Jammu and Kashmir is a union territory in northern India. It comprises two major regions: Jammu and the Kashmir Valley. A third region, Ladakh, along with Jammu and Kashmir, was a part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir until 2019. After the abrogation of Article 370, the state was broken into two: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The region is known for breathtaking landscapes with a history going back to the Indus Valley Civilization, with evidence of various empires — Gandhara, Mauryan, Kushan, Gupta, Mughal, and Dogra — ruling the area.
The region has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan since its 1947 accession to India. The two countries fought a war that resulted in the establishment of the Line of Control (LoC) and divided the region into Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. Both Pakistan and China claim portions of Indian-administered Kashmir and Ladakh regions. It has been marred with violent incidents of militancy, which gained momentum in the 1980s and 1990s. The situation, fuelled by various grievances including political alienation, human rights abuses, and economic disparities, has resulted in prolonged conflict and counterinsurgency operations by security forces.
The current dispensation at the center is doing nothing much different to what Govts in the past especially the congress in the past did to the politics of the state.
BJP is doing in a calamitous manner and in a virulent environment.
BJP is equally responsible for the terrible situation state finds itself in and have failed in handling the Kashmir problem.
Their exit from the PDP collation was pure political opportunism in the rest of the Indian. In addition, the muscular and open majoritarianism on display in the rest of the India is only benefiting the Jamat by them further perpetuating among the masses the feeling of alienation and hate against the state of India.
I am a KP, lived in the valley pre-89, and know what I am taking and it would not be erroneous to say that darker days may be ahead.
We should be hopeful but it would be cynical to believe that “all is well”
The Print has been a rather balanced newspaper. It would be better for it to stay so and not let hate mongering, vitriol spewing jingoists from BJP funded media outlets take up space here. Anyways, the outspoken, confident, determined and educated Muslim youth from the valley have always been an eyesore for the like of Aditya who would like them to be enslaved as was the case during the Dogra rule of Kashmir.
I am not someone who feels happy demonising the mainstream politicians, with various people and families at successively higher levels of the food chain. They have fought, won, lost elections. If some were rigged, that was done in Delhi, not Srinagar. Carrying India’s brief in the Valley was not always a pleasant or safe task. Why should it also have been thankless. Let us which exotic orchids replace the Abdullahs and the Muftis.
Let us see …
Kashmiri Muslim politicians will have to cover the trust deficit first. Then comes justice to ethnic cleansed Kashmiri Pundits. Till then none in India who voted in Modi will have any sympathy or feel oneness with them.