As the Third Kashmir Crisis unfolds, Kashmiris seek a new order by a new compact and not redress of their grievances. But with India firm on not conceding anything, the fear is that the worst is yet to come.
“I must have Kashmir.”—Jawaharlal Nehru to Liaquat Ali Khan (Lionel Carter Ed.; Weakened States Seeking Renewal: British Official Reports from South Asia, Part 1; Manohar; page 416).
“From all the information that I have, 95 per cent of Kashmiri Muslims do not wish to be or remain Indian citizens. I doubt therefore the wisdom of trying to ‘keep’ people by force where they do not wish to stay. This cannot but have serious long-term political consequences, though immediately it may suit policy and please public opinion.”—Jayaprakash Narayan’s letter to Nehru, May 1, 1956 (Bimal Prasad (Ed.), Selected Works of Jayaprakash Narayan; Vol. 7; Manohar; page 115).
“If Kashmir remains with India against the will of the State’s people it will always find itself in political turmoil.” —Prem Nath Bazaz, a close associate of Sheikh Abdullah in the National Conference; The History of the Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir; Pamposh Publications; 1954).
“Behind the facade of the constitutional apparatus rests the nitty-gritty of rude fact: the Valley is an occupied territory; remove for a day India’s Army and security forces and it is impossible to gauge what might transpire at the next instant. Some of the stone-pelters may nurse illusions about Pakistan, some may think in terms of a sovereign, self-governing Kashmir, but they certainly do not want to be any part of India… the great Indian nation, with its load of civilisation stretching 5,000 years, is extraordinarily mum.…
“One is suddenly hit by a fearsome realisation: Indians by and large do not perhaps feel at all, this way or that, about the Valley’s people. In other words, the Indian nation is alienated from Kashmir” (Ashok Mitra; The Telegraph, August 27, 2010).
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 19, 2016-Ausgabe von FRONTLINE.
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