Kashmir on the boil!
Kashmir is on the boil, yet gain. This time over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani during a fierce gunfight from a hideout. It has prompted immediate and severe protests in the valley with people attacking police station and the security forces, the retaliation by the defence forces have resulted in the death of another 15 protestors (so far!). More protests and more deaths could follow during the burial of the already dead. This exposes the fragility of our relationship with the northern state.
There cannot be a more confusing policy by the government, present and the past, over administering Kashmir over the decades. There was wide expectation across the nation that Modi’s tenure as prime minister could see a radical change and return of peace in the valley. That fact, heavily reliant on his poll promise of abrogating Article 370 and resolving the problems of the valley has not succeeded, at least until now.
Kashmir is milking India as a constituent state, whenever there requires financial assistance, like after the floods soon after the NDA government assumed office in 2014, economic packages, subsidized food and facilities etc. the actual cost of which is never revealed to Indian public.
The bifurcated state, almost half in the Northern part is under the control of Pakistan, and the valley is Indian, with predominant Muslim population. Many leaders from the valley do not miss an opportunity to dine at the Pak High Commissioners, challenge the sovereignty of Indian Union and continuously provoke its citizens in protests and attacks against government forces. The plights of the Kashmiri Pundits, who have been driven out from the valley languish in various camps in Delhi and elsewhere and are remembered only during elections.
Our government seems impotent and incapable in resolving the issues now or any time in the future. It pleases itself with a supposed election and gloats over a fake comfort as the world’s greatest democracy.
A time has come to take a decisive step. If Pakistan has forcibly occupied a part of Kashmir, take it back, even by force! If the country is incapable of doing so, redraw the international border on the actual line of control. Withdraw Article 370 and allow Indians to buy properties, and set up businesses, thereby trade and culture acting as the bonding agent, where the military might has failed.
Any average Kashmiri wants peace and a few terrorists, back by seditious elements and a wily neighbor cannot be continuously allowed to vitiate the peace in the state.
If we as a country have failed in not being able to resolve the Kashmir problem even after 68 years of our independence, let us gracefully get out of the state, that they destroy themselves in the name of religion and Pakistan!
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide voix
