A Himalayan Blunder!

It is not that I have forgotten Kashmir after blogging this post.  Not.At.All.  It continues to preoccupy me so much that I have two different threads going on Twitter.  (One and two.)

Ten years ago--yep, in 2009--I quoted from an article:

the use of religion for political ends has substantially increased during the last few decades. Such a development has serious implications for a secular state and society. Retrieving the secular character of the public sphere is therefore imperative; otherwise its religious character is likely to impinge upon the functions of the state.

To which I added this as an example of how this affects the functions of the state: "The rabidly open anti-Muslim rhetoric of the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who oversaw the worst communal violence."

Here we are in 2019.  In the ten years since, mOdi not only became India's Prime Minister, but also recently won a landslide majority and secured a second term, which gave him enough political capital to revoke Kashmir's special status in the federal structure.

Soon after mOdi became the Prime Minister, when the nationalists decided to spend a fortune on a colossal statue, I wrapped up that post with:

Maybe I should simply give up on my old country and avoid the heartaches altogether.  Oh well, easier said than done!

It is easier said than done!

I wrote in a work email to a colleague who wondered if a lack of response from me was because I was in India: "I am very much here in the US, and following with a heavy heart the unfolding of events in Kashmir, and the tragic mass shootings."

It is like the line from Brokeback Mountain: "I wish I knew how to quit you."

I am not at all surprised that most of India's Hindus support this mOdi move to annex Jammu and Kashmir in one sweep.  Most of the extended family, the old school mates, and even the "worldly" former commenter at this blog, are mOdi supporters, like how many among my neighbors are tRump voters.  It is strange that I find myself in such company!

Pankaj Mishra, who wrote extensively about India's militarization of Kashmir in his younger years, connects the political dots between Brexit and this Kashmir situation (and tRump too.)  Drunk on power, they blithely smash up fragile constitutional arrangements, Mishra writes.

I wish I were still in touch with an old graduate school acquaintance, who was from Kashmir.  "G.P.".  Unless I want to forget, I suppose I never forget people and their names.  She was a couple of years ahead of me in the doctoral program.  Her brother then came to the US for his graduate schooling in engineering.  Even then--three decades ago--they talked about how they could not live and prosper in Kashmir and slowly the extended family was emigrating away from Kashmir.  Perhaps they also often utter the same line:  "I wish I knew how to quit you."