It’s no secret that Pakistan relies heavily on indiscriminate use of social media to not only peddle its pathetic Kashmir narrative but also beguile local youth into picking up guns for waging Rawalpindi’s proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir [J&K]. What’s rather surprising is that New Delhi seldom draws attention of the international community to this concerted disinformation campaign being masterminded by Pakistan Army’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence [ISI].
One of India’s leading English daily recently carried an illuminating article on this subject, in which it’s mentioned that when compared with the same period last year, the more than 2,000 ‘posts of concern’ flagged during October-November, translates into more than a 22 percentage increase. Quoting “a senior officer in the central security establishment,” the report mentions that there was a concerted effort by Pakistan to use social media to “influence and exploit” impressionable minds and radicalise them for anti-national activities.
This is indeed very disturbing news.
New Delhi’s Response
The newspaper report ibid merits deliberation for two reasons. Firstly, inclusion of factual data collated by security and intelligence agencies not only adds authenticity to the piece but also reveals the enormity of Pakistan’s sinister psychological warfare programme. Secondly, whereas the specific information provided has definitely been shared by those in the know with the author, the sources haven’t been named, which indicates that the powers-that-be are for reasons unknown, reluctant to make an official disclosure on this serious issue.
Though allowing Islamabad to get away with its falsehood on Kashmir appears inexplicable, New Delhi certainly must be having good reasons for its reticence on this issue. For one, trying to rebut patently absurd claims and untenable contentions doesn’t make good diplomatic sense and only gives the balderdash an additional lease of life. Two, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has a proclivity of shooting itself in the foot and as such giving it a long rope by keeping silent is in itself a good strategy.
Remember Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi admitting on TV that abrogation of Article 370 was India’s “internal matter”? Or Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari publicly accepting that “We face a particularly uphill task to try and get Kashmir onto the centre of the agenda at the United Nations”? And by telling his countrymen that “You should not live-in [a] fool’s paradise” as “Nobody will be standing there [at UNSC] with garlands in hands,” didn’t Qureshi univocally acknowledge that Islamabad’s massive anti-Article 370 abrogation diplomatic offensive had no substance whatsoever?
Necessity of Counter Action
Islamabad’s bombast on the Kashmir issue may be ignored, but its efforts to beguile Kashmiri youth into joining terrorist ranks definitely needs to be countered through a comprehensive campaign aimed at increasing awareness that exposes Pakistan’s menacing game-plan in J&K. Today’s generation in Kashmir is largely unaware of how for more than three-and-a-half decades their people have been used as cannon-fodder by Pakistan just to further its self-serving interests.
Islamabad’s perfidy needs to be called out in order to save local youth of impressionable age from getting lured into terrorism, and this can best be done by citing facts revealed by those responsible for promoting this senseless violence.
Reality Check
Unlike Islamabad which has no other choice but to rely on disinformation for luring Kashmiri youth into terrorism, all that New Delhi has to do is to educate them of Pakistani perfidy by drawing their attention to true instances that unambiguously expose its double dealings. I am citing a couple of examples below:
Objective of “Armed Struggle”
Kashmiri youth need to realise that the actual objective of the so-called “armed struggle” in J&K is not achieving “azadi” [freedom] but solely for the purpose of bleeding India ‘through a thousand cuts’. They should be aware that Pakistan’s ex President and former Army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf has himself admitted this during a TV interview by stating that “… Kashmiris who came to Pakistan received hero reception here. We used to train them and support them. We considered them as Mujahideen who will fight with the Indian Army...” [Emphasis added].
Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin who also heads the United Jihad Council, an umbrella organisation created by ISI to coordinate the activities of terrorist groups fighting and calls upon young Kashmiris to pick up the gun has endorsed Gen Musharraf’s revelation that the so-called “armed struggle” has nothing to do with azadi as “we are fighting Pakistan’s war in Kashmir.”
With both the former Pakistan Army chief who oversaw terrorist activities in J&K as well ISI’s minion Salahuddin who’s responsible for conducting terrorist actions in this region admitting that the aim of its so-called “armed struggle” in Kashmir is solely to wage a proxy war against India, Kashmiri youth need to more careful and not end up being fooled into being used as pawns by Rawalpindi.
Assassinations
The youth should be reminded that ISI is responsible for assassinating those Kashmiri leaders who opposed Pakistan’s interference in Kashmir. This is evident from former All Parties Hurriyat Conference [APHC] chairman Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat’s 2011 revelation that J&K Peoples Conference chairman Abdul Ghani Lone, All J&K Awami Action Committee chairman Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq and J&K Liberation Front [JKLF] ideologue Prof Abdul Ahad Wani “were not killed by the Army or the police-they were targeted by our own people.”
Even Pakistan based JKLF founder Amanullah Khan has gone on record admitting that the ISI created HM terrorist group espousing Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan had killed more JKLF officials than Indian security forces. In an interview given to Arif Jamal, author of a seminal book on terrorism in J&K [Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir] Rawalpindi based HM commander Ajmal Khan claimed that his outfit had eliminated “about 7,000 political rivals [mainly JKLF cadres]”. However, Masood Sarfraz, a former close confidante of Salahuddin maintains that “the actual number [of Kashmiris killed by HM] is many times higher.”
Pro Pakistan Camp’s Doublespeak
The defining feature of the ISI sponsored political as well as military campaign in Kashmir is that while both APHC leaders and terrorist commanders demand others to make sacrifices, they themselves conveniently keep their own kith and kin out of harm’s way. For example, though senior APHC leader SAS Geelani maintained that “We [APHC] never denied or ignored the role of gun[s] in our struggle,” he ironically never made any of his sons join any terrorist group.
Instead, in 2016, Geelani’s grandson suddenly landed a cushy government job as research officer in Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre in a gazetted grade equivalent position that had been lying vacant since 2005. There is strong evidence to suggest that the then Mehbooba Mufti government offered Geelani’s grandson this job as a quid-pro-quo for the APHC patriarch’s indulgence in stopping the violence that erupted after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Buran Wani’s killing in an encounter. Such underhand deals are not uncommon and even Hizbul Mujahideen chief Salahuddin reportedly got a seat in a medical college for his son in a similar sweetheart deal brokered by J&K’s Intelligence Bureau [IB] chief and approved by the then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah!
Salahuddin proudly accepts motivating Kashmiri youth into picking up the gun by assuring each aspirant that by doing “he would get into the real life after this death and he would get peace. Khuda usse raazi hoga” [Allah would be pleased with him].
However, isn’t it strange that the Hizbul Mujahideen chief has cleverly ensured that his own sons don’t get a chance to get into “real life” after death and earn divine blessings? Rather than picking up the gun, two of his sons had instead taken up jobs and served the same government that Salahuddin so vehemently accuses of strengthening what he perceives is New Delhi’s ‘forcible occupation’ of J&K!
Additional Issues
There’s no dearth of live examples that explicitly prove that despite all its emotional rhetoric, Pakistan has no love lost for the people of Kashmir. How does the recent targeted killing spate of migrant workers and grenade attack on innocent civilians in a local flea market by ISI sponsored terrorists further the so-called ‘Kashmir cause’ defies comprehension. This unsettling case in point leaves no scope for any doubts that other than creating mayhem and a heightened sense of insecurity amongst locals and tourists, such violence achieves nothing else.
If such aimless violence continues, it will certainly dissuade tourists from coming to Kashmir and this in turn will adversely impact thousands of locals dependent on the tourism industry. The moot point is that if Pakistan really cares for the wellbeing of Kashmiris as it so vociferously claims, then would it precipitate conditions that deprive locals of their livelihood and order grenade attacks on Kashmiris? So, it’s abundantly clear that for Islamabad, creating an illusion to buttress its ludicrous claim that normalcy eludes J&K is more important than the safety and wellbeing of Kashmiris.
Adolf Hitler’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels had rightly opined that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” and that’s why New Delhi cannot afford to be complacent. Pakistan is waging a multi-dimensional proxy war against India and as such every move that it makes needs to be appropriately addressed and befittingly replied to.