Agencies/Srinagar
Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked the festival of Diwali yesterday with a visit to Jammu and Kashmir to rally the morale of troops after recent deadly clashes with Pakistan.
Modi, who also visited victims of floods that devastated parts of Kashmir last month, met soldiers based on the Siachen glacier.
“Today India sleeps peacefully because you stay awake day and night,” Modi told the soldiers based in the remote glacier at what has been dubbed the world’s highest battleground.
“Indian soldiers are respected across the world for their discipline and determination... I assure the soldiers of my country whether they are at the border or in a cantonment, the country of 1.25bn Indians stand with you.”
Modi’s visit comes after a recent flare-up in violence in Kashmir, with at least 20 civilian dying in cross-border skirmishes earlier this month amid mutual recriminations over who provoked the firing.
Siachen, which was the scene of fierce fighting between India and Pakistan in 1987, is seen as the most inhospitable posting for any soldier.
An estimated 8,000 troops have died on the glacier since 1984, almost all of them from avalanches, landslides, frostbite, altitude sickness or heart failure rather than combat.
“I am fortunate that as a servant of the nation, I got to see in what circumstances the soldiers have to live here,” Modi said, addressing troops in Hindi in freezing temperature.
Dressed in battle fatigue woollen jackets, a red scarf and goggles to protect the eyes from blizzards, Modi promised to enforce a one-rank-one-pension scheme for the armed forces during his tenure.
“It is my duty to see that you and your family live in pride.”
Modi, who won a landslide election in May, did invite his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to his inauguration in a move that raised hopes of genuine progress in ties between the nuclear armed neighbours.
But India called off peace talks last month after Pakistan’s high commissioner met Kashmiri separatists, in a move some saw as a sign of a tougher stance under the new Bharatiya Janata Party government.
More than 200 demonstrators rallied in Pakistani-administered Kashmir yesterday to protest against Modi’s visit, chanting anti-India slogans and burning an Indian flag.
“Modi’s visit on the eve of Diwali is religious extremism and rubs salt in the wounds of Kashmiri flood victims,” said one placard in reference to the devastation wrought by deadly floods in the region last month.
More than 450 people were killed in India and Pakistan when the floods swept through Kashmir and Pakistan’s Punjab province.
Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir have been heavily criticised for their response to the flooding and shopkeepers observed a strike yesterday in the main city of Srinagar to mark Modi’s visit.
After landing in the late afternoon, Modi met top state government officials, leaders of political parties and aid workers.
Several families affected by the floods waited to meet the prime minister outside the governor’s mansion where the meeting was taking place.
Indian media said that Modi, who was making his second trip to Srinagar since the floods, was likely to pledge more aid to help rebuild the city.
Assembly polls are scheduled to take place in Jammu and Kashmir before the end of the year and Modi’s visit has been dismissed by opponents as an election stunt.
But Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is battling to fend off a challenge from the BJP, defended Modi’s visit.
“Let’s just appreciate that (Modi) is in Srinagar on his festival & not at home celebrating as he normally would have been doing,” Abdullah wrote on Twitter.
But separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani accused Modi of rubbing “salt on our wounds” by visiting Kashmir on Diwali but not extending Eid greetings to Kashmiri Muslims.
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik said Modi was “politicising a human tragedy” - a reference to the prime minister’s meetings with the flood victims.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi shares sweets with soldiers on the occasion of Diwali, at Siachen base camp yesterday. Army chief General Dalbir Singh is
