There was something tentative and timid, something hesitant and cautious, in what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said about Kashmir in his Independence Day speech this morning. For sure, there was a kind of outreach to the people of Kashmir, who were perhaps keenly waiting to hear what the PM had to say about the highly troubled situation in the valley. But the outreach was not whole-hearted.
What he said was reassuring in the few lines he spoke. However, he did not leave much scope even for those eager to read between those inadequate lines and ferret out possible signals for a course correction and for a bold new move on his government’s past to solve the most enduring problem India has been grappling with since 1947.
What he said was this (my own translation from his Hindi speech):
“The development and progress of Jammu and Kashmir is the commitment of not only the government of Jammu and Kashmir but also of all the people of India. We are duty-bound to make it a heaven again. There is a lot of sloganeering, a lot of accusation and counter-accusation, each one is busy abusing the other. A small number of terrorists and separatists are adopting newer and newer tactics. There is no question of being soft on them. But I am clear in my mind as to how to win this battle. We cannot solve this problem either with gaalis (abuses) or with golis (bullets). We can solve this problem by embracing each and every Kashmiri. This is how this nation of 125 crore people has sustained itself and progressed. Which is why we are moving ahead with the commitment – ‘Na gaali se, na goli se, parivartan hoga gale lagakar ke’. (Neither with abuses, nor with bullets, but change will come about by embracing people.)”