It was her sister, not Mehbooba Mufti.
--- On Mon, 18/8/08, . <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: . <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir To: [email protected] Date: Monday, 18 August, 2008, 8:51 PM On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 8:40 AM, Udhay Shankar N <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > major political parties do not hesitate to play the Pakistan card — Mehbooba > Mufti is quite willing to march to the Line of Control. The same lady when kidnapped, made India pay for her exchange with a dreaded terrorist who went on to mastermind the Khandahar flight hijack at the turn of the new millennia. > secessionist movements. Almost from the time we became independent 61 years > ago, we have been faced with calls for secession from nearly every corner of > India: from Nagaland, Assam and Mizoram, from Tamil Nadu, from Punjab etc. All of which will escalate louder when one state is able to get away with using terrorism as a means to be heard. The Naxalite movement is another example which if news reports are to be believed has spread till Chattisgarh from Andhra. The Maoist movement is another. > Kashmiri are Indian citizens but Indians are not necessarily Kashmiri > citizens. We cannot vote for elections to their assembly or own any > property in Kashmir. Even Kashmiri Pandits who had property in Kashmir (not Jammu) had to leave it when they were driven out overnight[1]. Today they are nothing less than refugees in Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat, etc... Worse, Kashmiri women who marry a non-Kashmiri forgo all rights to their property. This is not true for the men. Double standards anyone? [1] http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist > Given that Kashmir has the best deal of any Indian state, is there anything > more we can do? Kashmiris talk about more autonomy. But I don't see a) what > more we can give them and b) how much difference it will make. Its more a case of the political leaders who scream the loudest and grab media bytes. How many reporters actually talk to the common (wo)man or consider every individuals opinion? > As history has shown, Indian > Muslims feel no special kinship with Kashmir. They would not feel less > Indian if some Kashmiris departed. They do. If the militancy forging links with sleeper cells across Indian cities to help perpetrators of bomb blasts is anything to go by, then religion binds them like no other. > Moreover, too much is made of the size of Kashmir. Actually secessionist > feeling is concentrated in the Valley, an area with a population of 4 > million that is 98 per cent Muslim. (The Hindus either left or were driven > out). Neither Jammu nor Ladakh want to secede. So, is the future of India to > be held hostage to a population less than half the size of the population of > Delhi? > > I reckon we should hold a referendum in the Valley. Let the Kashmiris How about allowing the Pandits to return and reclaim what was theirs ! Francois Gautier[2], the correspondent in South Asia for Ouest-France, talks of the biased reporting the western media[3] indulges in. [2] http://in.rediff.com/news/franc.html [3] http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/jul/30franc.htm A Pandit friend, who was 15 when her family fled Srinagar used to recount how she was forced to cover her head or friends disappearing never to be seen again, the fear of going to school, etc... > It's time to think the unthinkable. It's time to think if India wants to be bullied into acquiescence by terrorists. Did you know? You can CHAT without downloading messenger. Go to http://in.webmessenger.yahoo.com/
