‘Why are EU MPs allowed in Kashmir but not Indian opposition leaders,’ asks academic Nitasha Kaul
The Westminster University professor said, ‘Terror is used as a master narrative that allows the Indian government to do whatever (they want).’
On October 29, a delegation of European Parliament MPs visited Srinagar in Jammu & Kashmir to take stock of the situation. Speaking on the visit of the EU delegation, Nitasha Kaul, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, said, “These MPs were taken on a tour of a deserted city on a visit organised by an NGO with all kinds of dodgy backstories, at the same time when Indian opposition leaders and MPs are not allowed to go there.” Kaul was speaking at the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales panel discussion on Kashmir.
The professor also criticised the Indian government of indulging in a “Hindutva political project”. “There is just this way in which this whole thing is happening with an attitude of ‘we are doing it because we can’, and part of it cannot be understood unless you factor in the Islamophobic element central to the Hindutva project,” Kaul added.
The state of Jammu & Kashmir has been divided into the two Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and of Ladakh.
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