New Delhi: On August 5, the fifth anniversary of the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under Article 370, the main editorial in the Valley’s largest circulated English news daily, Greater Kashmir, was about the side-fencing of bridges in Srinagar to prevent suicides.
The lead opinion piece was on the recent landslides in Wayanad, Kerala, and included suggestions about how Kashmir can conserve its ecology and escape such a calamity. The opinion page featured two more articles – one on the importance of preserving family values and the other praising the Union budget. The latter had AI written all over it.
Five years ago, the state of Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its autonomy, dismembered and demoted into two Union territories, and its people were placed under a total lockdown, cut off from each other and the world.
Greater Kashmir’s silence on its editorial page (and even front page) on the fifth anniversary stood out in contrast with news reports and opinion pieces in the national media critically assessing the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, amid record unemployment, declining economic output and a worsening security scenario in the Jammu region.
One might imagine the newspaper would have published something about the abrogation – praise, criticism, analysis, anything – the following day. But the August 6 edition was just as silent.
Restrictions on dissent
The 2019 decision had provoked anger and resentment in Kashmir but this could not find much expression on account of the political crackdown. Figures disclosed in Parliament recently suggest that Jammu and Kashmir accounts for 36% of all UAPA cases filed in the country between 2020 and 2022.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
