Thankfully our national government have (mostly) a little more sense, than not to take sides on the issue of Kashmir, unlike our local councillors.
Local councillors who now seem keen to push aside urgent local issues, which could benefit from their attention, in order to concentrate on controversial international matters.
There have been horrific cases of human rights abuse, and acts ot terrorism, carried out by the various factions involved in this dispute.
Now, thanks to Hyndburn Borough Council, as our elected representatives, voting that they have now officially sanctioned a resolution which supports the Kashmiri peoples' right to self-determination, we have now firmly given our support to only one side in this fight, and totally disregarded the rights of the other people involved in this conflict.
This is shameful thing to have happened.
Hyndburn Borough Council have allowed themselves to be used by political lobbyists, pursuing their own prejudiced agenda.
H.B.C.'s integrity has been damaged, and sullied, by allowing some of it's own councillors, who might have their own vested interests in Kashmir, to push their own political agendas, in succeeding to recruit H.B.C. to their own controversial cause.
The council have foolhardily, and naively, allowed themselves to be used as a propagandist pawn, in a politically sensitive game of conflict.
Hyndburn Borough Council, and by association, all it's residents, now officially support the AJK Peoples Party.
Don't believe it?
Use a search engine, and see how H.B.C.'s name is now being reported on news sites all over the world, because of what they've done.
Hyndburn Borough Council - sadly unable to see more than one point of view, but at least we're now seen as Internationalists.
Congratulations.
The government realise there are two sides to every story. Unlike H.B.C., who fail to realise when they've been used.
'Vince Cable, the business secretary who is attuned to Indian sensitivities after visiting the country regularly since 1965, gave a taste of the new approach this morning. Asked about Kashmir, he said: That is a dispute within the sub-continent that we are not expressing a view on.'
'All sides agree that Britain needs to tread carefully. Harsh V Pant, an academic at King's College London, underlines this point in the Times of India this morning. He says David Miliband caused great offence when he said that resolving the Kashmir dispute was essential to dealing with extremism in south Asia.'
'Labour may have been insensitive about Kashmir and Cameron has good reason to want to treat India as a normal trading partner. But then he is not visiting India, as Tony Blair did in January 2002, when it is on the verge of nuclear war with Pakistan. The cause of that dispute? Terrorists had attacked the Indian parliament the month before. The terrorists, similar to those groups named today by Cameron for launching the 2008 attack on Mumbai, were linked to the Kashmir dispute and New Delhi blamed Islamabad for sanctioning the parliament attack.'
Cameron and co tread carefully over Kashmir | Nicholas Watt | Politics | guardian.co.uk
