To save India, follow Jammu

For several days now, leaders of the Kashmiri separatist movement like Sajjad Lone have been repeatedly declaring that they will not give "even an inch of land" to the Sri Amarnath Shrine Board to provide facilities to Hindu pilgrims going to the holy cave in Kashmir. Alongside the uncouth behaviour and verbal threats of these so-called leaders of separatist outfits during television studio discussions, millions of Indians have also got to see demonstrators flaunting the Pakistan flag and raising pro-Pakistan slogans.

Many Indians who, thanks to the media boom, are exposed to this bigoted, intimidatory posture of Kashmiri separatists for the first time, are shocked. Till now they never knew that despite six decades of engagement with the world's largest and most vibrant democracy, people in the Kashmir Valley could be so far-removed from the liberal, democratic and secular framework within which the rest of India operates.

Young Indians are also getting acquainted for the first time with the glaring distinction between the nationalist, plural Jammu region and the secessionist, communal Kashmir Valley. While protesters in Jammu -- Hindu, Sikh and Muslim -- march with the Indian tricolour in hand and raise slogans like 'Bharat Mata ki jai', the protesters in Srinagar wave green flags of the Hurriyat or the flag of Pakistan, and the slogan that rents the air is 'Allah-o-Akbar'.