New Delhi’s abrogation of autonomy for the region might have local implications, but its consequences for Indian democracy are greater. Sadanand Dhume Aug 14, 2019
Nearly two decades ago, President Bill Clinton called Jammu and Kashmir “the most dangerous place in the world.” Now the disputed Himalayan territory, claimed by both India and Pakistan, is again under a global spotlight. The reason: India’s sudden voiding earlier this month of a constitutional provision that gave the country’s only Muslim-majority province a measure of autonomy from New Delhi, and the bifurcation of the state into two separate federally administered territories.
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India’s actions have clear regional ramifications. By tightening its grip on Kashmir, New Delhi has embarrassed and angered Pakistan, whose powerful army has long sought to wrest the territory from India’s grip. An India-Pakistan war could involve China, and possibly draw in the United States as well. It would also complicate President Donald Trump’s plan to draw down American troops from Afghanistan ahead of his reelection bid next year. But though these fears are plausible, they are also overblown. Simply put, a weakened Pakistan lacks the capacity to effect the change it seeks.
In the long term, the domestic implications of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions for India’s 1.3 billion people may prove more significant. Should the supreme court allow the government’s decision to stand, as appears likely, it will suggest that institutional checks on government power are weaker than many people assume. The ease with which the government stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its statehood—over two days, by simple majorities in both houses of Parliament—also raises questions about the robustness of Indian federalism.
India has framed its actions in nonsectarian terms, but it’s hard to miss the symbolism of a Hindu nationalist government diminishing the power of elected Muslim representatives. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s obsession with Kashmir—dating back to the 1950s, when it was known as the Bharatiya Jana Sangh—could end up opening a rocky new chapter in the relationship between the world’s largest democracy and its 175-million strong Muslim minority, the largest in the world.
Almost two weeks after the Indian announcement, much of the former state, in particular the densely populated Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, remains shut down and largely cut off from the world. Spools of concertina wire dot Srinagar, the former state’s capital. Thousands of uniformed Indian troops man checkpoints. Schools, colleges, and offices are closed. Fearful of protests, Indian authorities have suspended phone services, cable television, and the internet. Police have preemptively arrested at least 800 people, including two former chief ministers. Stray protests have nonetheless erupted, including one last week that reportedly drew more than 10,000 people. The Indian government says these numbers are vastly exaggerated.
Read: Modi’s latest step in undoing Nehru’s vision
The Kashmir dispute dates to the birth of India and Pakistan as independent nations in 1947 when Britain, the departing colonial power, gave about 560 nominally independent princely states a choice: accede to either India or Pakistan.
Those with a Hindu majority stayed in India, while those with a Muslim majority ended up in newly created Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir, a sprawling Muslim-majority territory about the size of Utah or Austria led by a Hindu king, tried holding out for independence, but when Pashtun tribesmen backed by the Pakistani army entered its territory, the panicked king acceded to India, which airlifted troops to Srinagar.
The terms of the accession confined the federal government’s power to defense, foreign affairs, and communications. India later encoded this principle of autonomy into Article 370 of its constitution, the provision effectively voided earlier this month. Another provision barred outsiders from buying land in the state, and from access to government jobs and scholarships. That too has gone. As things stand, people from all over India will enjoy the same rights in the two new federal territories as native-born residents.
When India-Pakistan relations threaten to go off the rails, the world usually focuses on the regional implications. This is not unreasonable. Both countries wield nuclear weapons. They have fought three wars since gaining independence. China, which controls 15 percent of Kashmir, including a portion ceded to it by Pakistan, is also part of the mix. (India holds 55 percent of the former kingdom; Pakistan has 30 percent.)
Many people in both India and Pakistan view Kashmir as integral to the countries’ respective identities. In Islamic Pakistan, carved out of undivided India as a homeland for Indian Muslims unwilling to live in a Hindu-majority nation, the existence of a Muslim-majority province in India sticks in the craw. Over the years, Islamabad has attempted to use diplomatic pressure, direct military action, and backing for Islamist terrorist groups to wrest the territory from India. India has not budged, though an uprising in Kashmir that flared in 1989 has led to at least 45,000 deaths over the past 30 years.
For India, predominantly Hindu but officially secular, Kashmir acts as a totem—symbolic proof that India’s ’s multireligious polity is stronger than the monochromatic alternative chosen by its estranged sibling. The erstwhile state only houses 8.5 million of India’s 175 million Muslims, but in symbolic terms it carries outsize significance. Kashmir telegraphs India’s emphatic rejection of the two-nation theory that led to the birth of Pakistan—the idea that Indian Hindus and Muslims do not merely follow different faiths, but represent fundamentally incompatible nations.
Pakistan’s traditional preoccupation with Kashmir ensures that events there also affect Afghanistan. Islamabad has long attempted to leverage its influence over the Taliban—a group Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, birthed in the 1990s and whose leadership it houses—to force Washington to address its concerns over the disputed territory. Earlier this week, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States hinted at rethinking support for a peaceful U.S. exit from Afghanistan by drawing troops away from the Afghan border.
Read: India put democracy at risk across South Asia
On the whole, though, these fears may prove to be exaggerated. As I argued in The Wall Street Journal, a feeble economy, looming anti-terrorism sanctions, and a lack of global sympathy for the jihadist groups it backs in Kashmir limit Pakistan’s options. So far, it has failed to rustle up meaningful international support for its position either at the United Nations or among the great powers.
In the end, the greatest impact of Modi’s decision may not be on India’s neighbors but on India itself. In explaining their decision, both Modi and his top lieutenant, Home Minister Amit Shah, evoked a picture of a dysfunctional state, Jammu and Kashmir, helmed by corrupt local politicians and held back by laws that prevented the munificence of the Indian government from reaching the people. They also evoked gender justice, citing a provision that disallowed women from the state who married outsiders from passing on property to their children. In a nationally televised speech, Modi painted a picture of a Kashmir made prosperous by a flood of inbound Indian investment.
The New Delhi–based analyst Ashok Malik argues that India’s decision was spurred not just by the fact that opposition to autonomy for Kashmir has been a “foundational principle” for the BJP, but by growing fears that militants in the Kashmir Valley had begun to seek inspiration from the Islamic State. With the U.S. preparing to leave Afghanistan, it’s only natural for India to worry about Pakistan-backed jihadists turning their attention to Kashmir, as they did after the Soviet Union’s 1989 withdrawal.
But whatever the cocktail of ideology, domestic politics, and security concerns that drove India’s decision, it does not change the fact that the move reveals a certain brittleness in India’s constitutional arrangements. Who is to say that a future Indian government—or even this one, emboldened by the apparent popularity of its decision—won’t try something similar with a state such as Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, or West Bengal? That many BJP leaders routinely use shrill anti-Muslim rhetoric raises the stakes further.
In the seven decades since it gained independence, India has done well to hold together a large, multilingual, multifaith nation with democratic principles. It’s too soon to say whether this will change, but if Kashmir is a portent for India’s future, we need to start worrying.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Sadanand Dhume is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he writes about South Asia. He is also a columnist for the Wall Street Journal.
Why should Kashmiris believe that they are Hindoos and Indians ?
As per Hindoos Kashmir is the abode of Kashyap who was the progeny
of Brahma – who had raped,married and impregnated his daughter Saraswati.
Pride – It is !
Should Kashmiris be proud of Brahma
"Brahma saw the beautiful face (or feet) of Parvati at the wedding, and he became excited and shed his seed upon the ground. In fear of Siva, he began to make the seed barren, but Siva said, ‘Brahma, you should not kill Brahmins, and these are great sages.’ Then 88,000 tapasvins were born from the seed, and they ran around Brahma calling him ‘Daddy, daddy!’ " — Brahma Purana 72:18; Vamana Purana 27:56-9; cf. Siva Purana, Jnanasamhita 18:62-8; Siva Purana 2:3:49:3-10; Skanda Purana 1:1:26:15-22.
The other is that Brahma used to collect his semen in a pot whenever
he masturbated fixing his carnal eyes on the celestial beauty Urvasi.
Brahma’s semen in the pot gave birth to the sage Agastya,
Should Kashmiris follow the path of Brahma – the perpetual motion
bestiality machine ?
"That first being (Prajapati) became afraid; therefore one becomes afraid when one is alone. Then he thought to himself: ‘Of what should I be afraid, when there is no one but me?’ So his fear left him, for what was he going to be afraid of? One is, after all, afraid of another. He found no pleasure at all; so one finds no pleasure when one is alone. He wanted to have a companion. Now he was as large as a man and a woman in close embrace. So he split his body into two, giving rise to husband (pati) and wife (patni). … He (Prajapati) copulated with her, and from their union human beings were born. She then thought to herself: ‘After begetting me from his own body, how could he copulate with me? I know — I’ll hide myself.’ So she became a cow. But he became a bull and copulated with her. From their union cattle were born. Then she became a mare, and he a stallion; she became a female donkey, and he, a male donkey. And again he copulated with her, and from their union one-hoofed animals were born. Then she became a female goat, and he, a male goat; she became an ewe, and he, a ram. And again he copulated with her, and from their union goats and sheep were born. In this way he created every male and female pair that exists, down to the very ants. … Then he churned like this and, using his hands, produced fire from his mouth as from a vagina. As a result the inner sides of both these — the hands and the mouth — are without hair, for the inside of the vagina is without hair." — Brhadaranyaka Upanisad 1:4:2-6.
How can a Kashmiri Muslim even accept that he is a Hindoo ?
Can Brahmins born of the premature ejaculation of Brahma fight the Ghazis ?
This is a tale of how a Rajpoot rat-coward-traitor-thief destroyed "a Race, a Nation,a Religion", and will "now destroy", the land of the Dindoo Hindoo Bindoo and Kashmir !
Once upon a time in the land of the Rajasthani Limpet Limpdick Rats – there was a race of "Rajpoot rats, called the Dogras" – who had been "raped and brutalised" by the Mughals, for
centuries !
At that very time there was "a rising star", in Dindoo Bindoo Land called "Ranjit Singh he Sikh" -and so what did the Rajpooot rats do ?
They met Ranjit Singh and "offered to convert to Sikhism", with the caveat , that they be "allowed to pray to the Harlot Duo of Kali/Doorga and Nigger Shiva" ! (Now you will say Y ?)
Ranjit Singh agreed,as the Dogra Rajput rats supplied their women (a normal Rajpoot rat practice) and some soldiers
Ranjit Singh treated One of the sons of these Dogra Rajpoot rats as his own son- "Farzand-e-Khas", and then "what did the Dogra Rajpoot" limpet limpdick rats do to the Clan of Ranjit Singh
They "killed Kharak Singh,Naunihal Singh" and the widow of Ranjit singh, by arsenic and cold blooded murder
The Dogra rats,"Lal Singh and Tej Singh", betrayed the Sikhs to the British in the Khalsa War -by selling out all the military positions – and the Brits pulverised the Khalsa army
Then Gulab Singh Dogra. the Rajpoot Chor and rat,"stole 22 cartloads of gold", from Ranjit Singh’s treasury and vanished………and then what ?
The Dumb Sikhs hired Gulab Singh Dogra,as the consultant,to broker the instrument of surrender", between the Sikhs and the British !! Ain’t this fun ? Nein – there is more !
As a part of the instrument of surrender, Gulab Singh Dogra the Rajpoot Chor and rat,made the "Sikhs give up Kashmir" to the British (sale) and then did a "buy back deal" with the British, to buy Kashmir on a downpayment + lease rentals !! It is called "throwing the Sikh Monkey into the water"
Guess how did Gulab Singh Dogra the Rajpoot Chor and rat , pay the Brits , for the buyout of Kashmir ?
Simple – "with the gold he stole from Ranjit Singh" !
Caramba – That is why the Dpgra rats became Sikhs !
It ain’t over ! Then Gulab Singh Dogra the Rajpoot Chor and rat,melted the stolen gold ,and issued coins on the "name of Nanakshahi ", in Kashmir and "imposed a jazia", on the Kashmiri
Muslims.(all on the name of Nanak – a Quasi Muslim – whose core theory was equality!)
The Muslims of Kashmir were terrorised – like none else before – an dall on the name of Naank the Quasi Muslim and follower of Mardana)
It still ain’t over ! Then this Gulab Singh Dogra the Rajpoot Chor and rat – had a "grandson called Hari Singh", the Limpdick – who "sold out Kashmir", to the Dindoo Hindooo and just before exiting" – and he ALSO "ran off" with 63 cartloads of Gold !
Better than Garnd Pa ! He also paid off 1 Million Pounds to a French Hooker in Paris !
What Instrument of accession ? Signed by Hindooo Limpdicks and a race of Rajput rats,cowards,traitors and thieves ?
Y are Muslims squeamish about the rapes of Hindoo Barhmins and
Kshatriya/Jat/Rajput harlots in the Mughal/Afghan invasions ?
These women were born for this !
Their own GODS raped them ! It is in their scriptures !
"One day the sage Atri was performing tapas with his wife Anasuya.
Brahma, Visnu, and Siva came and offered him a boon, but Atri remained
silent, meditating. Then the three gods went to Anasuya.
Siva had his linga in his hand, Visnu was full of erotic feeling, and Brahma was
beside himself with desire, saying to Anasuya,’Make love with me or I
will die.’
When she heard this coarse speech, Anasuya made no reply,for, although she feared the
anger of the gods, she was true to her husband. But they were overcome with delusion,
and they raped her by force.
Bhavisya Purana 3:4:17:67-78.
Surely the followers of Ishmael and the Prophet will not conned by a Hindoo PM who is an illiterate and a son of a Ayah and he himself was a Tea seller on a rail platform Besides, he is a Gujarati – who are also called Bastards in the Mahabharata ! The Mahabharata , Book 8: Karna Parva ,Section 45 The Pancalas observe the duties enjoined in the Vedas; the Kauravas observe truth; the Matsyas and the Surasenas perform sacrifices, the Easterners follow the practices of the Shudras; the Southerners are fallen; the Vahikas are thieves; the Saurashtras are bastards. The Gujaratis are also termed as a race of Miscegnation – in the Mahabharata ! That word refers to those born of unnatural sex ! Gujaratis are a Bastard race ! They swap wives ! And they do it openly and ADVERTISE IT OPENLY ! https://gujarat.locanto.net/tag/couple-swapping/ http://gujarat.lookingmale.com/WIFE-SHARING/Couple-Swapping-in-gujarat.html
I met some Pakistanis who expressed regret over the beheadings
of Yadav and Goo-r-kha fokad faujis !
Y ?
That is what they deserve ! That is what their own GODS did to then
Krishna himself wished and planned the extermination of the Yadavs
When Krsna had killed the demons, and thus relieved the burden of the earth, he thought,
The earth is still overburdened by the unbearably burdensome race of the Yadus. No one else
can overcome them, since they are under my protection.’ … Deluded by Krsna’s power of
delusion, and cursed by the Brahmins, they were all destroyed, and when his entire family
had been destroyed, Krsna said, ‘The burden has been removed.’ " — Srimad Bhagavatam
10:90:27-44; 11:1:1-4; 11:30:1-25.
As far as the Goo-r-kha rats are concerned – Krishna himself beheaded
them !
Lord Krishna, the Dandy Boy,”himself killed and beheaded the Nepali Goo-r-khaa Rat”, Yalambara – Still the Dindooo Hindoo Army, “keeps these rats”
So by a clever stroke of diplomacy,”Krishna cut off Yalambara’s head”. REFERENCE BELOW : https://www.scribd.com/doc/
44141644/The-History-of-Ancient-Medieval-Nepal http://cultureandheritagetourisminnepal.blogspot.in/2010/07/history-of-nepal.html
That is their worth
In case of war with the Dindoo Hindoo – which is a certainty, what will the Ghazis do to the Sikh – a so called religion ? These fools were conned by the Dindoo Hindoo Brahmin/Bania to fight the Mughals and Aurangzeb – and it might happen again !
Their own granth states that "Allah is their Lord"
ONE UNIVERSAL CREATOR GOD. BY THE GRACE OF THE TRUE GURU:SIREE RAAG, FIRST MEHL, FIRST HOUSE, ASHTAPADEES:
|| 1 || O Baba, the Lord Allah is Inaccessible and Infinite
ONE UNIVERSAL CREATOR GOD. BY THE GRACE OF THE TRUE GURU:SIREE RAAG, FIRST MEHL, FIRST HOUSE, ASHTAPADEES:
|| 5 || He is Allah, the Unknowable, the Inaccessible, All-powerful and Merciful Creator.
BHAIRAO, FIFTH MEHL, FIRST HOUSE:ONE UNIVERSAL CREATOR GOD. BY THE GRACE OF THE TRUE GURU:
|| 1 || The One Lord, the Lord of the World, is my God Allah
BIBHAAS, PRABHAATEE, THE WORD OF DEVOTEE KABEER JEE:ONE UNIVERSAL CREATOR GOD. BY THE GRACE OF THE TRUE GURU:
|| 6 || 2 || PRABHAATEE: First,Allah created the Light; then, by His Creative Power, He made all mortal beings.
BIBHAAS, PRABHAATEE, THE WORD OF DEVOTEE KABEER JEE:ONE UNIVERSAL CREATOR GOD. BY THE GRACE OF THE TRUE GURU:
|| 3 || The Lord Allah is Unseen; He cannot be seen.
Still they support the Dinoo Hindoo !
Will the Ghazi’s waver when they Nuke them out ?
Aurangzeb was probably the ideal true Muslim – a puritan quasi ascetic.He was manipulated by a Hindoo to kill Tegh Bahadur ! But what did Tegh Bahadur say to Aurangzeb – before he was executed ? He said he was a Hindu ! There is no hope for Sikhs !
Tin te sun Siri Tegh Bahadur
Dharam nibaahan bikhe Bahadur Uttar bhaniyo, dharam hum Hindu
Atipriya ko kin karen nikandu Lok parlok ubhaya sukhani
Aan napahant yahi samani Mat mileen murakh mat loi
Ise tayage pramar soi Hindu dharam rakhe jag mahin
Tumre kare bin se it nahin
– Guru Tegh Bahadur’s reply to Aurangzeb’s ordering him to embrace Islam.
(In response, Shri Tegh Bahadur says, My religion is Hindu and how can I abandon what is so dear to me? This religion helps you in this world and that, and only a
fool would abandon it. God himself is the protector of this religion and no one can destroy it.)
Is there any hope for Sikhism ?
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