Nayeema Ahmad Mahjoor
Dear Indians,
Before I speak to you about your recent hounding of every Kashmiri in your town, I want to reassure you of my love for everyone, irrespective of your religion, caste or colour, hate or belligerence. My anger is exclusively for those who with the intent of vote grabbing, has turned you into a frenzied crowd. You have been made hostage to the Kashmir issue by misinformation and misrepresentation of the facts. I seriously suggest you to go through the Partition era in history with particular reference to J&K.
We, in Kashmir, have been living in a perilous situation where every moment of life is given like a bonus to us. The concern of safety and security is now peeling our mind and soul. Everyday killings, encounters, bulldozing of houses and relentless humiliation have left every single soul bruised, scarred and vulnerable. Due to this dangerous web we are entangled in, many parents forced themselves to send their kids to different places in India in search of safety, peace and education. I can cite hundreds of such examples where parents have sold their property to pay living costs of their kids or pay hefty amounts to educational institutions with the objective that their kids will not fall prey to constant persecution or lag behind in career or competition.
Your fierce and violent reaction to the recent suicide attack in Pulwama which killed more than fifty personnel has shattered the dreams of thousands of these young kids who were hounded by unleashed mobs with so much terror and horror in their eyes that many had to lock themselves in rented rooms for many days. Kashmiris say they have never seen such rage and anger from people they loved and felt that life has altogether stopped for them.
Let me tell you, you are not only mourning, we have been mourning since seven decades, raising coffins everyday of young, women, old and budding youth, many among them had reached the zenith in their careers. If your anger sounds genuine so is ours. We are witnessing carnage every day; I don’t want to give you chronology of massacres. You can get details of every bloody event or encounter from police reports whose shoulder you tap after every killing. Have you been told that your thousands of forces are at our doorsteps, watching every moment of us, searching us, often intimidating and encountering and mocking us any time they want to have fun time? You can ask your leaders if there are only few hundred gunmen in Valley, why are there seven hundred thousand security personnel living in cities, towns or villages?
Everyone asks a question to us. Why are young boys choosing the dangerous path? I challenge you to come here, stay with us and face the music we are facing. This constant fear of terror and gun has changed our life in every aspect. Now, the apprehension and fear we harbour is that it might change the destiny of those young students who you made run for life in your cities. No wonder, the hounded lot might be weighing the options of choosing the path Adil chose after he was told to lick the spit on the road by your security officials. This is every mother’s tragic nightmare….
“We find no difference in attitude between security personal and a civilian. Both wanted to kill us. Inside our home and outside in college”, said a Kashmiri girl who was crying in toilet for twenty hours in Dehradun because her hostel was surrounded by Hindu extremists demanding college to hand her over to them.
Dear Indians! the suicide attack has been a shock to you. Believe me, it has been a crude shocker to us also. We wouldn’t imagine a young boy of twenty years becoming a suicide bomber and taking his life without even winking at the thought of what he is going to do. It should give you the glimpse of Kashmir’s volatility which is consuming our young generation every day because of political dead end. Your expression of anger was expected, but expression of violent anger across the length and breadth of the country was unnecessary and ingenuine. It was time for all of us to ponder over the dreadful event and look deeper into what has forced a youth of Kashmir to tread on a dangerous path which leads them to death only. Living a life is dream of every young man but dying with “intent” is scary and unimaginable. Why choose death over life? Everybody needs to think with open mind…. who has pushed them to this dark and cruel end? You need to ask your political and military leadership.
What type of conscience is this that makes you laugh at the killing of babies, allows you to celebrate the epidemic of” blind eyes” and makes you to rejoice over blasting of poor houses? How could you sleep by watching our kids being hounded and hunted, traders raided and ripped, girls abused and locked in different states by Hindu extremists? This was incomprehensible for us.
For the first time in the history of independent India, the minds of those Kashmiris who have been protagonists of Indianness and have pleaded throughout their life that staying with India will never be regretful for its being open, secular and integrative society got further blurred. Well, today, they will have to answer those students who had to take shelter in unknown places for their safety. Maybe the Hindu of early India was different to what he has become today.
Don’t you think this has proved Jinnah right after seven decades of partition, Sheikh Abdullah, a visionless politician and the two Nation theory, a bliss for Muslims of the Subcontinent?
Many Kashmiri historians are wondering and questioning the wisdom of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah and how he accepted the “Instrument of Accession” at the time when the Hindu extremists in Jammu were massacring thousands of Muslims or sending them in trucks to get killed on the way to refugee camps.
Ironically, the mainstream political parties were still appeasing Indian leaders who have left no stone unturned in discrediting and dislodging them, at the time when Hindu mobs were chasing Kashmiris in every nook and cranny of the country. The conscience-less politicians did nothing to protect innocent students or traders or labourers.
The death of any human being, civilian or uniformed neither can be celebrated nor exploited. But Hindutva Parties exploited even the coffins of soldiers in order to raise your emotions to such an extent that every Kashmiri living in India had to disappear in the wilderness and run for their life. I never believe that the exploitation of security forces has ever raised their morale, yes it might have gained more Hindu votes for Extremists. Nobody has a clue is it making India or is it breaking India? However, the tide of emotions is really in favour of Hindutva with the worst impact on Muslims across the country. Kashmiri Muslims are the worst sufferers, always at the receiving end as they have been seen to be audacious in demanding their political rights snatched from them since partition.
What is the outcome now? At home, Kashmir is surrounded by hundreds of thousands of guns. Outside, they are hounded, kicked out and boycotted…. there has remained no safe place for Kashmiris……should we surrender our demand of political rights and accept you a coloniser or should we unite with one voice and come on streets for peaceful struggle until we achieve our goal…. or let our boys to choose the violent path which ends in death and destruction for all of us…
These questions need answers from your leadership.
Until you find answers, I will assure you that we will never ever allow our hearts to harbour the hate against you because we know in the core of your hearts you also wish that Kashmir needs political and not a military solution.
Nayeema Ahmad Mahjoor is an Ex editor of BBC and Penguin Author.