Why The NYT Is Really Wrong About Kashmir

The Kashmir conflict has been taking place for decades. However, it seems that many observers are not aware of what is happening in this section of land between China, Pakistan and India. 

One of those uninformed observers appears to be the New York Times.

A recent editorial completely misrepresents the nature of the situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir and reinforces the false notion of it being a "territorial dispute" between India and Pakistan. 

It also has the usual bogey, "Islamism", 

to undermine genuine mass aspirations for self-determination and freedom from India among Kashmiris, as the piece says. 

In this readable op-ed, two scholars of Kashmir deconstruct the NYT's narrative successfully. 

The people of Kashmir live under mass surveillance and oppression. Their resistance is decades old and, partly, even started before the partition of India in 1947. The struggle in Kashmir is about basic human rights, and those who demand them are not only "Islamist insurgents". 

Most fundamentally, Indian leaders refuse to recognise the right to self-determination of Kashmiris. Instead, Indian nationalist parties use the Kashmiri issue to rouse nationalist sentiment in India and to gain electoral advantage.

As long as both India's political elite and the NYT do not accept that, much will not change on the ground.