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Srinagar: Former Indian Finance and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has said that the August 2019 actions of the BJP government have multiplied \u201cinjustice\u201d in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, warning that New Delhi will eventually be forced to restore the territory\u2019s statehood.<\/p>\n
According to Kashmir Media Service, in a media interview, Sinha\u2014who has become a full-time Kashmir activist\u2014recalled that the conversion of occupied Jammu and Kashmir into a Union Territory was \u201cunprecedented\u201d and left people with a profound \u201closs of identity\u201d in addition to ongoing political and administrative repression.<\/p>\n
Sinha said that despite being out of power, he continues to visit IIOJK to listen to people who feel unheard under New Delhi\u2019s rule. He stated that \u201creal decisions still lie in Delhi,\u201d with the unelected administration in the territory functioning without accountability.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the period before 2019, Sinha said that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee\u2019s approach of Insaniyat, Jamhooriyat, Kashmiriyat remains the only credible framework for resolving the Kashmir dispute. He noted that Vajpayee pushed both internal engagement with Kashmiris and dialogue with Pakistan, which resulted in major confidence-building steps such as the 2004 ceasefire, cross-LoC movement, and resumption of composite dialogue.<\/p>\n
The former minister criticised the BJP for abandoning Vajpayee\u2019s policy, saying India\u2019s current approach is driven by \u201cmajoritarian impulses\u201d rather than consensus. He lamented that decisions on Jammu and Kashmir are being taken without meaningful debate, consultation, or all-party discussions.<\/p>\n
Sinha also recounted his earlier engagements with veteran Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Gilani, noting that during the 2016 uprising he led a civil society delegation that successfully persuaded the leadership to allow the reopening of schools amid mass shutdowns.<\/p>\n
Expressing hope for the future, Sinha said that statehood must be restored and that only an elected government with full authority can address the deep political, social, and economic crises facing IIOJK. \u201cStatehood is only the beginning,\u201d he said, emphasising that true reconciliation and resolution will require reversing the series of injustices inflicted on the territory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Srinagar: Former Indian Finance and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has said that the August 2019 actions of the BJP government have multiplied \u201cinjustice\u201d in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, warning that New Delhi will eventually be forced to restore the territory\u2019s statehood. According to Kashmir Media Service, in a media interview, Sinha\u2014who has …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":189682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-189679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indian-occupied-jammu-and-kashmir","tag-top-story"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/12\/8-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189683,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189679\/revisions\/189683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}