In the era of smaller states and greater federalisation, reducing J&K’s status to a union territory is counter-intuitive. It is one thing to integrate the state fully with India by ending its special status but quite another to put it under direct central rule. The government must offer greater clarity.
BJP must address Kashmiri anger with humility, not euphoric celebrations
BJP has kept its ideological commitment on Articles 370 and 35A but it’s short-sighted to see it as the end of the Kashmir problem. If anything, this will only increase the anger and humiliation among people in the Valley. To address that, BJP leaders have to display humility, not euphoria.
Aap kya chahte hain ? Pat will come the answer, Aazaadi. Woh toh hum de nahin sakte. Aur bataiye, where can we locate common ground. It is from honest, mutually respectful conversations, one with the good people of Kashmir, another with our Pakistani cousins, that some peaceful solution may emerge. Or it may not. However, what is now being attempted seems to me, with profound respect, to be a revving up of what has been done over the last five years. Roshni nazar nahin aati. 2. If there is a greater tragedy than what the seven million people of the Valley are living through, notably since 1989, it is how this unresolved dispute is blighting the development prospects of one and a half billion people living in South Asia. The contrast with the members of ASEAN could not be more stark.