Apna Bazar, Vashi

The '8 pm' PM

The Prime Minister of India's addressed the nation at 8pm, a few days after a not so secretive and unparliamentry paper work that changed the status of J&K state to a Union Territory and bifurcating it. A group of taxiwallahs watched the speech on a news channel as people went about their work on a rainy day. Everyone sighed relief because he did not announce something as disruptive as Demonetisation that would've created chaos and confusion. Instead of instant disruption, we have a slow motion crash in the long term and will cost us a lot of our tax money.

This blogger feels that the man who has no original ideas of his own is copying a game straight out of Israel's playbook and my thoughts on the issue was echoed today in Times of India by Swaminomics.

The next step: A West Bank in Kashmir?

He says,

"I have long advocated a plebiscite in Kashmir, allowing the Kashmiris to split way if they so choose, as the only moral, liberal solution. Alas, all political parties reject that…

Continuing with Article 370 of the Constitution — as many liberals and political parties want — would mean continuing the decades-old military occupation of an unwilling people, replete with human rights violations, with no end in sight. This is, frankly, a non-liberal non-solution.

Abolishing Article 370 and converting Jammu and Kashmir into a Union Territory to gradually force demographic change that produces a Hindu majority will accelerate militarization of Kashmir, greatly increase human rights violations, and worsen Kashmiri alienation and insurrection. This, too, is a non-liberal non-solution in the foreseeable future. However, in the distant future, maybe 50 years hence, it may just produce a stable Hindu majority equilibrium, though that is far from certain" 

"The most likely BJP approach is to mimic Israel’s Jewish settlements in Palestine. Fortified Hindu settlements plus high walls and check-posts can keep spreading, gradually converting Muslim-majority areas into isolated regions cut off from one another. Settlements will probably start by carving out Hindu-majority areas in and around Srinagar, just as Israel did in and around Jerusalem. Later settlements can be expanded to rural areas by acquiring entire villages and giving this land free to ex-servicemen willing to settle there and act as a trained self-defence force.

A demographic takeover can be much faster in Kashmir than in Palestine. Jammu already has a Hindu majority. The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir can acquire a Hindu majority in two or three decades of sustained settlement.

This will, of course, mean a militant Kashmiri rebellion backed by Pakistan and other Muslim states. It will mean decades of violence, as in Palestine. The BJP is ready for that. So are many other parties. Do not expect Congress resistance to be overwhelming. After all, the BJP is completing a takeover that Nehru began."

The next step: A West Bank in Kashmir? 

Mood of the nation if you are a chest beating Indian male: 

Feeling, if you are a Kashmiri or not of the chosen gender and caste of the ruling party in New Delhi: