Letters 8 November 2021

On Distress and Danger in Kashmir:

I have just returned from a three-week-long trip to the Kashmir valley, not as a tourist but as a neutral observer of events. Most people I spoke to believe that the recent killings of Pandits, Sikhs, and Bihari labourers were not carried out by militants, but by groups led by 'agents of India'.

Whatever the truth of this claim, I found that the majority of the valley's population, especially the Kashmiri community, is addicted to the benefits of so-called development, which yields handsome returns for those who support India. The people are fed up with both Indian forces and militants. They want peace, which no one is keen to provide. The mainstream media, including this article, fails to provide neutral opinion.

I found the piece on Counter Stories (Counter-Stories: Some Lessons for English Language Pedagogy) by Gautam Bisht very powerful apart from introducing a novel way of developing language skills. Congratulations to the author.