Has India lost it on Kashmir? The intifada rages on ...

Looks like even the Israel-Palestine issue might be settled before peace returns to Kashmir.

If I were an athlete preparing to compete in the upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, I would rather stay home, consistent with the advice from some of the countries.  With Kashmir exploding, Maoists threatening the inland, and Islamic militants always eager to blow themselves up, it might just about be safer to stay home. (editor: don't forget the threat of Dengue Fever too)

Kashmir is an unresolved issue all the way from 1947, and now we have youth who have known nothing but protests and massive Indian military and paramilitary presence.

Such a tense situation means, and to no real surprise, that the news of Quran burning in America became another rallying cry in Kashmir.  And, as protesters often do throughout the world, the American flag and an effigy of the President were burnt.  Like Obama or the American government had anything to do with the nutcase pastor of a flock of forty.

According to the BBC:

In Monday's protests, thousands of people defied curfews and took to the streets, chanting anti-India and anti-US slogans and burning effigies of US President Barack Obama, our correspondent says.

An angry mob set fire to several government buildings and a Protestant-run school, as well as attacking a police station, he adds.
Police fired live ammunition to break up the demonstrations, and confirmed that 18 civilians had been killed.
Several of the deaths were reported to have occurred in Budgam district, with others reported in the village of Tangmarg, where the school was burned.
One of those killed was a student aged 12 or 13, our correspondent says.

 One might wonder why the Protestant-run school had to be burnt ... But, a mob does what a mob does.

As eager beaver teenagers, my friends and I debated about Kashmir and my views haven't changed much: I don't understand why a territory and its peoples ought to be subjugated under military force if they don't want to be in the union. But, even then I was in the minority--the rest couldn't let go of Kashmir.

Perhaps India's approach to the Kashmir situation would have been different if Jawaharlal Nehru had been from, say, Bihar or Andhra, as opposed to hailing from Kashmir?  (Yes, Nehru was born in Allahabad, but was one of the Kashmiri Pandit families.)

Well, one can't re-write history. But, at this moment, it certainly looks like the Indian government and politics have completely lost any control of how the rest of the Kashmir story will be written. Let us hope that a lot more lives will not be lost, and not a lot more property will be damaged.