News & events
Ominous dark clouds hover on Kashmir as additional troops are deployed
This step came soon after the Lok Sabha passed a series of anti-people bills adding teeth to the Indian state’s draconian endeavours to gag the critical voices and suppress dissent, especially of those democratic and anti-fascist forces that have been critical of India’s Kashmir policy. According to a report in The Indian Express on 29 July 2019, the BJP top leadership has called a special meeting of its Jammu & Kashmir leaders in Delhi and the agenda was not disclosed to them. It’s feared that the meeting was called to divulge the BJP’s next moves in Jammu & Kashmir, which may include the agenda of abrogating Article 35A (gives power to the Jammu & Kashmir legislature to define a “permanent resident”) and Article 370 (autonomy of Jammu & Kashmir).
As President’s Rule has been in force in Jammu & Kashmir for more than a year now, therefore, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at its helm, is directly ruling the disputed territory without using any artifice of a state government, which had been historically India’s docile tool to rule over the indomitable Kashmiri people who want freedom from it. Anxiety and uncertainty are looming large over Kashmir, as the people and the local politicians are anticipating some sort of adventurous step by the Modi regime and the BJP over the Articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution.
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