Whatever has been happening in Kashmir over the last 14 days is terribly wrong and immoral
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Haseeb Drabu’s wife Roohi Nazki, a former Tata executive, who recently returned to Srinagar to start a high end tea-house, Chai Jai on Jhelum banks, termed the government’s response to the mass uprising across Kashmir triggered by the killing of Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani as “immoral, unethical, tragic and wrong”. Her husband, Haseeb Drabu is finance minister in the PDP-BJP government, in Mehbooba Mufti's cabinet making her strong and outraged words on a facebook post even more significant.
The tea house was inaugurated by CM Mehbooba Mufti earlier this year. Though Roohi Nazki is a professional who is outspoken on issues of public import in her individual capacity on social media, this facebook post, is fair illustration of how deep and widespread the intensity of resentment and frustration against the government’s response to the mass upsurge in Kashmir is. Young persons, girls and men have fallen victim to the pellet fire by the Indian army that has left over 100 blinded or near blined, for life. Roohi Nazki is also first cousin of top PDP ideologue and minister of education, Nayeem Akhtar, revenue Minister Basharat Bukhari and and the Inspector General of Police Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani, who is presently heading the J&K Police in Kashmir valley.
“They need to step down so that we can be convinced that every popularly elected government doesn’t necessarily turn into an unresponsive monolith as soon as it is sworn into power. That each successive regime in Kashmir does not have to become indistinguishable from the previous one. That our leaders do not all have to transform into horrific, faceless, and voiceless entities,” Nazki wrote.
“Their stepping down may not stop the injustice. But that is not all that matters. What matters more is for them to register a protest. To not become complicit by default. To break the silence and the cycle of waiting and watching. To have a conscience and keep it. To uphold truth if not justice”.
Nazki questioned the government, saying “..it is wrong, no matter what excuse we are fed, day in and day out”.
“It is immoral, unethical, tragic and wrong. Whatever has been happening in Kashmir over the last 14 days is terribly wrong. The brutal killings of children, the criminal blinding and maiming of protesters, and the shameless suffocating of an entire population is wrong. It is wrong even if it has been happening over the last two decades or so. It is wrong even if there are ‘far too many agencies at work trying to keep Kashmir burning’. It is wrong no matter what excuse we are fed, day in and day out. It is wrong irrespective of who feeds us the excuses, she wrote.
“And it is wrong in the most fundamental, most shameful and the most damning way. For it is the children of Kashmir that are being killed on street corners, by the security forces of our country. Who pump pellets into their young bodies. It is in a democratic nation that a whole population is taken hostage for days on end, without basic amenities, without phones, without newspapers. And it is happening under the watch of a popularly elected government. Yet again!”
“The government must step down” because “the brutal killings of children, the criminal blinding and maiming of protesters, and the shameless suffocating of an entire population is wrong”.
Nazki termed the government’s reaction “unacceptable” which “needs rectification”.
“It is wrong, it is unacceptable and it needs rectification. The powers that be need to either step up and stop the wrongdoings. Or they need to step down. I guess they just need to step down,’’ she wrote. “…what matters most is to keep the faith for our future generations. So that they can know the face of truth. Their truth. Our truth. They can do this. And they should”.
