Quit Kashmir: Nothing more, nothing less

Quit Kashmir: Nothing more, nothing less

Greater Kashmir Sept 5
http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=2_9_2008&ItemID=21&cat=12

Let there be no distractions at all. Just one point. India must quit the land they have been occupying for so long, comments Fatima Syed


Today Kashmir burns with an increasing fierceness. Incessantly fueled by not just the political will of an anointed few, but by the common people who are feeding and stoking the fire as far as it will go.
Indian government has been taken by surprise, as has been the skeptical lot (from within and without) who were poised to argue that Kashmir’s will for freedom and independence was fast becoming a myth that could be debunked over evening drinks with friends from Delhi.
Now those friends from the capital should take the cue from Arundhati Roy, Jug Suraiya, Swaminathan Aiyar, and last but not least Vir Sanghvi. Even by minimal standards, if we take the CNN-IBN poll, 59% of Indians think Kashmir must be freed from occupation. This very moment India is face to face with a Kashmiri people’s revolution.
As Arundhati Roy put it “they are representing themselves”. Their verve is not letting up. You have to see to believe the grainy news videos on the Youtube where young Kashmiri boys march fearlessly as they are being fired upon. It reminiscent of Intifada and Intifada it is – against the Indian oppression.
There is no fear or reluctance to combat the gun wielding army, their frail chests thrust forward, bursting with passionate slogans. In some ways India can understand this passion for freedom better if only they could ever take off their biased lenses and see it through the eyes of their independence icon Bhagat Singh. Anyways.
The passion of Kashmiris for freedom from India is inspirational. This passion is as passion should be – fierce, persuasive, impulsive, avid, unlike the wont of the few, whose calculated strategy has been to keep the turmoil simmering in order to cook their daily bread and earn public accolades.
For some time now, a glaring misconception was being fashioned into an internationally accepted reality that Kashmir like Punjab was returning to normalcy. There was a push towards projecting that the “wrong” in kashmir was not an intrinsic affliction dogging it since its inception as a modern state, but a malady that came from outside.
As the normalcy card was touted, a huge merit was seen in things as trivial as sipping a insipid latte at a coffee shop, hosting friends from outside the valley, buying cell-phones (only to get the SMS axed), Ipods, upcoming trips abroad or the ultimate epitome of “religio-socio-political “freedom” of having a direct Hajj flight.(And hey, the tourism website is smash too)..
The whimpers of over 1 lakh deaths and counting were forced to drown in the cacophonic onslaught of the so-called economic development manifested in burgeoning real estate, jam-packed cars, increasing literacy rates - some universal variables which in some insane way were projected as if to offset the spate of killings, sex scandals, cultural oppression, rampant psycho-somatic illnesses and rising drug abuse. (What do you say, 10 killed but look at that new building being constructed). The situation is like someone cutting off a limb to gift a sophisticated prosthesis.
Everything was being done by the Indian government and by implication the puppet governments of Kashmir to project normalcy aka economic progress. It was rampantly insinuated, that the masses were weaned off their “dream” of azaadi as they scurried towards a drugged haze of consumerism. And sorry to digress, for all the progress touted, it boils to brazen consumerism - for what is happening in the valley is just a cosmetic development, when compared to real variables of progress - but that is another story.
BBC even managed to do a story in the initial days of Amarnath-kaand on how Kashmiri youth were growing up with different choices [Changing priorities, Geeta Pandey – June 26 2008]. The article stated that “the word “azaadi” was still a part of some people’s lexicon”; “some” implying that something otherwise was happening relevant with the majority. As per a young male student in the report, the primary topic for Kashmiri youth was “the issue is personal life. Students talk about their boyfriends and girlfriends, their love trouble…the number two topic of discussion is education, career, and employment opportunities. Then we share our concern for the environment. The fight for Kashmir ‘s freedom or where the separatist movement is headed is last on the list.”
However it did not take long for the real preference list to be manifested. The tragic killing of the 16 year protestor Asif Meraj amply answers the questions raised in the article about the priorities of Kashmiri youth, as they are emerging in the past few months.
In the wake of Amarnath land transfer, people of Kashmir have unceasingly protested. They are up in arms (unarmed no doubt) and relentless in their pursuit of an answer to the years of Indian occupation and the injustices committed by them.
Kashmiris have witnessed apparent and non-apparent destruction of their lives, culture and identity, and this brazen land transfer was a spark that burnt down the entire hoax Indian government has been constructing to wipe off Kashmir as an issue of freedom and independence from the collective international memory.
But now thanks to their glaring arrogant miscalculation, the wrong that is in Kashmir is not being plied by the handful few (who they time and again control as per their greater political strategies) but they have unleashed the giant of Kashmiri people’s collective will. The fight is no longer between “unknown faces” whom they can bill under aliases, tag them as foreigners, but every noon and cranny is teeming with the sons of the Kashmir rising in unison with Kashmiri air and Kashmiri soil to combat their illegitimate occupation.
Kashmiri rage is geared not only to address the injustices that are being committed by Indian occupation but it also questions the forces that tore it asunder in 1947. Mind you, it’s not only the rotting fruit that pushes the Kashmiris to the LOC. It’s the hearts and minds of those forced into submission decades ago that seek to overcome the lines of control and dream of a unified and independent Kashmir .
Treating Amarnath yatra as a tool of wielding territorial control, and handling the events following the land transfer has opened Pandora’s box for India . It can safely be counted as the Indian occupation’s biggest miscalculation in managing the turmoil in the valley. The ensuing facilitation of a checkered retaliation in Jammu which is also targeted towards the increasing Muslim demographic in Jammu has undone years of Indian Chanakya-neeti.
The discrimination between Jammu and valley is glaring. The kid-glove treatment received by the Jammu rioters who a la Gujrat sanghis did not hesitate from harassing Muslims or burning Kashmiri traders. Protestors in the valley are routinely fired upon and dispersed with brute force, using not only ordinary tear gar but expired Rudra shells. The entire Chanakyaneeti of the Indian intelligence while managing Kashmir issue and making it plausible for international community overlooked the human element. The events of the past couple of months have rejuvenated the Kashmiri appetite for struggle; reinforced by the oppression brazenly in their face for almost twenty years now. The cause of Kashmir , that was in the danger of being relegated as a passion of allegedly “some/few” has risen to surface - as well, alive, throbbing and kicking in every Kashmiri heart.
India mired in the hubris and sleaze of power, has done what it would not have wanted to do in a million years. They have made sure that the story of Kashmiri will and suffering is handed down to our future generation; that they receive this legacy of struggle reinforced and strengthened by the blood of new martyrs.
As I write this, our children are soaking this narrative of struggle, ensuring that the Kashmiri struggle against the occupation will not cease with this generation. As they do their part in inheriting this sad and strong legacy, we must do our bit in making sure that the single-mindedness with which we have risen together in the past months is not frittered away. The first step towards will be to consolidate the entire uprising of the past months under one aegis. No doubt cries for freedom and human rights are ricocheting, the mourning and lamenting is traversing the valley; but an overarching context has to be provided in order to simplify this agitation for the international community, at least for those who are taking notice and also for historic documentation.
We owe our children that we don’t fail this time while we are charting our way to their free and Independent future. Two simple words for India : QUIT KASHMIR.

(Fatima Syed can be contacted at fatimasyed@rocketmail.com)