Nearly two years after Pakistan’s claimed takeover of Indian Kashmir, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and his Home Minister, Amit Shah, received, Thursday, June 24, in New Delhi, fourteen major political figures of the Himalayan region. The official photo of the meeting will be an event in itself. We see the duo of Hindu nationalist leaders surrounded mainly by political opponents, most of whom have been placed under house arrest for seven to fourteen months depending on the case, before being released in 2020. .

This is the first time India has seen the architect of the 5 August 2019 coup, in which Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority region (65%), was stripped of the partial autonomy granted to it. by the Constitution until then, was amputated from the Buddhist province of Ladakh, and its status as a federation was relegated to the rank of a simple territory of the Union of India, under the direct supervision of Delhi. More than 5,000 people were arrested, Internet access was blocked for 213 days and several tens of thousands of troops were deployed on the ground, in addition to the 500,000 troops normally present.

Officially, Thursday’s reunion is “friendly”. MM. Modi and Shah tell their guests that it is their priority to “strengthening local democracy” in Kashmir. They informed them that a new election map would be created ” quickly “ to hold local elections to restore the Legislative Council, thereby enabling the inauguration of a new executive in Srinagar, the capital, and ultimately restoring the territory’s status as a federation.

“Broken Trust”

Jammu and Kashmir has been out of government since June 2018. A year before being placed under guardianship, the Indian People’s Party (BJP) Mr. Modi had indeed left the coalition led at the time by Mehbooba Mufti, President of the People’s Democratic Party. Jammu and Kashmir Party (PDP), which led to its founding “presidential rule”a device that allows the federal government to temporarily dissolve the executive.

M^I The Mufti did not specify whether he intends to participate in making the election map. He prefers to remember his character “unconstitutional and illegal” The operation was carried out on August 5, 2019. “The people of Jammu and Kashmir are angry and insulted, we will fight constitutionally, democratically and peacefully for the restoration of the special status bestowed upon us in his time by Nehru”, he told.

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