LONDON, Jan 12: The outside powers trying to help settle Kashmir dispute should realize that communal BJP is responsible for turning it into far dangerous an issue than any so-called outside interference.

“BJP Hindu nationalism has made the conflict more dangerous,” said The Guardian in a comment on current tension between Pakistan and India.

“Against this has to be laid the fact that BJP’s accession to power has made that conflict much more dangerous. This is the party that, enjoying the direct support of only a fifth of the voters, tested and deployed nuclear weapons, provoking Pakistan into acquiring nuclear weapons too,” wrote Martin Woolacott in an article in the Guardian on Friday.

The paper said: “Some of its (BJP) members have openly spoken of using those weapons against Pakistan in the event of a war over Kashmir, and some have called for the invasion and occupation of Azad Kashmir.

“BJP is a party whose position on Kashmir has not been just that there can be no talks with Pakistan until the alleged cross- border terrorism ends, but that there can be no talks until Pakistan has handed over to India the other part of Kashmir,” said the paper.

Woolacott said BJP “is the party dedicated to the proposition that Kashmir’s autonomous status, so often violated in practice, should be officially abolished. This is the party intent on getting rid of the separate civil code for Muslims”. Indian Muslims are the biggest minority in the world.—APP