Kashmir was in a mess before Aug 5: Jaishankar on abrogation of Art 370

In an interactive session, Jaishankar said, "The level of intimidation had reached the height where the senior police officers were lynched on the streets of Srinagar. Journalists who wrote against separatism were assassinated. The military personnel returning home for Eid were kidnapped and killed.

So Kashmir was in a mess before Aug 5. The difficulties have not started in Kashmir on Aug 5. The abrogation of Article 370 is supposed to be a way of dealing with those problems."

The Narendra Modi government on Aug 5 scrapped Articles 370 and 35A and bifturcated Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories, Jammu and Kashmir (with an assembly) and Ladakh (without an assembly).

The abrogation of Article 370 has offended Pakistan which has repeatedly tried to internationalise the issue though India maintained Kashmir is its internal matter.

Earlier Jaishankar, who is presently in the US, had said India has no problem talking to Pakistan, but it has a problem talking to “Terroristan”.

Replying to a question on India’s move after Pakistan said a lot on the abolition of special status to Jammu and Kashmir, Jaishankar said, “We have no problem talking to Pakistan, but we have problem talking to ‘Terroristan’..and they have to be the one and not be the other.”

“They have to accept the model they have built for themselves no longer works…you cannot in this day and age conduct policy using terrorism as the legitimate instrument of statecraft,” he maintained.

He asserted that Pakistan has built an entire industry of terrorism to deal with the Kashmir issue and its anger and frustration is due to the fact that its investment of 70 years on terrorism is going to be wasted if India’s new Kashmir policy works.