Where is the promise of dialogue with Kashmir? | The Indian Express

Where is the promise of dialogue with Kashmir? | The Indian Express

Written by Yashwant Sinha |Updated: August 9, 2019 9:18:32 am

The writer is a former Union external affairs and finance minister.

Where is the promise of dialogue with Kashmir?

Jammu and Kashmir: The government may have given up on dialogue in Kashmir. But people of Kashmir must know that there are still people in this country for whom it is an article of faith.

Jammu and Kashmir bifurcation and reducing its parts to the status of union territories was never part of BJP’s agenda. (Illustration: C R Sasikumar)

Article 370 has gone. So has Article 35A. The state of Jammu and Kashmir has ceased to exist. It has been downgraded and split into two union territories, Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. The first without a legislature and the second with a legislature; like the city states of Delhi and Puducherry. The decision of the government has been received with wild rejoicing in the the rest of the country while Jammu and Kashmir remains completely shut down and under the heel of the boots of the security forces.