Visa issue of Dolkun Isa and India’s Stand

Terrorism is at the core of the recent diplomatic stand-off between two neighbouring countries like China and India over the visa grant to Uighur leader Dolkun Isa in April 2016. China had reacted vehemently to such grant as Isa is branded as a terrorist by it.  German nationalDolkun Isa, from the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), has been accused of terrorism and conspiracy to kill people in Xinjiang in China’s remote northwest. The WUC is a grouping of the Uyghur community outside China. India’s move to grant visa to Isa came against the backdrop of China blocking an India bid to sanction an Indian bid to sanction Pakistan-based MasoodAzhar, the head of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed, at the UN Security Council.

Important Points

• Dolkun Isa – German national of Uighur ethnicity and a leader of World Uighur Congress (WUC) – was granted e-visa by India on 23rd April, 2016 to attend a conference in Dharamsala in India organised by a group of Chinese democracy supporters.
• The conference was scheduled to be held from April 28 to May 1 at Dharmasala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile. It had aggravated further the Chinese unease.
• The conference was organised by US-based Citizen Power for China, which is led by Yang Jianli, who was involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
• However the decision of India to grant visa to Isa, who is declared a ‘terrorist’ in China led to diplomatic stand-off between India and China. Dolkun Isa is also a terrorist on red notice of Interpol.
• Later, due to Chinese pressure India withdrew the visa to Isa on 25 April 2016. India’s move to grant the visa was seen as a retaliatory measure after China blocked the listing of Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar as an international terrorist at the UN.
• In India, sensitive visa proposals are cleared by the Union home ministry.
• The decision to grant the visa to Mr. Isa and his colleagues of the World Uyghur Congress in Dharmasala and its subsequent revocation invites many weird diplomatic questions for India to answer.
• World Uighur Congress, formed in 2004 in Munich in Germany, is an international organization of exiled Uighur groups that aspires to represent the collective interest of Uighur people both inside and outside of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China.
• RebiyaKadeer is the current president, elected in 2006 and Dolkun Isa is current General Secretary, reelected in 2006 of World Uighur Congress.
• The Chinese government has designated the WUC and its affiliate groups as a terrorist organisation, and claims that the WUC has plan to separate China.

Questions to Analyze

• Who are Uighur People?
• Why China’s Xinjiang is restive?
• What the tit for tat’ policy by India justified in granting via to Dolkun Isa?

Who are Uyghur people?

Uighur / Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group who live in Eastern and Central Asia. Nowadays, Uyghurs are concentrated in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, where they are officially recognized as an ethnic minority. The first use of Uyghur as a reference to a political nation occurred during the interim period between the First and Second Göktürk Khaganates (630-684 AD). In modern lexicon, Uyghur refers to settled Turkic urban dwellers and farmers of the Tarim Basin. They practise traditional Central Asian practices quite different from nomadic Turkic populations in Central Asia.

The origin of Uighur can be traced back as a small coalition of Tiele tribes in Northern China, Mongolia and the Altai Mountains. Later it denoted its base in the Uighur Khaganate, a Turkic empire that flourished for about a century between the mid -8th and 9th centuries. They were a tribal confederation under the Orkhon Uyghur nobility, referred to by the Chinese as the Jiu Xing (“Nine Clans”). Finally it expanded into an ethnic group that emerged from the fall of Uyghur Khaganate. This also led to the migration of the group from Mongolia to Tarim Basin where an estimated 80 percent of Xinjiang’s Uighurs live.

Why China’s Xinjiang is restive?

The Xinjiang autonomous region in China has had a long history of discord between the authorities and the indigenous ethnic Uighur population. Xinjiang, the largest of China’s administrative regions, is inhabited mostly by Uighurs. It shares its borders with Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Most Uighurs has Islam as an important identity. They speak Turkish and regard themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations. Kashgar a town in the region is considered as a hub along the famous Silk Road. A Turkic demand of an East Turkestan was not materialized in 1949. Again in 1990 open support for emergence of independent Muslim states in Central Asia was suppressed by Beijing.

The tension and recent violence between the Uighurs and China is mainly caused by economic and cultural factors. Priority given to Hans Chinese – who come from eastern provinces to Xinjiang’s big prosperous cities – in best jobs and their economic well-being in the region mostly contribute to resentment among Uighurs. Uighurs also react vehemently to gradual curtailment of their commercial and cultural activities, restrictions on Islam, strict control over religious schools in the region by China. China has also put bans several times on observation of fasting by Muslim civil servants in the region and there have been a number of attacks on the public attributed to Uighur extremists. This has led to Uighur discontentment in the region.

What the tit for tat’ policy by India justified in granting via to Dolkun Isa?

Dolkun Isa – German national of Uighur ethnicity and a leader of World Uighur Congress (WUC) – was granted e-visa by India on 23rd April, 2016 to attend a conference in Dharamsala in India. However the decision of India to grant visa to Isa, who is declared a ‘terrorist’ in China led to diplomatic stand-off between India and China. Dolkun Isa is also a terrorist on red notice of Interpol. Later, due to Chinese pressure India withdrew the visa to Isa on 25 April 2016. India’s move to grant the visa was seen as a retaliatory measure after China blocked the listing of Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar as an international terrorist at the UN.

However, India’s gamesmanship to handle the issue fell flat and taught a lesson to the government that a ‘tit for tat’ policy in international diplomacy may harm India’s global image and is unlikely bring justice it demands irrespective of the demand being justified. India is committed not to instigate separatism and interfere in other countries’ internal matter. India, as a principle, should stick to the large cause that all charges of terrorism must be treated equally and there can be no distinction between “good” and “bad” terrorists. India must not tread the same path as trodden by its so called bête noirs.