*NEW YORK:* The Kashmiri people’s struggle for freedom from India’s rule is“overwhelmingly homegrown”, The New York Times said in an in-depth dispatchfrom Indian occupied Kashmir where the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya JanataParty’s (BJP) anti-Muslim policies have “spurred more people to turnagainst the government.”

“The conflict today is probably driven less by geopolitics than by internalIndian politics, which have increasingly taken an anti-Muslim direction,”Times’ Correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman wrote from Qasbayar, a Kashmirivillage.

The report said that most of the fighters are young men who draw supportfrom a population “deeply resentful of India’s governing party and years ofoccupation.”

“Kashmir sits on the frontier of India and Pakistan, and both countrieshave spilt rivers of blood over it, correspondent Gettleman wrote.

“Three times, they have gone to war, and tens of thousands of people havebeen killed in the conflict. It is one of Asia’s most dangerous flashpoints, where a million troops have squared off along the disputed border.Both sides now wield nuclear arms. And the two sides are divided byreligion, with Kashmir stuck in the middle,” he said.

The dispatch cited Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister-in-waiting, assaying that the Kashmiris’ struggle is now indigenous.

“Mr Khan, who clearly has a Pakistani perspective on the conflict, says heis determined to negotiate an end to it,” the report said.

“His persuasive election victory last month” and the fact that India’sprime minister, Narendra Modi, made a friendly phone call to congratulatehim suggests a breakthrough is possible.”

But the dispatch said, “India still loves to blame Pakistan for all itsKashmir problems. Many Indian politicians seem in denial that their ownpolitics and policies might be a factor.”

Correspondent Gettleman wrote, “India’s swerve to the right in recentyears, with the rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, hasdeeply alienated its Muslim minority. Many top members of the ruling partyhave a very questionable record when it comes to treating Muslims fairly.This has emboldened Hindu supremacists across India, and in recent years,Hindu lynch mobs have targeted and killed Muslims, often based on falserumors. Many of the culprits are lightly punished, if at all, leavingIndia’s Muslims feeling exposed.”

“In the Indian-administered parts of Kashmir, where there was already ahistory of bitter conflict, the new politics have spurred more people toturn against the government. Some pick up guns, others rocks, but the rootemotion is the same: Many Kashmiris now hate India.”

“This is what’s different,” Siddiq Wahid, a Kashmiri historian who earnedhis Ph.D from Harvard, was quoted as saying in the NYT dispatch.

“Before, in the 1990s, many Kashmiris felt we can negotiate this, we cantalk.” “But nobody wants to be part of India now,” he said.

“Every Kashmiri is resisting today, in different ways.” The dispatch said,“The latest are children and grandmothers. At almost every recent securityoperation, as Indian officers closed in on houses where militants werebelieved to be hiding, they have had to reckon with seething crowds ofresidents of all ages acting as human shields.

“Walk through Kashmiri villages, where little apples are ripening on thetrees and the air tastes clean and crisp, and ask people what they want.

“The most common response is independence. Some say they want to joinPakistan. None say anything good about India, at least not in public.”

“India’s steely response has pushed away even moderates,” the Times said.