NOTED INDIAN HISTORIAN DESCRIBES KASHMIR AS "A BLOT ON INDIAN DEMOCRACY"

Courtesy: Daily Kashmir Images dated July 5th, 2009
Srinagar, July 04: A noted Indian historian has rubbed India hard for its track-record in Kashmir describing Kashmir as a “big blot on India’s democracy”. Ramachandra Guha, the Bangalore-based historian and biographer, while delivering the fifth Nehru memorial Lecture 2009 on "Democracy and Violence in South Asia and Beyond" at the Nehru Centre in London on Friday night, compared the Sri Lanka’s handling of Tamils issue with India’s handling of Kashmir. Drawing a parallel between the violence in Jammu and Kashmir and Northern Sri Lanka, Guha who has previously taught at the Universities of Yale and Stanford, said, "Just as Kashmir is a big blot on India's democracy, the treatment of Tamils is a signal failure of Sri Lankan democracy. "As in Kashmir, the problem arose because of denial of democracy's software and hardware - elections were rigged both in Kashmir and Northern Sri Lanka," he said, adding "cultural pluralism in terms of language, in terms of dress, in terms of faith is a serious part of democracy." Patrick French, a noted writer presided over the function, which was attended by the Indian High Commissioner to the UK, Shiv Shankar Mukherjee. Highlighting the merits of cultural pluralism, Guha warned against the discrimination on the basis of language or religion. He said he wanted India to be a "more contented and less violent place”