close
Thursday March 28, 2024

‘Invisible results’ on held Kashmir

By Waqar Ahmed
August 24, 2017

BJP president Amit Shah has claimed that the Centre is tackling the held Kashmir issue with all seriousness and good results have been visible in the last two-three months. "The BJP government is effectively tackling the Kashmir issue and good results have  come in the last two-three months. The Indian government is dealing with separatists and terrorists in all seriousness. I think we are on the right track," Shah told reporters. 

On the other hand, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on India’s Independence Day the Indian government was committed to restoring Kashmir's status as "heaven on earth", stressing that the progress of Jammu and Kashmir lies in drawing the state's young "into the mainstream." But, he said, there will no let-up in the crackdown on terror or indigenous independence movement.

"We have to work for the progress of Jammu and Kashmir... problems cannot be sorted through abuses or bullets... Kashmir's problems can only be solved by embracing Kashmiris," Modi said in his Independence Day address to the nation from Delhi's Red Fort.

The Indian prime minister said his government was determined to "develop the state," ravaged by violence, and laid down the roadmap. The goals, he said, were to "educate the youth, give them jobs, include them in the mainstream, increase business and jobs, give them reasons to rejoice."

But then what the Indian prime minister and BJP top honcho are talking about. The youth of Kashmir are on the roads protesting the Indian hegemony, not seeking jobs for their families or for them. The kite flying by the Indian prime minister that the youth in Kashmir would abandon the freedom movement for clerical jobs was far-fetched and misleading. On the other hand, the BJP president Amit Shah lives in a world far away from realities. He is perhaps the only one who can see the invisible progress albeit good results in the valley. India has simply failed to create conditions for favourable conflict resolution. There is a lack of innovative break with the past.

These developments come as the Jammu and Kashmir government has begun the construction of 100 bunkers in border villages along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district where it claims there have been repeated ceasefire violations by Pakistan forces. "The district administration has started the construction of 100 bunkers in villages along the LoC in Nowshera sector," 

Deputy Commissioner, Rajouri, was quoted as saying. These bunkers will accommodate around 1,200-1,500 people in case of ceasefire violations, especially shelling from across the border, he said.

Strangely, another development has largely gone unnoticed in Pakistan. The Indian media recently reported top Israeli authorities as saying that “under no circumstances will Israel support Pakistan on the Kashmir issue.” This was conveyed, in response to a Times of India query, to a delegation of Indian journalists and politicians who were brought to Israel by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Pakistan has not sought Israel’s help on the issue nor it requires it. It seems it is just the Indian nervousness on the issue that has brought about Israel’s response soon after Modi’s successful visit to the Jewish state. 

The commonality of policy and objectives between India and Israel are visible to all unlike the good results in Kashmir.