MEDIA-INDIA: Columnists Support Kashmir's Secession - Analysis by Rita Manchanda
According to Rita Arundhati Roy is not alone:
MEDIA-INDIA: Columnists Support Kashmir's SecessionAnalysis by Rita Manchanda
Yasin Malik, freedom leader, addressing a mass rally in Srinagar. Credit:Athar Parvaiz Bhat/IPSNEW DELHI, Sep 4 (IPS) - "Anti-national" is the charge hurled in India at the usual radical suspects who argue for the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people. But the recent outcrop of media columnists asking Indians to, "think the unthinkable", "let Kashmir go" and "we’d be better off", are respected mainstream editors of leading national dailies and top columnists. They include Vir Sanghvi of the mass-circulation the Hindustan Times, Jug Suraiya of the Times of India, popular columnist Swaminathan A. Aiyar and activist-writer Arundhati Roy. Moreover, according to a recent public opinion survey, these writers are reflecting growing popular sentiment. A Times of India survey of young professionals conducted across nine cities revealed a sizeable 30 percent polled feeling that if the economic and human costs were so high, India should not hold on to the Kashmir, though 59 percent felt they should hold on at any cost. Some two-thirds of those polled said ‘No’ to the question whether the state of Jammu and Kashmir [or part of it] should be allowed to secede. Poll analysts explained that contradiction as indicating that, while thinking on Kashmir remains unclear, Kashmir’s possible secession has, for the first time in years, ‘’become a matter of common debate."
MEDIA-INDIA: Columnists Support Kashmir's SecessionAnalysis by Rita Manchanda
Yasin Malik, freedom leader, addressing a mass rally in Srinagar. Credit:Athar Parvaiz Bhat/IPSNEW DELHI, Sep 4 (IPS) - "Anti-national" is the charge hurled in India at the usual radical suspects who argue for the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people. But the recent outcrop of media columnists asking Indians to, "think the unthinkable", "let Kashmir go" and "we’d be better off", are respected mainstream editors of leading national dailies and top columnists. They include Vir Sanghvi of the mass-circulation the Hindustan Times, Jug Suraiya of the Times of India, popular columnist Swaminathan A. Aiyar and activist-writer Arundhati Roy. Moreover, according to a recent public opinion survey, these writers are reflecting growing popular sentiment. A Times of India survey of young professionals conducted across nine cities revealed a sizeable 30 percent polled feeling that if the economic and human costs were so high, India should not hold on to the Kashmir, though 59 percent felt they should hold on at any cost. Some two-thirds of those polled said ‘No’ to the question whether the state of Jammu and Kashmir [or part of it] should be allowed to secede. Poll analysts explained that contradiction as indicating that, while thinking on Kashmir remains unclear, Kashmir’s possible secession has, for the first time in years, ‘’become a matter of common debate."
posted by temporal at 9/05/2008
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