The treatment meted out to Opposition leaders Sitaram Yechury, D. Raja and Rahul Gandhi, who have all been turned away from Srinagar airport at different points in time in the last two weeks, is proof enough of the fact that no matter what the Centre claims, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is anything but normal (Front page, “Opposition delegation turned back from Srinagar airport,” Aug. 25).
After imposing a blackout on the Valley, arresting the local leaders and placing restrictions on the fourth estate, the government is only hoodwinking the gullible when it tries to present a picture of tranquility. The developments add more credence to the theory that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government always springs a surprise when it wants to divert the attention of the people from real issues. Amidst these events, the Prime Minister is back to doing what he does best — globetrotting.
G.B. Sivanandam,
Coimbatore
The turning away from Srinagar airport on Saturday of the 12-member Opposition delegation that wanted to take stock of the situation after the abrogation of Article 370 is disturbing. In a lighter vein, it is tantamount to turning away passengers from a foreign airport for want of visas. If ‘everything is normal in J&K’ as claimed by the Union government, it could have been a welcome decision if it had volunteered to take the Opposition along with press reporters to J&K to prove and communicate its claim to the people in rest of the country and to the external world. Instead, connectivity in the form of mobile, telephone and Internet services has been severed and J&K people are virtually cut-off from the external world. Is this the freedom that the government has offered to them? Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that now that the Article 370 was lifted, film shooting in J&K would find a boost. What an irony that even the political Opposition is not allowed to enter Srinagar!
As it was an unexpected curfew, many questions are bound to be asked, including: How long would the rations stored in households of Kashmiris last? How long can the ailing patients survive without enough stock of their routine medication? How long would the producers of apple wait to sell their produce which will in course of time start to rot? How long would political leaders be kept under house arrest and how long would their freedom of speech be chocked? For a country like India, which takes pride for being the largest democracy in the world, the happenings in J&K are not appreciable and earlier the Union government initiates a course correction, the better.
A. Jainulabdeen,
Chennai