External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar made a surprise visit to Kashmir this week. It was meant to send out a strong signal to the people of the Valley. Jaishankar was in Srinagar to meet the families of a few Kashmiri students who have been stranded in Iran because of the outbreak of the coronavirus. Iran is one of the worst hit countries after epicentre China, South Korea and Italy. Jaishankar met with the families of the stranded students and assured them of full support.
After this much needed reassurance, a first batch of 58 Indians was evacuated from Iran in a specially designated C-17 Globemaster. The Indian Air Force (IAF) had been drafted in this special evacuation operation. It sends out a powerful signal to the government’s naysayers. The Indian state does not discriminate between its citizens when it comes to tragedies like natural disasters and epidemic outbreaks. It lays hollow the claims of the government’s critics that this government is hellbent against Kashmir and Kashmiris. Whatever the fallout of the abrogation of Article 370 maybe, the government has clearly shown that ordinary Kashmiris will be given the same privileges and pride of place that any other Indian citizen gets.
Rescuing Indians stranded in multiple theatres of crisis is a powerful demonstration of the will of the Indian state. The previous foreign minister Sushma Swaraj had turned this into almost an art form of sorts. This method of direct diplomacy not only changes people’s lives forever in a positive way, it also sends a powerful message to global capitals: the Indian state will always come to the rescue of its citizens, whenever they are in dire need.
This is also a strong message to countries like Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia. These nations had sought to make common cause with the Kashmiris, giving more importance to the concept of ‘ummah’ or the community of the faithful more than the concept of nation. These countries had tried to internationalise the Kashmir issue at various international fora like the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). India has had to fight back those efforts, but more importantly has shown that it cares for the average Kashmiri more than the pronouncements of such unfriendly nations.
Even when wars broke out in Libya and Yemen, Swaraj had pressed into action, using the services of her then deputy General VK Singh to launch many rescue and relief operations. Numerous Indian nurses and construction workers were also evacuated through the efforts of the government. When it comes to stranded Indians in dire need of help, the Indian state makes no distinction between Hindu and Muslim or Kashmiri and Malayali.
Since the abrogation of Article 370, the government has been making consistent efforts to reach out to the average Kashmiri. Admittedly, more needs to be done. But in the government’s lexicon, there is a distinction between the average Kashmiri citizen and politicians who had anointed themselves as the spokespersons of the people.
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