In­dia loves Kash­mir but hates Kash­miris seek­ing free­dom from In­dia. In­dia loves Kash­mir but re­fuses to ac­cept it as a dis­puted area de­spite UN res­o­lu­tions on Kash­mir grant­ing plebiscite to the peo­ple of Kash­mir. In­dia con­tin­ues to oc­cupy Kash­mir and dom­i­nate it through army and para­mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion. Civil rule in Kash­mir is a far cry with re­cent at­tempts to seg­re­gate Kash­mir from In­dia and in­dulge in a war build-up, as a run-up to the gen­eral elec­tions.

I love Kash­mir and our fight is for Kash­mir but not against Kash­miris”, says In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi. This be­lated state­ment may help in con­tain­ing the tide of vi­o­lence against Kash­miris across In­dia, but it has a dan­ger­ous over­tone. It is a man­i­fes­ta­tion of the fact that In­dia can go against those Kash­miris who stand up for their rights and who dis­sent against In­di­a’s mil­i­tary dom­i­na­tion of Kash­mir.

As the Prime Min­is­ter talks peace, teach­ing lessons to Kash­mir and Kash­miris has be­gun. While the val­ley con­tin­ues to be a bas­tion for the In­dian armed forces with full im­punity and pow­ers un­der var­i­ous im­pe­ri­al­is­tic re­pres­sive laws, In­dia is hard­en­ing its stand on the le­gal and po­lit­i­cal front too.

With­draw­ing the se­cu­rity of pro-Kash­miri free­dom lead­ers has now led to their ar­rests.  De­nounc­ing the ar­rests for­mer Chief Min­is­ter Mehbooba Mufti said, “Scores of Ja­mait-e-Is­lami vol­un­teers and Hur­riyat lead­ers have been ar­bi­trar­ily de­tained in the last 24 hours.” She ap­pro­pri­ately quipped, “You can ar­rest a per­son, not his ideas.”

“Scores of Ja­mait-e-Is­lami vol­un­teers and Hur­riyat lead­ers have been ar­bi­trar­ily de­tained in the last 24 hours. You can ar­rest a per­son, not his ideas.”

Mehbooba Mufti, for­mer Chief Min­is­ter, Jammu & Kash­mir

An iron cur­tain is be­ing built be­tween In­dia and Kash­mir in the wake of the pos­si­bil­ity of ex­pected pub­lic protests against the pro­posed an­nul­ment of Sec­tion 53A of the In­dian Con­sti­tu­tion, which de­bars non-Kash­miris to buy prop­erty in Kash­mir.

Fur­ther­more, In­dia is per­haps plan­ning to strike again in Pak­istan.  The BJP and other right wing or­gan­i­sa­tions are likely to again raise the alarm of an­nul­ment of Ar­ti­cle 370 also which ar­ti­cle gives spe­cial priv­i­leges to Jammu and Kash­mir.

Soon af­ter the Pul­wama vi­o­lence, the im­port du­ties on goods from Pak­istan en­hanced from 20 to 200 per­cent. Pak­istan is no longer a Most Favoured Na­tion for In­dia. Crick­et­ing ties have been blurred.

Rhetoric is at its peak, with the Bharatiya Janta Party and lead­ers of its branches call­ing for re­venge. In­dia is prepar­ing for the gen­eral elec­tions in early May 2019. In­dian po­lit­i­cal par­ties have al­ready be­gun elec­tion­eer­ing, build­ing and break­ing al­liances as a run-up to the polls. The rul­ing In­dian party –the Bharatiya Janta Party is in over­drive to re­turn to power again.

The old adage goes, “all is fair in love and war.” In In­dia To­day, it is easy to ex­pand this to say “all is fair in love, war and pol­i­tics.” The rul­ing classes and those ex­pect­ing to be­come the rul­ing class will say and do what­ever helps in gain­ing an ex­tra vote. They will not say and not do any­thing which de­creases their tally by a sin­gle vote.