Dr Shabir Choudhry

Liberation Struggle, Jihad or a Proxy War: Nature of Struggle in Former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir Dr Shabir Choudhry

One person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist, we were told. There is very thin line between a freedom fighter and a terrorist, yet we actively supported the Kashmiri armed struggle, as we sincerely thought it was a genuine struggle for freedom of our homeland. As we got more information, political maturity and established our independent sources of information about what was going on in name of Kashmiri ?freedom struggle' or ?Jihad' we started opposing it, and that was 5/6 years before the tragic events of 9/11 which changed many things including any distinction between armed struggle and freedom fight. We opposed militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, not because the world politics changed after 9/11, but because we sincerely believed it was proving counter productive and obstacle in our struggle for united and independent Jammu and Kashmir.