Word: indianism
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...India and Pakistan fought over Kashmir after partition, and a Kashmiri separatist movement has been fighting to eject Indian troops from the region since 1989. The separatists' trump card has always been the threat to join Pakistan, which supported them with guns and guerrillas. India eventually silenced the separatists with force, but Amarnath has reignited their movement. The cries of "Azadi" (Freedom) and the Pakistani flags waving above the crowd of 500,000 people at one particularly fierce protest on Aug. 18 made the point that Kashmiris were once again ready to leave India...
...says aloud. Through military force, acts of Parliament and two wars with Pakistan, India has held on tightly to Kashmir, and its attachment has always been a bit romantic. It isn't just the beauty of its lush valleys and jewel-like lakes. Kashmir is a test of the Indian national idea. Insisting that Muslim-majority Kashmir should and can be a part of Hindu-majority India speaks to the notion, admirable but perhaps naive, that a coherent, secular democracy can be fashioned out of dozens of different languages and faiths. To hold on to Kashmir, even by force...
...What does it say about India that people are losing faith, or losing interest, in Kashmir? It is a sign of frustration, first of all, with India's political failure to live up to that promise of unity in diversity. Over the years, the Indian government has poured millions of dollars of aid into Kashmir and spent millions more putting down the separatist insurgency. But it fails to understand that peace isn't just the absence of fighting. It's in the political details: withdrawing the half-million Indian troops who still occupy Kashmir, developing the local economy and, most...
...Indian government hasn't addressed these tough issues, leaving Kashmir angry and restive. And so all it took to shatter Kashmir's fragile peace was one blunder - the tone-deaf move this summer to transfer those 100 acres of land near Amarnath. It set off not one but two ferocious protest movements - by Hindu nationalists and by Kashmiri separatists - who have fueled each other's frenzy...
...course, it's equally unlikely that any Indian government would actually let go of Kashmir. But if India loses its quixotic attachment to Kashmir, the state could become just like any other place in India where millions of grievances go unheard as a busy nation turns its attention elsewhere. And the romance would end, as romances usually do, in indifference...