AAP statements display lack of tact, acumen and expertise

AAP statements display lack of tact, acumen and expertise

 

When Rajiv Gandhi was anointed Prime Minister of India in end 1984, with not much experience in state craft but being a modern and honest person wanting to change the system of government, he collected around him his friends from private sector, Doon school and others. He also talked about cleansing the system in his famous AICC Session speech in Bombay. It soon proved that India was not easy to govern with its diversities, its vested interests and with lack of political acumen and political experience of the people surrounding him. I think the editor of seminar had called the system 'baba log 'government.

 

The AAP party has almost no one with enough experience beyond how to organize political party and elections in the city Republic of Delhi, where they have done well in assembly elections because of general public revulsion against the current political parties, including BJP. The BJP was hoping to easily get into power, but its dream has been brought to a halt by the performance of AAP party in Delhi and future plans. So you see BJP spokesmen and women, on India's corporate channels, which were till early December last year, hoping to become ministers or get positions of power, now looking very frustrated and unhappy. BJP has collected a large number of passionate speakers.

 

Apart from a statement without info by its legal expert Prashant Bhushan, on the question of referendum in JK, one after another statements are based on euphoria, like Kejriwal becoming the Prime Minister of India. One Kumar Vishwash , to fight against Congress Sehzada ,even said something against the historic martyrdom  of Shia Imam Hussein .Coming to power too soon has gone to the heads of these youngsters with little political wisdom or experience. They believed that they will the conqueror of the world. It was only a matter of time.

 

 Unless they get hold of some experienced professional and political personalities who have fought against corruption and have long governing experience, even in Delhi government, very soon, they will have problems. It appears that for the moment Congress party is quite happy that AAP is providing a focus and in urbanized areas and damage the prospects of Modi becoming the Prime Minister of India.

 

Congress hopes that with AAP party and other secular parties, a secular coalition government could be knitted. And what experience Modi has? All his life he has been a preacher and can talk. Naturally he will not talk about Hindu Animus against Muslims. He talks about the development in Gujarat, where he granted lakhs of cores of rupees as subsidy to all the corporate houses, so they are singing praises about his model of development. Some of BJP's followers, especially in USA are using modern techniques of promoting Modi by sending messages to anyone, even on Internet. I regularly receive such stupid messages every day. They are using the tricks which the Americans used to dethrone rulers in former communist countries like Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan by street revolutions and use of propaganda techniques. To usher in pro-US neo-liberal regimes against people's interests.

 

I am convinced that Modi will be a disaster for this country. Fortunately, he is not likely to become one. He is not coming alone but with BJP's divisive and corrosive philosophy .He cannot be a dictator as in Gujarat. His camp includes all corrupt people, including Yedurappa.

 

I am not much sanguine about the success of AAP party, beyond Delhi. We should prepare to face a multi-divided Parliament after the elections and chaos in the country. I hope I am proved wrong.

 

K.Gajendra Singh, 8 Jan 2014.

 

Jammu and Kashmir Problem

 

The AAP leaders, who are quite ignorant about foreign affairs, should not make any statements on Jammu and Kashmir problem. It is a very complex and delicate problem with international dimensions. The Kashmiris whether ruling or in opposition try to leverage their threat to go to the other side and make things difficult for the government of India.

 

 It should be clear to everyone except ignoranti in India that Americans indirectly participated in 2611, or at least knew about it because of David Headley, who was FBI and CIA agent, was a major operator in the devastation so that the progress made between India and Pakistan when Gen Musharraf was the president to make the line of control, a kind of open/soft border without too many restrictions. 2611 halted that .Anyone with a little sense of history or geography will understand since the days of Persian Empire, if not earlier, divide and rule has been the principal method of imperial rule.

 

Most Indians, led by Brahmins and Hindutva types who have formed the impression of Muslims on the basis of what Pakistan has done or will keep on doing, donot understand that it is at the behest and encouragement of UK, USA, Saudi Arabia and China (till recently), fail to comprehend the strategic reality .

 

 Let me give you an example. Barring some countries like Saudi Arabia and in old days Iran in competition to Riyadh and a few others Islamic dictatorships, others were neutral, and some even opposed Pakistan's position on Jammu and Kashmir .Turkey used to bring up the subject of Jammu and Kashmir because India supported Archbishop Makarios on Cyprus, a problem which was very crucial to Turkey's strategic defence in the south west, before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now the Cyprus problem has become dormant, and Turkey, ruled by an Islamist government, says very little on Jammu and Kashmir. All Muslim countries have big minorities and would not like to take stands on the basis of religion.

 

Once a president of Turkey, who was shown untrue and blood curdling prints and reports of killing  in Jammu and Kashmir, as usually done by the Pakistanis, somewhat lost his balance and in a press conference even said that Turkey will agree to a solution of Kashmir only if Pakistan agrees. His FM a leftist was stunned. Foreign Ministry when sending out record of the press conference removed this reference to J & K.

 

I approached this problem from different angles. I saw the chairman of the foreign affairs committee, who felt sad that such a thing had been said, and promised to take corrective action. I also saw a former Foreign Minister of Kurdish origin who I had known well. He said almost hitting his head that Jammu and Kashmir is a very delicate, difficult and complex problem and the Pres should not have made the statement. He later became the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly and chief political head of the ISAF in Afghanistan.

 

As the Turkish Foreign Ministry will not give me the complete  record of the press conference, I went to a former Press Councilor of the Pres, who was now editing Turkey's  main English newspaper, whose father was a close friend from my first posting in Turkey during 1969- 73. He sent a fax message to the presidency, asking for the uncorrected version of the media conference. Lo and behold, the reference was there. So I asked the editor to enquire from the Pres." If the people of Jammu and Kashmir agree will Turkey still want that Pakistan should also approve." I got the impression later that the Pres indicated that it was said in haste and was not correct. In fact another top Turkish leader had told an Indian VVIP that JK was like a disease; one should live with it (as Turkey lived with the Kurdish problem.) At the end is an old but a long in depth article on the problem.

 

I am giving these details about the problem of Jammu and Kashmir, which primarily deals with foreign relations in which countries like UK, USA and China (till recently) take adversarial position. It will be better if AAP party does not make statements on foreign affairs and lose its credibility before it has formed a committee of experts on foreign affairs .Except Kejriwal, other are speaking out of turn to create problems .India's corporate media seems unhappy with AAP rise.

 

Extracts from       http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2014/01/kurdish-lessons-for-kashmiris.html

KURDISH LESSONS FOR KASHMIRIS

By K. Gajendra Singh    27 October, 2004             

Earlier this year, perhaps echoing views of many Kashmiri leaders, Sajjad Lone, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) People's Conference said, "I don't have to be a genius to realise that the Americans will not allow any violent movement or Islamic militancy to succeed. That applies to Kashmir as well." Pervez Imroz of the Coalition of Civil Society in Srinagar said that there was "a lot of suspicion about the US" in the minds of Kashmiris. "People are wondering if they have not defended the rights of the Kurdish people in Iraq, why they would defend our rights." "After 9/11, the American perception of Kashmir has changed. They are the ones who are defining what terrorism is." Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Jamaat-e-Islami said." The Americans have their own interest (to protect). They are prejudiced and do not want to see just demands being met. If they did, then the situation in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan would not exist."

Even the Kurds in North Iraq are now complaining, although they enjoyed US protection from Saddam Hussein since 1991 Gulf war till the US invasion of Iraq and almost total autonomy, but their status remains ambiguous in 'new Iraq'. When the farce of handing over the 'sovereignty 'to Iraqi exile Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was carried out in end June, it included no guarantee of their autonomy in the UN resolution, which was promised earlier. A press release from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said that "the current situation in Iraq and the new-found attitude of the US, UK and UN has led to a serious re-think for the Kurds. The proposed plans do not seem to promise the expected Kurdish role in the future of a new Iraq. The Kurds feel betrayed once again." Underlining that the Kurds have been the only true friends and allies of the coalition, it added that "if the plight of the Kurds is ignored yet again and we are left with no say in the future of a new Iraq, the will of the Kurdish people will be too great for the Kurdish political parties to ignore--. This will certainly not serve the unity of Iraq."

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Pakistani media team in Srinagar

In early part of October, a team of 16 Pakistani journalists during their first-ever historic and path-breaking visit to Srinagar, capital of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), met with among others, Basin Malik, leader of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), who was released some years ago after many years in Indian jails. A member of the Pakistani team reported back that Malik made them "squirm with his accusations. He thinks our visit is an example of wily "Punjabi (Pakistan's) statecraft", that India and Pakistan are two pipsqueaks with "tiny" bombs. And then the knockout blow: we are here with a 'brief' from Pakistan and are completely 'confused' about the situation here." The encounters and exchanges during the visit exposed many wrong perceptions about each other.

Shabir Shah berated the Pakistani scribes for coming to Kashmir on Indian visas. When released from Indian Jail in 1994 he first visited refugee camps in miserable conditions of the Kashmiri Pundits, who were forced to leave Kashmir by terrorists and declared himself against any solution that involved a further partition of Jammu and Kashmir "because it will repeat the mistake of Partition and put the lives of Indian Muslims in great danger"; and who, till two years ago, had declared himself willing to fight the state assembly elections .His virulent attack during the visit of Pakistanis reflects the depth of disillusionment with New Delhi's policies too.

A group of students perhaps egged on by hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Forced their way into a dialogue between the journalists and students at Kashmir University and, after shouting Nizam-e-Mustapha and Nara-e-Tadbir, said that they welcomed the militants from Pakistan and regarded them as their saviours. But the Pakistan-based militants, have 'liberated' more than 6,000 Kashmiris in the past six years by killing them, and systematically assassinate moderate Kashmiri leaders

Asiya Andrabi of Kashmir's Dukhtaran-e-Millat militant group of women was criticized by Pakistani scribes back home because "A day before (we reached) Srinagar on Oct 6, she held a press conference (and) forewarned the people of Kashmir that journalists from Pakistan were visiting them 'on orders of General Musharraf, who wants to abandon Kashmiris for the pleasure of Americans'.

"The day after, a deadly jehadi outfit, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, fully endorsed her suspicions. The doubts regarding our visit were not confined to 'extremist fringes'. "Cartoon after cartoon appeared in a section of the popular newspapers of Srinagar, where the journalists from Pakistan were mocked with utmost contempt for avariciously relishing the meaty Wazwun of Kashmir and appreciating the scenic beauty of it like the dazed tourists on an exotic picnic." Kashmiris and the media castigated the team for accepting the J&K government's "5 Star hospitality".

Another wrote that "The official Pakistani discourse still talks about the disputed issue of J&K's accession to India; the religious elements in Pakistan want the State's accession to Pakistan on the basis of religious affinity; the JKLF wants an independent State. The diversity of these discourses is matched in J&K and India. But it is also subdued for the time being because of the larger overhang of the single purpose of getting rid of India.

"Yet, this diversity cannot be avoided. At the negotiating table, whenever that stage comes, one of the most difficult issues to resolve would be defining aazadi (freedom, liberation, independence) because a resolution would demand, more than emotions, an acceptable mechanism for determining the Kashmiri aspirations.

"One can broadly have two poles, the rest lying between the two. Syed Ali Geelani with his emphasis on accession to Pakistan being one; Omar Abdullah, the chief of National Conference with his emphasis on autonomy within the Indian Union being the other. The JKLF too is clear on its stand but as things stand there are not many takers for the independence option, at least in the way the group has formulated it or continues to do so. Geelani and Abdullah are closer to the ground realities because their solutions take into account the two major players: Pakistan and India. "

Human rights activists also told them stories they had heard before: about missing persons or about individuals who had been tortured or held in jail without trial for a number of years under the draconian anti-terrorist laws. On this score too their perceptions were reinforced. But a cool and confident National Conference leader of the opposition, Omar Abdullah, grand son of legendry leader Sheikh Abdullah and a feisty and shrewd Mehbooba Mufti, daughter of the Chief Minister put across their points of view, which much impressed the visitors.

Another journalist wrote that "It may not constitute the unfinished agenda of Partition, as Pakistan holds, but even from a discerning Indian perspective the state certainly comes across as the unfinished agenda of integration into the Indian Union."

For the Pakistani team it came as a shocking revelation that almost the entire Kashmiri intelligentsia conveyed to them (Pakistan) and to New Delhi too -"A plague on both your houses. We want azadi." It exploded the belief in Pakistan that, being Muslims, Kashmiris want to join Pakistan. For the last half-century Pakistanis believed and propounded that Kashmir's future be decided by a plebiscite giving Kashmiris only two options, Pakistan or India. It became clear that Kashmiri militant leaders whom Islamabad supports didn't speak for the people of Kashmir but a small minority. Of course Azadi (freedom) is interpreted in many ways by Kashmiris but an Independent Kashmir is not on Pakistani mind.

The message to Pakistanis was that the Kashmiris want a place at the negotiating table .The Pakistani journalists were unable to engage in the long, painstaking discussions needed to get Kashmiri leaders to drop their public postures and start defining azadi more precisely. Whether azadi was for the pre-partition princely state of Kashmir, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Valley and 'Azad Kashmir', or only the Valley. Were the Kashmiris prepared for another partition if some parts did not want to secede from India? How much sovereignty would satisfy the thirst for azadi—who would look after Kashmiri defence and security needs, and how much of the present free access to the Indian market, to Indian educational institutions and the Indian fiscal support they wanted to retain. A Mori poll two years ago said that 61 per cent of J& K people preferred to stay with India.

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Many in Pakistan naively believe that after years of militant attacks in J&K and India, getting a concession from India would be push over. Indians firmly believe that no Indian government can survive any major concessions. Some say that the unfinished agenda of Partition could engulf Pakistan, which has as yet to establish itself on the basis of territorial loyalty. Pakistan would come around only if it felt that its policy of confrontation has become counterproductive and there is some profit in a solution. While meeting Kashmiri aspirations as the best way toward an agreement, it is for New Delhi and Islamabad to balance the quantum of independence keeping in view Indian and Pakistani vital interests

As for economic packages for J&K by governments of India." These have remained far from being realized," said a senior official recently, who feels that announcements of packages only make official files heavier and burdensome without any concrete results on the ground. Most of money leaks out, even invested in India.

Those in J&K who favor independence have not been happy about the progress of talks, however tortuous, between India and Pakistan, done mostly under US prodding. The two countries have moved to discussing "solutions" for J&K with India committing itself to a "peaceful negotiated settlement" in a formal acceptance of its "disputed" nature, while Pakistan has accepted the "bilateral" nature of the dialogue and dropped the insistence on a plebiscite and third-party mediation. Pakistan kept the issue alive except for a decade and a half after 1972, when it lost Bangladesh, with help from UK, USA and China, whose attitudes have changed depending on their own strategic objectives and perceptions.

The Kashmiris and even the Pakistanis might as well study the long drawn out Kurdish struggle and learn something from it.

The Kurdish Problem

The Kurds are an Iranian-related people totaling over 25 million who occupy mostly the adjoining mountainous regions of Turkey (14 million), Iran (8 million) and Iraq (4 million) with nearly half a million each in Syria, Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

They have been caught up in ethnic upheavals and the intermingling of Aryan, Turkic and Semitic races for many millennia. Descending from Medes, they were first mentioned as the Kurduchoi, who harassed Xenephon and his Ten Thousand during the epic retreat from Mesopotamia to the Black Sea in 401 BC.

-- The Turks started moving into Anatolia only after the Byzantines were defeated at Manzikert in 1071 AD. But barring petty dynasties and some principalities in the region, the Kurds, most now Sunni Muslims, failed to establish a lasting kingdom. Salahaddin remains their greatest medieval hero. They have been kept divided and exploited as pawns by the ruling Persian, Turkish and Arab empires, and later by colonial powers, enjoying autonomy only when the empires were week. Sunni Ottomans used them to guard the frontiers against the Shi'ite Safavids of Iran. Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria might have adversary relations with each other, but when it comes to Kurds, they close ranks. But throughout history, whenever suppressed, the Kurds become outlaws and take to the mountains.

Belonging to the Iranian-language! Family, Kurdish is spoken in five dialects and many sub-dialects, but the divisions among Kurds are reflected not only in the dialects or the countries they inhabit. Differences among them have persisted throughout history. In north Iraq, the Kurds are split among the Kurdish Democratic Movement (KDM) of Masud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of Jalal Talabani, who have been warring with each other for decades.

But, even when divided, they have enjoyed some semblance of autonomy, first under the British mandate, then the leftist regime of Brig Kassem, and even under the kid gloves and poisoned sword treatment of Saddam Hussein, with an almost free run during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. And then under US-led protection after the 1991 Gulf War. The idea of a Kurdish identity and autonomy, which was vigorously suppressed in the unitary Turkish state, was kept alive across in Iraq.

The Iranians have manipulated Iraqi Kurds as did the Russians the Iranian Kurds during World War II, encouraging them to declare the Mahabad Republic, which after the Russian withdrawal in 1946 was annihilated. Iran gave shelter and arms to Iraqi Kurds and the PKK. In return, after the 1979 Khomeini revolution, the Iraqis supported Iranian Kurds. But unlike Iraq, Iran and elsewhere, the Kurds in Turkey are the best integrated with other citizens. But they were subjected to harassment and discrimination when the Kurdish insurgency began, although they enjoy equal legal rights. Ataturk's right hand man, Ismet Pasha, later president, had Kurdish blood, as did former president Turgut Ozal. The former foreign minister and the parliament speaker, Hikmet Cetin, a full-blooded Kurd, is another of many such examples of prominent Kurds in Turkey.

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Turkey goes for PKK's jugular

Turkey's determination to deal a hammer blow to the Kurdish rebellion was brought to a head in late 1998 when it threatened war on Syria unless it expelled Ocalan and the PKK who were given shelter by Syria as a lever against Turkey for denial of its fair share of Euphrates waters and irredentist claims over Hatay province.

After the collapse of the USSR, Syria's patron and supplier of arms, a weakened and isolated Syria expelled Ocalan, who first went to the Russian Federation and then to Rome in search of asylum. Eventually he was apprehended after leaving the Greek embassy in Nairobi on February 16, 1999 by Turkish agents assisted by other countries, including, perhaps, the US and Israel. His capture was followed by violence and demonstrations in Turkey and European cities with Kurdish populations.

Ocalan was tried and given the death verdict. At his trial, Ocalan, instead of being defiant, promised peace and to bring down the PKK fighters from the mountains. Awaiting a certain death sentence in a glass cage, Ocalan's performance was sober, dignified and consistent in his defense. Apart from the 1993 conditional ceasefire, he had offered the olive branch many times, including in 1994 and 1995. A court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment in October 2002.

Conclusions 

Mountainous Kurdish lands with headwaters of Euphrates and Tigris and birthplace of civilizations in the region became strategic locations and disputed by Sunni Turkish Ottomans, Shia Persians Safavids and Arabs and their predecessors and successors. Kashmir, next to the underbelly of former Soviet Union, still adjoins China's strategic Xingjian and Tibet provinces. China also occupies Kashmir territory in Ladakh. J&K also controls river waters of Punjabs (five waters) in Pakistan and India. Other such strategic places nearby are Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ferghana valley. This is what made Kashmir so important for USA from 1950s to 1970s in West vs. USSR Cold War. But Henry Kissinger's visit to Beijing changed the situation somewhat. After fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and movement of India towards USA, Kashmir further lost its importance to USA. Of course USA, UK will use it to squeeze whatever concessions they can from India. After 119 USA has now established bases in Central Asia adjoining China and Russia, so Kashmir is not that much valuable.

In the words of the greatest of the Sanskrit poets Kalidas, Kashmir is "more beautiful than the heaven and is the benefactor of supreme bliss and happiness." The 19th century British historian Sir Walter Lawrence said: "The valley is an emerald set in pearls; a land of lakes, clear streams, green turf, magnificent trees and mighty mountains where the air is cool, and the water sweet, where men are strong, and women vie with the soil in fruitfulness."

In ancient times, it was called "Kashyapamar" (after saint Kashyapa) that later became Kashmir. The ancient Greeks called it "Kasperia," and the Chinese pilgrim Hiun-Tsang who visited the valley in the 7th century AD, called it "Kashimilo." The earliest recorded history of Kashmir by its historian Kalhan begins at the time of the Mahabharata war. In the 3rd century BC, emperor Ashoka introduced Buddhism in the valley. Kashmir became a major hub of Hindu culture by the 9th century AD. It was the birthplace of the Hindu sect called Kashmiri 'Shaivism', Islam came in 14^th century, when Hindu shrines were destroyed, and Hindus were forced to embrace Islam. But major conversions were done by Sufis, which remains its core strength.  The Mughals ruled Kashmir from 1587 to 1752, followed by a dark period (1752-1819), of rule by Afghan despots.

The Muslim period, which lasted for about 500 years, came to an end with the annexation of Kashmir to the Sikh kingdom of Punjab in 1819. At the end of the First Sikh War in 1846, by the treaties of Lahore and Amritsar, the Hindu Dogra ruler of Jammu, was made the ruler of Kashmir. Its boundaries were delimited by the British after negotiations with Afghanistan and Russia. The crisis in Kashmir began immediately after the British rule ended in 1947, when a Pakistan led and directed force of tribals invaded Kashmir. In accordance with the Indian Independence act, which created Pakistan too, the Kashmiri ruler acceded to India. India took the complaint to United Nations. But with Pakistan joining the western side in the Cold War, Kashmir became a pawn in the Cold War strategies and polemics.

The UN a resolution calling for a free and impartial plebiscite could not be implemented because Pakistan did not comply with the resolution calling on it to withdraw its forces from the state. In 1949, with the intervention of the United Nations, India and Pakistan defined a ceasefire line ("Line of Control") that divided the two countries. In September 1951, elections were held in J& K and the National Conference under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah came to power, with the inauguration of the Constituent Assembly, which re-affirmed the accession of the State to India.

After the Pakistan attack in 1965, war broke out between India and Pakistan. A cease-fire was established, and the two countries signed an agreement at Tashkent in 1966, pledging to end the dispute by peaceful means. After the 1971 war and the creation of Bangladesh, Shimla Agreement was signed in 1972 between the two countries.  Both sides agreed to resolve the problem bilaterally and peacefully. But after the with drawl of USSR from Afghanistan in end 1980s, the militants and Jihadis fighting there were redirected by Pakistan into Kashmir. Pakistan continues to stir up violence in India and in occupied Kashmir trains and funds "Islamic guerrillas" that have waged a war of separatism war since 1989, killing tens of thousands of people. Pakistan always denied the charges, calling it an indigenous "freedom struggle." But even US Congress reports confirm Pakistani hand.

In 1999, intense fighting ensued between the infiltrators and the Indian army in the Kargil area of J&K which lasted for more than two months. Pakistan withdrew troops after intervention by US President Bill Clinton. In end 2001, Pakistan-backed terrorists waged violent attacks on the Kashmir Assembly and the Indian Parliament in New Delhi leading to a serious war like situation. The situation stabilized after President Gen Musharraf promised in a telecast in January 2002 that Pakistan would not support jihadis on Pakistani controlled territory .USA wants Pakistan which joined in its war on terror after 119 to concentrate on catching Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaida and Taleban leaders, for which it needs peace on its eastern borders. India has more or less acquiesced in.

A few months ago media exposed Israeli interference in north Iraq, with the former providing training to Kurdish Peshmarga militias and running covert operations in neighboring countries like Syria and Iran, which upset Turkey no end, hurting their close military relations. Israel would prefer a weak and decentralized Iraq, if not a divided one. North Iraqi Kurdish leaders still have a tribal, narrow short-term outlook. Help from neighbors like Israel could backfire.

While the future of the Kurds in North Iraq remains uncertain, not much is written about the problems of those in Iran, Syria (where, instigated by the Israelis, they rebelled recently), in Caucasus and beyond. Turkey's Kurds have reached the stage of getting back their identity, language and culture, accepted after a bloody struggle since almost the inception of the Turkish Republic. It was helped by Turkey's determination to join EU which brought about revolutionary changes in its polity. But it needs watching. 

Unlike the Kurds, who are a distinct people, Kashmiris are like the rest of the people of India or Pakistan, mixed.  Kashmiris have no problems regarding their identity, language and culture in India's multicultural polity. Yes, the regimes in Delhi have not allowed the young generation of Kashmiris to come up in politics from the grass roots and join the mainstream like Yadavas and Lals of Hindi belt. While efforts have been made to bring minorities (Christians) in North East of India into mainstream, by encouraging political leadership at grass roots and reservations in civil services and education, such steps have not been taken for Muslims of Kashmir in particular and India in general. 

There are some similarities between the career of Ocalan and Hizbul Mujahaddin Commander Syed Salahddin aka Syed Yusuf Shah. The latter took to rebellion when he was denied a legitimate role in political life of the Valley. Frustrated, like others he became a rebel. Delhi has tended to rely on a few Muslim families of Kashmir. A similar tendency can be seen by many political parties in relying on a few reliable Muslim individuals in India's polity, who are recycled regularly. Even after reservations for Other Backward Classes, similar facility was not extended to the Muslims .In the Sub-Continent, converts to Islam or Christianity maintain their caste hierarchy, so it is not difficult to classify them. 

Another important thing to remember is that the Kurds in Turkey and for that matter Palestinians in Occupied Territories, while accepting assistance from outsiders, have generally fought their own battles, while the Kashmiris have allowed the outsiders to fight their battle i.e. Pakistanis, Arabs and other Muslims and have become victims of the latter's agenda and interests. And finally without open and full support from western nations, China and Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, apart from Pakistan; the Kashmir struggle would have been a non-starter. But the outsiders then demand their pound of flesh.

Note ; Since the Kurdish rebellion in 1980s, over 45,000 people have lost lives including 5000 soldiers, south east of Turkey where Kurds live has been devastated .

 

Full article http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2014/01/kurdish-lessons-for-kashmiris.html