Kashmir Aspires for Deep Introspection!
Kashmir, known for her exquisite beauty for the last many centuries, harbours the wild and natural beauty in her lap extravagantly in a splendiferous setup wherein ‘Nature’ exudes her tranquility and displays her magic to her zenith. In simple, ‘Nature’ talks to herself and offers an unparalleled empire of peace and serenity. ‘Nature’ dwells in Kashmir in her diversified styles and offers a new unique picture of her in each season it goes through. When summer leaves to clear the way for the autumn to appear, the mellow colours start to blanket Kashmir and ultimately turns the complete environment into golden. The glorious sunrise and the golden sunset just add to the depths of the wild and varied beauty across autumn. However, there is a day known by the name ‘27th Oct’ that appears the only mark on the horizon of the golden autumn. The mark reminds the serene surroundings about the day when the life rather diversified life of Kashmir, was caged in by mere cheat by none other than the region’s Incredible country, India.
Life has not stymied to exist, it continues as it follows the laws of universe and laws of universe are inevitable to follow. However, the very serenity of life in Kashmir was attacked and continued to be attacked and tyrannized since that Autumn day of 27th Oct 1947. The sanctity of Kashmir society is under continuous assault especially from the last two decades by the forces of the occupation. The chastity of our society has been torn apart into pieces. Life has been turned into a miserable living as around 100 thousand young souls have been buried, scores of men, women and children are missing, honour of our women folk is at risk day in and day out, countless women have been widowed, scores of women have been gang raped or molested, many more have been made disabled, countless unnamed graves have been discovered, hundreds of thousands tortured, scores and scores injured, thousands illegally arrested and incarcerated, property worth of untold sums have been turned to ashes or razed to ground, murky cycle of violence has blanketed Kashmir, chaos and terror have overwhelmed life in all her spheres and facing humiliation on daily basis has become a norm. This is the depiction of ‘life’ not anywhere in the world but in the world’s paradise, Kashmir under siege of India.
Kashmir is in tangled mess created by all the stakeholders involving the camp known by the name Freedom camp. Let us embrace the fact and the fact of the matter is that this mess was initiated by none other than by those who claim to be the champions of the ‘Kashmir cause’. The current movement has its genesis from the later part of 1989 when a group of men or groups of men just created a hullabaloo and set the tune in for this movement. With this the foundation stone of the chaos and confusion was laid down. A movement serves the sacred cause, therefore, for any movement to be successful its goals, objectives and the methodology to achieve such objectives become of paramount significance. A movement lacking any of the ingredients of goals, objectives and methodology will never reach its logical end. However, the extreme irony of this current movement is that it was initiated and continued without any thought process and the circumstances we are in was destined to encounter and engulf us.
There is a genuine sentiment that runs across Kashmir against the very occupation by India right from that autumn day of 27th Oct 1947. This very sentiment has become the victim at the hands of many players and parties at different times in our occupational history of 6 decades. The very first player who cashed in on it for his egoist interests was none other than the tallest leader of Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah. History stands testimony that he was the principal party to the cheat committed by India on Kashmir. The characteristics (good or bad) of personality of Sheikh Abdullah surely merits a separate debate to stroll about, however, his share of blunders are there in the mark appearing on the horizon of autumn day of 27th Oct. Sheikh Abdullah did not stop there. He, his coterie and his party (National Conference) continued to play this very sentiment of Kashmir over 50s, 60s and 70s for their petty interests pushing the Kashmiris deep under the chains of Indian occupation. All along with Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference there were scores of other players (religious, secular and nationalists) and parties who played hand-in-gloves with our occupier to let the sufferings of occupation surpass us. Sheikh Abdullah and his contemporaries are no more in the world. However, they have been replaced by others and their duplicity game is still on.
Emergence of new brand of Secularist and Nationalists and their criminal U turn:
For Kashmir, the architectonic plates were shifted in later part of 1989 when a band (of secularist and nationalist thought) of men just went berserk and created the tumult with their guns heaving in the sky on the streets of Kashmir. With it the breath was infused into the new era of Kashmir that is the current movement, the repercussions of which we still do not know for how long will haunt us. The architects of this chaos and confusion picked up the same thread that is the sentiment against Indian occupation and tried to cash in on it. Initially they were able to run the sentiment across the society at large. However, it was destined to lose its sheen because the movement cannot be run just on a single sentiment. There was neither any thought process involved nor any objectives and methodology adopted to initiate this movement. The fallout from this lethal and toxic action is around us for the last 2 decades and is still spreading deep in our society in one form or other.
The social fabric of our society was hammered so hard that it seems now difficult to stitch it back. Kashmir was put on fire by these secularists and nationalists without ever thinking what they would achieve by it. Logic and sanity would demand that once starting the so called ‘armed struggle’ by exploiting school going children and innocent men they would continue with it. However, the irony is that the tale is too woebegone for us. They stuck the knife in the back of this very movement when they surrendered before our occupier on one pretext or other in early years of 90s. They twisted the knife that they had already stucked in the movement’s back by creating the drama of Hazratbal siege and then surrendering again before our occupier. These events of early 1990s are of significant importance as far as this current movement is concerned. These so called secularists and nationalist, therefore, dented the movement in its infancy years leaving behind the deep dent that is yet to be rectified. There are myriad questions that these secularists and nationalists have to answer to the nation. They may don different clothes at different times but a day will appear from the east when these self-styled commandos turned leaders will have to stand before nation. Why was this menace started when they had to surrender? Whose agenda they wanted to fulfill? Why they let innocent boys and men face bullets yet themselves remained shielded? Were they aspired their current status at the cost of precious blood of young boys? The list goes on the trot.
Hypocrisy of Religious Parties:
The chaos and confusion created by secularists and nationalist was taken to higher heights by our religious parties. They dived in the troubled waters too deep where breathing was almost impossible thereby aggravating the wounds of Kashmir by letting thousands of innocent men to kill. They pushed Kashmir deep into darkness from where it seems now an uphill task to peep out. The extreme irony is that it was all done on the name of religion. Religion was exploited and exploited from all directions as if religion was really in danger and at the end it was done purely to safeguard their position in the power game against the secularists and nationalists. While claiming to be the proponents of religion they never displayed any wisdom, maturity and strategic thinking, dragged young souls of the society to the death bed, ruined whatever the good work they had done in the past and let perish some of the finest individuals in their ranks. They could have assisted the society in many ways had they ever thought about before what they dived in. They proved to be total incompetent by bringing complete fiasco with whatever they did to this current movement.
Following the footsteps of secularists and nationalists the religious parties too made a big U turn thereby letting the vehicle of the movement in the midst of the road all alone. They relinquished the ‘armed struggle’ all of a sudden after pushing scores and scores of young souls to the graveyards. This revealed the capability and maturity of our religious parties. Like secularists and nationalist they are simply self-serving and ghastly. They are themselves a confused lot and hence, filled the serene surroundings of Kashmir with their confusion and uncertainty, which is still reverberating in the air around.
These religious players went one step further and inflicted the heaviest blow to the already murkier surroundings created by secularists and nationalists. Kashmir issue, which is purely a political issue, was donned the cover of religion and declared it a religious issue. The end result, our religious values becoming victims to confused beliefs.
Current Scenario:
Kashmir is in hopeless situation. The last three uprisings should have been eye-openers to the freedom camp yet they still dance to their own tunes. They should have steered the vehicle of movement, which they never did right from 1989. The important and in fact, lone ingredient of last three uprisings was the exploitation of the sentiment of Kashmir against India yet not a centimeter was achieved because the vehicle of movement can never run on the sentiment alone. It needs all constituents to make it a meaningful. Leaders of repute too follow the crowd rather than let the crowd follow them. This is exactly what happened in the last three uprisings. One would have thought that after these uprisings leaders of freedom camp would sit and think to learn about wrongs done by them. However, nothing has appeared on the horizon in this regard because in reality the parties forming the so called freedom camp are busy in steering their parties interests while dilly dallying with the just cause of Kashmir. The mushroom growth of these so called parties and leaders is the testimony to this fact. Every Tom and Jerry is forming his own party and claiming to be a freedom leader. Yesteryears self-styled and so called commandoes (religious and secularists) are becoming today’s leaders.
The pro Indian parties (referred to as main stream parties in media) are a nuisance for Kashmir since the day of their inception. They function on the wanton use of force. The excessive use of force is being witnessed on daily basis by the common people across the streets of Kashmir. Kashmir has been turned to a police state where all shots are fired by the police along with other armed Indian agencies. These pro Indian parties run the show on the diktats from the corridors of power in New Delhi thereby turning themselves to a mere puppet. The most horrible and gory incidents have taken place at the very hands of the Indian armed agencies under the very open eyes of these parties yet their conscience is still in deep slumber because they have no scruples about their cruelty. Human rights violation at the hands of police, renegades and armed forces will have no counterpart in any part of the world because here they are being committed in the broad day light while crushing the very democratic principles, which form the foundation stones of the state of India. The puppet regime’s official patronage has always been ready there for these human rights violations because it never hauled or brought these criminals to justice for crimes they commit unabated on daily basis.
Kashmir is in deep mess and the dark clouds of hopelessness are hovering over her skies thanks to both freedom and pro Indian camps. It is now divided for each party from each of the camps and each party claims to represent the oppressed people. Each locality harbours a political party from any of the camps. Each party is meddling in each other’s affairs thereby pushing the society further down in the chaos and confusion. Kashmir is ailing from many years now and let us hug the fact on the ground that we have lost our way long back and we are now battling against our occupier on the volatile and wet surface. We do not know where we are heading to and we still are not able to decipher what these self-styled leaders will have in store for us. We are at crossroads total confused and uncertain.
The ailing of Kashmir was summed up by one of my facebook friends a month ago in a very perfect manner. She wrote:
A Western thinker once commented, “You have removed most of the road blocks to success when you have learnt the difference between motion and direction”. Therefore, Kashmir case is different because the people there have lost the equilibrium between motion and direction.
How correct she was in her assertions about Kashmir? Her above lines were enough to tickle my thoughts and hence, form the basis of this write up. I owe her thanks and here I go, Thank you dear. I pray that God Almighty bless her wherever she is.
Mornings appear every day from the east bringing with them the universal message of hope, optimism, dignity and justice for all the creations of the world. Mornings have meaning in them that darkness is not permanent and is bound to make way to the glitter of day. Kashmir aspires for new minds, new thoughts and a deep introspection.
About Author :
Ajaz Khan is a Solutions Architect and hails from Srinagar, Occupied Kashmir.He can be reached at [email protected].
Courtesy :
Daily Excelsior Jammu