Modi in Kashmir

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's day-long visit on Sunday to occupied Kashmir, where he launched several development projects, was aimed at asserting control but ended up proving the opposite. All shops and businesses remained closed on the call of the Joint Resistance Leadership. A day ahead of his visit, resistance leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Syed Ali Geelani and Yasin Malik were put under house arrest and scores of others detained to stop any anti-India protests. Internet, mobile and other services were suspended in the Valley, and residents told to stay home. According to media reports, thousands of armed security personnel and commandos in flak jackets spread out across the disputed region, closing off roads with razor wire and iron barricades to prevent protests. The place in Srinagar, a convention centre, where Modi inaugurated some education projects, looked like a fortress. None of these measures would have been necessary had Pakistan been instigating trouble in occupied Kashmir, as alleged by the Modi government.
Since July 2016, when security forces killed Burhan Wani, the 22- year-old popular leader of the freedom struggle, triggering a new wave of protests against Indian rule, hundreds of unarmed Kashmiris have lost their lives, dozens blinded in one or both eyes from pellet gun injuries, and countless others arrested and subjected to extreme torture and custodial killings. Yet during freedom fighters clashes with the security forces, hundreds of people routinely come out to protect them at the risk of their own lives by forming a protective ring around the houses hiding them. It is worth recalling that two years ago, a group of concerned citizens, headed by veteran BJP leader and former external affairs minister, Yashwant Sinha, following several visits to the Valley released a report, which among other things noted "the anger in the rural areas is palpably greater than in Srinagar, and raw", and further that young Kashmiris are ever more eager to die resisting everyday high-handiness than submit to a life of discrimination and humiliation. In June of last year, the UN Human Rights Office in its first-ever report on the bloody campaign, described in detail the atrocities committed by Indian security forces with impunity, recommending an independent international investigation into rights violations and abuses. Unsurprising, New Delhi rejected its contents as being "fallacious, tendentious, and motivated", and continues to defy the call for an independent investigation.
Meanwhile, the ruling BJP has been unable to deal with the irrepressible situation. It withdrew support from its PDP ally Mehbooba Mufti's government, imposing governor's rule, and then president's rule. Even Mufti has said "we cannot treat J and K as enemy territory. There is no room for a muscular policy in the state." Two former chief ministers, Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, have also have been saying India is losing Kashmir, advising New Delhi - like the Sinha report - to start talking with the Kashmir leaders and Pakistan, and find a political solution rather than resort to military means. That though is unlikely to happen as long as Narendra Modi is the prime minister.