When the army is pointing a gun at your head, it is difficult to feel affection for it. And after ten years of such oppressive military domination over all civil life, you cannot expect the local populace to feel great warmth for India

It is true that there has been ... a big fall in public support for militancy, as compared to the early nineties. But this is not the result of a thaw in the relations between the Kashmiri masses and the ruling establishment. It is the result of the actions of the Pakistani-backed terror squads ... whose atrocities have been as bad as those by the Indian State ... The Kashmiris soon found themselves increasingly caught in the heavy crossfire between these savage and heavily armed mujahideen and the equally harsh ... Indian army. As a result, they are today exhausted and hungry for peace. But they still want justice ..

The only way to fight Pakistani infiltration in Kashmir .. is through armed militias of the local people or a Kashmiri battalion within the Indian army (which should) guard the borders, as they did in Kargil.

But there are some who will be shocked by the very idea, saying that the Kashmiris cannot be trusted with arms and military training. This is really the crux of the whole issue. How can (then) we insist that the Kashmiris remain with India? ... Does nationalism mean that the army holds us together as a nation? What is a nation? Land or people? Can a blood-soaked territory with alienated peoples live as one nation? (Source: Amita Kanekar in The Voice, of People Awakening, September, 99)