Assurance of ‘permanent solution’ to kashmir issue brave words from rajnath singh

Assurance of ‘permanent solution’ to kashmir issue brave words from rajnath singh

We will come up with a permanent solution to end this issue, said home minister Rajnath Singh, referring to Kashmir. These are brave words and hopeful ones, especially in the present context. The present context is not just one of running battles between security forces and small, but diverse, groups of Kashmiri youngsters ranging from schoolgirls to unemployed youth, an indefinitely postponed by-election from Kashmir to the Lok Sabha and frequent terrorist attacks. The present context is also marked by China’s plan to treat Pakistan’s occupation of a part of Kashmiri territory as permanent and valid by building logistical infrastructure running through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) as part of the CPEC, itself a part of China’s grandiose Belt Road Initiative. What proposed transport links between POK and Gwadar, the port on the Baloch coast that China is building, would do is to offer Kashmir access to a port through Pakistan.
The separatists would hail this welcome addition to their propaganda armoury. That is a minor irritant compared to China’s proposal to build facts on the ground that would assert Pak sovereignty over parts of Kashmir that lawfully belong to India. Another part of Kashmir’s present context is an ill-informed move by the new US administration to meddle in the bilateral Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. Some members of the Shanghai CooperationOrganisation that India would formally join next month also harbour dreams of mediating over Kashmir. The home minister would need to tackle the Pak deep state’s determination to thwart any attempt at rapprochement by the civilian administration and use terror as a strategic tool, dissuade China, the US and others from meddling in Kashmir and politically trounce the separatists in Srinagar, to find his permanent solution. The biggest challenge, of course, is to win over public opinion in the Valley. The most doable part of this agenda is for the home ministry to take vigorous measures to put an end to assaults on Kashmiris working and studying elsewhere in India.