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Idea
of India is bigger than Kashmir
What
others say......
Kashmir,
we all know, is not just another state. For most Indians, it's
an article of faith. From different premises, different shades of
political opinion in India have arrived at a ‘consensus': The
country cannot survive as a unified republic, much less a secular
one, if Kashmir ceases to be part of it.
On
the left, this has to do with the question of religious identity.
The only Muslim-majority state in this country, Kashmir's existence
as part of India is proof that religion is not the basis of our
nationalism — a rejection of the two-nation theory, which led to
the Partition. Hence, no settlement which re-opens the question of
the state's accession to India. On the right, Kashmir is not so much
about people as about territory — an integral part — indeed, the
crowning head — of the sacred geographical body that is Bharat
Mata.
And
there has stood the matter for more than half a century. A time in
which New Delhi has fought three wars, suffered tens of thousands of
army and civilian casualties, and generally made itself extremely
unpopular with the people of the state. Surely, it's time to take a
fresh look at Kashmir — and not through the prism of nationalistic
anxieties. For starters, the integrity of a Union that calls
itself democratic cannot be maintained by force of arms but
only by moral and political suasion. Two, India's secularism, if it
is to mean anything at all, cannot be a function of what the
Kashmiris may or may not do. Third, Kashmir's alienation from India
has secular rather than religious roots. Militancy in the Valley has
in recent times acquired religious overtones — thanks to Islamabad
— but it was for long an indigenous and se-cular movement,
directed at New Delhi's cynical high-handedness. In that sense,
Kashmir is no different from the North-East. Just as no one has
suggested that the North-East is alienated from mainstream India
because it's Christian, no one should suggest that Kashmir is
estranged because it's Muslim. And finally, the idea of India is
bigger than the sum of all its parts. To think that the future of
India depends on the future of Kashmir is to betray a lack of faith
in that idea itself.
[The
Times of India]
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