The Indian stance on Kashmir freedom struggle has always been trenchant as it is tyrannical. The suppression of local rights and a disproportionate exertion of force has been the norm in IHK for the past 63 years. That is what has manifested itself once again in various recent incidents that flared up in the occupied Valley. Another part of this same policy is that as soon as anyone mentions the need for resolution of the issue, New Delhi immediately starts drumming up the beat of Pakistani involvement in Kashmir. That is what happened in the Thimpu meeting and ministerial level talks in Pakistan that closed all doors of further discussions. A clasp with an iron hand of large military deployment in the Valley is seemingly the only means India has to maintain its hegemony. But the Valley is gradually slipping out of hands now despite a renewed campaign of intensified Indian brutalities. The failure of All Parties Conference, which was convened by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to counter the current surge of resistance by Kashmiri youth should tell you something of the hopeless situation India is in. The unabated militancy continues and so do killings of hundreds of innocent people by the Indian forces while all those that have a responsibility to resolve matters sit on their hands in New Delhi. Perhaps Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has an inkling of where this ratcheted intensity of suppression is taking India for he has accepted on record that The only path for lasting peace and prosperity in Jammu and Kashmir is that of dialogue and discussion. But, then, why should he be shocked and distressed by the rising discontent of Kashmiri youth and heightened wave of anti-Indian Army, indeed anti-India, protests in the Valley? Isnt he keeping track of events, of what his military is doing these days in the Valley? The neurotic obsession with Pakistan involvement and fixation with the notion of occupation, justifying everything in the name of 'national security concerns would not extricate India out of this crisis. Leadership would. -LUBNA UMAR, Islamabad, September 16.