Written By: Arshia Malik
( Arshia Malik is a writer, columnist, and teacher with a keen eye on global socio-political history and emergent trends within the Islamic world.)
Every February 5, Pakistan cynically stages its annual farce called “Kashmir Solidarity Day”—a grotesque spectacle of crocodile tears, fiery speeches, and choreographed protests that fool no one who knows the truth. This is not solidarity; it is a shameless propaganda ritual designed to whitewash Pakistan’s decades-long sponsorship of barbaric terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. As an Indian woman from Kashmiri Muslim heritage, who endured the ISI-orchestrated nightmare that destroyed our syncretic paradise, I call it what it is: blatant hypocrisy from a failing state that exports jihad while pretending to champion “self-determination.” Indigenous Kashmiris have had enough of this toxic charade. We are waking up, pushing back, and dismantling Pakistan’s lies once and for all.
Let’s rip off the mask from day one: Pakistan’s obsession with Kashmir began with naked aggression in 1947. Forget the fairy tale of an “indigenous uprising.” It was a premeditated invasion orchestrated by the Pakistani military. Major-General Akbar Khan’s own book, Raiders in Kashmir, boasts about how Pakistani officers armed, trained, and led Pashtun tribesmen across the border to seize the state by force. These weren’t freedom fighters—they were marauding thugs who raped, looted, and massacred their way through Baramulla, abducting Hindu, Sikh, and even Muslim women to sell as slaves. Kashmiris fought back ferociously: Maqbool Sherwani delayed them with misinformation until he was tortured and crucified; local Kashmiri women took up arms under the tutelage of Zooni Gujjar in the Women’s militia, supported by Queen Tara Devi; Major Somanth Sharma from the Jammu region and Brigadier Rajinder Singh held the line at Uri. Maharaja Hari Singh’s accession to India on October 26, 1947, was the only salvation from this Pakistani jihadist raid—eerily similar to the Hamas atrocities of our time.
Yet Pakistan dares to commemorate “solidarity” while ignoring how its raiders butchered innocents and triggered the very conflict it now exploits. Since then, the ISI has poured billions into fueling terrorism in the Valley: funding Hizbul Mujahideen killers, Lashkar-e-Taiba suicide squads, and now hybrid fronts like The Resistance Front (TRF), all to bleed India through a thousand cuts. The 1989-90 insurgency wasn’t spontaneous—it was a Wahhabi takeover imported via Afghan jihad spillover, bankrolled by Pakistani agencies and Gulf money. Mosques became recruitment dens; Sufi shrines were desecrated; beauty parlours were bombed; cinema houses were shut down; women were attacked with acid for refusing to wear burqas. The targeted genocide of Kashmiri Pandits—over 400,000 ethnically cleansed—was no accident. It was deliberate: hit lists, “convert, leave, or die” ultimatums, and mass graves. Secular Kashmiri Muslims of my generation were next—silenced by bullets if we dared speak against the jihad.
Pakistan never stopped. Even as its economy crumbles and its own people revolt against the military-mullah nexus, the ISI keeps pumping arms, cash, and ideology across the LoC. Recent killings of sarpanches, BJP workers, and innocent civilians prove the pipeline is alive. Ceasefire violations terrorise border villages in Jammu; overground workers (OGWs) coerce hartals; conflict entrepreneurs and sympathetic media amplify the “azadi” myth while humanising terrorists. This is not resistance—it’s a state-sponsored proxy war, plain and brutal.
But here’s the part that burns Islamabad the most: Kashmiris are done being pawns. The abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 shattered the colonial shackles that let dynastic crooks and separatists exploit us. No more special status shielding discrimination—against Kashmiri daughters marrying outsiders, Valmikis stuck in menial jobs, West Pakistan refugees denied rights. Post-370, terror incidents have plunged; locals now tip off security forces to eliminate hybrids; shutdowns enforced by fear are crumbling as people demand normal life. The youth, bombarded by social media exposing Pakistan’s implosion—Imran Khan’s fall, economic freefall, Taliban-style chaos—see the truth: merger with that basket-case Islamic republic was never our destiny.
We reject the monolith fallacy peddled by Pakistan’s apologists. Kashmiris aren’t a uniform bloc chanting “azadi.” We are Pandits yearning for return, Sikhs, Buddhists, Gujjars, Bakarwals, secular Muslims—diverse voices crushed by the Intifada factory until now. The older generation remembers 1947’s horrors; the new one recoils at global jihad’s face. Pro-India sentiment surges quietly but steadily—because India offers democracy, development, and dignity, not the tyranny of blasphemy laws or mullah rule that Pakistan inflicts on its own minorities.
Pakistan’s “Solidarity Day” is peak duplicity: a nation that sponsors terror pretends to mourn its victims. It screams about human rights while running torture chambers for Baloch, Pashtun, and Sindhi dissidents. It cries “oppression” in Kashmir while its army massacres its own citizens. Enough. Rename it Pakistan’s Hypocrisy Day. Indigenous Kashmiris are debunking your claims daily—through votes, intel cooperation, tourism revival, and unapologetic pride in our Indian identity.
The awakening is irreversible. Our Sufi soul—pluralist, tolerant, rooted in syncretism—will not bow to Wahhabi poison or ISI scripts. Kashmir’s future is integration with India: education, jobs, peace—not jihadist exceptionalism or Pakistani subjugation. To Islamabad: your proxy war failed. Your narrative is crumbling. Kashmiris have spoken—we stand with truth, not your terror empire. The charade ends here.
