Farewell, Kashmir

With hardly a whisper from the world’s media and little mention from our world leaders, on the 31 October, the state of Jammu and Kashmir came under central Indian rule: it lost its flag and its constitution was nullified. It is now simply a municipality of India.

As if in a macabre new year’s eve celebration, Prime Minister Modi took the opportunity to show off his new land last week, by taking a band of his xenophobic friends from around the world on a joy ride through the land, which within a matter of hours, would be his to plunder for India’s profit.

Of course, the world has known this was coming since 5 August, when Modi’s Government disposed of Article 370, bringing an end to decades of semi-autonomous rule for the Kashmiri people. And yet, the vast majority of the world still stands by in silence.

Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Morrison, when you met with Prime Minister Modi at the East Asian Summit this week, did you stand up for injustice and challenge Mr Modi on his human rights abuses in Kashmir, as did the Prime Minister of Malaysia? Or, did you simply ignore the whole issue in favour of developing better trade terms with India? Sadly, I suspect that trade won.