J K News Today Commentary
The key question at the Congressional hearing on human rights in South Asia, in which Kashmir , was a recurring theme because of the situation that has arisen in the Valley post August 5 measures of scrapping of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir , was whether Kashmir was on path to return to normalcy. The answer given by Assistant Secretary of state for Asia, Alice Wells, was “ yes.”
The Congressional hearing on the human rights situation in Kashmir had come in the backdrop of the repeated media reports in the Western media about the stories of humanitarian crisis directly linked to the information clampdown after the special status of the state was eliminated . This section of media that has its preset views about India and its position on the Indian part of Kashmir has great influence over the Congressman in the United States.
Another thing that is forgotten so easily is that the peripheral references to the Pakistan sponsored terrorism , naming and shaming Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba , two of the many terror groups, nurtured and trained by Pakistan to bleed India is a weak attempt at balancing the things . The root cause of the whole problem is , Pakistan sponsored terrorism , which comes in various forms and manifestations . The normal interpretation that Pakistan sends armed and trained terrorists into Kashmir is just one of the aspects, the other aspects are more serious and dangerous . Pakistan has set up nurseries of radicalism and terrorism in religious places and also schools in the Valley . The product of such institutions are causing problems in the normal life of Kashmiris, hurting them economically and educationally.
It is a fact that after Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir had its own genesis and there also is another fact that this was a temporary provision in the Indian constitution , that could have been removed any time by the Indian Parliament by the majority vote. Precisely that happened on August 5 when the Indian Home Minister Amit Shah announced the scrapping of the Article 370 . This removed a big psychological barrier between the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of the country . This had become a necessity because the Article 370 was also providing fodder to the secessionists to promote a campaign of secessionism , using the argument that J&K was a separate place . This was an attempt to keep the “ disputed” status of J&K alive as had been the plan of Pakistan . This had to end , and that’s what the NDA government at the Centre did.
Since the pro-Pak lobby was keen to cause trouble and it had warned of serious consequences of the Government of India entered into what they though was forbidden terrain , the government of India was left with no option but to implement the things in the manner in which these happened.
It did cause severe problems , but now the things are changing . The US Congress should have appreciated that by cutting down on communication for few weeks, several lives were saved.
