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Shashi Tharoor’s Article In Bangladeshi Daily Refers To India’s Jammu & Kashmir As ‘India-Administered Kashmir’, Congress Leader Claims Innocence Blaming Editor Of The Newspaper

The Commune

Once again, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor finds himself in a controversy as his article published in a Bangladeshi newspaper refers the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir as “India Administered Kashmir,” a term often used by Western media and organizations to dispute India’s claims over Kashmir.

Shashi Tharoor recently penned an op-ed titled “Potential Loss for Modi” in Project Syndicate, which Bangladeshi news outlet The Daily Star later leveraged to bolster their agenda of advocating for Kashmir. The piece challenges the initial assumption of a comfortable victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Shashi Tharoor opined that indicators suggest diminishing support for the BJP, with voters feeling disenchanted due to unmet promises, especially concerning job creation and economic well-being.

The Congress leader claimed that despite Modi’s personal popularity, the BJP’s campaign faces apathy and critique, fueled by inflammatory rhetoric against Muslims and opposition parties. The BJP employs various tactics, including absorbing opposition figures, forging alliances, and resorting to intimidation when persuasion fails. However, signs of a resurgence in the opposition and voter fatigue with the BJP’s governance hint at a possible shift in electoral outcomes, particularly in states where the BJP’s dominance is being challenged. Absent recent galvanizing events like the 2019 terrorist attack in Kashmir, the BJP’s electoral prospects appear uncertain, with public dissatisfaction over its performance and a growing confidence among opposition ranks.

Even-though the criticism directed towards Modi and the BJP has been poorly articulated like sentiment sway of votes in 2019 due to Pulwama attack, when referring to Indian states as “administered,” suggesting that Jammu and Kashmir was not originally an integral part of India but acquired later. This stance by a senior Congress MP has sparked widespread criticism on social media.

Shashi Tharoor had written “After all, in 2019, the BJP got a major boost from a terrorist attack on a military convoy in Indian-administered Kashmir, which was carried out just a couple of months before the vote by the Pakistan-based group Jaish-e-Mohammed. With no such event galvanising Indian voters today, the BJP cannot hope to replicate its performance from the last election.”

Politically Motivated Appeasement

Congress leader and MP Shashi Tharoor previously echoed a different sentiment where he shared a post on his social media account. The post featured correspondence from British MPs affirming that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India, both historically and in perpetuity. The correspondence  forwarded to his counterpart, emphasizing the importance of correcting the notion that J&K is merely administered by India rather than being an integral part of the nation. In that post, Shashi Tharoor was remarked positively on a British MP acknowledging the straightforward reality that Jammu and Kashmir is a state that fully acceded to India in 1947, not merely an “India-administered” territory.

In another post from 2019, Shashi Tharoor asserts that Jammu and Kashmir has been an inseparable part of India since 1947.

After much uproar, Shashi Tharoor in an X post claimed that he “never used such a term in any of his writings or statements anywhere, ever”.

” It has been interpolated by the editors of the newspaper that my syndicated column appeared in. I disavow such language unequivocally, but have no control over what foreign newspaper editors do.”, Shashi Tharoor said.

 

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