Monitoring Desk: The decision of the Indian Supreme Court refusing to recognize the special status of Article 370 reconfirmed that India had never been a secular state as it claimed in the past.
Related Story: Indian Supreme Court Upholds Abrogation of Special Status of Jammu and Kashmir
After four years of hanging the case for the abrogation of Article 370, the Indian Supreme Court had declared Indian Occupied Kashmir as an integral part of India.
Although the Indian Supreme Court does not have the legal status to decide on this issue, some of the facts that have now come out quite openly are:
India is currently completely under the grip of fascist Hindutva extremist Modi and all institutions including the Indian military, judiciary, religious groups, elites, Indian media, and film industry are all openly used to propagate Hindutva thought with Modi’s fascist policies.
The Indian Judiciary is fully cooperating with Modi’s extremist and anti-Muslim policies and always gives legal cover to India’s usurpation of Kashmir, the genocide of Muslims, and the conversion of the majority into a minority. The nefarious agenda of settlement of Hindus in Kashmir to change the demography of Indian-Occupied Kashmir does not need any more proof than today’s cruel decision. It had come to the fore when the Indian Supreme Court, giving a unilateral decision, justified the martyrdom of the Babri Masjid and ordered the construction of a Hindu temple there.
Even in June 2022, the Indian Supreme Court ruled against stopping Hindu extremists from demolishing Muslim houses in Uttar Pradesh. In March 2022, the Indian Karnataka Court also banned Muslim students from wearing hijab.
Earlier in 2018, the Indian court acquitted BJP leader Maya Kodnani in the case of killing 97 people in the Gujarat riots in 2002. Similarly, in countless cases, Indian courts have been giving judgments against Muslims, becoming an instrument of Hindutva.
After today’s very shameful decision of the Supreme Court, it is now clear that the Indian Judiciary is a puppet of the Modi government which is being and will continue to be used to give legitimacy to Muslim-Kush Hindutva policies.
It is feared that after this decision, the Modi government will gear up its quest for the genocide of Kashmiris because it is confirmed that there is no institution left in India that can protect minorities like Muslims.
Pakistan has categorically rejected the judgment announced by the Supreme Court of India on the status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally-recognized dispute, which remains on the agenda of the UN Security Council for over seven decades. The final disposition of Jammu and Kashmir is to be made by the relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions and as per the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. India has no right to make unilateral decisions on the status of this disputed territory against the will of the Kashmiri people and Pakistan.
Pakistan does not acknowledge the supremacy of the Indian Constitution over Jammu and Kashmir. Any process, subservient to the Indian Constitution, carries no legal significance.
India cannot abdicate its international obligations on the pretext of domestic legislation and judicial verdicts. Its plans to annex IIOJK are bound to fail.
The judicial endorsement of India’s unilateral and illegal actions of 5 August 2019 is a travesty of justice, based on distorted historical and legal arguments.
The Indian Supreme Court’s verdict fails to recognize the internationally-recognized disputed nature of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. It further fails to cater to the aspirations of the Kashmiri people, who have already rejected India’s illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August 2019. The judgment is yet another manifestation of the pliant judiciary under India’s ruling dispensation.
Restoration of statehood, conduct of State Assembly elections, or similar steps cannot serve as a substitute for the grant of the right to self-determination to the Kashmiri people.
The judgment cannot distract the international community’s attention from the gross and systematic human rights violations being perpetrated in IIOJK.
India’s unilateral and illegal measures since 5 August 2019 have been aimed at changing the demographic structure and political landscape of the IIOJK, in flagrant violation of international law and the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, especially Resolution 122 (1957). They remain a matter of grave concern for Pakistan as their ultimate goal is to convert the Kashmiris into a disempowered community in their own land. These measures must be rescinded to create an environment for peace and dialogue.
Pakistan will continue to extend its full political, diplomatic, and moral support to the people of IIOJK for the realization of their inalienable right to self-determination.
