I only came to Kashmir few months ago from Chennai to do a media course. This is my first visit to Kashmir, so naturally, the picture I had of Kashmir in my mind, prior to it, was one that was shaped by the usual portrayals of Kashmir carried on by the mainstream media, across India. But what I saw here, in Kashmir, gave a surprise jolt to all my views and ideas.
The sad irony is that, the same Kashmir is also the most militarized zone in the world and this makes me wonder, for what the Indian government is really after in Kashmir, for the militants in Kashmir are only six hundred in number and they surely can never be a justifiable pretext to make Kashmir the most militarized zone, with around seven lakh soldiers standing.
This act of injustice is something which the Indian government is entirely responsible for. What pains me the most is the fact that, as a tax paying citizen of India, I am in many ways paying for the military aggression we see here in Kashmir, and then somehow we are also made to believe that India is the biggest democracy in the world but the way the state spends on military aggresation especially in a country like India, where large number of people still die of hunger and poverty is surely a bloody blot.
The Shopian incident happened just when I got to Kashmir and was starting to settle down a bit, so the situation as can be expected was tense. There were protests going on everywhere that saw huge mass participation, to protest the rape and then murder of two Kashmiri girls by the Indian army men. I followed the whole incident quiet carefully and it was a real shock to me. The army in Kashmir supposedly to protect the people, have themselves turned brutes, harming innocent people that too women in the most brutal of ways.
The Shopian incident is something which every Indian should be ashamed of and take responsibility for, for it is in the name of national security alone the center finds its justification in deploying forces in a big way here in Kashmir, that has now put the security of the whole of Kashmir itself in jeopardy and that not by militants as is usually portrayed, but by the guardians of law themselves.
The Independence Day in Kashmir that I had the opportunity to witness first hand, was something be- yond my imagination. Independence Day is when the security is most tight, to the extent that, that people that day even lose their freedom to be able to even come out of their houses. The roads remain deserted and the shops closed, but its still ‘freedom’, the national television channels keep telling over and over again, the whole day through. This explains why Kashmiris are not addicted by the “national” media the way rest of India is.
The youth in Kashmir have started showing clear signs of frustration. A large section of the Kashmiri youth are unemployed, which leaves them angry and with plenty of time at hand. So the circumstances have already been created by the men, those in power, for future instability. Kashmir even today is still dependent on the bureaucratic government jobs, while the rest of India comparitavely is supposedly experiencing a boom and budding with new opportunities. Companies refuse to invest in Kashmir, not because Kashmiris are not capable enough, but simply because Kashmir is the most militarized zone in the world and that surely is good enough to scare companies away.
Last year’s assembly elections in Kashmir saw huge mass participation- unprecedented actually, in the history of Kashmir, and for which the people have already started to regret and they in fact have every reason to, for even the ruling party leaders can surely not deny the mess that the government has made.
The political situation in Kashmir, though one can never fully recognize in few months, anyone can clearly see its pathetic state and which is sure to explode some day.
Back in Chennai, I have come across discussions by educated intellectuals on Kashmir, seeing them discuss vigorously those days made me think of the problem to be something of a mammoth kind that has no real solution. The problem I still believe is of a magnitude, very big, but the solution nevertheless is there, right here, in Kashmir. If only the people of Kashmir be allowed to decide for themselves; the problem will itself cease to exist, saving us our time and energy in finding a solution to it, which in many ways is the only help Indians can do to Kashmir and itself. The will of the Kashmiri people is clear as the blue sky and it is freedom the people want.
Gabby Dev