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Letter: On Jammu and Kashmir issue
I refer to the article by Laura Schuurmans in The Jakarta Post dated Aug
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I refer to the article by Laura Schuurmans in The Jakarta Post dated Aug. 12.
Schuurman makes a specious argument linking the situation in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to the spread of extremism across South Asia.
The fact of the matter is that Jammu and Kashmir are victims of Pakistan’s dangerous policy of using radical Islamist militants as a tool of state policy ever since 1947.
In other words Pakistan’s cynical manipulation of religion predates the Kashmir “dispute”.
Second, as borne out by numerous statements by leaders of Pakistan-based militant organizations such as Hafeez Saeed, leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba/Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the extremists’ goal is not limited to the liberation of Kashmir, but extends to the dismemberment of India, which is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious nation which is very similar to Indonesia.
In fact, while Schuurman regurgitates the Goebbelsian language about troop numbers and “repression” of the people in Jammu and Kashmir, she neglects to mention that despite the bloodshed of the last two decades, including the ethnic cleansing of Hindu minorities in 1989-1990, the Indian government has respected the special status given to Jammu and Kashmir.
Your readers might be surprised to know that Indian citizens cannot migrate to the state, cannot purchase land and property there and face hurdles in marrying their Kashmiri counterparts. The state not only enjoys greater political and economic freedom than Pakistani-administered Kashmir, and indeed Pakistan itself, but is also the second largest recipient of fiscal transfers (per capita) from the federal government.
This is not to deny that proxy war and insurgency has not created an effective divide between Kashmiris and the Indian state. But the idea of India is big enough to bridge this gap, as indeed has been happening since 2002.
Despite Schuurmans’ flawed arguments, I am sure that of all the countries in the region, Indonesians will appreciate the challenges of governing a diverse, deeply religious yet plural society.
Nitin Pai
New Delhi
