Back in 1980, I visited Kashmir with my parents. This was before the troubles, and it remains perhaps the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.
Last week, India’s PM, Modi, abrogated clauses in the Indian constitution relating to Kashmir, which does not allow non-Kashmiris to buy property. As Margolis says:
Modi is clearly copying Israel’s Netanyahu by encouraging non-Muslims to buy up land and squeeze the local Muslim population. Welcome to the Mideast Conflict East. China is also doing similar ethnic inundation in its far western, largely Muslim, Xinjiang (Sinkiang) region.
Dai Lake, Kashmir
By their friends, you shall know them. I’ve never liked Modi, his demonitization was incredibly damaging to the Indian economy and hurt the poorest Indians. That he spends all his time buddying up to Israel’s Netanyahu tells you all you need to know about whether he’s more good than bad. (If it doesn’t, you need to self-reflect a bit.)
But Indians did vote for Modi in droves. It’s another episode of people, who are scared and have shitty lives, voting for the tough guy, thinking he’ll be tough for them, rather than for his core supporters. In Modi’s case, hard-right Hindus.
It’s worth remembering that the UN called for a referendum in Kashmir and that India never held it, because they know that, given a choice, Kashmiris would rather be part of Pakistan.
So, ethnic cleansing time! This is the world we live in, more and more, a place where the weak do as they must and the powerful do as they will (ever has it been thus, but sometimes it is less thus). For now, India’s the powerful one. Soon enough, it won’t be–because this BS is a distraction from actual existential threats to India, mainly around water. I can’t think of any major nation which is going to get hit harder than India.
Meanwhile, of course, both the Pakistani and Indian militaries are on hair-trigger alert, and both have nuclear weapons. Because India has a much larger army, if war does break out, Pakistan either goes to nukes or loses.
Brilliant.