In many respects the brouhaha over the Jawahar Lal Nehru (JNU) protest and the arrest of the student union president Kanhaiya Kumar can be counted as a good thing, in that it has brought the issue of Kashmir again into the national limelight, encouraging discussion and dialogue about self-determination.
Kashmir is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, but yet it is being treated like dirt under the rug. Responsibility for it must ultimately be faced, because, sooner or later, it will be exposed. The authorities will hope that the JNU protest and Afzal Guru can be swept under the rug of the Indian conscience too. But repression invariably brings about the very opposite.