As an ‘argumentative Indian’ it pleases me when someone starts an argument with me. It pleases me even more when the challenger is a respected intellectual with more years of journalistic experience than little old me. So I was flattered that Prem Shankar Jha should consider it worthwhile to write a long, thoughtful piece in this newspaper last week to disagree with what I said on the current situation in Kashmir. What I said in this space was that it was disturbing not to hear Kashmir’s supposedly moderate leaders speak in a moderate voice at a time when sensible voices were so badly needed.

Mr Jha accused me of being “both simplistic and unjust”. In his critique of my piece he gave a lengthy account of the history of the Amarnath Yatra but ended up half agreeing with me: “Ms Singh is right when she says that (Yasin) Malik, the Mirwaiz, Geelani and even Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti fanned the agitation by joining it. But had they not done so they would have written their own epitaphs in Kashmiri politics.”

My answer is they should have. Kashmir needs leaders not politicians in its present crisis. If all that the ‘moderates’ can give us is politics and political expediency it would be better if they wrote their epitaphs quickly. It would make it easier for us to deal with the secessionists and jihadis who should under Indian law be tried for treason. Ten years ago I wrote a book that blamed the Government of India squarely for denying Kashmiris their democratic rights, thereby driving them towards armed insurgency. I believe this gives me the right to say that this time the Kashmiris have no cause. No country could have dealt with a secessionist movement more gently than India has after those initial mistakes in the early nineties. The movement for azadi turned into Islamist terrorism and India did nothing. Kashmiri Hindus were ethnically cleansed from the Valley and India did nothing. Jihadis came across our borders and turned Kashmiri Islam into a Saudi facsimile and India did nothing.

... contd.