Hamid Mir
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz is preparing to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan. This preparation of hers is often reflected in her statements and speeches. A recent statement of hers has pleasantly surprised the whole of India and troubled the people of Kashmir. Maryam Nawaz has said that they are facing the threat of terrorism not from their neighbouring country but from their neighbouring provinces. This statement by the Chief Minister of Pakistan’s largest province refutes the claims of all our authorities who say that India is behind the terrorists present in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Now Maryam Nawaz and her spokespersons will issue some explanation for this statement, but after reading this statement, I remembered the book “Kashmir is Deceptive” by a respected Kashmiri journalist Sheikh Muhammad Amin, which was published a few months ago. A few days ago, when I read this book, I felt that Sheikh Muhammad Amin’s tone and tone regarding Nawaz Sharif and his family was very harsh. Sheikh Sahib put General Pervez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif and General Qamar Javed Bajwa in the same line and declared them as criminals of Kashmiris. Sheikh Muhammad Amin belongs to the Hindwara area of occupied Kashmir. After completing his MSc from Kashmir University in Srinagar, he became a teacher. Then he started journalism with the weekly Chattan Srinagar. The yearning for freedom also took him to jail. After spending two years in jail, he disappeared from the sight of Indian security forces. In 2010, he became the editor-in-chief of the journal “Kashmir Ilyum” published from Muzaffarabad. He has also written several books. In his new book “Kashmir Farab Zada”, he has described the past and present of the Kashmir freedom movement and analysed its future. In his book, he writes about Nawaz Sharif that instead of focusing on the Kashmir issue as Prime Minister, he preferred trade relations with India. Sheikh Muhammad Amin has written a lot on Nawaz Sharif’s friendship with Indian industrialist Sajjan Jindal and his alleged business relations. The book quotes former Indian Prime Minister IK Gujral as telling journalists on his plane while returning from New York in 1997 about his meeting with Nawaz Sharif. According to Gujral, Nawaz Sharif did not discuss Kashmir with him much. Sheikh Muhammad Amin writes that in 2014, Nawaz Sharif attended the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2015, the word Kashmir was missing from the statement issued after the meeting of the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India in the Russian city of Ufa, and shortly after, Modi suddenly arrived in Lahore to attend the wedding of Maryam Nawaz’s daughter. Going forward, Sheikh Muhammad Amin analyses the “Bajwa Doctrine”. He writes that the Bajwa Doctrine was actually a continuation of Nawaz Sharif’s commercial doctrine, which aimed to increase trade relations with India by freezing the Kashmir issue, but on the other hand, India also continued its policy of harming Pakistan through characters like Kulbhushan Jadhav. Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court in 2017 due to an Iqama in the Panama Papers case, and Imran Khan became the Prime Minister. Sheikh Sahib says that when General Bajwa realized that Imran Khan could not carry the burden of his doctrine, a plan was made to change the “horse”. There are many who disagree with Sheikh Muhammad Amin’s opinion, but his book actually describes the disappointment of the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan’s ruling elite, which started with the Lahore Declaration between Nawaz Sharif and Atal Bihari Vajpayee on February 21, 1999, and culminated in India’s decision to abolish the special status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in its constitution on August 5, 2019. One chapter of Sheikh Muhammad Amin’s book is called “The Commercial Doctrine” and the next chapter is called “The Bajwa Doctrine”. This book was published after India’s defeat at the hands of Pakistan in the May 2025 war. This book also mentions people associated with the Kashmiri freedom movement who were targeted by Indian intelligence agencies in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. Sheikh Sahib has warned that after 2008, the Israeli army is helping the Indian army to end the Kashmiri freedom movement. India is preparing to make Kashmir a new Gaza. Sheikh Muhammad Amin writes that the sacrifices of the Kashmiris will never be wasted. The unique aspect of this book is that Sheikh Muhammad Amin, despite his bitter tone in many places, has not shown intellectual dishonesty as a historian. On the one hand, he calls Syed Ali Gilani his intellectual and ideological leader, and on the other hand, he also considers the sacrifice of Shaheed Maqbool Butt as his courage and strength. He writes that the rigging in the 1987 state elections gave rise to armed resistance. Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin contested elections from a Srinagar constituency in 1987 under the name Muhammad Yousuf Shah. Jailed JKLF leader Yasin Malik was his chief polling agent. When the sanctity of the ballot was violated by the Indian government, both took the bullet route. After the rigging of 1987, there was silence for some time, but armed resistance began in 1988. Sheikh Muhammad Amin writes that those who started the resistance belonged to the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, but many of them were ideologically affiliated with the People’s League, Jamaat-e-Islami and other parties. Even today, there is silence like a dormant volcano in occupied Kashmir because Kashmir is suffering from a shock.
Sheikh Muhammad Amin writes that Article 370 has been abolished from the Indian Constitution, but the law of nature has not been abolished. Do not smile at the helplessness of the Kashmiris, you should celebrate your own happiness. Giving a warning at the end of “Kashmir Deceptively”, he writes: “If the Kashmir issue is not resolved according to the will of the Kashmiri people, at any time a small spark can turn into a huge fire, which will change not only the history of this region but also its geography and the dream of a united India will be shattered.”
