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

I have often noticed that the two nuclear powers on the Indian subcontinent, India and Pakistan, attribute to Kashmiris an inferior intellect, a lineage, and a mystique that has allowed the dominant regime to manipulate the Kashmiri "Other" as a stereotypical and predictable entity.

The culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse population of Indian and Pakistani-administered Jammu and Kashmir has been unable to reach a consensus on the future of the land and the heterogeneous peoples of the state.

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

It is now that the Left in India is urging the federal government to initiate unconditional talks with all stakeholders in Kashmir. Otherwise, up until now, the Left didn't even support the autonomous status of Kashmir, and the Kashmir imbroglio is not a conflict between the forces of Marxism and capitalism.

The Constitution of India seeks to guarantee respect for the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and the integrity of the electoral process. But time and again, provisions of the Constitution of India have been flagrantly violated in Kashmir, and the ideals that it enshrines have been forgotten.

For India, Kashmir lends credibility to its secular nationalist image.