I’ve given myself the thankless task of “tagging” all my past posts. I noticed that we don’t have a tag on “Kashmir” (the only sub-region we do have is NWFP). It sparked a thought that for a Desi blog we really don’t discuss Kashmir all that much (even though it was going to drag the region into war earlier this year).
This mirrors the larger discourse on Kashmir where Indians & Pakistanis don’t seem as animated or defined by it as before. Two reason comes to mind:
(1.) Pakistan is in economic doldrums and doesn’t have the appetite for complex geopolitics. India has *won* economically and Pakistanis are beginning to accept that.
(2.) On the flip side; the Kashmiri struggle has certainly acquired an indigenous patina and is escalating. The claims that somehow Pakistani is fomenting unrest are increasingly hollow.
Otherwise our most common tags are:
I have another reason, which follows up from your 2nd reason
Most Indians know what goes on (or have a idea) in Kashmir, and made peace with the fact, that if India needs to hold on to Kashmir, it needs the army to “Deal” with Kashmiris and they are willing to look the other way of what the army does there.
Or perhaps they view the Kashmir matter as *primarily* (not fully) an “India vs. Pakistan” matter, and alongside the hardening of anti-Pakistan attitudes overtime, they’ve simply stopped caring about Kashmir.
Don’t think they are contradictory though. Both can happen. Also I am not sure what indo pak softening would really lead us to on Kashmir ( in the long run ). In short run perhaps less cross fire , some trade etc would be there . All three parties ( indo , pak , Kashmir ) have their own view of “resolution”. India is the strongest that why it s resolution ( status quo)is being enforced , but tomorrow could be a new day
I think both of your ‘reasons’ are way off. Pakistan as we know it would not ‘give up’ ‘core issue’ of Kashmir. If there is no Kashmir issue , the Pakistani army and ISI would lose their raison d’etre. For the foreseeable future Pakistan would be under military jackboots and carry out their wishes. If Pakistan totally and genuinely loses interest , there would be no social unrest in Kashmir.
Even if Pakistan were to “lose interest”, Kashmiri Muslims are not going to stop fighting New Delhi. Too many atrocities have occurred in the last 30 years.
No one is willing to vote for the Anantnag Lok Sabha seat. That should tell you something.
Agree
Anantnag is working fine for elections
http://www.elections.in/jammu-and-kashmir/parliamentary-constituencies/anantnag.html
“Outside the polling booth, a group of residents said that most of the people from the area have either gone to play cricket or fish. “Nobody is interested in the elections, at least in this part of the Valley,” said Farooq Ahmad, a local resident. “How can people vote when the people who are voted and elected, then unleash all kinds of atrocities on the people?”
Bashir Ahmad Naik, another local, said that the electoral process in Kashmir is a futile exercise. “Honestly,” he said, “this is not going to resolve our problem.”
“Bijli, sadak and pani are not our issues,” he said, “Our major issue is that our youth are being killed mercilessly, pellets are showered every now and then. The only solution to this is that the issue of Kashmir be resolved so that our sufferings end one and for all.””
https://thewire.in/politics/elections-2019-kulgam-anantnag
Though understandable from a certain perspective, this is a dumb move. However meager it may be, you get a say in your affairs by voting your candidate in.
Related to this: as far as I know, there is no prohibition on people like Umar Farooq and Geelani running for office. And if they run (and win handily, as can be expected), they get a bigger megaphone. Also, surely they are not the kind to “unleash all kinds of atrocities on the people”.
Our major issue is that our youth are being killed mercilessly, pellets are showered every now and then.
Not sure what exactly this guy is claiming. Are the security forces gratuitously shooting at people, or in response to being pelted by the “youth” with stones?
The point is that people in these districts don’t believe that voting makes any difference. That is surely a worrying sign for India, which uses voting turnout to justify its rule in Kashmir, telling the international community “Look, Kashmiris are voting so they are happy to be part of India”. Of course, people only voted because of the impact on local issues since they knew that no political party was interested in addressing the resolution to the Kashmir dispute.
Last time around, people in Anantnag voted for Mehbooba Mufti and her PDP in order to keep the BJP out, only for the PDP to form a coalition with the BJP. Who can blame them for thinking that elections in the Valley are just a farce?
The Hurriyat cannot contest elections since that would require them to accept the Indian Constitution, which they believe does not apply to Kashmir.
Pellet guns are not used in any part of India proper but only in Kashmir. Why do you think that is?
If Pakistan were to lose interest, Kashmir would likely become another Mizoram in a few decades. Like it or not, the Indian state is and has been much more reasonable and amenable to negotiation than other great powers.
‘reasonable’ attitude may not be reasonable response to terrorists with a state support from outside the borders.
As the old adage in Kashmiri goes:
yeli āzödī andyī, mye döpzyi köhvas
(When you end up with azadi, call me for a spot of tea)
I disagree with you 100% that “Pakistan is in serious economic difficult [sic]”.
Why has their GDP growth rate only increases? Another words, why is their economy always growing at a faster-and-faster clip, except for ’13, according to this?
https://tradingeconomics.com/pakistan/gdp-growth
Why is their stock market also done very well in the long-run, but it seems that it’s down 24% in the last few months from its all-time high. However, their stock market’s performance is extremely good, if you look at this data set:
https://tradingeconomics.com/pakistan/stock-market
Pakistan’s Debt -to-GDP is 73%, and in the USA, it’s 110%.
Get your facts straight: Pakistan’s economy is growing like gang-busters, and it’s growing at a faster and faster rate.
Respectfully you have to account for ceteris paribus and the low base affect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
India 7,874
Pakistan 5,680
India’s economy is growing far faster than Pakistan’s per capita. Even China (which has a far higher base than India per capita) is growing faster than Pakistan per capita.
What matters is flows (trends) versus stocks (snapshots in time). Pakistan can grow far faster per capita than it is. And Pakistan would if Pakistan enacted difficult neo liberal free market globalization reforms and took on Islamism.
Being Islamic is good. Liberal Islam is Islam. If Pakistani muslims were as liberal as Indian muslims, Pakistan would be an economic miracle. This can happen very fast. Why? Because Pakistani muslims “WERE” as liberal as Indian muslims pre 1947.
How to take on Islamism? Many blog posts on Brown Pundits have discussed this. I think it starts with freedom of art and thought, followed by dialogue. The rest happens automatically.
Freedom of art and thought are correlated with total factor productivity (product development, process innovation, research and development) and living standards.
Pew Research Center: Islam will become the world’s leading religion by 2060
There have already been estimates that Lutherans and Methodists can completely disappear in due time
Over the last 15 years, over 500 churches have been closed in Britain. These chapels are turning into hotels and concert venues, even into bars
There are currently 3.3 million Muslims in the United States, but by the year 2040 they can become the second largest number of religious communities
The main world religion, which will suppress Christianity, will become Islam. But its main engine will not be the Middle East, but India (because of the rapid increase in population) and the United States (due to the immigration of a large number of Muslims).
The number of Christians in Germany and China will also drop significantly. Over the past five years, the number of Christians in Germany has fallen by a million and a half. The Lutheran Church lost the most, which must close the churches that remain without any believer.
Pew also predicts that Russia, which is now the most Christian country on the European continent, will no longer be among the top 10 Christian countries in 40 years.
The Lutheran Church of Norway, in which the main bishop is a woman, allowed its priests to marry gay couples, but this did not even help
The Japanese Shintoism and the Shamans’ religion of Siberia and the beliefs of the African tribes are also at stake
Three photos – France, Germany and Netherland:
http://fakti.org/quo-vadis-orbi/istrazivacki-centar-pew-islam-ce-do-2060-postati-vodeca-svetska-religija
“They knew that no political party was interested in addressing the resolution to the Kashmir dispute.”
A resolution to the Kashmir issue is well beyond the power of Ram or Rahim, don’t expect the Indian and Pakistani governments to do what deities cannot.