Photo Caption: Mehbooba Mufti: What now?

She used the same strategy before the 2014 assembly elections for gaining the ground which was slowly and stealthily loosening from the grip of National Conference (NC). She used to visit the militant families in far off places to condole the demise of their wards. In the mass agitation of 2010, when over 120 civilians were killed during the NC government, she used to wail in the assembly make her presence felt on the streets of Srinagar city where there would be a good media vigil to make the people believe that she is their true saviour.

She hasn’t left the home of anyone unvisited among the victims of the gory year of 2010 but what happened in 2016 when her party was in power is not that important for her because they were killed while fulfilling the dream of her father, the late Mufti Muhammad Sayeed.
In 2009, she was seen on the roads holding the pictures of Shopian rape-murder victims Asiya and Nelofer and many times broken in the assembly while demanding justice for the duo. All this appeared to be a drama which subdued subsequently after they came to power in 2014. The killing cycle which was left incomplete by NC was carried forward by her government and her tear ducts slowly dried down.

The governor of the state SP Malik has rightly termed her recent visits to the deceased families in Pulwama and Shopian as her political compulsion. There she demanded action against the harassment of the militant families. There is not an iota of sympathy and generosity visible in her visits but cynicism mere deceit. Because her regime not only saw the killings of militants but civilians, policemen and non-state subjects as well. If she terms them as martyrs now, then what should the earlier ones be called?

One wonders about the fickle nature of Ms Mufti which changes faster than the weather in Kashmir. She is synonymous to the rolling stone which scarcely gets a moss over it. The sympathy for the militants and their families evoked in her should not be taken as a surprise because the long history of inscrutable politics with the trail of betrayals is before the people.

BJP on the other hand is not liked in the Valley, but unlike NC and PDP they are not hypocrites. They are straight forward with a clear strategy. Now when Mehbooba Mufti again started showing sympathy towards the pellet victims and militants terming them as the collective loss of nation, BJP reminds her of the toffee remark she made in the mass uprising of 2016, when a minor who had gone to an army camp with a stone in his hand was pierced by bullets. Exposing her BJP has shown Ms Mufti her real place.

Ms Mufti claims that she cared for the children who were pushed towards the army camps and police stations by some people for their vested interests. But when a child does something wrong, he should be rebuked, refrained from repeating the same activity. Moreover some concrete steps and initiatives should be taken to halt his extreme destructive steps. This is called care. Not an arrogant remark of “Has he gone to fetch the toffee!” Where is care in this remark for the children who are consumed on the daily basis?

The care was never visible in the five years of the PDP-BJP coalition. PDP launched their government by ditching the people by allying with the BJP in 2014. Having got the mandate of the people to keep BJP out of the state it joined hands with the same party to form the government. All they cared about was the chair and cared a hoot for the people who voted them to power.

The condition of the local populace during their regime remained the same as under the NC led government, rather worsened a bit. The PDP drastically failed to emancipate the people out of their conundrum. Ms Mufti’s sole concern now is to somehow regain the faith of the people in her party. Apologies, visits and martyr remarks are nothing. There is lot more to come.

The Author is studying English Literature at Aligarh Muslim University. He hails from Frisal Kulgam in Kashmir and can be reached at pala.abid@gmail.com/ Twitter Handle: paul_aabid

This story was first published on countercurrents.org. It has been slightly edited in places for clarity.

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Call back a Firdausi, the court poet, the traditional Kashmiri nature loving poets to reproduce the lines to paraphrase this ill fated land barraged and ripped by bullets ,bombs and torture halls, they feel like this-
A Disney land unlikely despicable,
The deluge of death makes deplorable
The denizens of a dream land.Here dreams dart and dash into desolation
Death, devastation and destruction. Dance and delves on a drum
Gone distant to humanity!

Actually more pain than pen can capture and ink can paint. The whole month colored with the blood of human beings. Faces and bodies convulsed to perennial coldness, souls shaken eternally and the living pushed to the nail biting ghastly fisting of chests, awes and owes that spring from the divinely fountains of the heart and gather in the divinely lamps (unfortunately eyes and the sight in the eyes) at the risk of a shot, And a barrage of bullets call an end to the beam of light and ray of peace. This is the real picture of Kashmir, contrasting the narrative/meta narratives/points and counterpoints over striding and setting aside all the dismal and disgruntling explanation, expostulations and interpolations of demagogues blindly turned into sentimental nationalists,the madcaps of mainstream electronic media who loose no time and tide to heap, praise and eulogize the tactics and antics of suppression and act as armchairs of Indian military state. Unfortunately these include sadomasochistic moustached sadists, who come well capped and equipped to romanticize death as a method to safeguard the territorial integrity of their motherland. Add sound to the furry are the gonzo and sensational devil ridden journalists who cry hoarse and leave truth in the dock. These are sold souls who attempt a ludicrous attempt to moralize the dehumanizing disgusting deeds.

All these measures of perversion, subversion and diversion are half measured doomed to be ineffectual because the military state of India is up against a population of living souls who have safeguarded this movement for liberation with young, hot and lukewarm sensible blood. This is more painful state for India than for Kashmir because India is tottering to keep herself relevant to Kashmir despite all bravado and braggadocio of boasting herself as a socialist, secular republic and world’s largest and towering democracy. Pitifully it neither had that suzerainty nor the legitimacy and authority over the people of Kashmir. Therefore, no moral locus-standi or space in the hearts of the people here, not to speak of love which to them would be a far cry. synchronically, if and when India emerges as true democracy and demagogues will be replaced by true democrats who will take in hand the saddle and reins of the country, India will concede to the forlorn wish of Kashmiris and come to respect the sentiments of the people unlike its undemocratic distortion and suppression of the facts concomitantly her success to downplay the tragedy of Kashmir.

As of now,there are no signs of transformation and transmigration of pure souls into the ruthless body Indian rulers who have given a free rope to its military arm and have turned blind to the misery of Kashmir. On the other hand, Kashmiris continues to bleed unchecked and unbridled to imponderable extent. Such is a catastrophe that life seems to have no purpose, as if to live is a curse and life is pain, and wounds in the hearts have gone carcogenic that only wish is to die, and hate and apathy with India is complete; this is beyond alienation more of a wish for annihilation. Dangerously a post on face book got viral wherein an appeal is extending to Pakistan to drop an atom bomb and kill all of us the only good would be some eight lakh occupiers would also die.

Call it a perverted wish! File a sedition charge; this is how mostly it is addressed. But can you face this imbroglio and defrock the idea of distancing? This is a mere wish but it has a signification people don’t want to live here. The only good is if a friend kills them. It recalls an Egyptian who killed his beloved to save her honour from the thugs. For sensible Indians and they too are in abundance, this is a clarion call. This comes in the backdrop of spat of deaths and bloodshed. Can you respond to a situation if you will see?

The fusillade of bullets unmasking the beautiful faces to point of undoing their identity, and the scattered parts with head chopped of, fingers cut of the hands, the chest opened by the bullets creating as huge a whole as a palm, thighs blasted under the rubble of a house raised to the ground,. A sea of mourners hell-bent to reach the sight of encounter knowing well there beloved sons unlike to be militants were drowned towards the gun by long pending dispute that eats their children irrespective of age and activism it has blown up its blooming buds and the flourishing young men of immense wit and power undoing in cold her teenagers who otherwise are as meek as little lambs and as innocent as doves, its scholars unaccustomed to the trigger yet choose to die.

This is actual narrative of Kashmir India can’t displace and replace it because it is the insiders and inmate experiencing his pain of survival amidst the ebb and flow of death. Gone of days India could have won back the trust of people of Kashmir. They have lost all the opportunity and sincerity and they are abysmally divergent entities. One is the oppressor the other oppressed, one has inflicted pain, the other bears and brunt it out: one is like a huge elephant the other swarming like an ant, yet the weaker the oppressed is more powerful because it is morally justified, the other lacks conviction is more of an assaulter who will get more and more irrelevant to the people of Kashmir whom it with all the offences to the later declares its citizens and ironically uses her democratic values as instruments of deception in order to win him over into what it calls ‘mainstream’ the other has seen this serpentine methodology, therefore totally disassociates with the mainstream narrative. The result is the conflict and confrontation. Awfully, this autumn it proved it’s is heaver hands on heart as I pause! Trigger continues to prosper in Kashmir.

Naseer Ahmad khan , born in 1984 in bucolic town of Bandipore in north kashmir. He graduated from Govt degree college Bemina srinagar did his masters from kashmir unversity and IGNOU. Currently he is assistant professer at Govt degree College Bandipora. Intrested in various literary genres he writes poetry, short fiction as well as local dailies. Nicknamed as Shakespear of Bandipora, his writtings are widely appreciated for literary beauty and lucidity. His writtings appeared in various international magazines and local dailies.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

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Security personnel guard a college as students enter to take secondary school exams in Baramulla town in Kashmir on November 14, 2016. An analysis of various surveys and reports shows that since July 8, 2016, educational institutions in the Kashmir valley have stayed open on 80 out of 197 working days.

The killing of Wani’s successor, Sabzar Bhat, on May 27, 2017, threatens to further stoke the fire raging since the April 9, 2017 by-elections for a parliamentary seat. On May 27, 2017, separatists announced three days of strike and protests to mourn Bhat’s death while the police imposed curfew to prevent people from gathering. Yet, clashes took place between protesters and personnel of the state police and the Central Reserve Police Force resulting in the killing of a youth and injuries to 70 others.
 
In all, 2016 witnessed 2,690 incidents of stone-pelting, violent demonstrations, firing and use of shotgun pellets. This was 79% higher than the 1,500 insurgency-related incidents recorded in 1989, when the armed rebellion in Kashmir marked its beginning. The figure, shared by a top police official on condition of anonymity, for four-and-a-half months into this year–up to May 18, 2017–is 1,031, and a repeat of last year is not unlikely. Since Bhat’s killing, 30 incidents of stone-pelting have been reported on Saturday and Sunday, according to top police officials quoted in the local press.
 
Changing face of violence
 
Violence, coupled with curfews and shutdowns, has repeatedly disrupted education in the Kashmir region. However, unlike the 1990s and early 2000s when violent incidents were mainly bomb blasts, grenade explosions and cross-firing, violence since 2010 has mainly taken the form of stone-pelting by protesters and use of force by security personnel by way of firing bullets and pellets to disperse protesters. Between January 1, 2010, and May 18, 2017, as many as 6,897 such law and order incidents have taken place, as against 1,970 insurgency-related incidents, data shared by the J&K police official show.    
 

Schools, colleges in the crosshairs
 
So far this year, amid apprehensions that the security situation might flare up again, schools have pulled through, although instruction in colleges and universities has been interrupted repeatedly since the April 9, 2017, by-election for the Srinagar-Budgam parliamentary constituency. Widespread violence during the election had resulted in eight civilian deaths and closure of schools and colleges for four days.      
 
Afterwards, some torture videos had gone viral and fuelled a gathering sense of anger   among college and university students. Now, students, including women–who had thus far steered clear of stone-pelting and similar activities–are staging frequent protests.
 
The Jammu and Kashmir government has responded by repeatedly ordering educational institutions, particularly colleges, to remain closed as a “precautionary measure” against student protests. For example, Srinagar’s SP Higher Secondary School has been ordered shut on at least six occasions, including, most recently, on May 18, 2017. An April 2017 order had ensured closure of educational institutions across Kashmir for five consecutive days.
 
Losing more than an academic year
 
Educationists and civil society activists have been making fervent appeals on Facebook urging students to go back to class, now that they have expressed their anguish. Since the government’s April 27, 2017, decision to block 22 social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter, Kashmiris have been using virtual private network (VPN) applications–which extend a private network across a public one, essentially how companies connect geographically-separated offices–to access social media.
 
J&K education minister Syed Altaf Bukhari warned protesting students on May 18, 2017, that those falling short of attendance will not be allowed to take their exams.  
 
Educationists are worried. “We need our youth educated. We can’t afford more ill-educated generations,” Roshan Ara, who teaches at Srinagar’s College of Education, said referring to the chaos of the 1990s and early 2000s when heightened political turmoil had resulted in violence across Kashmir, depriving two generations of proper education.
 
A detailed look at the newspaper files of the time gives a clear sense of the intensity of violence in those years–the overwhelming majority of lead stories on newspaper front pages was about violent incidents.  
 
Statistics from J&K Police, as revealed by the official, are even more revealing: Towards the end of 1989, over 1,500 violent incidents were recorded, which included 351 bomb blasts. The frequency of explosions, grenade launches, cross-firings, abductions and demonstrations registered a sharp increase in the years that followed. As many as 4,211 violent incidents which included explosions, improvised explosive device blasts and grenade attacks occurred in the year 1990 alone. The number of incidents went up and down over the years, to close 2016 with 2,690 incidents. This year has seen over 1,000 incidents in its first four-and-a-half months.
 

Source: Data shared by an official of the Jammu & Kashmir police (1989-2002), and from the annual reports (2003-2016) of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
 
Right after the onset of conflict in Kashmir, the working of schools and government offices was affected. After initial hiccups due to intermittent strikes, the functioning of schools came to a halt when employees of all educational institutions, in sync with employees of all government departments, went on strike for 73 consecutive days from September 14 to November 28, 1990, to protest against human rights violations. As many as 125 strike calls were issued by separatist organisations in the year 1990 alone, according to data compiled by the crime branch of the J&K Police.
 
Again, there were phases when the situation improved or deteriorated, and 2016 saw 130 days when curfew or shutdown was imposed. This year, since schools and colleges reopened on March 1, 2017, curfews and strike calls have disrupted normal life on more than 15 days–nearly a fifth (19%) of working days–an analysis of media reports shows.

 
In Srinagar, Akhtar remembers how her young child had to stay indoors for four months in 2016. An analysis of various surveys and reports shows that since July 8, 2016, educational institutions have stayed open on 80 out of 197 working days, meaning they have remained closed on 59.39% of working days.
 
“Thankfully, so far schools have remained open,” she said. “But everybody says that if the situation worsens, it might not be possible to keep the schools open.” Over the last 27 years, Kashmiris have become inured to political turmoil, security mayhem and human rights abuses. However, closed schools, and home-bound children, bring the realities of the conflict home, quite literally.
 
(Parvaiz is a Srinagar-based journalist.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 
 

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Image: Indian Express

आज सदन के शुरू होते ही विपक्षी सदस्यों ने नेशनल कांफ्रेंस के विधायक अली मोहम्मद सागर के नेतृत्व में यह मांग उठाई कि सरकार को यह स्पष्ट करना चाहिए कि वह घाटी में पिछले साल पांच माह तक चले तनाव में मारे गए लोगों के परिजनों को पांच-पांच लाख रूपए का मुआवजा देगी या नहीं।

सागर ने कहा, ‘‘मुख्यमंत्री महबूबा मुफ्ती ने तनाव के दौरान मारे गए लोगों के परिजन को पांच लाख रूपए का मुआवजा देने की घोषणा की थी लेकिन गठबंधन की घटक भाजपा इस पर आपत्ति जता रही है।’’ विपक्षी दल के सभी सदस्य सदन के बीचों बीच आ गए और ‘हमारे सवालों का जवाब दो’ और ‘दोहरी नीति नहीं चलेगी’ के नारे लगाने लगे।

तनावपूर्ण स्थितियों में जान गंवाने वाले लोगों के परिवारों के पुनर्वास की मांग के संदर्भ में पिछले सप्ताह महबूबा ने कहा था, ‘‘वे हमारे बच्चे हैं और हमें उनका पुनर्वास सुनिश्चित करना है। हमने मारे गए लोगों के परिजनों के मुआवजे के लिए पांच लाख रूपए की अनुग्रह राशि रखी है।’’ उन्होंने कहा, ‘‘ऐसे किसी अत्यधिक नाजुक मामले में, सरकार इन परिवारों को और अपनी देखने की क्षमता गंवा चुके बच्चों को नौकरी दिलवाने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध है। हमारी सरकार उनके परिवार के सदस्यों को नौकरी दिलवाने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध हैं।’’ उन्होंने कहा कि स्थायी विकलांगता का शिकार बने लोगों को 75 हजार रूपए मिलेंगे।
 

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