The much-lauded parliamentary democracy in India has been unable to protect a genuine democratic set-up in Kashmir.

For Pakistan, Kashmir represents the infeasibility of secular nationalism and underscores the need for an Islamic theocracy in the subcontinent.

The rhetoric of hate and binarisms pervades the politics of the "Third-World" and of the West.

In establishment Indian and Pakistani thought, Kashmiris are defined as different from the nationals of the two countries.

The much-lauded parliamentary democracy in India has been unable to protect a genuine democratic set-up in Kashmir.

The creation of India and Pakistan were pyrrhic victories for their denizens because the political, socioeconomic, psychological, and culture havoc wreaked by that momentous event is reflected in those pogroms, ethnic cleansing, proliferation of nuclear weapons, poverty, and riots that continue to cause seismic tremors in the Indian subcontinent.

The partition of India in 1947 legitimized the forces of masculinist nationalism and enabled hatred for the "other" to irreparably mutilate a shared anti-colonial legacy and cultural heritage so systematically that the wounds inflicted by the partition are yet to heal.