Daily Times

Let’s break the title first. According to Chanakya Neeti, Chanakya, the clever advisor of Chandragupta Maurya (the 20-year-old founder of Maurya Empire (c. 320BCE)) was of the view that there were four methods to get something done, by hook or by crook: “Saam Daam Dand or Bhed.” The precise oxford dictionary meanings of these widely used Sanskrit terms are by willingness, by a bribe, by punishment or division. Sadly, this strategy is not the Congress vs BJP version of ruling vs opposition’s political stance but India’s national agenda for the last 72 years. This egoistic mindset is responsible for 43,000 innocent deaths and thousands of mass graves and rape incidents. A tortured, blinded and abused Kashmir is India’s definition of normalcy.

The Bhed strategy: Once a dream, freedom is now a sharp division of Kashmiris and pundits: a win for modern-day Chanakyas of India. Right under the nose of Governor Jagmohan Malhotra, the exodus of pundits has happened. They were loaded and parcelled midnight to the rest of the country. Residential plots were allotted, ration and education quota was fixed for them along with the medals of “surviving” a peaceful situation in Kashmir as the outer world was told. I am appalled at the selected sympathy for sufferers of the same land. What a sharp contrast of facts! Such an excruciating painful joke that BJP’s Jagmohan was presented with Padma Vibhushan in 2016–may be for not protecting the homes of pundits.

Divide and rule. Pollute the very dream of freedom; infiltrating Kashmir with settlers. Split into two union states of Kashmir and Ladakh on October 31, 2019. Bhed appears like Israel’s strategy of changing the majority to a minority in the name of “normalisation.”

A tortured, blinded and abused Kashmir is India’s definition of normalcy

It is painfully hilarious when India tells the whole world that whatever the bee has experienced in a spider’s web is normal. The EU delegation was handpicked and well-bribed by the Indian lobby to visit and see how well-behaved Kashmir was. This bribed satisfaction was much-needed to tread on the path of Bhed. India is punishing Kashmir by dividing their dream of freedom for not willingly accepting them.

Kashmir is getting on Modi’s nerves now. This bhed is the dand to Kashmir, by Modi for not getting trapped in the saam smokescreen. For years, they have tried bribing the Mehbooba and the villains, the Abdullahs, but of no vain. MPs and former CMs along with the 90-years-old Syed Ali Gillani, a heart patient, has been under arrest. No media, domestic or international is allowed to cover. No one can enter or leave Kashmir.

Delhi is engineering the foreign delegates’ visits to signal that all’s well. The tiring saam saga has officially ended with the abrogation of 370. The dand era has just begun. It took dead bodies of Indian forces; millions of rupees and dark patches on the Indian diplomacy to perform these ruthless experiments. Nowadays, mother India is punishing her stepchildren, the Indian Muslims, on Shaheen Bagh and Yogi’s UP for just being who they are for having cultural and religious similarities with the Kashmiris. Mother India thinks Indian Muslims have the soft corner for Kashmir, despite being constantly fed blatant lies. How can one forget the fact that the arch-rival Pakistan has the same state religion? God bless Indian Muslims for they are about to pay the price of being silent because it was not their turn. For 72 years, it was Pakistanis dying of terrorism. Kashmiris dying, which was fine too, but alas! Now, it’s their turn to suffer and there is no one left to help them. Is this sole fact not scary enough to realise there must be something not normal with Kashmir? There must be something hidden under the Kashmiri rug. Imagine you hire a security guard for your house, and you pay him but after a while, he asks you to prove is it your house? If you don’t show him the documents, he puts you in a detention camp! That’s exactly what has happened in Assam and it has not ended yet. The worst is yet to be!

The writer is a physicist and a political science researcher.