Commentary: After the U.S.-India deal, hoping for the best



Along with the strengthening of economic ties between the United States and India, I hope the political uncertainty in Jammu and Kashmir ends.

I hope monstrous laws, which Kashmir is currently ruled by — that have crippled all political and social life in the union territory and paralyzed all progress — are repealed.

I hope laws that authorize arrests and detention, for long periods of time without trial or even without disclosing the grounds of detention, are revised.

I hope the Indian administration of Jammu and Kashmir ceases to make free and frequent use of this law of the jungle.

I hope citizens and political workers who have been arrested for either unknown or uncorroborated reasons are released.

I hope political workers are not intimidated with the threat of implicating them in fabricated criminal cases, if they fail to support decisions made by the federal government and its appendages in J & K.

I hope civil liberties and political rights are resuscitated in the now-union territory.

NOTE: A native of Kashmir, Dr. Nyla Ali Khan is a professor at Rose State College in Midwest City and visiting professor at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Her essays and analyses have appeared in publications around the world, including in The City Sentinel newspaper and on the CapitolBeatOK.com  website. This essay is adapted, with her approval, from a recent online post.