Pakistan stunned, worried as India revokes Kashmir's autonomous rights

[EvilEyeFleegle]

As two other Nuclear powers inch closer to a long-overdue clash:

Pakistan stunned, worried as India retracts Kashmir’s autonomous rights


"Pakistan reacted with shock and anger Tuesday to India’s sudden decree revoking a 65-year-old law that had granted limited political autonomy to the disputed Himalayan border region of Kashmir.
Kashmir, long a flash point in contentious relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors, has seen 30 years of unrest, including guerrilla attacks, Muslim protests and charges of repression by Indian security forces. Now, Pakistani officials and others said, there are fears of worse to come.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a grim address to a special joint session of Parliament, accused India’s Hindu nationalist leadership of promoting a “racist ideology.” He said that after making numerous attempts at outreach, he has concluded that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government “took our overtures for peace as weakness.”
India’s action Monday, which stripped Kashmir of numerous rights, “is not a decision they have taken out of the blue,” Khan said. “It is ingrained in their ideology that puts Hindus above all other religions.” India will “now crack down even harder on the Kashmiri people,” he predicted, adding: “I fear they may initiate ethnic cleansing in Kashmir to wipe out the local population.”"

 

[Coyote]

This recent move attacks the very agreement made when Kashmir agreed to join India. Modi might run afoul of the courts in this.

Hindu nationalism, like other religious nationalist movements does not tend to treat “the other” well.

The Violent Toll of Hindu Nationalism in India

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

In new developments:

Inside Kashmir, Cut Off From the World: ‘A Living Hell’ of Anger and Fear

"On the streets of Srinagar, Kashmir’s biggest city, security officers tied black bandannas over their faces, grabbed their guns and took positions behind checkpoints. People glanced out the windows of their homes, afraid to step outside. Many were cutting back on meals and getting hungry.
A sense of coiled menace hung over the locked-down city and the wider region on Saturday, a day after a huge protest erupted into clashes between Kashmiris and Indian security forces.
Shops were shut. A.T.M.s had run dry. Just about all lines to the outside world — internet, mobile phones, even landlines — remained severed, rendering millions of people incommunicado.

Correspondents for The New York Times got one of the first inside views of life under lockdown in Kashmir and found a population that felt besieged, confused, frightened and furious by the seismic events of this week.
[Despite a communication blockade, Indian photographers managed to publish images of life inside Kashmir.]
People who ventured out said they had to beg officers to cross a landscape of sandbags, battered trucks and soldiers staring at them through metal face masks. Several residents said they had been beaten up by security forces for simply trying to buy necessities like milk.
India’s swift and unilateral decision Monday to wipe out Kashmir’s autonomy significantly raised tensions with its archrival, Pakistan, which also claims parts of Kashmir. The territory lying between the two nuclear armed nations was already one of Asia’s most dangerous and militarized flash points, smoldering for decades."

 

[longknife]

And it's not all of Kashmir. There's a part under Chinese control.