Foreign Rule in India
India has tolerated subservience of eight centuries about six centuries, by the Muslim invaders and about two centuries, by the Britishers. The experience of foreign rule for cumulative eight centuries by both Muslim and British empires must have had a profound impact on the collective psyche of the country, about how Indians perceive their cultural identity and national pride.
Hindu Muslim Debate Disturbingly High
India has been free since 1947 for about 76 years now. The majority Hindu population must reconcile to the fact that a minority population of Muslim ruled the majority for six hundred years. On the other hand, the Muslims of India should understand they were Hindus before they got converted. So, they have the same origin. This realization is needed for a peaceful co-existence. The Muslim should have pride in the fact that their Muslim forefathers ruled the country but that is past, and all history and should come to terms with the reality of the present. Unfortunately, history has left a lot of fodder for them to keeping fighting, endlessly; although, India is a secular country the Hindu Muslim debate remains disturbingly high to this date.
Disintegration of the partners in Freedom Fight
Pride is a higher need of humanity; food is the basic. When the latter is solved, the higher need of Pride comes into play to cause turbulence. This was not so, when both the brothers Hindus and Muslims alike fought hand in hand to get freedom from the British rule for their common good but once that was achieved, the brothers fought, unfortunately, and India got partitioned; religion and the need to preserve religious cultural identity dominated then, Pakistan was created. Though the rest of India has a population of Muslims even greater than Pakistan.
Kashmir the current challenge
Politically the current leaders have to run a fine line to run the country to prevent recurrence of an event like disintegration, as had happened when Pakistan got separated. Currently, Kashmir is a big headache for India as the population is all Muslim and borders Pakistan. Geographically it has a vulnerability the Kashmiri have cleaned up the Hindu population.
Kashmiri Hindu Pandit Exodus
Just recently, between late 1980 and early 1990, the Kashmiri Pandits were brutally killed and there was a mass exodus following the eruption of insurgency and violence in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Kashmiri Pandit community, that had been a minority in the predominantly Muslim Kashmir Valley for centuries were forced to leave, About, 300,000 fled and about 1000 were killed, although these are unconfirmed figures that fact remains that there was in fact, a mass exodus. The exodus remains a contentious and unresolved issue, with ongoing debates and demands for justice and restitution for the displaced community.
Article 370 and full integration of Kashmir but for Pakistan Occupied Kashmir
On August 5, 2019, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced in the Rajya Sabha that the Government had scrapped the special status granted to the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) by modifying Article 370 of the Constitution. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act was passed to reconstitute the state of Jammu and Kashmir into union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh with effect from October 31, 2019. Kashmir will no longer have a separate constitution but will have to abide by the Indian constitution much like any other state. All Indian laws will be automatically applicable to Kashmiris, and people from outside the state will be able to buy property there
Kashmir Now Open to rest of India to buy Real Estate
People as well as investors outside Jammu and Kashmir can now purchase land in the Union Territory (UT) as the Centre on Tuesday notified new land laws for the region, ending the exclusive rights of locals over the land granted under now abrogated Article 370. However, according to a report by the Ministry of Home Affairs to a parliamentary panel, no person from outside Jammu and Kashmir has purchased land in the Union Territory so far. The current situation in Kashmir, India-administered Kashmir remains under lockdown with internet and phone services intermittently cutoff and thousands of people detained.
