India needs Azadi from tinted vision

By Khalid Awan

The Kashmiri youth want to get rid of Indian yoke come what may be the cost. Their demonstration of frustration and anger in the face of bullets and curfews bear testimony to this fact. Indian authorities, right from the beginning, have been blaming Pakistan for fomenting trouble in Kashmir and instigating the Kashmiri youth to rise in revolt against the Indian sovereignty. But the facts speak for themselves; the struggle of Kashmiri youth is indigenous.

The Indian Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, repeated the same mantra recently, saying that Pakistan based organisations were behind the ongoing agitation in the Kashmir Valley and the protesting youth were being supported by Pakistan. However, an opinion poll conducted by the Outlook magazine of India, in association with the Marketing and Development Research Associates (MDRA), has totally nullified the Indian propaganda, while exposing some of the hard facts about the Kashmir movement.

The poll conducted in Srinagar revealed that 75 percent of those polled did not see Pakistan behind the protests in the occupied territory and believe that it is an indigenous struggle. A majority of the respondents recorded their anger against the New Delhi government, saying that it was responsible for the whole mess.

A majority has described yearning of liberation amongst the Kashmiri masses as the main factor of the current situation. For how long, India will succeed in hiding the truth and gruesome ground realities by blaming Pakistan for its wrongdoings?

Indian authorities must realise that they are themselves responsible for current deteriorating situation in the IOK, and throwing muck on someone else will neither improve the situation nor let them succeed in achieving their false claims. The opinion poll of the Outlook magazine must serve as an eye opener for India as well as the international community. The writing on the wall is what noted human rights activist and author Arundhati Roy said, “India needs azadi (freedom) from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs azadi from India.”