A food for thought - Kashmir Struggle

It is great to have Sajad Bhai back in public after contesting in parliamentary election against the wishes of all who have put stakes in this ongoing public movement of Kashmir. He has lambasted all right from Abdullah’s to Mufti’s including his own one time fellow Er. Ab. Rashid for not doing well against the recently passed bill in the Assembly reserving 8% SC in all districts of Kashmir. Though he is still adamant that his decision of unsuccessfully contesting the elections was right. He has taken to task the Hurriyats but just confining their struggle to strikes and press notes only. Mr. Sajad is true in his critique but that equally applies to him too. Though others have atleast shown their presence in some sort of way but he against all logic and wishes after participating in Parliament election hid himself somewhere in tora bora caves. Even Bin Laden has been heard of through his tapes but we did not hear anything of Lone.

It seems all of our leaders in the separatist camp should take it into account that Kashmir movement certainly is multi dimensions and each of its dimensions whether it is viz-a-viz India or Pakistan or with international community or intra Kashmir are equally important. It is true whether successful or not our leaders have addressed the first two dimensions but at home front they have not been able to do any good though they are not mostly at fault. They have not been able to protest on day to day issues / problems other than attending funeral prayers of martyrs. Whether it is the conditions of dilapidated roads, non-availability of power, depleting water resources, shrinking of agriculture production, simmering employee discontent, heavy spending of state budget on policing the state, making state more and more economically dependence on Indian state, on discrimination of whole Jammu and Kashmir by Jammu tehsil so on and so forth. One reason why our leaders donot poke their nose in these public issues and have shove off is the coming feeling among general public that change of strategy means and coming into public domain tantamount to sell out. Public are not at fault because they have seen big leaders here selling out. They think their indulgence in public domain which doesnot match with their demand of right to self determination will not be taken well by the freedom loving people. They think these are the issues which only the mainstream parties can pitch battle for. However this is not true as human being is a single entity why to divide him between number of solution providing quarters. In the immediate circumstances it is these day to day affairs which effect kashmiris or for that matter any public most and make compulsory for them to rally behind those whom they donot want to rally for. If Gandhi can protest for Champaran and Kheda peasants why cannot ours, if Gandhi can protest for Ahmadabad factory labourers why cannot ours? If Nehru and Lala Lajpat Rai can make and break Trade Unions and Kisan Sabhas why not our leadership who have more means to do so rather Indian leadership had in pre 1947 era.

It seems one of the genuine reasons why we see that our leaders have not mass following as Gandhi or Jinnah was having. They have confined themselves only to the issue of self determination whileas all day to day issues which a common kashmiri faces they donot like to address. Kashmiri has to turn to those whom he hates most. This is the main reason why people feel compelled to vote in Assembly Elections even to those candidates who have big cases of corruption, nepotism and not to speak even involved in infamous sex scams even against the call of their heart. What is the remedy, one is either to successfully align with protests of the day to day issues of public actively. There has to be forceful public lobbying so that Government should be forced to do things in the public betterment and people will have real leadership to rally after and leaders will have a mass base. However, this has a limit but definitely this has two pronged benefits one public issues will get solved and other a big gap between the people and the real leaders could be made smaller and smaller Our leadership will not have to wait for knee jerk reaction, people will be at their beck and call. The other one is that our leaders will start to do the ground work for upcoming assembly elections and if successful would deprive the mainstream parties for this what room also. Separatist leaders if a good ground work is done can be highly instrumental in scuttling those laws which are detrimental to the Kashmir cause, human rights and livelihood of the most of the people of the Jammu and Kashmir and moreso, pave way for the final solution of Kashmir problem. This decision has to come from collective separtist leadership not from one or two. However, in order to do so, they need to have men of high values whom power does not corrupt who if asked for to quit in the benefit of Kashmir cause they will not think twice. If we donot trust ourselves, then we have no right to even move near to this election jargon. We have an instance in Indian freedom movement where we have seen Congress fighting elections and leaving office in the year 1937 and 1939 only for the cause of Indian Freedom Movement. No one must take this article as a free suggestion to enter the fray of elections without any free thought or debate on the issue and moreso when we trust ourselves that we will not make a sellout.