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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (42702)	5/24/2002 3:21:14 PM
From: arun gera	Respond to of 50167

> but the Indian government was not a Lockean paradise for Kashmiris for many, many years. > Did Mr. Cohen visit Kashmir before 1980? It was certainly a paradise and so much better than what it has become. Kashmiris got favorable treatment by India. The food rations were subsidized. Srinagar got its television broadcast station around 1971, while a big city like Madras only got a TV station around 1975. Tourists (real tourists not terror tourists) used to flood the valley every summer. Tourism was the valley's main income source. Every hindi movie would have the token dance sequence in Pehalgam or Gulmarg. >India is the world's largest democracy, but has its flaws (like other democracies). > Indian democracy has big flaws. And Kashmiris are not the only one suffering. India's political system is too dependent on the center. And the center has been dominated by the politicians from the Hindi-speaking north. And the Indian Govt. is so slow in moving forward. They ignore the problems in various states till they get out of control. But the important question is whether the Indian democracy is getting better or worse? It was not until 1960s that some sections of people got their civil rights in the US. That was about two hundred years after US independence. Meanwhile, in the last 50 years or so, India has seen a population increase from 300 million to 1 billion. (Added twice the current population of US). Hundreds of princely states were integrated into a republic. The various regencies from British times were reconstituted into states. Many regions have been granted statehood in the last 10 years alone. India has been attacked by Pakistan a few times. Has been attacked by China. The neighborhood in comparison is not doing very well either. Pakistan is still struck with the Islamic theme, when Islam could not keep East and West Pakistan together. Islam has difficulty keeping the Sindhis, Baluchis, and the Afghans together even inside Pakistan. Sri Lanka has a lot more potential. But they are having problems resolving just one ethnic problem. Burma, Nepal, and Bhutan are not showing many signs of progress. >The problem is not labels, but how people are treated. > Exactly. And how were the Kashmiri Hindus treated by the Kashmiri separatists? I do not want to make this a Hindu/Muslim issue. The point is that Hari Singh ruled over Jammu and Kashmir. And any future solution should include the will and safety of the Hindu Kashmiris and the people residing in Jammu and Laddakh. They certainly are not interested in being with Pakistan or the Kashmiri militants. Arun