Fourteen mainstream Jammu and Kashmir leaders from eight political parties, including four Chief Ministers, attended the three-hour meeting aimed at getting the political process back on course in the region after it lost its special status under Article 370 of the Constitution in 2019 and was downgraded from a state to two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The PM assured that the statehood would be restored “at an appropriate time” but urged the parties to get on board with delimitation or the redrawing of assembly constituencies to enable elections. Elections can happen soon after delimitation, it was said, and “most participants expressed willingness for it. Right time will be after delimitation and colonization in select areas, like what Israel has done in Palestine?
Whosoever lives in the world has basic needs to be safe from trial, hatred, violence and get a proper job. Arabs have been Jews/no religious converted to Christianity after Jesus sermons and then converted to Islam. In India’ Buddhists converted to Hinduism after Aryans came and then many converted to Christianity Islam Sikhism etc. Therefore, religious issues should not matter. We must give freedom to all with no prosecution.
This was the Centre’s first major outreach since August 2019 towards political leaders who have been severely critical of the Article 370 decision. Many of the leaders attending the meeting had been detained as part of security measures to prevent any protests over the sweeping changes.
At the meeting, it was also decided that the Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha would set up a committee to review cases of political prisoners, be it those released – like the Abdullahs and Ms Mufti – and those still in detention.
Omar Abdullah, however, told reporters that “almost all leaders” were unhappy with delimitation only in Jammu and Kashmir. In other states, delimitation will be taken up in 2026, why has Jammu and Kashmir been singled out? We told the PM delimitation is not needed, trust has broken between the Centre and Kashmir”.
The Centre can’t tame these persons; delimitations would be nothing but to cut off the areas in specific constituencies to the advantage of BJP but impossible because of the mindset of the leaders invited. Their only motive had been to participate and discussion furthered then these leaders would ask for statehood first which would irritate the Centre. It took them more than 2 years to meet the legitimate representatives of the Kashmiri people in the most important constitutional decision made in the last 6 years.
If you look at Kashmir, late 80s to early 90s the situation was very violent which event resulted in about five Lakh Kashmiri Pandits having to leave the valley. But the first term of NDA between 1998–2004 was mostly incident free. In fact during this period, a lot was done to control militancy, people started participating in elections, people began to trust the electoral process (remember in the 80s elections were believed to be rigged). The street violence only came back to the valley during the Amarnath Agitation in 2008 and Congress was in power both at Centre as well as state.
But what is happening now is probably because of different reasons. The Modi govt has set into action many initiatives in that area. Will they bring results? Is this method correct? Those are questions that time will answer, but certainly, some of these initiatives have rattled the separatists and what we see is a reaction to that. Many friends who understand Kashmir better than me say that Modi’s initiatives won’t yield too much, but I think Modi/Doval is also well informed about these things.
But when I hear Amit Shah or Ram Madhav speak on Kashmir, I get a feeling that they know what they are doing. In Amit Shah’s recent interview with India TV, he mentions that there will be a time when some strong decision will be taken on the happenings at Kashmir. So, this is definitely not going to be straightforward, there is going to be chaos. Given the measured reaction in the Indian Govt/Army, there must be a strategy at work.
Kashmir chaos is historical. Pakistan wants to break away Kashmir from India as revenge. As a first step, they managed to drive away Hindus. This they could do by the local population because Dar-Ul-Islam concept i.e Islamic state is widely believed by Muslims all over the world, Kashmiri included. It became easier because of the special status they enjoy. No outsider can do business in Kashmir but Kashmiri are doing roaring business in all-star hotels in India. This all happened since Independence no matter who is in power in Delhi. Now BJP has no existence in Kashmir valley. There it is state within a state. Rulers of that state refused to see the delegation of Secular and Liberal parties who enjoy blaming BJP and pleading for the agitators sitting in AC studios in Delhi.
