The UN Human Rights Council report on Kashmir is a wasted effort of 49 pages masquerading as unbiased reportage. It has been rightfully slammed as fallacious, tendentious and motivated
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) report on Kashmir is a tedious and wasted effort of 49 pages masquerading as unbiased reportage. It has been rightfully slammed as ‘fallacious, tendentious and motivated’.
The timing of the release of the report could not have been worse for its chroniclers as the very next day, the Valley witnessed the coldblooded killing of the Editor-in-Chief of a local newspaper, Rising Kashmir and his two bodyguards, an abduction followed by the recovery of a bullet-ridden body of an Indian Army soldier (hailing from Jammu & Kashmir) and the usual pelting of stones on the vehicles of the security forces across the Valley — this when the Government of India had unilaterally initiated a ceasefire of anti-terrorist operations during Ramzan.
In a cruel twist of fate, amongst the last retweets (attributed to his own newspaper) that Shujaat Bukhari sent was on ‘India rejects UN report on Kashmir’! Whereas, there are two detailed sections within this UNHR Council report sub-titled “restriction on the right to freedom of expression” and “reprisals against human rights defenders and restrictions on journalists” that captures multiple incidents blaming the State authorities (including perversely, even mentioning ‘Rising Kashmir’) but there is not a single mention about the terrorists or the separatists putting any sort of pressure on the media and freedom of expression. Ironically, the man under whose aegis this contentious report was prepared, Prince Zeid bin Raad Zeid al-Hussein (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights), is from within the monarchial ‘establishment’ of Jordan.
He is not allowed to use the feudal prefix ‘Prince’ in the officialdom of the UN. The dynast from an imperfect democracy like Jordan was a controversial choice at the time of appointment as his earlier voting record on issues during his tenure as Jordan’s Ambassador to the UN was reflective of his countries dubious stand on blasphemy laws, defamation of religion etc that was in consonance with the Organisation of Islamic Countries’ (OIC) position —the organisation that also has a certain predetermined view on Kashmir.
Prince Zeid’s subsequent over enthusiastic interventions into the affairs of sovereign matters without the know of full details had led the Russian Ambassador to the UN complain about him saying, “Prince Zeid is overstepping his limits from time to time and we’re unhappy about it. He criticised a number of heads of State, Government. He should stick to his file, which is important enough.”
It is believed that the UN Secretary-General António Guterres had to urge Prince Zeid to tone down his enthusiasm on various issues and his term ends this August, as he has perhaps read the writing on the wall and refused to stand for a reelection. Meanwhile, his swansong via this Kashmir report (the first ever report of its type) has led to furious reactions across, especially when the title of the report ostensibly covers three regions — Kashmir, ‘Gilgit-Baltistan’ and worse, ‘Azad Kashmir’ — and gives away a clearly biased predisposition.
The fact is that India is beset with various socio-economic challenges and often the reaction of the state and its response to the same are either sub-optimal or sometimes plain incorrect.
There are internal challenges too like gender issues, minority right issues, riparian issues, dalit and tribal rights, north-eastern integration issues etc that often morph into violent reactions, protests and even armed insurgencies like the Maoist movement.
However, these are not an outcome of a deliberate sovereign policy that wishes the diminution of any region, sect, race or religion. The constitutional aspiration of India is proudly secular, democratic and unambiguous about various liberties and rights that it seeks to provide to its citizens — that there are flaws in implementations, inefficiencies and even mistakes do not make the sovereign guilty of willfully planned or the deliberate abuse of human rights.
Acts like the much commented Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) are not a privilege or entitlement for the security forces; they are simply a practical necessity that recognises the reality of dealing with armed terrorism.
Contrast this with having to deal with a neighbouring state that has since its Independence, decided to move towards Islamisation as a state definition, with a declared hostile position on Kashmir and an internationally acknowledged infamy as a supporter-financer-perpetrator of the terror instigator beyond its borders. Shockingly, this Human Rights report even shies away from using the word terrorist or militants to describe the macabre operatives within the Valley and prefers to address them as ‘a variety of armed group’.
While there is a section captioned, “Abuses by armed group”, the Human Rights report states that even though India accuses that these armed groups are actively supported by Pakistan, it notes ‘the Government of Pakistan categorically denies any allegation of involvement in stoking unrest in Indian-Administered Kashmir or of providing support to armed groups operating there’.
A substantially lesser wordage is spared for the section detailing the region in the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), and incredulously advises the authorities in India to “fully respect the right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir as protected under international law.”
It further seeks to escalate the Kashmir issue (something Pakistan has been trying desperately in the recent past and failing) by recommending to the Human Rights Council to “the possible establishment of a commission of inquiry to conduct a comprehensive independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir.”
The biased pontification in this report aside, India has plenty of room for improvement in its governance, operational and law-making processes. However, to insidiously attribute a sinister motive to the Government of India in its Kashmir agenda is, to pander to a very selective view.
Surely, there are cases of excesses committed by the security forces and the same needs to be addressed on priority and the guilty brought to book, as soon as possible, but such cases are of individual or unit level failures and not part of a dark sovereign plan, as this report almost seeks to project and establish as the definite narrative of Kashmir.
(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and Puducherry)
