New Delhi
Former Indian minister for petroleum and natural gas and member of the Congress party, Mani Shankar Aiyar has warned that if the measures taken by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah on August 5, 2019 aimed at endangering the demographic composition of the territory are not rectified, “an intifada and even worse can overtake” Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Mani Shankar Aiyar in an article published in The Wire said, “This is the extent to which Modi and Shah have driven seven million Kashmiris up the wall. ….This was not the situation on August 4, 2019. It is the position today. That is the measure of what the Modi-Shah regime has wrought in Jammu and Kashmir. The nation’s unity and integrity are under threat as never before.”
When asked about the solution, he said: “Just revive the permanent constitutional status of J&K; return to them their statehood as it existed till last year; …start again trusting the Muslims; stop branding Kashmiris traitors; play fair with the Kashmiris …That is all we have to do to draw down the army and eventually send it back to guarding our borders.”
Reiterating that Articles 370 and 35A are permanent features of Indian constitution, he said, “Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have just created a Palestine on our northern border.”
I have waited nearly 14 months for that to happen….The authorities were so confident that the people had learned to live without 370/35A that they even released Omar and Farooq Abdullah (but not Mehbooba Mufti, their erstwhile ally) and allowed them to meet other political leaders to issue a second Gupkar Declaration on 22 August 2020. …”
“Perhaps, therefore, the intifada I had predicted will take time to erupt. I recall that for 40 years after Al-Naqba (‘The Catastrophe’ of 1948), there was no intifada. The Palestinians were relying on their Arab brothers to liberate them. The “Arab brothers” spectacularly failed them. Worse, one by one, they began deserting the Palestinian cause and listing to the siren song of Israel. It was only when the Palestinians realised that they were alone that they started the intifada. No intifada can be made overnight. They have to be driven to it. Are Modi-Shah driving them to it,” he said.—KMS
