G20 Meet In Kashmir Done And Dusted. Time Now For Elections And Statehood Before 2024
Despite significant security challenges and a boycott by Beijing, New Delhi showed the world that it has genuinely settled the insurgency issue in Kashmir, by holding the 3rd Tourism Working Group Meeting of the G20 on May 22-24 in capital Srinagar. With the job half done, now the Narendra Modi government should literally seal the matter by holding elections there and returning statehood to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) before the 2024 general elections.
While China officially announced that it will not attend the G20 meeting in Kashmir and they stayed firm on it, India, with its diplomatic acumen, was able to convince all other countries to participate in the conference, albeit in a clandestine manner. In some cases, according to sources, countries sent tour operators instead of diplomats so as to not to “upset” India.
India is the G20 President for this year and it is happening for the first time so New Delhi cannot afford to give out an image to the world that all is not well with Kashmir.
The working group meeting of the G20 countries took place close on the heels of two back-to-back terrorist attacks on the Indian Army, the “security threat” to the event was significant. Despite going through a range of intel reports that advised against the holding of such a meeting, the two-day conference went smoothly with photos and videos of foreign diplomats dancing and shopping at Srinagar’s Polo View Market flooded the social media.
Of course, the photos and videos also showed heavy deployment and multiple teams of Black Cats, or National Security Guard (NSG), as well as Marine Commandos, popularly called as MARCOS, but then this is Kashmir we are talking about!
The Special Operations Group, or SOG, was also deployed with the NSG to foil any suicide attack bid. The forces were deployed five days before the meeting was take place.
If on one hand High Commissioner of Singapore Simon Wong was seen jumping in a photo, the Ambassador of Korea to India, Chang Jae-bok, was seen shaking a leg with RRR star Ram Charan on the Oscar-winning song ‘Naatu Naatu’.
In April and shortly thereafter in May, the Indian Army was twice attacked in the districts of Poonch and Rajouri, respectively, leading to the death of soldiers.
Notwithstanding all these, the government went ahead valiantly and held the meeting there with solid participation by all countries, except China.
According to another top official there was "extensive representation from the OIC countries".
Harsh Vardhan Shringla, former Foreign Secretary and currently Chief Coordinator for India’s G-20 Presidency, said, "It has been teamwork, of course. All of us have worked very closely together. But the union territory really has gone out of its way, taken it as a matter of pride. The union territory looked at the G20 as an opportunity. And I’m sure if the G 20 is the most significant international event we have held in India ever, this will be the most significant event ever in Jammu and Kashmir".
Without Elections, Kashmir Will Continue To Burn
Recently, in a media interview, Home Minister Amit Shah said the statehood will be restored in J&K after the elections are held there. Shah said the process of preparing the voters’ list is going on currently and the Election Commission will take a call thereafter.
Top-level intelligence sources have said that the citizens of these two UTs as well as the forces are all “geared up and ready” for the election, just that the Centre has to give the required push.
AS Dulat, former chief of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and former special director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), who was former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Special Advisor on Kashmir, told me in an interview in January this year that the Kashmiris are now waiting for the Modi government to fulfil its promise and return statehood to Kashmir, and also hold elections.
Earlier this month, rebuking Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari through a media conference concluding the Foreign Miinisters’ Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told him: “Wake up! Smell the coffee. 370 is history. Sooner people realise it, the better.”
He was responding to Bhutto’s comments on the abrogation of Article 370 and 35 A that took the special status of J&K while splitting the state into the union territories of Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh.
If what the external affairs minister says is reality, the government should walk the talk and hold elections there within this year and show the Kashmiris that the Modi government fulfilled its promise.
Kashmiris are worried that the Modi government may be waiting for the 2024 elections to get over after which it will hold elections there, which has made matters more uncertain.
“I think neither assembly elections will be held nor statehood to J&K will be returned back until there is new government formation in the Centre. GoI want huge participation of people in forthcoming elections here so they will take some steps including restoration of statehood after 2024 elections across the country,” former J&K deputy chief minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig was quoted as saying.
“The huge participation of people in polls is possible only once they will restore statehood to J&K, so the Government of India will give it back after 2024 elections at the centre,” he said.
“After granting statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, the people of J&K will get the right to vote,” Baig said, adding that state assembly elections can be held “shortly”.
Such confusing signals are fanning more rumours in the valley and may also give rise to more resentment within the population there. Once elections are held there and statehood restored, the level of violence, which has seen some decline since August 2019, will seal the issue for good.
Pakistan, which rejected India’s move to hold the G20 meet there, has said “India’s facade of normalcy in Kashmir is met by the harsh reality", and that Kashmir remains "one of the most militarized zones on the planet". "The extreme security measures, arbitrary arrests and harassment of the local population around the Srinagar meeting refute the claims of normalcy in the colonized territory,” it said.
New Delhi should reply to this not by the anodyne officials statements but by holding assembly elections there and restoring statehood.
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