'Often people outside paint a wrong picture of us of Kashmiris. We are not like that. We are cool and bindaas,' said the lady, a teacher, caressing my cheeks in the pressing crowds.
'Sheikh Abdullah ruled the state with secular values. Post 1953, when he was sacked, corruption took over governance.'
"There are differences in the (PDP-BJP) coalition, no body can deny that. If you need evidence, just look at chief minister's iftaar party in Delhi yesterday where no Central BJP leader was present," said Omar Abdullah
The revocation of provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution has given a new lease of life to over 3,000 Valmiki community members who live on the land that was allocated to their ancestors when they shifted to Jammu from Punjab's Gurdaspur district on invitation of the erstwhile state government in 1957.
At the moment, there appears to be no alternative political narrative to the one lying buried under the debris of havoc caused on this front by the fallout of 'August 5, 2019', asserts Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
'As of now, this one move seems to have precariously altered the balance of forces on the volatile ground, between separatists and the mainstream. 'The landscape today presents a fearsome picture of the future of mainstream politics in Kashmir. 'Conversely, the separatist ideology looks to have got an unearned boost,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs
'Her tussle is a different ballgame from what it was when Farooq Abdullah and Rajiv Gandhi were the main players at the two ends of the power game.' 'The shadow of the party in power in New Delhi over J&K affairs in 1987 was not as menacing as it is in 2018,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the doyen of Kashmir commentators.
She lived for two-thirds of her life in India, adopted its national cause and customs, and took an Indian passport. She served a prison sentence in Lahore as part of Gandhi's protests against an Imperial power which happened to be her motherland. Freda Bedi delighted in confounding accepted definitions of identity.
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