Many years ago one of my distant relatives went in search of his father who had abandoned the family. He met him, but his father wasn’t willing to return. The young man kept travelling till he reached Nagaland, where he married a tribal woman and settled down. He returned to Kerala decades later, after his wife died.
Such heart-warming stories are rare when it comes to Kashmir.
When the Narendra Modi govt scraps Article 370, the romantic in me who values democracy, liberalism, fairplay, virtue of fulfilling promises, etc gets edgy. But remove the romanticism, then as an average Indian, I feel nothing. No joy, no thrill, no excitement, no sadness, no grief. Nothing. Jammu and Kashmir seems so far away and distant.
There is a reason for that. Kashmiris never mingled with the mainstream. There is no dil ka ‘connection’ with Kashmir for the ordinary Indian. But he does hear stories of horror from the jawans who come back from the state, stories of how they are targeted by the locals in the Valley, how the Kashmiris abuse the rest of India. And of course those terrorist attacks.
No struggle for autonomy or freedom can be successful unless you earn people’s sympathy, especially the outside people. You cannot take arms and money from Pakistan and hope for sympathy from the rest of India.
Jammu and Kashmir is in India only because of Jawahar Lal Nehru. Sardar Patel would have let it go, Nehru hung on as it was the land of his forefathers. The wily politician that he was, India’s first PM sugarcoated the accession as people’s will, by enlisting the support of popular leader Sheikh Abdullah. The same Nehru later jailed Sheikh Abdullah.
Mission Kashmir was started by Nehru, but is being completed by Narendra Modi.
Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi or Narasimha Rao too would have been tempted to revoke Article 370 if they were PM today. That’s because geopolitics has changed. Today a bankrupt Pakistan will hesitate to bankroll a full-fledged terror campaign in India. In any case, after the WTC attack, terrorism is seen for what it is, not as a guerrilla warfare for freedom.
Today’s India is one of the World’s biggest markets. A market everyone from the US to China needs. To that extent, Modi government’s decision will not meet the kind of resistance Nehru would have faced in 1947.
Yes, there might be turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir, with a serious threat of it spilling over to other parts of the state.
The Modi would have factored in that risk and is ready to pay the cost. The BJP will certainly profit politically from the decision to scrap Article 370. The question is can India bear the cost? We have to wait and watch.
Such heart-warming stories are rare when it comes to Kashmir.
When the Narendra Modi govt scraps Article 370, the romantic in me who values democracy, liberalism, fairplay, virtue of fulfilling promises, etc gets edgy. But remove the romanticism, then as an average Indian, I feel nothing. No joy, no thrill, no excitement, no sadness, no grief. Nothing. Jammu and Kashmir seems so far away and distant.
There is a reason for that. Kashmiris never mingled with the mainstream. There is no dil ka ‘connection’ with Kashmir for the ordinary Indian. But he does hear stories of horror from the jawans who come back from the state, stories of how they are targeted by the locals in the Valley, how the Kashmiris abuse the rest of India. And of course those terrorist attacks.
No struggle for autonomy or freedom can be successful unless you earn people’s sympathy, especially the outside people. You cannot take arms and money from Pakistan and hope for sympathy from the rest of India.
Jammu and Kashmir is in India only because of Jawahar Lal Nehru. Sardar Patel would have let it go, Nehru hung on as it was the land of his forefathers. The wily politician that he was, India’s first PM sugarcoated the accession as people’s will, by enlisting the support of popular leader Sheikh Abdullah. The same Nehru later jailed Sheikh Abdullah.
Mission Kashmir was started by Nehru, but is being completed by Narendra Modi.
Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi or Narasimha Rao too would have been tempted to revoke Article 370 if they were PM today. That’s because geopolitics has changed. Today a bankrupt Pakistan will hesitate to bankroll a full-fledged terror campaign in India. In any case, after the WTC attack, terrorism is seen for what it is, not as a guerrilla warfare for freedom.
Today’s India is one of the World’s biggest markets. A market everyone from the US to China needs. To that extent, Modi government’s decision will not meet the kind of resistance Nehru would have faced in 1947.
Yes, there might be turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir, with a serious threat of it spilling over to other parts of the state.
The Modi would have factored in that risk and is ready to pay the cost. The BJP will certainly profit politically from the decision to scrap Article 370. The question is can India bear the cost? We have to wait and watch.
