Thu 15 August 2019:
On India’s independence day, Narendra Modi defends decision to strip disputed region of autonomy as lockdown continues.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed his “path-breaking” move to strip the Kashmirregion it administers of its autonomy in a strongly worded speech marking India’s independence day.
Parts of Indian-administered Kashmir – the other part is administered by regional rival Pakistan – have been under lockdown and a near communications blackout since August 4, with freedom of movement severely restricted, affecting near four million people.
A day later, Modi’s government scrapped Article 370 of the constitution that granted the Muslim-majority region its special status and split Jammu and Kashmir state into two “union territories” to be controlled by New Delhi.
Speaking from India’s Mughal-era Red Fort in the capital New Delhi, Modi said “fresh thinking” was needed after seven decades of failure to ensure harmony in the Kashmir region.
“We do not believe in creating problems or prolonging them. In less than 70 days of the new government, Article 370 has become history. And in both houses of parliament, two-thirds of the members supported this step,” he said.
“Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh will become a big inspiration for India’s growth journey, comfort, progress and peace.” Ladakh is the newly carved-out union territory.
C Uday Bhaskar, director at the Society for Policy Studies and a former Indian naval officer, told Al Jazeera that the challenge before Modi now is to persuade the Kashmiris that “whatever he is saying would be implemented in a very earnest manner”.
Reporting from New Delhi, Al Jazeera’s Faiz Jamil said the plan to strip Kashmir of its special status was conceived decades ago.
“Long before the speech, long before these events that we saw that began last week, this had been the goal, having Kashmir’s autonomy struck,” he said.
“This was the objective of the Hindu right, the ideological mentors of the BJP that Narendra Modi belongs to.”
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