19 July: When Kashmir Spoke Perhaps India is well aware of the fact that not a single Kashmiri shall vote for it, and that is why it continues to evade the UN resolutions with sham excuses one way or the other. The historic road from Srinagar to Rawalpindi is more than a strategic route. The rivers flowing from Kashmir are much more than water. These are the living arteries of a civilisational, economic, geographic, and emotional bond that led Quaid-e-Azam to describe Kashmir as Pakistan’s ‘jugular vein.’ The depth of the political, cultural, and emotional bond made 19 July 1947 a defining moment in history, remembered as Youm-e-Ilhaq-e-Pakistan (Day of Accession to Pakistan). For nearly eight decades, this historic resolution endures. It symbolises a political aspiration and civilisational affinity that coercion could neither suppress nor erase. On this day, 82 years ago, military deployments and diplomatic deadlocks came to define the Kashmir dispute. The legitimate political representatives of Kashmiri Muslims made a historic and peaceful choice: to join Pakistan. The day reminds us that India may illegally control territory in Kashmir through brute force, betrayal, treachery and constitutional engineering, but control can never translate into legitimacy. Demographic realities, shared river systems, economic, religious and cultural linkages naturally support the case for Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan. The resolution for accession to........

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