Over the past few weeks, international media organizations like New York Times, Time Magazine, Guardian, Christian Science Monitor, British-based Channel 4 and other well known global publications have turned their attention towards the Kashmir conflict.
The opinion pieces and programmes on Kashmir are touching a number of issues including mass graves, torture, disappearance, fake encounters and other human tragedies with a common theme: “apathy of world towards human rights abuses.”
On July 10, Channel 4 broadcast documentary – Kashmir’s Torture Trail – highlighting the issue of unmarked graves discovered in Kashmir a few years ago. The trailer of the documentary read: “Now from Kashmir, more dark secrets are emerging.”
Channel 4 said it had decided to air the programme because the issue of Kashmir, one of the world’s oldest running but neglected disputes, “is in danger of being overshadowed by Syria and the euro-zone debt crisis.” On July 7, Mirza Waheed, Kashmiri born BBC editor, wrote an article titled “India’s blood stained democracy” in the New York Times.
Waheed castigated West for being “indifferent towards human rights issues in Kashmir.” “Had the graves been found under Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s compound in Libya or in the rubble of Homs in Syria, there surely would have been uproar. But when over 2,000 skeletons appear in the conflict-ridden backyard of the world’s largest democracy, no one bats an eye.
While the West proselytizes democracy and respect for human rights, sometimes going so far as to cheerlead cavalier military interventions to remove repressive regimes, how can it reconcile its humanitarianism with such brazen disregard for the right to life in Kashmir? Have we come to accept that there are different benchmarks for justice in democracies and autocracies? Are mass graves unearthed in democratic India somehow less offensive?” Waheed wrote.
Two days ago, news story titled “Kashmir’s Fragile Calm: Tensions Take Backseat to Tourism” appeared in renowned news magazine of the world, TIME.
“Even on uneventful days, security at the local airport is worryingly tight, and, with hundreds of thousands of Indian security forces still stationed around the region, camouflage trucks are ubiquitous on Stinger’s clogged streets,” writes Hong Kong based Krista Mahr who has been reporting for TIME Asia and Time.com since 2007
On July 9, award winning British journalist, Catthy Scott Clark penned an article titled “The Mass Graves of Kashmir”. She narrates how “Once picture-perfect, a place of pilgrimage for backpackers and mystics of all religions, Kashmir had become one of the most beautiful and dangerous frontlines in the world.”
Catthy, who has co-authored book “The Meadow” begins her write-up by Machil fake encounter and then talks of unmarked graves and struggle of Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society patron , Parvez Imroz, who, according to her, is “ discovering the unmarked graves and challenging rights abuses.”
Catthy and Adrain in the book claimed that four of the six western tourists were actually killed by “renegades” working for the army, not militant organization Al Faran as has been believed so far.
On July 11, Christian Monitor Science (CSM), carried a story titled “In Kashmir, old torture centers get makeover.” The write-up was contributed by journalist Zahid Rafiq who is presently pursuing fellowship in USA.
Even the New Delhi-based media is not lagging behind in giving space to opinion pieces on Kashmir. Former chief of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief AS Dulat penned evocative write up on Kashmir.
He wrote in Mail Today and India Today: “Even though infiltration, militancy and violence are down the security scenario is far from reassuring. The calm appears deceptive. There is a sullen undercurrent as if the present bounty
Ends-SANA-AA-ZS
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