by Tariq Shah
We now hear the Indian Prime Minster hailing the Kashmir vote as a ballot for "national integration". People are more interested in development and good governance than Azadi, we are told, while hundreds of reports in the Indian and the international media confirmed by India's own chief election commission-- suggest that people voted not for integration with India but for pani, bijli and sadak, without compromising their aspiration for a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue.
That people's participation in the highly controversial election will, at best temporarily, help the Indian propaganda machine, was a foregone conclusion. The cruel joke is that the otherwise prudent prime minister himself unleashed this propaganda. In doing so, he has heaped insult on the intelligence of those who shouted from the rooftops that they did not vote for integration with India but for the realization of their mundane daily needs jobs, water, roads, power, schools, and healthcare.
[read the rest here: http://www.countercurrents.org/shah080109.htm]Why People Defied the Election Boycott Call in Jammu and Kashmir
by Ghulam Nabi
The large scale turnout surprised the pro-freedom leadership and pro-Indian parties as well as the state of Pakistan and India. While the Indian state project the voter turnout in favor of Indian state, Kashmir based political parties including the ruling party believes this vote is for development, not for the resolution of Kashmir. New Delhi based news channels and news papers forgot their journalistic ethics which they often do, when it comes to the matter of projecting India as a biggest democracy, and Kashmir as an integral part of India. While some news papers and news channels projected the voter turn out as the defeat of separatist sentiment in Kashmir, while the others wrote Pakistan should stop now taking about Kashmir, as the kashmiris have shown faith on Indian democracy. Indian president in her address to the Nation on the eve of 60th Republic day of India also projected elections in Kashmir as the Kashmiri people’s faith on Indian polity. One wonders how she could forget the protests of hundreds of thousands of people in recent Amarnath controversy when people marched to the streets of Kashmir to demand for Aazadi (independence). On the other hand this was again the time when separatist like Mirvaiz Umar Farooq, first time confessed that the governance and resolution are two separate issues ,alas had separatist leadership realized it earlier we would not have lost hundreds of lives which were killed because they either contested election or casted their vote .
[read the rest here: http://www.countercurrents.org/nabi280109.htm]
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