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Hubris of Propaganda on Kashmir
Yet another Prime Minister has tried to "solve" the Kashmir problem by throwing money at it. Security experts, in parallel, have started talking about the infl uence of the Islamic State in radicalising Kashmir's youth. What this indicates is that the Indian establishment is unwilling to learn from its own past mistakes and remains trapped in the hubris of its own propaganda.
The trouble with “strong” right-wing leaders is not that they are their own worst enemy but that they exacerbate a problem they claim to know better and, in the process add a few more twists to it. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared, before a captive audience in Srinagar on 7 November 2015 that he did not “need anybody’s advice on Kashmir,” not only did he snub his “good friend” Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed but displayed his arrogance for all to behold. He went on to compound it by handing out an economic package and promising that “the treasury is open for more,” thereby casting himself as a magnanimous ruler.
The poverty of understanding the Kashmir dispute stood out, while the Prime Minister chose to remain indifferent to the lawlessness of the Hindutva cohorts who feel empowered with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ascendancy. The attack inside the Jammu and Kashmir(J&K) Legislative Assembly on legislators, followed by murderous assaults on Kashmiri Muslims in Jammu riled many an Indian. The very same Hindutva groups, responsible for heinous and divisive crimes, were allowed to brandish their weapons across the Jammu region, which is officially classified as a “Disturbed Area.”
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