Lydia Polygreen from Srinagar

From New York Times: “Indian Forces face broader revolt in Kashmir”

“Late Sunday night, after six days on life support with a bullet in his brain, Fida Nabi, a 19-year-old high school student, was unhooked from his ventilator at a hospital here.”

For decades, India maintained hundreds of thousands of security forces in Kashmir to fight an insurgency sponsored by Pakistan, which claims this border region, too. The insurgency has been largely vanquished. But those Indian forces are still here, and today they face a threat potentially more dangerous to the world’s largest democracy: an intifada-like popular revolt against the Indian military presence that includes not just stone-throwing young men but their sisters, mothers, uncles and grandparents.”

For decades, India maintained hundreds of thousands of security forces in Kashmir to fight an insurgency sponsored by Pakistan, which claims this border region, too. The insurgency has been largely vanquished. But those Indian forces are still here, and today they face a threat potentially more dangerous to the world’s largest democracy: an intifada-like popular revolt against the Indian military presence that includes not just stone-throwing young men but their sisters, mothers, uncles and grandparents.”

Indeed, Kashmir’s demand for self-determination is sharper today than it has been at perhaps any other time in the region’s troubled history.”

But election promises, like repealing laws that largely shield security forces from scrutiny and demilitarizing the state, went unfulfilled. After two summers of protests on specific grievances, this summer’s unrest has taken on a new character, one more difficult to define and mollify.”

“If India took steps against those who kill us, maybe the people of Kashmir would be willing,” he said. “But when there is no justice how can we remain with India? They are not doing anything but killing. So we will just go for freedom.”

“Stone pelting is a form of resistance to their acts of repression in the face of peaceful protest,” he said in an interview. “I would call it self-defense. Stones do not kill. Their bullets kill.”