Kashmir on the brink of conflict while India scrambles for solution!

NEW DELHI, India - August 25, 2008 - A lack of political leadership threatens to allow seething Hindu-Muslim tensions and separatist anger in revolt-hit Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) to spiral out of control, analysts say. Kashmir, which is witnessing its biggest anti-India demonstrations in years, is “poised at a very delicate stage”, said security analyst Uday Bhaskar.

On Friday, hundreds of thousands of people massed in Srinagar to demand azadi (freedom) and protest against New Delhi’s rule. It was the second major demonstration of the week. The trouble began in June when the Kashmir administration announced a plan to donate land to a Hindu shrine in the Kashmir valley. Muslims in the valley saw the move as a ploy by India to occupy their land and staged huge protests, forcing a reversal of the plan.

But the decision to scrap the move angered Hindus further south in Jammu, who viewed it as an act of appeasement, prompting hardliners to block the region’s main highway - a protest that shut the Kashmir valley.

“The political process has not been able to defuse the situation and now we’re at a very critical point where we have a very disturbing communal divide,” said Bhaskar.

Since June, at least 31 Muslims and three Hindus have died in police firing on protesters in the Kashmir and Jammu areas. “A matter of almost trifling significance has been allowed to swell,” said former police chief Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, who is credited with stamping out a deadly Sikh insurgency in the 1990s. The snowballing crisis has breathed new life into Kashmir’s separatist movement, with hundreds of thousands of Muslims taking to the streets. The developments have also soured relations between India and Pakistan. Analyst Neerja Chowdhury said New Delhi and Kashmir administrations were caught napping.