Truth About Kashmir - Francois Gautier

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[color=#333333]THE TRUTH ABOUT KASHMIR[/color]

[color=#333333]"I remember once flying from Srinagar to Delhi via Jammu on an Indian Airlines flight during the worst times in Kashmir. I sat next to a Muslim lady from the Valley, who was taking her daughter to a convent school in Jammu. We got talking and seeing I was a journalist and foreigner, she became more open. When I asked her what Kashmiri Muslims from the Valley wanted, she simply said "we want to be with Pakistan". I asked her why and she replied without an hesitation " we feel safer with Islam". She was nice, educated and not all aggressive or militant. And I believed what she said, because that was what I had seen in the Valley during so many years of covering it: from the retired High court judge to the Shikara boatsman, they all uttered the same thing as the lady in the plane. Even today, when you meet all these Kashmiri shopkeepers, from Delhi to Pune, to Pondichery, who do business in India, when no Indian - specially Hi[/color][color=#333333]ndus - are allowed to do business in the Valley, for fear of being killed. If you are foreigner and get them talking, they will all say the same thing: "We are not Indians / We do not want to be part of India/We don't like India. Only the Government of India wants us to believe that ordinary Kashmiris are fed-up with terrorism and want peace. Kashmiris are businessmen and they will trade even with their enemies, but that's all. India should look at how China handles its problems with its minorities, by populating troubled areas with its own people, instead of pouring billions of crore of rupees in Kashmir and in effect subsiding terrorism. Kashmir is an extremely important geo-strategic state for India, without mentioning the fact that it is the birthplace of Shivaism and specially holy for Hindus since millenniums. If India lets go of Kashmir, it will be surrounded from all sides -from a height by Tibet & Kashmir, from the land by Burma, where the Chinese are having strongholds, to Afghanistan, from Pakistan, to Bangladesh."[/color]


[color=#333333]- Francois Gautier[/color]