India’s Occupation of Kashmir Has Persisted without Challenge from World Powers
By Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai
Chairman
World Forum for Peace & Justice
Washington, DC
Istanbul, Turkiye: “Kashmir dispute is one of the oldest issues pending on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council. Its occupation by India has been left undisturbed by the international community, even though its validity has never been accepted. At no stage, however, have the people of Jammu and Kashmir shown themselves to be reconciled to India’s occupation. There is only one way of just peace, the way chalked out in the international agreements that the future will be decided by the people of Kashmir. Only the exertion of the necessary moral pressure by the world powers, particular the United States will lead the parties to that way.” This was stated by Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, Chairman, World Forum for Peace & Justice at Istanbul Ticaret University, Sâdâbât Campus, in Sutluce. The event was presided over by Prof Dr Berk Ayvaz, Vice Rector of the University.
Another panelist at the event was Dr Mubeen Shah, one of the leading Kashmiri diaspora experts, Chairman, Kashmir Diaspora Coalition, President, Kashmir House, Istanbul, and former President, Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Other dignitaries who attended the event included ESAM Deputy General President Atik Ağdağ, ESAM Istanbul President Prof Dr Hüseyin Hüsnü Koyunoğlu, International Youth Forum (IYFO) President Yılmaz Balçın, ESAM Istanbul Legal Research Director Dr Batuhan Ustabulut, members of the press, and students.
Dr Fai explained that we have a case of a large country bullying a small nation into submission in violation of not only their right to sovereignty but international agreements and two dozen UN resolutions giving them the right to determine their own political fate. The purpose of 900,000 Indian troops stationed in this small country is for no other purpose than blatant oppression. Their presence makes Kashmir the largest army concentration anywhere in the world.
Dr Fai warned that India wants the Kashmir issue to be buried under the rug when it is raised in the international community by alleging that it is bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and no one else’s business. It could be strictly a bilateral issue if forthrightness was involved. When both India and Pakistan were at the brink of a nuclear catastrophe in May 2025, the world community got involved. This was the moment when President Donald Trump clearly recognized the looming threat of a nuclear disaster and compelled Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to agree to a ceasefire. The irony is unmistakable: Prime Minister Modi still refuses to acknowledge that it was President Trump who brokered that ceasefire. The time has come for Modi Ji to confront the facts, accept the reality on the ground, and recognize that Pakistan did not lose—Pakistan prevailed.
Fai stressed that the struggle of the Kashmiri people is not just about land. It is about dignity, survival, and the right to decide their own future. As the world awakens to the reality of Palestine, let us remind ourselves that justice for Kashmir is equally overdue. The people of Kashmir cannot be asked to wait for another generation.
Fai gave an idea of the settler colonial design of India in Kashmir by stating that even Kashmir’s economy is being strangled. The fruit industry, which is the backbone of Kashmir’s livelihood, is under deliberate attack. Apples and walnuts, harvested with the hard work of farmers, are blocked on highways, left to rot before they reach the market. Families lose their income, and entire communities sink deeper into despair. This is not mere neglect; it is an intentional economic blockade; part of a broader settler-colonial project designed to weaken and disempower the Kashmiri people.”
Concluding his address, Dr Fai quoted George Galloway, former member of British House of Commons who hailed Arundhati Roy who was visiting London while he was in Geneva and her powerful messages to India on the issue of Kashmir. Listen to one of your greatest daughters, Galloway said. She is not a Kashmiri, and she is not a Muslim. She is though, a jewel in the crown of India. She too is crying out for justice for the people of occupied Kashmir. And she too is saying that Kashmir was never a part of India.
Dr Mubeen Shah, speaking on the occasion, said that occupation, under international law, is meant to be temporary, bound by the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits annexation, demographic change, and collective punishment. When occupation becomes permanent and profitable, it transforms into colonial domination — a grave breach of the UN Charter and the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on the Wall in Palestine (2004).
Dr Shah added that the International Court of Justice made it clear: no occupier can claim the right of self-defense inside a territory it illegally occupies. By that same logic, India — as an occupying power in Kashmir — cannot justify its repression as “counterterrorism.” It is a violation of international law. Occupation is not security; Dr Shah warned, it is the systematic denial of sovereignty.
Dr Shah explained that in October 1947, India’s military entered Kashmir on the pretext of assistance — pending a UN-supervised plebiscite. That plebiscite, promised under UN Security Council Resolution 47, has never been held. Instead, India transformed Kashmir into the most militarized region on earth, with one soldier for every ten civilians. Since 1989 alone, over 100,000 Kashmiris have been killed, 8,000 disappeared, 11,000 women raped, and thousands of homes destroyed.
Dr Shah maintained that in August 2019, India unilaterally abrogated Article 370 and 35A, dismantling Kashmir’s limited autonomy. It introduced new domicile laws to engineer a demographic transformation, allowing non-Kashmiris to settle and own land. This is not integration; it is annexation and settler colonialism, dressed up as democracy.
“Behind every statistic lies a name, a home, a silence. In Gaza, entire families are erased overnight. In Kashmir, mothers wait decades for sons who never return. Generations grow up surrounded by soldiers, checkpoints, and fear — and yet, somehow, they still believe in freedom,” Dr Shah spelled out.
Finally, Dr Shah gave a call to the conscience of students and scholars and asserted that their classrooms are not neutral spaces. Neutrality in the face of injustice is complicity. If there is to be peace, it will not come through normalization or silence.
It will come through accountability, justice, and decolonization.
(Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai is also the Secretary General
World Kashmir Awareness Forum
- gnfai2003@yahoo.com ,
www.kashmirawareness.o rg)
