Anurag Thakur rebuts NYT opinion piece on Kashmir. What did the article talk about?
2 min read . Updated: 10 Mar 2023, 08:18 PM IST
Premium- Information and Broadcast minster Anurag Thakur was the loudest in condemning the article and termed it ‘mischievous and fictitious’.
A recent opinion piece published by New York Times, authored by Anuradha Bhasin has garnered the ire of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers for allegedly claiming that information flow is curbed by the government at Centre in Kashmir.
Information and Broadcast minster Anurag Thakur was the loudest in condemning the article and termed it ‘mischievous and fictitious’.
So what does the New York Times opinion article actually talk about?
Let's take a look
The opinion piece is written by the executive editor of The Kashmir times . The offices of the mentioned daily in the state of Jammu and Kashmir was sealed on 19 October 2020 and remains under lock till date.
Notably, The Kashmir Times was founded by Bhasin's father in 1954 and she says that the newspaper has been 'an independent voice in the state of Jammu and Kashmir’.
Bhasin's opinion piece alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ‘repressive media policies are destroying Kashmiri journalism, intimidating media outlets into serving as government mouthpieces and creating an information vacuum’, in Kashmir which houses 13 million people.
In April 2018, the Supreme Court of India ruled that Article 370 had attained permanency since the state constituent assembly has ceased to exist. To overcome this legal challenge, the Indian government instead rendered Article 370 as 'inoperative' even though it still exists in the constitution.
Bhasin in her article cites this move by the Indian Government and alleges that the Narendra Modi-led government at the centre did not consider the local people's input.
Bhasin further opinionates about the working of the centre's NDA government on Kashmir. She says, “His Hindu-chauvinist movement, which has normalized intolerance and violence against Indian Muslims, has already put severe pressure on India’s once-rambunctious press, with journalists surveilled and jailed, and the government using strong-arm tactics against media outlets to ensure favorable coverage. But in January, draft amendments to digital media guidelines were introduced that would essentially allow the government to block any content it doesn’t like."
Bhasin states that journalists in Kashmir are allegedly routinely summoned by the police, interrogated and threatened with charges such as income tax violations or terrorism or separatism. Several prominent journalists have been detained or sentenced to jail terms.
The mere insinuation of allegation that information flow is curbed in the state, brought Bhasin's article to the notice of the Narendra Modi's cabinet and Anurag Thakur, just like S Jaishankar last year, commented on the credibility and motive of the US-based media house.