Thinking Goa, Thinking Kashmir
By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA
On August 5, 2019, exactly a year ago, Government of India effectively abrogated Article 370, in the name of expediting development and ending militancy. Kashmir was subjected to a lockdown which included blockage of communications. One felt concerned, and definitely angry at the fact that the Indian State had stomped all over Kashmir, worsening an already bad situation, and without giving the people of Kashmir a voice in the determination of their future. One may say that these two, Goa and Kashmir, cannot be compared. True, they can’t be compared, in that, in the one, it was a forced and heavily militarised lockdown meant to gag, but introduced in the name of checking terrorism, and in the other, the police-enforced lockdown was said to be meant as a safety measure to prevent spread of COVID 19. (more…)