Former student leader at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Shehla Rashid, on Tuesday said Kashmir is not Gaza. Speaking to news agency ANI, the former student leader’s remarks came after she was asked if she earlier sympathised with stone pelters.
“In 2010, yes,” Shehla Rashid said.
“But today, when I see it, I am much more grateful for today’s situation. Kashmir is not Gaza, it has become clear that Kashmir is not Gaza, because Kashmir was just involved in these back-and-forth protests and sporadic incidents of insurgency and infiltrations,” she said.
Rashid also attributed the changes in Jammu and Kashmir to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s policies, saying, “All of those things, somebody needed to break the ice, and for that, I would like to credit the present government, especially the Prime Minister and the Home Minister.”
“They have ensured a political solution to it, which I would say is bloodless,” she said.
This was not the first time Rashid praised the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
Earlier, in August this year, Rashid, who has been a vocal critic of the Modi government’s decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomous status on August 5, 2019, as well as its subsequent division into two Union territories, praised the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre and the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir for their efforts in improving the human rights situation in the Valley.
Speaking to ANI, Rashid also spoke about her struggles at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, after former research scholar Umar Khalid and then JNU Student Union president, Kanhaiya Kumar, were arrested on charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy in connection with the northeast Delhi riots.
“It was not just a life changer for the three of us, the entire university’s life, the entire university sort of suffered the consequences of that incident, because there was so much backlash against anything to do with JNU,” Shehla Rashid said.
“So overnight, from being an elite university, the queen of liberal arts and social sciences, JNU became a slur, it was almost like a cuss word,” she said.
“No such slogans – as ‘Bharat Tere Tukde Honge’, ‘Laal Salam’ have ever been raised at JNU,” Rashid said.
Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar were arrested nearly two years ago on charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy in the northeast Delhi riots that caused waves of bloodshed and devastation.
Khalid was charged under the draconian UAPA over his alleged role in the incident.
