These are excerpts from an editorial of daily greater Kashmir.
"Kashmir has been turned into a huge prison where everyone is under arrest. It's going bad to worse. As a consequence of it, public suffers. Infact the curfew and the governor's administration have become synonymous. The curfew is imposed all over the Kashmir valley when Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh or Congress chairperson has to visit some border area or some town near the LoC more than hundred kilometers away from the city of Srinagar city or other major towns. People are forced to remain indoors if some political humbug representing some political party that has not even an office in Kashmir addresses some hirelings inside some house behind the sandbag bunkers. It has been three to four days curfew in a week in the Kashmir valley ever since the governor administration took over. More than seven million Kashmiris have been virtually imprisoned for the past four months. The life of the people has been made miserable on all counts. The closure of shops and business establishments has hit the economy of the people. Scores of the daily-wage-earners, the smalltime pavement vendors, hawkers, cart pullers and laborers are living a famished life. The unprecedented and unnecessary curfews have been affecting the academic career of tens of thousands of student. Many students failed to reach the examination halls because of the sudden imposition of the curfew. The sick failing to reach the hospitals and succumbing are routine stories. The imposition of unnecessary and undeclared curfew in Kashmir is not just an administrative arrangement for preventing any disturbances but it smacks of some conspiracy against the Kashmir economy. Some unscrupulous elements infamous for hating Kashmir have been deriving sadistic pleasure by pacing Kashmir valley unnecessarily under curfew. The government in office is yet to explain what prompts it to place the Kashmir valley continuously under curfew. There is no war like or alarming law and order situation at present that would necessitate restricting people to their homes. Placing Kashmir under permanent curfew is no administrative efficiency but failure. The situation as obtains in the state in the wake of the imposition of the curfew for about past five months is the not only biggest human rights violation but grave crime against humanity that has no precedence. The situation as obtains not only deserves attention by the international human rights organization but a condemnation by every conscious and conscientious citizen of the world."
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The Problem Is Politics
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By taking such extreme positions, the two coalitions have managed to trap India's politics. Neither side now has room to maneuver. If the UPA maintains its current approach, terrorism will continue. If it switches course and toughens up by enacting another strong antiterror law, for example, it will seem to admit responsibility for four years of woolly-headed policy and the loss of thousands of lives. No government could afford that in an election year. (India goes to the polls sometime before May 2009.)
Thus rather than fight terror at its roots, the UPA has used the recent capture of a suspected Hindu terror ring, including an Army lieutenant colonel and a woman preacher, to try to embarrass the BJP. The BJP, for its part, has called the whole thing a fabrication aimed to help the UPA retain Muslim support. Terror has been politicized from both ends. And the result is that India's ability to prevent or fight attacks against its economy, icons and population has been weakened dramatically. The intelligence agencies and police forces feel orphaned, with one side calling them partisan and the other, incompetent.
Meanwhile, the country's leaders seem incapable of transcending cynical competition. India's politics have grown so bitter that the heads of Congress and the BJP can scarcely talk to each other. This has made it impossible to establish a unified position against terror, or to even enact a strong but reasonable antiterror law after a healthy debate in Parliament. India's democracy has always been its strength. But in recent years, its politics have become a deadly weakness. The result has been one stunning terrorist success after another.
Gupta is editor in chief of the Indian Express.
© 2008
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