Kashmir surprise

Britain’s Labour Party is no longer into human rights?

THE Labour Party of the United Kingdom isn’t working for the Kashmiris anymore, says its new leader, Keir Starmer. That is like telling human rights can wait until the party gets what it wants. And what it wants are the votes of the roughly 1.3 million people of Indian origin in Britain. Not surprisingly, Starmer made the announcement after a meeting with the Labour Friends of India, a lobby group that allegedly has links with the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and militant Hindu ring-wing organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. This is one big U-turn for the Labour Party, which, under Jeremy Corbyn, openly denounced Indian atrocities in the disputed territory of Kashmir. It wasn’t like there wasn’t any pressure by India on Corbyn before. There was, lots of it. But he stood steady on the moral foundation of the party to defend the eight million or so Kashmiris facing a humanitarian crisis in the disputed territory. Starmer says the dispute must be left to India and Pakistan to sort out. Really? Starmer may need a history lesson. It is the British who created this mess in the first place, as they do often everywhere. They must not now abandon their moral responsibility to sort it out. There is yet another thing that Starmer should know. The position of the United Nations on Kashmir is clear: it supports the right to self-determination. It also wants the humanitarian crisis there to be put an end to pronto. A tweet in August from his predecessor Corbyn says it all: “The situation in Kashmir is deeply disturbing. Human rights abuses taking place are unacceptable. The rights of the Kashmiri people must be respected and UN resolutions implemented.”

Starmer’s suggestion to leave the Kashmiri question to the Indian Parliament is not only preposterous but also a display of naivette of a politician many times removed from reality. On Aug 5, India stunned the world by revoking Article 370 that gave Jammu and Kashmir special status. All at once, India put an end to a state, its constitution and the right to pass its own laws. Out with it went Kashmiris’ freedom of movement. Would an India that does this be interested in giving the right of self-determination to the Kashmiris? Starmer’s idea of leaving the dispute to be settled by India and Pakistan is equally problematic. There is too much of animus between the two, enough to reach for the nuclear button.

There is but one solution. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres must, with every possible haste, bring the matter up for resolution in the UN Security Council, the only international organisation with the legal clout to do so. The UN Charter gives the secretary-general the power to place it on the UNSC agenda. Guterres should use it without any delay. In the meanwhile, pressure needs to be put on Starmer and his Labour Party not “to submit to the Indian nationalist extremist RSS agenda of changing the demographic population of Kashmir” as suggested by Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid, coordinator, Asean Coalition for Kashmir, in his letter to the Editor of this newspaper on Saturday (“Asean group rejects UK Labour party’s U-turn on Kashmir” — May 2). For a start, this can come from the parliamentarians of Asean member nations. If the Labour Party is truly one that stands for the defence of human rights everywhere, as it says it is, then it must listen.

It is the British who created this mess in the first place, as they do often everywhere.