But let’s stretch a point here and assume that Kashmiris really want to be incorporated into Pakistan. Shouldn’t one, as a liberal, back a people’s right to self-determination? But self-determination isn’t a singular right that exists in a vacuum. Minority rights have to be a critical part of any liberal credo; a liberal state without minority rights is inconceivable. And here Kashmiri separatists’ record is truly appalling. They have terrorised Kashmiri Pandits into leaving the Valley. Close to 95 per cent of this once viable community have become victims of a forced exodus. Even as part of the present PRT that Roy glibly celebrates, migrant labourers from states like UP, MP and Bihar are being asked to quit the Valley. That renders any Gandhian pretensions that Kashmiri separatists might have absurd, as it does the support coming from a neo-Gandhian intellectual such as Roy.
To be sure, New Delhi is to blame for a lot that has gone wrong in Kashmir. There have been serious violations of human rights, and election results have been consistently manipulated. But that’s changing now. The 2002 assembly elections in J&K, held in the presence of international observers, have been acknow-ledged as free and fair. Let’s keep having international observers for future elections, till no one can call into question their probity. And let Hurriyat leaders contest them. They may have problems with the Indian Constitution, but at least they would have demonstrated that they are the genuine representatives of opinion in the Valley. Human rights, too, are under greater scrutiny than before — thanks not only to the restoration of the democratic process but also more competitive television coverage.
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3:35 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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