One big grouse politicians and social circles in Kashmir have against the government of India is that New Delhi applied two different yardsticks while dealing with the June 2013 floods in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand and the September 2014 floods in nearby Jammu and Kashmir.
Uttarakhand got a huge central financial package just weeks after the disaster. But one year after the floods, the financial assistance sought by the Jammu and Kashmir government is yet to be accepted by the central government. On the first anniversary of the September 2014 floods, this grievance was widely reflected in the local media.
Jammu and Kashmir is not like any other state in India; it is a state which has led to three wars between India and Pakistan since 1947 and has witnessed a simmering armed conflict for the past 25 years. While India and Pakistan play politics by staking claim to Jammu and Kashmir, political groups in Kashmir try their best to score over one another in proving themselves the greatest collaborators of New Delhi or Islamabad – sometimes both of them.
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