Stuffing separatists in jail: A muscular Kashmir policy will fail

The Centre needs to convince the Kashmiri people that their democratic, social, and religious rights are safe within India by first restoring them and securing them constitutionally

Yasin Malik’s life imprisonment in a ‘terror-funding’ case again displays the Narendra Modi government’s muscular Kashmir policy. Separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) are either locked up or dead. Following the downsizing of the erstwhile state, its mainstream political leaders are being pushed to the margins, and the dialogue with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue is at a standstill – as if the only remaining issue were the return of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. In short, the Modi government acts as if it has solved the Kashmir problem.

Today the funding of separatist leaders in J&K is being discussed as