India has made a strategic shift on Jammu and Kashmir. This shift has not occurred without any reason. It has been a long, dreadful history of bloodshed of innocent lives by Terrorist activities in the region. India is the only country in the world that has been agonizing in the war against terror for the last 70 years. On February 14, the attack on an armed forces convoy in Pulwama district that killed 40 personnel, is the biggest terror attack in the past five years. The attack was linked to the Pakistan based terrorist group Jaish- A- Mohammad.
Time and again India has provided evidence of involvement of cross border terrorist groups. But not a single action was taken by Pakistan on those groups, However, Pakistan start blaming India for one or other reasons.
Key points of this strategic shift-
From autonomous status to Union Territory, assuring of statehood after normalcy
On August 5, Indian Government abrogated article 370 and article 35A And reorganize the Himalayan state in two parts. One is Jammu & Kashmir, will be union territory with assembly and another Ladakh, would be a separate territory with no legislature . Now the law and order will be in total control of Government of India. This change in system is caused for Socio-Economic development and good governance as per Government of India.
Article 370 guaranteed Special status to Jammu and Kashmir and was a temporary provision in Indian constitution. Thus, there was a separate set of laws for the state residents as compared to residents in other parts of India. Under this article Government of India was not able to make any such law that was not in concurrence with state Government. So the Union Government was only limited to defense, foreign affairs, finance and communications.
Old situation was not justifiable / equitable not only for people of Jammu & Kashmir but for the people who are residing in other parts of India, as per Indian Government ‘s statement.
Jammu and Kashmir state has mainly three parts—— Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh having different demography of 68% Muslims, 28.4% Hindus, 1.5% Sikh, 0.6% Buddhist and 0.4% Christians. Around 97% of the general population in Kashmir valley is Muslims.
India’s defense minister, Mr.Rajnath Singh, stated that if talks take place with Pakistan then it would be on Pakistan Occupied Kashmir ( POK)
Directly means that Kashmir is an integral part of India and scrapping the article 370 is India’s internal matter. Pakistan has none of its business in this. Moreover, he directly opened another debate on that 45% part of Kashmir which Pakistan took in 1948 by attacking on the then princely state of Jammu & Kashmir, some part of that was gifted to China that is called Aksai-chin.
Ambiguity on India’s ‘ no-first use ‘ nuclear policy- by India’s defense minister in a statement that in future it will depend on circumstances
India has adhered to the pledge not to initiate nuclear weapons unless it is attacked since 1998. Now it seems that India can abandon that policy if Pakistan infiltrates or in response to any terrorist attacks.
This strategic shift may also result in increasing conventional warfare and restructuring the Indian Army.
However, India wants peace and stability in the region, and persistently tried for it and ‘ No First Use ‘ (NFU ) statement is defense minister’s personal statement not a Government of India’s official statement.
It’s too early to say that India is going to alter its nuclear doctrine. India would not do anything in haste that would put India’s credibility on stake as India persistently trying for peace and stability for the region.Also India got support from Russia, United States, France in United Security Council meeting on Article 370.However, Britain’s stand was a kind of dubious or not completely clear. Moreover this move is acknowledged from countries such as Bangladesh, SriLanka, Afghanistan and United Arab Emirates as India’s internal matter.
Scrapping of article 370 is a sign of good politics and an efficacious move to provide better opportunities to Kashmiri people specifically, those youths who ( off and on ) comes under the influence of so called ‘jihadist’ and turned themselves from an aspiring youth to a stone – pelter.