
In its struggle to subdue Kashmir, India is stripping it of liberties - salqadri
https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/08/17/in-its-struggle-to-subdue-kashmir-india-is-stripping-it-of-liberties
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m0llusk
Liberties are certainly an issue. By shutting down media and networks people
are being stripped of their visibility. This is being done to avoid
responsibility for currently actions being taken. Not being able to openly
discuss what you are doing is a clear sign you shouldn't be doing that.

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chewbacha
Wouldn’t freedom of assembly, speech, and press be grouped into liberties?

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m0llusk
Yes, but simply being visible is even more basic. Rendering someone invisible
is an attack upon their person that goes beyond limiting their liberty.

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shuaib
Will there be a time when in the modern world, no territory will be forcefully
occupied? Or do homosapiens lack the mental maturity to reach that point in
their evolution?

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Yetanfou
Homo Sapiens has evolved to the currently dominant species partly due to its
tendency to conquer and subdue - others of the same species, other species or
the landscape. If Homo Sapiens were to reach this "mental maturity" it would
most likely stagnate and, eventually, make space for another species to rise
in its place. War and strife may lead to suffering and loss but they also
provide a huge impetus to innovate on all fronts.

~~~
shuaib
Are you suggesting we need to keep a balance between war and peace? That too
much peace will lead to our extinction?

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PeterisP
Not necessarily to extinction but to loss of control - I mean, becoming
peaceful often means not investing in defence capability thus becoming weak,
and becoming weak means inviting violence by opportunistic neighbours or
inside groups.

It's a coordination problem - as any subgroup of homo sapiens that
unilaterally abstains from violent power risks simply being overtaken by
another subgroup that doesn't; you can abstain from _using_ violence, but you
can't unilaterally abstain from _participating_ in violence started by someone
else. "Si vis pacem, para bellum" will be true while humans are built the way
we are.

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newen
A good example is Tibet.

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InfinityByTen
BBC and Al-Jazeera are alleged to have used footage from inside POK and
claiming it as from Srinagar. Also clips from within Kashmir valley have no
evidence of protest against the revoked bills, rather a generic call for
"Azadi"(Freedom). It is not clear if the protest is representation of ground
reality.[Reference sadly only in Hindi,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV5w1BQCzi0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV5w1BQCzi0)]

Also the other protest accepted by India could be a different one altogether,
hence pictured differently and was possibly an actual one which happened days
after BBC released their video.

Lockdown in a terrorist, separatist and rebel location is a security measure
more than a curbing of Freedom of speech. The region has been constitutionally
provided for a democratic government, despite the split. This piece of
information somehow passes through the crevices of fractured media into
oblivion. China and Pakistan's stance is understandable since it is also a
measure to tackle the Roadway China has been building through Pakistan to
reach the ports and open up its trade routes. All of this with a funding of
terrorism and extremism.

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dragonwriter
> Lockdown in a terrorist, separatist and rebel location is a security measure
> more than a curbing of Freedom of speech.

It's curbing freedom of speech just as much if it is a security measure. The
pretext, however valid it might be, doesn't alter the essential character of
the act. Of course, calling a location “terrorist, separatist, and rebel”
because there happen to be terrorists, separatists, and/or rebels in it, and
using that to justify suppressive policy targeting the region as a whole is a
sure sign of the mindset of—even if the suppressive policies don't yet reach
the level of—collective punishment, a war crime in the context of interstate
war and a crime against humanity otherwise.

~~~
InfinityByTen
" because there happen to be terrorists, separatists, and/or rebels in it".
You agree? This is to counter the spread of fake news, rumours and minimize
the stone pelting. Because all of those things would happen in a place where
these elements are growing by the day, infiltrated and brainwashed. and then
if you use tear gas, pellet guns and other means to slow down mobs, then
people will cry again. I'd rather have people cry like this than some people
getting injured, hurt or worst killed, because they became a part of a mob
that became impossible to control.

I don't think the Government seeks to make this a lockdown permanent and
felicitate any kind of suppression. There's a provision for government the and
the place can continue to have it's own powers, just that it can't become
bigger than the country itself, which had become the norm.

The context does justify certain restraining measures. What sort of argument
is it that claims if you're wrapping someone in a blanket in the summer, it's
a crime, not looking at the fact that the person is burning? You have to take
certain measures till the situation calms down and people come to the level of
responding instead of reacting. If this becomes a constant thing like for
years or decades like the two bills had become, then yes, I see your concern.
A temporal restrain cannot be exaggerated to "war crimes".

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ignoramous
The Kashmir issue is an impasse. Neither will Pakistan relent its stake, nor
will India relinquish its position any further and unfortunately the Kashmiris
aren't going to get their freedom from either of these nuclear superpowers, at
least not without a lot of pain (they have been subject to too much, already).
The blood-shed and injustice is simply not fair, and it can't go on forever.

Despite autonomy granted by Pakistan to mountainous region of Kashmir and
Gilgit-Baltistan, they have allowed settlement of Pakistanis from other parts
of the country diluting the native population. Though revenue and governance
is legally kept aloof from Islamabad, the overarching influence of the
occupiers cannot be understated. Pakistani administered Kashmir and Gilgit-
Baltistan, for all intents and purposes, is a fully integrated territory. The
Pakistani constitution doesn't allot right to independence and pro-
independence political parties aren't allowed to contest elections. 'Azad
Kashmir', as Pakistani administered Kashmir is commonly known, is a misnomer.

India, in comparison, had afforded more political and legal leeway to the
Jammu and Kashmir apparatus. They curbed down on it heavily after the
insurgency of millitants in 1990s by slapping the territory with a god awful
_special powers_ military act viz. AFSPA. Since things aren't going to change
in the short term, it completely makes sense for the Indian interests to begin
to integrate Jammu and Kashmir along with adjoining buddhist regions of Leh
and Ladakh into the constitution. The protests from Kashmiris are valid,
justified, and correct; but I can't see India backing down from this. They
need to stabilise the region than leave it in a perennial limbo flanked by
oppressive and terrible military control on one side and the insurgent,
violent struggle on the other.

It is sad that erstwhile Indian PM, Morarji Desai and the then Pakistani
President, Zia ul Haq couldn't put this issue to bed in 1980s when they had
the chance. It will take leaders of incredible will, power, audacity, and sway
on both sides of the border to bring this issue to bed for once and for all:
Allegories will be written, songs will be sung, statues will be built, and
peace will return to this beautiful land. Someday. The Kashmiris deserve it.

Refs:

[https://rediff.com/news/2001/jul/11spec.htm](https://rediff.com/news/2001/jul/11spec.htm)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_(Special_Powers)_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_\(Special_Powers\)_Act)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azad_Kashmir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azad_Kashmir)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_mediation_of_the_Kashmir_di...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_mediation_of_the_Kashmir_dispute)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir_(princely_st...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir_\(princely_state\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir)

~~~
bobosha
Absolutely correct. The Kashmiris deserve peace and quiet, the closest both
sides came to an agreement was ca. 2003 between Vajpayee and Musharraf.
Unfortunately the stakes are too high for India to give up this strategic
place.

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valarauko
I think whatever strategic value Kashmir had to India is greatly outweighed by
its emotional value - much like Pakistan.

For India, Kashmir has been an enormous drain on its resources, both
financially & in lives lost. To accept that muslim Kashmiris are somehow
distinct from other Indians is to revive the Two Nation Theory that tore the
subcontinent apart, and flies in the face of the lived experience of the
multitude of diverse peoples who coexist in relative peace in India.

The supposed secret deal that Vajpayee & Musharraf had agreed to was to
finalize the Line of Control as the International Border, permanently
bifircating Kashmir between the two. I doubt it would have found much support
in either country, if the plans had been public.

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whydoyoucare
Unfortunately, the issue requires a significant historical context, which is
carefully stripped from most of these media articles to control the narrative.
:-/

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icsllaf
Do you really need context when a country is stripping its citizens of the
right of communication, movement, and religion?

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awadheshv
Is it justified to temporarily suspend rights/privileges of 100 people to stop
some 2 people from creating a situation where 2 other people lose their lives?

kashmir has been a breeding ground for islamic terrorists from quite some time
now. some consider it an achievement that there has not been any loss of life
(as a result of recent restrictions). there are vested political interest at
work from all sides involved and nobody cares about anybodys rights.

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icsllaf
The question should have one added word.

>Is it justified to temporarily suspend rights/privileges of 100 _innocent_
people

Which the answer is always no. Saying otherwise opens the door to more police
state factors encroaching upon the rights of the others. The same thing is
happening in Xinjiang against innocent muslims there and in no case is
unlawful detention without reasoning ever justified.

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awadheshv
you missed my point - rights went down the drain a long time ago.

