Kashmiri diaspora snubs Pakistan move to internationalise Kashmiri issue

NEW DELHI: The much hyped ‘Million March’ – held last Sunday in London on Kashmir - backed by Pakistan’s politico-military establishment fizzled out completely, proved to be a damp squib and a major embarrassing snub by the Kashmiri diaspora in Europe to Islamabad’s attempts to internationalize the Kashmir issue.

It may be recalled that the so-called ‘Million March’ from Trafalgar Square to the Downing Street – which was able to eventually attract not more than a thousand odd participants, mostly half hearted ones, out on a paid day long holiday to London – started with confusion, with various organizing factions fighting on the stage. The fracas turned into further chaos, as Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari stepped on to the makeshift stage to speak. The crowd began booing and throwing empty plastic bottle and refused to let him speak.

Sources claimed that Bilawal, who had no initial plans to join the ‘Million March’ was roped in former Pakistan Occupied Kashmir PM Majeed. He suggested to former President Zardari that Bilawal’s participation would help to build Bilawal’s profile. Majeed, a rival of Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry, suggested that Bilawal should lead the March and hand over a memorandum to the UK PM. This plan was chalked out at the London residence of former Pakistani Home Minister of PPP Rehman Malik. But sources said that the plan went haywire as participants -- those from Imran Khan’s party -- at the Million March heckled Bilawal.

“This is an indication that Bilawal’s attempt to internationalize the Kashmiri issue has failed. More significantly, it shows that Pak politicians are only interested in abusing such stage managed events for their political mileage without any genuine interest or knowledge about the facts relating to the Kashmir issue”, National Conference leader Devendra Rana said.

More importantly, even as the March organizers were trying to manipulate a face saving arrangement before the public and a hostile media, a fact which largely went unnoticed was a counter-demonstration in the same city by the Jammu Kashmir National Independence Alliance (JKNIA) -- an UK based alliance of Kashmiri Nationalist parties. It staged a parallel demonstration in front of the Indian High Commission and Pakistani missions. The demonstrations, interalia, criticised the false propaganda being made by the Pak sponsored organizers about the March being supported by the Kashmiri diaspora in UK and Europe.

The JKNIA held simultaneous "token hunger strikes" outside the Indian High Commission and Pakistani High Commission in London last Saturday with the message of denouncing such Marches and instead "give peace a chance". They also submitted memorandums addressed to PMs of India and Pakistan to both the High Commissions, government sources told ET from London.

Informed sources of the British FCO and international human rights groups confided that Pakistan has once again failed in its attempt to internationalize the Kashmir issue, after its efforts to raise the recent LoC firings with the UN Secretary General did not cut much ice. Prior to that, Pak PM Nazaz Sharif’s immature raking up of the Kashmir issue in his address to the UNGA drew a befitting snub, from the Indian counterpart.

The fact that JKNIA is an umbrella alliance of Kashmiri political parties and civil society organisations based in UK which aims to support non-violent people resistance movement in J&K by campaigning for the right of self-determination to reunify and establish ‘an independent state of Jammu and Kashmir’ has infused objective credence to the perception that the Kashmiri diaspora rejects the Pakistani discourse on the issue. The JKNIA had opposed the so-called 'Million March' on October 26 from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street in London and being led by Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry with backing from Pakistani political parties.

Dr Shabir Choudhry, spokesperson for the Kashmir National Party and director of the Institute of Kashmir Affairs and a member of JKNIA, said from London that the organisers of the Million March spent huge amounts of money to try and get people to attend. “I had a phone call from an old friend in Halifax (west Yorkshire, England) who said that after the Friday prayer it was announced that free coaches and free food will be provided for volunteers who attend the march," claimed Choudhury.

"It is an attempt to divert attention from the problems of people living on the Pakistani side, and give it a religious touch, which will further divide the people of Jammu and Kashmir on religious and ethnic lines," he noted. He dismissed the ‘Million March’ as being against the interest of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Kashmiri aspirations.

Pakistan appears to have yet again gone in for this event without considering its implications. It proved to be yet another misadventure – out of the obvious frustration building up on account of its repeated failures to hoodwink the international community about the Kashmir dispute.

PM Narendra Modi’s swift and effective handling of the J&K floods relief and rehabilitation programmes, spending of the Diwali amongst the affected populace there and a resolutely befitting and humiliating response to Pakistan’s shelling across the LoC have ‘added insult to the injured Pak hubris’. Even the Pakistani social media has started acknowledging it.