CM of Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti is saddened to the see the way India is being projected on television prime times. According to her, it is just widening the gap between India and Kashmir. This is not the India she knows. “I want to see that India which cries, feels the pain of Kashmir. The India that embraced us on our terms. We are a diverse state with all kinds of multi-diversity of religion and everything. Kashmir is a mini India in India,” Mufti said.
She strongly opposed any move to change the constitutional status of Kashmir by saying that people of the state love their flag and Article 370 and would do anything to preserve it.
Jammu and Kashmir defy the two-nation theory that was based on the religious divide and has aligned to a more secular and accommodative India where Hindus and Muslims pray together at shrine and statues of Hindu gods are being made by Muslim artisans. Mufti said the government of India and the people of the country needed to do more to accommodate the aspirations of Kashmiris even as the sentiment of ‘Azadi’ needed to be replaced with a “better idea”.
Apparently referring to Sangh Parivar’s dislike for the Nehru-Gandhi family, she said that when she was growing up, Indira Gandhi represented India and that’s why India is Indira for her.
She said that Modi can become the man of history and has pinned her hopes on PM Modi for resolving Jammu and Kashmir issues.
Though she praised Modi’s leadership and called him the man of the moment, for her, India is Indira.