Do the people of Kashmir want to join Pakistan or India? Here Is an Answer From a Kashmiri Muslim
I as a Kashmiri Muslim have witnessed no discrimination in any part of India where ever I travelled. In fact I felt like I was one with the Indian people in the same way, a drop of water in the ocean feels at one with the ocean. No one interfered with my faith and no one discriminated against me because I was a Kashmiri Muslim. I was able to freely practice my faith and mingle with fellow Kashmiris as well as fellow-Indians where ever I stayed in India.
I know a Kashmiri relative who crossed over to POK and later travelled to Lahore and Karachi and he said that the atmosphere in Pakistan was a lot more frosty, dull and drab. Most of the people spoke to him in Punjabi and no one knows Kashmiri. Muzaffarabad in Pakistani occupied Kashmir is full of Mirpuri people and Potohari people from the plains of Punjab who speak Hindko.
The economy and the general feeling in Pakistan is one of “Mayoosi”.
“Mayoosi” is a Urdu word which means ” Widespread mental depression and desperation”…. The average Pakistani is facing load-shedding 20 hours out of 24 hours a day. He has constant water shortages and petrol shortages. There are checkpoints and security personal everywhere.
Even when you enter eateries or hotels they will have security personal running metal detectors over you.
Food markets and businesses are mostly scantily stocked and added to it is the regular news of attacks on minorities and attacks by terror outfits against the State.
I have worked in Mumbai and Delhi and have even taken my family on vacations to far off places in India like Shimla, Darjeeling and Shillong without any problems and I enjoyed my time in these locations with my wife who is also a Kashmiri and my kids also had a lot of fun in Shimla and Darjeeling.
One has to admit, that India is now on the move in the right direction, It is moving upwards very rapidly and there are lot of opportunities for Kashmiris to do anything they want to do in this great nation that is INDIA and become anything they want to be — whether becoming a superstar in Bollywood — because of our looks or or making it to the Indian Cricket Team because of our physique, stamina and strength.
Progress, Peace and Prosperity are becoming bywords in India.
There are 100 million other Muslims in India to remind us that we Kashmiri Muslims are not alone and this whole mosaic that is Indian society with all its different faiths, customs, cuisines, festivals, color and gaiety is much better than the drabness and the terror that has overtaken our insolent and misguided neighbor Pakistan who have been trying to woo the Kashmiri youth for so long with all the wrong promises.
When the Pakistanis woo Kashmiris, they want us to pick up a gun, fight the Indian security forces which is always suicidal and they want us to die for Kashmir in the cause of a very narrow interpretation of Islam.
But when Indians woo us, they want us to learn skills which will help us live for Kashmir and make Kashmir thriving and prosperous and tourist friendly and peaceful.
I studied at IIM Ahmedabad under a special quota offered to talented and educated youth in Kashmir and the professors there always told me and my Kashmiri batchmates that I could be entrepreneurs in my state and start businesses. They gave us all the skills, both software skills and managerial skills to face the world with a bold attitude. They also told us how to get loans and I still have their email and can write to them anytime if I need guidance or help.
That is the major difference.
Any person with a brain (It does not have to be Kashmiri, it can be anyone in the whole subcontinent) will put his stake in the thriving and upcoming nation that is India and reject the completely failed state that is Pakistan
We Kashmiris are seeing what they are doing to other Muslims in Pakistan and we do not like what we see. The news which comes out of Pakistan on a daily basis is only about massacre of minorities, bomb blasts, terror attacks, assassinations and blasphemy cases in which defenseless people are just hauled up and sentenced to death arbitrarily.
We are not Wahabis and this Wahabism which is sweeping Pakistan makes us peaceful Kashmiris shudder in disgust and horror.
That is not what Kashmiriyat teaches us. Kashmiriyat is more in keeping with the secular, progressive and peaceful mindset that is seen everywhere in India.
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