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[DAWN] As moral human beings, we deplore the violence being committed by Indian forces in IHK: over 70 unarmed civilians have been killed, thousands maimed, and scores blinded with shotgun pellets in the recent surge in brutality. Ever since Burhan Wani, the charismatic Robin Hood of the Kashmiri resistance, was killed in July, there has been a sharp spike in Indian repression.But as pragmatic, rational people, we should also recognise that there is little Pakistain can do to change the status quo. The Shimla Agreement of 1972 specifically calls on both countries to "settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations"’. So Indians argue that Pakistain has contravened the agreement by seeking to internationalise the dispute.
Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. So, too, has Pakistain battered in vain on the wall of Indian obduracy, and hammered time and again at the doors of the international community. We have tried war, diplomacy and jihadi proxies. Nothing has worked.
The reality -- if we are ready to accept and absorb it -- is that the world is sick and tired of the never-ending Pak-India squabbling over Kashmire. While we may deplore the injustice of the situation, and shed tears over the plight of the Kashmiris, nobody else is paying much attention. This is why Indian forces can literally get away with murder.
The hard truth is that states do not hand over real estate they control willingly. No matter what the rights and wrongs of the matter, countries cling on to land in a vice-like grip. Look at Israel: apart from expanding its UN-mandated territory in the immediate aftermath of its birth in 1948, it continues to hang on to large swathes of Paleostinian land in the West Bank nearly 50 years after grabbing it in 1967. Despite several UN resolutions and considerable international pressure, Israel is still the occupying power.