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11 tweets,
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1. What is happening in Kashmir is tragic and unconscionable. The people of Kashmir deserve our complete support and solidarity, and it is our duty to centre their voices and aid them however they feel is right and necessary.
2. Recently, some liberal and progressive voices in Pakistan have been criticized for qualifying their support for the Kashmiri cause by referring to Pakistan's own dismal treatment of ethnic and religious minorities.
3. This may sound insensitive and unnecessary given the oppressive conditions in Kashmir, but there is a logic to these statements. After all, for 70 years the Pakistani state has used Kashmir as a tool to which to legitimize itself and its own problematic domestic conduct.
4. As anyone who has ever been to school in Pakistan can attest, Kashmir occupies a central place in the state's ideological imagination. Supporting the struggle for Kashmiri freedom from India is cast as a national and religious duty for all Pakistanis.
5. With Kashmir's oppression being viewed as a vindication of the Two-Nation Theory, the need to 'liberate' Kashmir has served to justify Pakistan's enduring enmity with India and, concurrently, the outsized role played by the military in Pakistan's politics and society.
6. Exorbitantly high defence spending, the monopolization of foreign and security policymaking by the establishment, and the subordination of everything to the needs of national security this defined, all are traced back to Kashmir and the unfinished business of Partition.
7. As Ayesha Jalal once argued, what justification would there be for Pakistan's 'political economy of defence' if the Kashmir issue did not exist? Would it be possible to justify Pakistan's security state without the alleged threat posed by India - again, tied to Kashmir.
8. The entire narrative of 'Islam in danger' in Pakistan has been tied to Kashmir. The use of Islamist proxies in the region, and the terrible domestic fallout from that misguided decision, comes back to how the state has viewed Kashmir as a means to achieve regional goals.
9. In this sense, the cooptation of the Kashmir issue by the state to achieve a particular domestic agenda - centred around consolidating the power of the establishment - has little to do with a principled stand in support of oppressed people.
10. None of this excuses India's conduct especially given the disturbing turn taken by that country in recent years with the rise of Hindu nationalism. Those arguing that the revocation of Article 370 is the right move for the wrong reasons are simply justifying oppression.
11. Support for the Kashmiri people should be unconditional, but it should not necessitate the endorsement of a domestic status quo in Pakistan that has led the country to a point where it is isolated, lacking the moral authority to generate international support for Kashmir.
