[Reader-list] Kashmir's young , educated , angry and politically aware

[Inder Salim]

creative piece by Natasha Ginwala:

In case of Emergency: Kashmir

please click

http://www.facebook.com/notes/natasha-ginwala/in-case-of-emergency-kashmir/423541089741



On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 2:45 AM, shuddha at sarai.net <shuddha at sarai.net>wrote:

> Kashmir's young, educated, angry and politically aware
> 9 Aug 2010, 0031 hrs IST, Parvaiz Bukhari
> Economic Times,
> http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6277584.cms?prtpage=1
>
> They are being called the children of conflict, but the stone throwers in
> Kashmir today represent a connection with their political history free of
> the
> distorting prisms that for long have twisted the local worldview and their
> aspiration of a future outside the Indian union.
>
> This summer the identity of a stone-pelter became something that an average
> Kashmiri began to feel proud of, the frontline of the articulation of a
> political demand. For he is young, educated, angry, brutalised and
> politically
> aware. He demands to be heard, to express what he wants, thinks and feels.
> He
> supports what his earlier avatar, the armed militant, stood for. But in the
> post 9/11 world he is not allowing himself to be branded a terrorist.
>
> Shabir (name changed) is an internet savvy doctoral student at the
> University
> of Kashmir who comes across as a mild mannered character. Shabir hurled a
> stone
> for the first time ever in 2008 at a contingent of paramilitaries during
> the
> Amarnath land row. From the window of his house in a congested downtown
> Srinagar area, Shabir says he saw some CRPF soldiers call a few young boys
> over
> to them and lined them up. “Azadi chahiye tum ko, ye lo (So, you want
> freedom.
> Here, take it.) Each one of them was slapped several times,” he said. “My
> blood boiled in anger.” The next time there was a protest in his area
> Shabir
> joined it and hurled stones at the men in uniform. “I cleansed myself of
> the
> feeling of helplessness and I did not need a gun.”
>
> Apart from being a participant in Kashmir's own intifada, Shabir is
> pursuing
> his research and hopes to become a university teacher. He also spends long
> hours at his internet-enabled laptop digging out details of events that
> have
> marked Kashmir's bloody history from 1931 when people rose against the
> Dogra
> autocracy. He shows notes he has prepared situating the present in the
> political struggles by Kashmiris in the past. One of his notes has a
> statistical chart of death and loss listing rapes, torture, custodial
> killings
> and disappearances by the army, BSF and police. At the end is a question
> and
> his own answer to it. “Can India afford justice in Kashmir? No.”
>
> “I circulate this among students who ask me what the future of Kashmiris
> will
> be like,” says Shabir.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Amid curfew a few days ago in the aftermath of the stone throwing clashes
> in
> Srinagar I caught up with a young man and asked him if he was also
> protesting.
> He said he was one of the most “timid” of men. A few others standing by
> smiled and went away. As I persisted, the young man invited me home and
> called
> a few others over. A postgraduate student, he said he shivered on seeing a
> dead
> body or blood of which he had seen a lot. Last year, he said, on hearing of
> protests in his area he returned early from university. When the protest
> was
> over he met a taxi driver who had just returned from Leh and had found it
> difficult to reach home. “Visibly tired and lost, he was quietly leaning
> against an electricity pole when I left him and walked on,” the university
> student said. “Suddenly I heard a gun shot,” he said. “I looked back and
> saw him fallen face down on the road.” That day the university student
> participated in the protest that broke out after the taxi driver's killing.
> “I throw stones at the CRPF. I overcame fear. I do not want to be timid in
> the face of death.”
>
>
> Listening on, a college student said he prays that he would never have to
> go to
> India for anything. “I do not throw stones but I join stone-pelters because
> I
> think it is important to add my voice to what they are protesting for,” he
> said. “The world should listen to us and not just those who claim to
> represent us.”
>
> But it is not just the young and ‘educated’ alone who rain stones, shaping
> a new discourse over Kashmir. I recently worked my way to a group of stone
> throwers in a relatively new 'flashpoint' of protests in Srinagar. One of
> them,
> an illiterate businessman, displayed an amazing understanding of electoral
> politics in Kashmir - the main source of his anger. On how the seven-phased
> assembly elections were conducted in 2008, he hit the nail on the head. “We
> were told the elections were held for local issues and not for or against
> azadi
> from India,” he said. “We voted for something and the world was told we
> voted for India. Was it a referendum?”
>
> Today the protester on the streets of Kashmir understands that mainstream
> media
> in India is the biggest participant, besides the politician, in muzzling
> and
> misinterpreting his voice. And the stone flung at everything that
> symbolises
> state authority has become the voice of a neglected people who are
> subjected to
> extreme militarisation and believe the world is not interested in changing
> their
> plight.
>
> (Parvaiz Bukhari is a journalist based in Srinagar)
>
>
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