On Wednesday, Indian External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar reaffirmed India’s stance on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), saying that every political party in the country is “committed to ensuring” that the region is returned to India. Jaishankar was speaking at an interaction with students at Gargi College in New Delhi.
PoK a Part of India
Calling PoK a “part of India,” Jaishankar said that a parliamentary resolution exists regarding the region, adding that returning PoK to India is “our national commitment.”
The EAM claimed that people did not discuss the PoK issue ten years ago or even five years ago. “What has happened today is that because we have finally taken the right decision on (Article) 370, in the minds of our own people, the PoK issue has come to the front of their thinking,” he said.
“Every Political Party of India is committed to ensure POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) which is a part of India returns to India. It’s because we took the right decision on Article 370 that PoK issue has come in front”. - Dr. S. Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister of India. pic.twitter.com/WfxsNUlGaR
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) May 8, 2024
Jaishankar was referring to the revocation of Article 370 by the Narendra Modi-led government in August 2019, whereby the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was abrogated. The EAM further claimed that, before the special status was revoked, people just assumed that it could not be changed and they had to accept it, as the politics of the day had driven this deep into public consciousness. He asserted that the revocation had changed the ground situation entirely.
India’s Stance on PoK
Earlier on Sunday, Jaishankar said that PoK “has never been out” of India, and people were “made to forget about it.” Reiterating India’s territorial claims on the disputed territory, the EAM said that India did not tell Pakistan to vacate it during the “early years of independence,” which had led to the “sorry state of affairs.” Taking a dig at the previous governments, he said, “When you have someone who is not a responsible custodian of the house, bahar se koi chori kar leta hai (someone from outside the house steals).”
In an exclusive interview with PTI, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also echoed a similar sentiment. He said that India will not need to capture PoK as its people, on their own, would want to be a part of India. He added that the ground situation had changed in Jammu and Kashmir, and he hoped that demands would emerge from within the region that they should merge with India. “PoK was, is, and will remain ours,” Singh stated.
Protests in PoK
Meanwhile, political and human rights groups in Muzaffarabad, PoK, have called for a long march and a sit-in on 11 May to draw attention to the problems that the people there are facing as a result of the worsening economic conditions.
In a joint statement released earlier, the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) and the United Kashmir People’s National Party (UKPNP) declared that the march would address issues such as extreme unemployment, rapidly rising inflation, removal of wheat and flour subsidies, unwarranted load shedding, exploitation of PoKK’s natural resources, and unfair and special privileges granted to the region’s civil bureaucracy. In order to quell the protest, the Pakistani government has been sending troops from the province of Punjab.