighting over the region of Kashmir for the last 70 years. India wants to maintain the status quo as it already has half of the Kashmir. Pakistan wants to resolve it through negotiations with India as it currently has only one-third of it.  


What did Pakistan mean by ‘resolution’? has to be understood first. It simply means Kashmir is a disputed territory. As a Muslim majority region, it belongs to Pakistan. It is an unfinished business of partition plan of British India based on two-nation theory, which simply means Hindus and Muslims cannot live together in one country. India does not have a legal right to have J&K as it is a Muslim majority province and the majority of people in India are Non-Muslims. Status quo is unacceptable and it must change.


Their strategy is simple. Keep Kashmir on the boil by encouraging separatists. Encourage militancy.  Pressurize India to negotiate Kashmir and accept Pakistani claim over the entire state. Pakistan is confident that if it succeeded in forcing India to conduct the plebiscite, India will certainly lose Kashmir as Muslims in the Kashmir valley unlikely to vote to remain in a secular nation.


The Pakistani establishment is aware that in bilateral talks India cannot be compelled to accept its argument based on two-nation theory, but through the mediation, India will be in trouble. If Modi wanted Trump to nudge Pakistan to accept status quo and convert LOC into international border through mediation. Then, he can be considered novice and highly unaware of international arbitration. He must be informed that Kashmir is not a piece of land. It has more than ten million people living in it.


Any western intervention will result in the inclusion of Kashmiris in it. In the case of a stalemate, the white man’s solution will be - ask the people of J&K where they would like to go? If that happens, India will lose Kashmir. As Muslims in Indian administered Kashmir and Pakistan administered Kashmir far outnumbers Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and other minorities, who strongly support India.

Modi has compromised with the national interest. It took decades of diplomacy for India to ensure that none of the countries in the world demands intervention in the Kashmir region. All of them suggest India and Pakistan must resolve all their disputes bilaterally and as a stronger nation, it is easier for India to handle Pakistan, at least Pakistan cannot force India to redraw the border. Modi has changed all this. For worse or for better, make your guess.


It makes no difference to people in India internally, as most of the media is controlled by corporate houses having close links with Modi government, they are likely to declare Trump liar, instead of questioning Modi’s blunder.  


End.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TRANSNATIONAL MEDIA OWNERSHIP AND ISSUES OF SOVEREIGNTY AND SECURITY

Image
Mukesh Devrari  Transnational media ownership means ownership of media assets by global corporate houses around the world. The word 'transnational' can easily be easily replaced with the term multinational. In other words, when a multinational company owns media companies around the globe that company can be described as a transnational media organization. There are plenty of such organizations, but most vilified among all is owned by Rupert Murdoch.  The nature of media is very different. As you all know media is a plural form of the medium. Production of films, TV serials, drama, theatre and other wings of the cultural industry are also owned by western media companies. Here, the meaning of the word transnational can be extended. Not necessarily western media companies own assets in the third world countries. They create their work in the west and sell it around the world.   It has long been a complaint against western media companies that wherever they go, they dev
Read more

BANNING TIKTOK SENDS RIGHT MESSAGE TO CHINA

Image
Mukesh Devrari   Banning Tiktok in India is without a doubt a great decision by BJP government after the killing of 20 Indian soldiers at the Line of Actual Control at Union Territory of Ladakh. Globally the Tiktok has been downloaded by more than 2 billion smartphone users and 30 per cent of its customers are in India. If the Tiktok will be replaced by an Indian company, only then this ban is worth it, other it is immaterial from India’s point of view. Otherwise, it makes no difference to our national interest whether the parent company is from the United States or China or Congo. Indian companies must intervene and capture the vacated market. They must offer similar apps to users. The Communist Party of China’s (CPC) aggression at the border gave this once in a lifetime opportunity for India’s businesses to capture the vacated spaces. The CPC is responsible for the global downfall of Tiktok & Huawei. First of all, China should use the opportunity of BJP havin
Read more

­Dawn’s discourses on perpetual Indo-Pakistan enmity

Mukesh Devrari  Abstract   This study is a thematic analysis of columns and editorials published in the opinion pages of Dawn during India’s general elections 2019 to find out how Pakistan’s elite media represents India as a perpetual adversary. It finds out that Dawn’s op-ed pages characterize India as a permanent security threat, destabilizing force, propagandist state, and dominating power conspiring with the United States to harm the interests of Pakistan and China. It also reveals that news columns and editorials consistently claim that Indian media indulges in warmongering, rising Hindu nationalism, and non-state actors contribute to the hostility in both nations. Finally, it notes that Dawn’s Op-ed pages describe India with the state lens in geopolitics and global power structure, mostly magnifying the state’s perspective instituted mainly by the security establishment.   (Keywords –Indo-Pakistan enmity, Dawn , media representation, media & conflict, thematic analysis)   In
Read more