Global Politics & Cultures (formerly Independent Thought & Freedom) - Western Ethnic Lies and Double Standards on Ethnostates in Jammu & Kashmir w/ Prof. Kapil Kumar

Western Ethnic Lies and Double Standards on Ethnostates in Jammu & Kashmir w/ Prof. Kapil Kumar

03/02/19 • 5 min

Global Politics & Cultures (formerly Independent Thought & Freedom)

LISTEN to the FULL episode 12 w/ historian Prof. Kapil Kumar BELOW!

As the world watches two nuclear-armed states in confrontation in Jammu & Kashmir, the Western media pushes a false framework that encourages rabid, mindless confrontation.

Whereas the framework should be about terrorism and the appropriate responses to suicide bombers, instead the Western media stoke a false narrative about Hindu oppression of Muslims, and encourage Islamic religious fanaticism, where it is not the issue.

This gets to our very understanding of history itself.

The Western media has promoted a very false understanding and framework of Indian Independence, partition and the Jammu & Kashmir question.

While overall, Jammu & Kashmir is a majority Muslim state, geographically Muslims occupty only 15% of the area, in the Kashmir valley. Jammu is majority Hindu, and Ladakh is Buddhist.

But that is not even the issue.

India is not a Hindu, ethnic state. It is multi-religious.

Pakistan is an ethnic state, though, with Islam being the State religion. And Pakistan is strangely supported by the US militarily, against India.

Interestingly, however, although Pakistan was founded on the basis of religion, during the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947, a majority of Muslims decided to stay in India.

(According to Pew, Pakistan now has more Muslims than India (200m vs. 189m). This was until recently not the case, so in the video I apparently mistakenly claim otherwise.)

India was not founded on the basis of religion. The Indian Independence movement was ALWAYS multi-religious.

And Indian Muslims continue to fight and sacrifice their lives against terrorists being sheltered in Pakistan.

To frame the Jammu & Kashmir conflict in terms of Hindu oppression of Muslims encourages ethnic analysis of problems; insults Indian Muslims, Hindus and others; ignores the legality of international borders; blames Indians for terrorism; and ignores the central problem of terrorists sheltering themselves in Pakistan.

The very framing of the conflict has to be re-shaped.

It is NOT Hindu vs. Muslim. It is multi-religious India vs. Islamic terrorists.

See the excerpt from my myth-busting interview with Professor Kapil Kumar, the Director of the Centre for Freedom Struggle & Diaspora Studies at the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India to learn more.

LISTEN to the FULL episode 12 w/ historian Prof. Kapil Kumar BELOW!

As the world watches two nuclear-armed states in confrontation in Jammu & Kashmir, the Western media pushes a false framework that encourages rabid, mindless confrontation.

This gets to our very understanding of history itself.

The Western media has promoted a very false understanding and framework of Indian Independence, partition and the Jammu & Kashmir question.

While overall, Jammu & Kashmir is a majority Muslim state, geographically Muslims occupty only 15% of the area, in the Kashmir valley. Jammu is majority Hindu, and Ladakh is Buddhist.

But that is not even the issue.

India is not a Hindu, ethnic state. It is multi-religious.

Pakistan is an ethnic state, though, with Islam being the State religion. And Pakistan is strangely supported by the US militarily, against India.

Interestingly, however, although Pakistan was founded on the basis of religion, during the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947, a majority of Muslims decided to stay in India.

(According to Pew, Pakistan now has more Muslims than India (200m vs. 189m). This was until recently not the case, so in the video I apparently mistakenly claim otherwise.)

India was not founded on the basis of religion. The Indian Independence movement was ALWAYS multi-religious.

And Indian Muslims continue to fight and sacrifice their lives against terrorists being sheltered in Pakistan.

The very framing of the conflict has to be re-shaped.

It is NOT Hindu vs. Muslim. It is multi-religious India vs. Islamic terrorists.

Previous Episode

12: Prof. Kapil Kumar | An Indian Nationalist Perspective on Indo-Pak tensions in Jammu & Kashmir

Is the world on the brink of nuclear war between India and Pakistan because of religious conflict and oppression in Jammu & Kashmir?

This is the way the question is framed in most of global media, and framed this way, it does seem senseless.

Yet since this is a flashpoint for nuclear war, and it concerns the entire globe, it is important to be able to make sense of the situation and advance discussion.

In "Independent Thought & Freedom" this week, I discuss the Jammu & Kashmir issue with Professor Kapil Kumar, the Director of the Centre for Freedom Struggle & Diaspora Studies at the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India, a staunch and sometimes controversial Indian nationalist.

In our discussion we unpack the issue and the way it is framed, as the very framing of the issue leads to the intractability of the conflict.

We discuss questions such as:
- Is Jammu & Kashmir actually a majority Muslim state?
- Even if so, how does that mean that Pakistan has a right to claim the territory as its own?
- Why isn't this ethnic logic accepted in Europe or the USA, when individuals and groups like Richard Spencer and the Alt-Right, or Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, demand white and black ethnostates in the US?
- Is Pakistan actually a pro-Muslim state?
- Is India a Hindu state that oppresses Muslims? If so, why did most Muslims choose to stay in India when Pakistan was created? How does this make sense when India has roughly the same amount of Muslims as Pakistan?

An alternative political and geo-political understanding is forwarded, upon which peaceful relations between India and Pakistan can be built.

Such an advance is extremely important in this conflict involving two nuclear-armed states.

Next Episode

War against Terrorists in Pakistan must be waged w/ Prof Kapil Kumar

LISTEN to the FULL episode 12 of "Independent Thought & Freedom" w/ historian Prof. Kapil Kumar BELOW!

Ironically as the mainstream media cheers on the US for its interventions in Venezuela, laments its withdrawal from Syria, and pushes it into confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia, it berates India for fighting against real terrorists that have attacked it, and who are sheltering in Pakistan.

Pakistan officials and military personnel even threated India with nuclear retaliation for India's bombing of the terrorist strongholds in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

In my interview with Professor Kapil Kumar, he gives a strong response to critics and to nuclear threats from Pakistan: you will not win. We need to dismantle the terrorist camps. We want peace, but not at the expense of more innocent Indian deaths.