The Modi-led BJP government’s decision to alter Kashmir’s status is merely the culmination of India’s drive towards fascism and the embracing of a national image highly exclusive in nature. This exclusion is not limited to the BJP’s tenure, but is in fact a product of India’s struggles with its own identity and response to colonialism. The Kashmir crisis must, therefore, be seen in a larger historical and political context which places Indian nationalism at the very heart of this crisis.
Kashmir was always the cornerstone of India’s nationalist discourse. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, viewed Kashmir’s inclusion in India as validation of his secular project. Modi, in turn, imagines Kashmir as his ultimate triumph, the acme of his ambition to impose Hindutva on India. Both these movements are predicated on and have been successful because of the extreme levels of violence the Indian state unleashed against the Kashmiri people.