Segregation in Kashmiri society

RAWALPINDI: According to media reports, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh asked Mufti Sayeed, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, to provide land for “composite townships” for Kashmiri Hindus, to which he readily agreed. But later he denied this after a complete shutdown was observed in Indian-occupied Kashmir against India’s plan to set up separate townships for Kashmiri Pandits. In 1989, a large portion of the Hindu community of Kashmir migrated from Muslim-majority areas of the region to Jammu city and northern states of India. However, a sizeable number continued to live in the valley and many have returned to their native places in Kashmir. It is important to highlight that the nationalist government of the BJP was using the plight of the displaced people to further an agenda of ending Kashmir’s special status provided under the Indian Constitution. Under current laws, non-Kashmiris are not allowed to own land in the state. Furthermore, this plan of the BJP government is an effort to change the demography of the region, as well as it being a bid to divide Kashmiris on communal lines.

India is using different tactics to mislead the international community about the Kashmir dispute and to prolong its illegal occupation. Ironically, on the one hand, the rulers in New Delhi extend offer of talks to Pakistan and the Kashmiri Hurriyet leadership to find a resolution for the dispute, while on the other, they repeat the mantra of Jammu and Kashmir being an integral part of India. This duplicity has been the basic impediment in the way of resolution of the Kashmir dispute. It is a reality that Pakistan has always advocated resolution of the conflict over Kashmir through giving the Kashmiris their inalienable right to self-determination as promised by India and the world community.

Afia Ambreen

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th,  2015.

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