| KASHMIR | ||
| The conflict over Kashmir is a political problem underpinned by religious tensions. As the politics have become intractible both India and Pakistan have begun to define the situation in religious terms, throwing a solution further off course. | ||
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The tranquility of the Dal Lake in Srinagar, which is set in the Vale of Kashmir, belies the grim realities of life there. Kashmir's divisions have poisoned already tense Hindu-Muslim relations across the sub-continent. India's relations with its western Islamic neighbor, Bangladesh, are also worsening. Citing illegal immigration and terrorist infiltration, India is building border fences with both countries. See Uneasy Neighbors. |
The Rand Corporation lists the sub-continents Hindu - Muslim divide as one of the world's most important but underreported stories. In Pakistan, the few Hindus who stayed there after partition live in constant fear. Though more Muslims chose to live in India than Pakistan, today rising violence against them is keeping pregnant mothers from chosing Muslim names and housing societies from allowing in Muslim families. See India's Calculated Ethnic Violence. |
In Kashmir every child under 15 has grown up knowing only strife and civil war. This fraying of society is creating a polarized generation - some youth are rabid extremists, others want to turn from violence. |
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| Ask any Kashmiri on the street what they want and they will give the V sign and cry Azaadi! (freedom). Most are convinced both India and Pakistan are manipulating them for their own purposes. In turn many Pakistani's and Indian's are beginning to feel the Kashmiri's are using their delicate position to win scarce resources and assistance from them. | Numerous fields across Kashmir have been appropriated for 'martyr's graveyards'. Between 35,000 and 75,000 people have been killed here since 1989, most by Indian forces whose heavy-handedness has contributed heavily to Kashmir's alienation from India. | Mirwaiz Umar Farokh lectures his flock on the virtues of women's rights at Srinagar's Jame, or Friday mosque. A moderate, Farokh took over his hereditary position at the age of 16 when his father was assasinated by unknown assailants, probably pro-independence fighters. |
