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Indian government, Press Information Bur~au, rea.ds: "yea;n!ng for moksha (. .. ..devotees to the challenging heights of Kashmir Bfld will be a f1tt1ng gesture of so11a1 .

soldiers who have been fighting the enemy to defend our borders". Thus, what is otherwise a .

pilgrimage of the Shaivite Hindus has been elevated to represent a patriotic enterprise -against the.'enemy .

(tacitly read as Muslim Kashmiris and Islam). In this sensitive and politically volatile region, where Kashmiris as it is experience alienation and fear of an .

eclipse of their identity, the effects of the Indian Government promoting a Hindu pilgrimage as a patriotic duty are deeply divisive and disastrous. The agenda behind the aggressive promotion of the yatra Is made all the more clear by the fact that communal fascist parties like the BJP have limited the numbers of pilgrims to Gangotri and Goumukh to 150 persons per day on environmental grounds, while pushing .

for a continuous increase in the period and the number of pilgrims at the Amarnath yatra: an obvious case of communally motivated double standards. The Recent Flare Up And R·epression The communally and politically motivated decision of the Congress-PDP Government ofJammu and Kashmir .

to transfer forest land to the SASS is having costly repercussions in the State, with the added danger that it .

may emerge as a communal agenda nationally. The recent flare-up, which is a direct result of the carefully crafted communalisation ofthe Amarnath yatra, has continued for several weeks. Jammu has witnessed communal violence against its Muslim residents; curfew has been imposed in four of the eight districts of Jammu; Srinagar has been under siege; Kashmir Valley has been blockaded. creating economic strangulation and starvation in .

the valley. With fruit growers hit by the blockade, protests escalated again in the Valley, met again with police firing which claimed many lives including that of senior Hurriyat leader Abdul Aziz. The unrest in the Valley escalated; further firing by police and paramilitary on Aziz's angry supporters claimed more lives all over the .

Valley; and indefinite curfew has been imposed all over the Valley for the first time since 1990. This explosive . .

's top leadership continuing situation and high degree of repression is showing no signs of abating, with the BJP.

to fan up communal flames over the episode, projecting the revocation of the land transfer as an ..injustice" to .

the Amarnath Yatra pilgrims. .

Jammu and Kashmir: Two types of Stereotyping .

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'anti-national' elements, Jammu has also been given a commu-.

If Kashmir is being portra?ed as the hub of nal stereotype albeit of the "nationalist" Hindu colour. The emigration of Kashmir pundits from the valley has .

been grossly misrepresented and communalized and used by the Sangh Parivar to the hilt to create a commu-nal atmosphere. The deep-seated sense of neglect in Jammu, and repression and alienation in Kashmir has not been addressed by successive Governments and political forces. Instead communal polarization is being .

sharpened by the mainstream political parties who are trying to project the grievances of the Jammu residents .

nationalist' character (protests being organized with the tricolour in hand) .

as having a Hindu and therefore ''anti-national' and specifically, .

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while the alienation of the people of Kashmir is being portrayed as 'Muslim', .

Pakistani'. The BJP's all-out communal build-up has received fodder from the opportunisms of the .

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Congress and PDP. So much so, that Ghulam Nabi Azad recently claimed that "protests against the .

land transfer in the Kashmir valley had been funded by Islamic countries"!!! .

s brave declarations of secularism in Parliament, has The National Conference, despite Omar Abdullah'.

s communal agenda in the State. All in all, the mainstream political done its share to promote the BJP'.

parties In the State seem all set to push the situation dangerously towards the trifurcation of the .

State on communal lines -an agenda openly avowed by the BJP in the past and proposed by various .

think-tanks of the United States of America like the Kashmir Study Group. .

The spate of indiscriminate firing by police and paramilitary forces on protestors in Kashmir and the ongoing economic blockade with the motive to strangulate the valley and its people, smacks of the Indian State's habitual .

repressive and callous chauvinism. .

With the opportunist creation and handling of the Amarnath controversy and the firing on Kashmiri protestors. .

the Valley once again reverberates with slogans of azaadi, while Jammu wants to break free from the perceived .

"domination" of the valley. The Congress and the UPA government appear completely clueless while the BJP .

sees the unrest in Jammu as a promising passport to a political revival of the Hindutva brigade in the region as well as in the larger national arena. True to its tradition and character, the Congress has gifted the BJP a communally potent agenda on a platter, in the process doing far-reaching harm to the sensitive ·region of Jammu and Kashmir. .

It is high time that we speak out against such unmitigated communally motivated state terfor and economic .

strangulati?n ~gainst the people of Kashmir with the devious ploy to quell their democratic aspirations, rights, lives and llveflhoods' .

Sucheta De, Gen. SecyAISA, JNU .

Awadhesh, President, AISA, JNU .

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Moksha by aaron briese