Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Kashmir & Gujarat

Sir, — The letter of Krishen Kek (August 2): there is an important difference between the situation in Kashmir and even Punjab when militancy was at its height, on the one hand, and that in Gujarat on the other. In the first two States, militants wanted to create a severe law and order problem so as to prevent the holding of elections altogether or participation therein, irrespective of community. The militants did not want to scare away the voters of any particular community and further, they did not participate in the elections so that there was no question of their gaining any undue advantage from the elections.

In the case of Gujarat, the intention is, or at least the effect would be, to scare away the voters of a particular community only and thus, to give undue advantage to the party in power which will participate in the elections. In the case of Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab, the electoral process was to bring the militants into the stream of participative democracy and was thus a process of reconciliation. In Gujarat, the intention is to exclude a section of a community from the electoral process, thereby aggravating the divide.

A.M. Mandal,

Hyderabad

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