Everything Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Escaping the Matrix

The reality is an illusion

By Faisul Yaseen

‘Khan News Agency’ just outside the Lambert Lane on the Residency Road in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, used to employ seven persons. Today, Hilal Ahmad is the only one running the show.

“The customer flow used to be such that none of us could take a breather during the day,” Ahmad says. “Today, I sit idle, waiting all day for the customers to turn up.”

His business of selling newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals, has been hit with the growth of e-commerce in Kashmir.

“e-commerce is doing much more damage to small-time shopkeepers than the violence of three decades in Kashmir,” he says.

As the e-commerce industry is growing in Kashmir, it is eating away the business of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) like local departmental stores, bookshops, clothing and footwear stores, small traders, retailers, and hawkers while wholesale profit margins are getting squeezed.

In this new world order, how will the small businesses survive?

*****

Andrew Tate, a kickboxer-turned-online influencer was recently in the news when while being arrested he said, “The Matrix has attacked me.”

When Tate mentioned ‘The Matrix’, was he making a reference to the science fiction film franchise or was he talking about the new world order?

In one of his viral videos while referring to ‘The Matrix’, he says, “They want to control us. This is what people who are in charge ever wanted from the beginning, control. They want people to comply. And you have to put systems in place to ensure people comply.”

Are those systems the new business models? And are we the people complying with those systems?

Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) President Javid Tenga says, “There is a need to support people who are losing their livelihood due to e-commerce.”

Tenga, who had shot a letter to the Union Civil Aviation Ministry and Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to stop websites of various airlines from unilaterally raising airfares on Jammu and Kashmir route, says that the government needs to place restrictions on e-commerce of certain items to protect the interests of small traders.

Rescuing small businesses in a place like J&K assumes importance considering that at least 1.82 lakh youth who do not have any jobs are registered with the government.

*****

Chairman of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI), Kashmir, Vicky Shaw says, “The dimensions of business are changing.”

He suggests small businesses to get associated with big companies and become their suppliers.

Shaw also recommends small traders to register their businesses on the Government of India’s Open Network Digital Commerce (ONDC) app for easy marketing of their products.

“People have to move on,” Shaw says.

Coordinator Directorate of Internal Quality Assurance (DIQA) of the University of Kashmir (KU), Aijaz Akbar Mir concurs with Shaw.

According to Mir, who specialises in Management and Organisational Behaviour, Human Resource Management, Human Resource Development and Industrial Relations, the small traders need to come up with “innovations” and “redesign” or “perish”.

“Change is important. What is relevant today may not be relevant tomorrow,” Mir says. “Small traders need to add more products and go for home delivery.”

Coordinator MBA Financial Management at KU’s School of Business Studies, Irshad Ahmad Malik questions whether small businesses were offering what customers want.

“They are not shifting to the alternate mechanism,” he says. “They also need to lure customers with discounts and go for hybrid mode of sales – both online and in store.”

*****

In a time of gloom at the shop fronts, is the government doing anything for helping the small businesses?

Director Industries and Commerce, Kashmir, Mahmood Ahmad Shah says, “There is nothing in the industrial policy. This comes under rehabilitation.”

However, Shah, who is also Director Handicrafts and Handloom, says that the government is incentivising e-commerce in the handicrafts sector.

When merchants, who usually fight with each other, feel an existential threat at the hands of the “common enemy” e-commerce, the role of the government and the quasi-government institutions like J&K Bank, which has for long been the lifeline of the local economy, becomes all the more important.

Editor of the J&K Bank and its Head of Internal Communication and Knowledge Management (IC&KM) Department, Sajjad Bazaz says, “It is all up to the business plan of the shopkeepers.”

He says that the loan limit given by the bank depends on the working capital.

“Many small traders have already started e-commerce but it only accounts for around 40 percent of the sales while 60 percent customers still visit the stores for a personal experience,” Bazaz says.

*****

In the 1999 Hollywood movie, ‘The Matrix’ that Tate makes references to, Morpheus, a rebel leader played by Laurence Fishburne tells the protagonist Neo, who is played by Keanu Reeves, “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”

Are we those hopelessly dependent people who are fighting to protect this world order?

In ‘The Matrix’ Morpheus gives Neo two options, “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Do we have options like Neo and what are those options?

Writer and speaker, Sofo Archon in ‘Escaping the Matrix: 8 Ways to Deprogram Yourself’ writes, “Think of the way most people live: They force themselves to wake up early in the morning, dress up, drive straight to some workplace, spend 8 hours or so doing work they hate, drive back home, surf the Internet or watch TV, and then go to sleep, only to repeat the same routine the next day for almost the rest of their lives.”

For escaping ‘The Matrix’, he suggests breaking the shackles of dogmas, stopping giving your power away to external authority, questioning the dominant economic system, detaching yourself from consumerism, being aware of the media, choosing food carefully, reading eye-opening books, and developing mindfulness.

Archon writes that habits, tradition, and dogmas have turned us into mindless automatons that follow a predetermined path that was forced upon us.

*****

Chairman J&K Hoteliers Club Mushtaq Chaya says that there is a need to change these habits and old traditions.

“Shopkeepers have to become smart,” he says. “The people who are making a fortune out of e-commerce are smart people who used to run small businesses like these shopkeepers.”

However, Chaya calls for extending all possible help to these small traders who are finding it difficult to jump the bandwagon of e-commerce.

Like Chaya, President of Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kashmir (CCIK), Tariq Rashid Ghani also suggests extending a helping hand to the small businesses keeping in mind the past three decades of turmoil in J&K.

“The traditional shop-keeping has come to an end,” he says. “The government needs to promote local items.”

*****

Nikki Baird in her write up ‘Retail in the 2020s: The Death of Consumerism’ for the ‘Forbes’ writes that the consumers should become sensitive to environment footprints; repair and maintenance sector would grow; businesses should deliver experiences; and traders should rethink how their businesses are organised, rework brand strategies, and remodel stores.

On April 17 last year at the unveiling of a 108-foot tall statue of Hanuman in Morbi, Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “At our homes, we should only use things made by our people. Imagine the number of people who will get employment due to this. We may like foreign-made goods but these things don’t have the feel of the hard work of our people. In the next 25 years, if we just use local products, there won’t be unemployment for our people.”

In times of brand junkies, in times when duds backed by rich parents go on to become entrepreneurs, extending an olive branch to the small traders would be a revolutionary act.

*****

Greek philosopher Plato in the ‘Allegory of the Cave’ in his work ‘Republic’ describes a group of people who have lived all their lives in a cave. Chained to pillars, they can only see shadows cast on the back wall by a fire burned behind them. These shadows are mere illusions. When one of these men breaks out, he discovers a new world. On returning to the cave, he tells the other men about the reality but they reject it and resent him because reality is an illusion for them and illusion a reality.

However, Friedrich Nietzsche in his book Twilight of the Idols argues that if this ‘reality’ was completely unknowable and beyond grasp, what use could it possibly be.

Sheikh Aijaz, who runs Gulshan Books store at the Residency Road in Srinagar, says that a new reality has already dawned as fewer people were turning up to purchase books at stores.

“Most people now order books from e-commerce sites,” says Aijaz who compensates for the loss of business at the store with ‘Gulshan Books Publishing House’, a vertical the family started years back.

The 17th century French philosopher Rene Descartes in his ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’ suggests that the entire human world is but a world of shadows orchestrated by a deceitful “evil genius”.

Not wanting to chase the shadows, millennials across the world may not be buying diamonds, ‘vocal for local’ may be the in thing in India, but are we ready for putting in an effort to make the change.

Do you want to take the blue pill, or do you want to take the red pill?

The choice is yours.

[everythingkashmir]

Akhtar Mohiuddin: The last modern voice of Kashmiri storytelling

By Faisul Yaseen

Stories travel fast in Kashmir.

They spread from wooden balconies and shop fronts to tea shops and Masjids, from public parks and bus stops to riverbanks and bridges, quickly crossing rivers and localities.

Akhtar Mohiuddin was born on April 17, 1928, in this world of stories, which was about to break apart. He would go on to dedicate himself to documenting its fracture with his writings in the language of sorrow.

To understand Mohiuddin, one must understand who he was during the time Kashmiris were gaining relevance. Before him, Kashmir literature was mainly poetry of mystical and lyrical forms. Influenced by the Progressive Literary Movement, Mohiuddin instead began to document the realities of people struggling to make ends meet through the prose form. Much like many Kashmiri writers of that time, he began writing in Urdu before shifting to Kashmiri. Mohiuddin felt that, in addition to beauty, Kashmiri could also encompass decay.

He gained much recognition for his writings in Sath Sanger (1955), where Mohiuddin created stories that could be considered oral rather than written.

In one of his pieces, a man has been subjected to bureaucratic torture all day. He returns home after a long and irksome day at work. The man is silent the entire time his family eats. In fact, he unwittingly chews slowly as if to say, “Yes, please give me permission to chew this one more time.”

While the description is brief, it quite literally expresses the essence and spirit of an entire class, those who are always hesitant, diminished, or invisible.

His story ‘Jala’s Broken Tooth’ expresses an emotional trauma with consolation towards the attacker, yet an understanding of how a child’s broken tooth inflicts them with sadness and desperation.

“My Jala’s broken teeth - they must have fallen around here somewhere,” is powerful beyond expression.

Mohiuddin’s fiction does not shout from the rooftops. It collects.

In his novel Doad Dag, considered by many the first modern Kashmiri novel, there is nothing extraordinary about suffering. It exists all around. Suffering due to illness, economic deprivation, and emotional fatigue is non-explosive. It flows into life.

In one quiet passage, one of his characters asserts, “The body does not go from being well to unwell in one moment. It develops into its unwell state just as a child develops his speech.”

Mohiuddin illustrates pain not as an abrupt loss but as a continuing process. The main theme throughout his short stories and narratives is of workers waiting for promotions that will never come, people negotiating their place in the hierarchy of work that exists but cannot be perceived, and families breaking apart due to the stresses that cannot be described.

This is also summed up in an anecdote when an employee spends the entire evening practising how to ask for a loan and stands mute at the moment when he needs to speak.

Rather than proceeding or finishing a story, Mohiuddin depicts examples of indecision, such as when a man stands in a doorway but cannot cross into the room.

Mohiuddin creates that indecision and keeps that inconclusive, as if providing a resolution would be dishonest.

Unlike other authors, Mohiuddin creates his stories from both the spoken word and the unspoken.

In one brief but powerful passage, a woman looks out the window and watches the snow fall after having an argument. The narration conveys no direct reference to the disagreement. Instead, it describes the scene outside: “The snow kept falling until it covered the footprints, the path, and the idea that someone had walked there.”

It would be hard to interpret this as emotional symbolism. The erasure of the disagreement occurs through silence, rather than reconciliation. The characters he creates seldom speak about the turmoil within them, but rather show it.

A man folds his letter multiple times before sending it out to the post office. A child notices adults around him appearing to be stressed, but doesn’t understand why they appear to be that way. A woman experiences infidelity but proceeds with her routine. These gestures tell the entire story.

Reading Mohiuddin’s work today, one experiences a great deal of contrast. Although his style is subdued and almost minimalistic, his writing comes from an environment that is filled with instability and chaos.

Kashmir, specifically after the subcontinent’s partition, is not a geographical location. It is a state of mind in which there is uncertainty, multiple identities, and constant violence occurring at the same time. What you see in Mohiuddin’s work is not the result of a political commentary on Kashmir but rather the atmosphere that he creates.

One example of this is when a neighbourhood hears a rumour and everyone in the neighbourhood is affected by it, yet no one knows who started the rumour or if the rumour is true. As a result, conversations become shorter in length, and doors begin to close earlier in the evening while eyes are avoided, yet stare for an extended period of time when they do meet.

Or as Mohiuddin puts it, “Nothing has happened; however, everything is different.”

This is how he writes history: not as a series of events, but as feelings.

In the early 1990s, the violence that had been a backdrop for Mohiuddin’s writing suddenly erupted into his personal life. First, “unidentified gunmen” killed his son, and then “security officials” killed his son-in-law. What had only been an abstract notion of loss became something much more immediate to him. But, long before these tragedies occurred, Mohiuddin’s stories contained the notion of such profound loss – not in specifics but in emotional truth.

In one of his early stories, a father waits for his son to come home late at night, each minute extending as he waits for him. When the son finally arrives home, nothing dramatic happens. The father simply says, “You are late,” and turns away from his son.

Mohiuddin’s account of the event shows him as, “He spoke in a manner that implied the universe had suffered an injury.”

Reading Mohiuddin, one gets the feeling that through his own fiction, he predicted what would eventually happen to him. He was also able to express a strong moral consciousness in the way he wrote. When Mohiuddin returned the Padma Shri in protest, he did so as an extension of the same ethical framework that had shaped his stories.

His fiction insists on complexity and the uncomfortable coexistence of contradiction as a way of challenging the readers’ desire for easy distinctions between good and evil, victim and perpetrator.

In one of his stories, an untrustworthy small time bureaucrat is depicted as an empathetic individual towards his sick mother. The narrative does not provide any judgement, but only a description: “The bureaucrat was counting money in one room and counting breaths in the next room.”

This type of scene creates tension in the reader when trying to find moral clarity. It implies that human behaviour is inconsistent. Literature must also reflect that inconsistency.

Later on in his life, Mohiuddin began to think more of the past, but not as a solid record of reality, rather as an unreliable reality.

Memory becomes a major theme in his works. The same character will remember the same event differently, and the story will change based on who is telling the story.

“What we recall about an event is not necessarily how the event occurred.”

This idea of recursion, whereby memory feeds into narrative and vice versa, lends to that haunting quality present in Mohiuddin’s later works. The act of narrating is unclear as well.

Mohiuddin’s death in 2001 left a body of literature that changed the way the Kashmiri language is written. Although the works were written in Kashmiri, he will continue to live on through the “parts” of his stories that remain, through copies written in many different languages, in many different styles, in many different editions and publishers.

There is something almost appropriate about this – the disappearance of lives, feelings, and history. These were always at the forefront of Mohiuddin’s writing.

To read Mohiuddin today is to not only rediscover his writings but also rediscover ways to view the world. Mohiuddin’s most striking aspect is his denial of a spectacle. He creates stories using very small and detailed parts of life – pauses in conversation, gestures that stop abruptly, and thoughts that never get expressed verbally.

In one of the most impactful examples of his writing, a character says, “The sounds of life that are the loudest are not usually heard. They are simply lived through.”

That is the core of Mohiuddin’s artistic vision as a writer. His works show that suffering is often quiet, that history occurs in very private locations, that the language is often fragile and imperfect, but can still bear the weight of a human experience.

In a time such as now, when we are surrounded by noise, he calls for something much rarer – our attention, and the acknowledgement that there is not usually much of anything separating fiction from reality, or storytelling from history.

[everythingkashmir]

Led’s Lense

The Other Kashmir

A Valley’s Physical Graffiti

By Faisul Yaseen

In the Himalayas, where the murmurs of the Jhelum weave through the lush valley, Kashmir has been a muse of poets and painters. Its name invokes both enchantment and anguish, a duality reflected in Led Zeppelin’s iconic song, Kashmir. Written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant with contributions from John Bonham over a period of 3 years with lyrics dating to 1973, the song featured on their sixth studio album Physical Graffiti in 1975. This timeless ode transcends physical geography, yet its mystical allure inadvertently mirrors the very soul of Kashmir.

It would seem rather bold, and even a little farcical, to compare Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’ with Kashmir valley. Yet tracing how the song born in the deserts of Morocco finds an uncanny kinship with a paradise mired in its own metaphoric deserts spurns curiosity.

Verse 1: Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face

If the sun could speak, it might recount the shadows it has witnessed in Kashmir. Led Zeppelin’s yearning for the sun’s warmth feels alien to a valley where winters are not just meteorological but political, where warmth is siphoned by fear that has reduced its famed sunlight to a pale glow that barely pierces the haze, casting a chilling pall over a land that once basked in idyllic harmony.

Chorus: I am a traveller of time and space

The stories in Kashmir are great works of fiction, sold with the finesse of the best of salesmen. Tourism hoardings show lakes as pristine and houseboats as inviting travellers to rediscover paradise. But the real travellers of time and space in Kashmir are not Instagram influencers but locals wandering in search of existence.

Governance in Kashmir functions on paradoxes - the claustrophobic presence contrary to the wide open landscapes. For every tourist sipping Kehwa on a Shikara, there is a youth piecing together the fragments of his shattered life. The spaces may be the same but the experiences are universes apart.

Bridge: My Shangri-La under the summer moon

Kashmir is Led Zeppelin’s Shangri-La, the mythical utopia nestled in towering peaks. Utopias are subjective, though. One man’s heaven is another man’s hell or purgatory. The beautiful valley becomes cruel irony for its denizens, who usually cannot savour its magnificence because it’s always reminding them of its perils.

All the rhetoric about Kashmir sounds almost hollow. Promises ring as empty as the deserted streets. In this dystopian Shangri-La, progress is measured not by prosperity but by publicity. New malls are inaugurated. Old memories erased.

Verse 2: Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails

In Kashmir, the winds carry stories instead of sails. The winds carry the whispered prayers of a generation that has known nothing more than nothingness. The winds also carry the spirit of the people. Art adorns the walls. Poetry and music flourish. And, youth navigate censored spaces to tell their stories. Under relentless hopelessness, the spirit does not break.

Coda: When I am on my way, when I see

How many moons away is Kashmir from its road? This is a haunting refrain that never ceases ringing around the region.

When one beholds, Led Zeppelin puts forth a dreamy vision. What do we see when we behold Kashmir? A crown jewel? A problematic periphery? A land to own? People to love? All such answers decide the region’s dismal destinies.

The Unfinished Symphony

Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir ends with a sweeping, open conclusion, just like the region itself: untamed and mysterious. The music reflects the Valley’s breathtaking panorama. However, the underlying tensions and the lived reality of its people is another story. Rober Plant’s vocals and Jimmy Page’s guitar lines echo the paradox of its beauty and hopelessness. Kashmiris are left to wring out their purgatory alone, their voices buried in the cacophony.

Encore

Perhaps Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir should be the anthem adopted for the Valley. It is after all an attention-grabbing song. The majestic orchestration could go with the snowy passes and evocative lyrics could narrate the daily grind of Kashmiri life. If nothing else, it would be a fitting irony for a region where beauty is wrecked.

Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir is a call to rise above the mundane. It is a hymn to transcendence. However, the valley it shares a name with is still waiting for its transcendence. Until that day, Kashmir will remain an unfinished melody, its notes heavy with longing and defiance, resonating against the mountains that keep its secrets and sorrows.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Kashmir lessons from Northern Ireland peace process

By Faisul Yaseen

Sean Murray and Muhammad Yasin Malik are similar yet different.

A former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, Murray was jailed for 12 years for explosive offences in 1982.

Today, he is a senior member of Sinn Fein and an Irish Republican from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Like Murray, Malik, the chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), a pro-independence armed group in Kashmir, renounced violence in 1994 and took a plunge into separatist politics. However, unlike Murray, he remains imprisoned at New Delhi’s Tihar Jail and was awarded life sentence by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) court.

In an interview in Belfast, Murray said that the transition from the armed conflict to the political conflict in Northern Ireland was difficult.

“British government was reluctant but the Irish diaspora and the US helped pave the way to the Good Friday Agreement that gave us the political structure,” he said. “The Good Friday Agreement was a breakthrough although there still are issues.”

Murray said that the Police and the criminal justice system that were earlier seen as extensions of unionism had improved.

On whether there was any chance of people in Northern Ireland taking up arms again, he said, “Not in the foreseeable future.”

Murray though was quick to add that when they launched an armed rebellion, it was the “right thing to do.”

He said that having British soldiers on Northern Ireland streets would be a disaster.

“I have seen friends in graveyards. I have had sleepless nights. To every action there is a reaction. No one explains the fear of the conflict, the fear that you are going to die,” Murray said.

Like him, Malik too saw most of his JKLF members killed, but ironically after renouncing violence.

Similarities and Dissimilarities

There are various similarities between the Northern Ireland and the Kashmir conflict but the way Britain and India have dealt with the two conflicts does not derive any parallels.

While Britain responded to the violence perpetuated by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) with the devolution of more powers to Northern Ireland, New Delhi reacted to the armed insurgency in Kashmir with the abrogation of its semi-autonomous status.

The Troubles led to the Good Friday Agreement of 10 April 1998, and the St Andrews Agreement of 13 October 2006 but would Kashmir insurgency similarly shift from a violent means to a peaceful dialogue process, leading to some sort of resolution, remains to be seen.

Salil Tripathi in his opinion piece ‘Where the Irish and Kashmiri stories converge and diverge’ for the ‘The Mint’ writes, “Northern Ireland elects its own first minister and there is significant devolution of power (not unlike the spirit of Article 370), and governments are formed based on power-sharing.

“In Northern Ireland, former first ministers are not under house arrest without being charged; the internet has not been shut down; troops are not marching and the streets not deserted; and nobody – not Catholic revellers, nor Protestants marching provocatively during the season - fear being shot at by pellet guns and getting blinded.”

Kashmir Conflict

If Shakespearean drama Hamlet were to be about India-Pakistan relations, the Prince of Denmark has to be Kashmir.

The north-Indian region of Kashmir has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan since 1947 and people of Kashmir have borne the brunt of this conflict for the past seven and a half decades.

Since late 1980s, the conflict has turned uglier with human rights organisations putting the number of people killed at 70,000, many more thousands wounded, over 8500 subjected to enforced disappearances, hundreds of women raped, and thousands of children orphaned.

Intermittently, in the past, there have been efforts to foster friendly relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, and also between New Delhi and Kashmir, but, of late, there have not been any major peace and reconciliation efforts. For the past over 10 years, New Delhi has been dealing Kashmir with an iron fist with policies like ‘Operation All-Out’ against the local insurgents and clamping down on the separatist groups.

With the focus shifting from developmental activities to anti-militant and anti-separatist activities, the governance has taken a hit.

Kashmir for Northern Ireland-type Resolution

In Kashmir, both the pro-India as well as the pro-independence leadership has called for the resolution of the Kashmir issue on the pattern of Northern Ireland.

Three-time chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah pitched for the resolution of the Kashmir issue on the model of Good Friday Agreement.

“Like Northern Ireland, the only roadmap forward is two Kashmirs with an easy border and autonomy,” Business Standard quoted him as saying during a discussion organised by South Asia Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

“Kashmir can be solved if both the nuclear powers – India and Pakistan - realise that whatever solution has to emerge, everybody will not accept it,” he said.

Abdullah’s archrival in politics and Kashmir’s head priest, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who heads the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), a conglomerate of various Kashmiri separatist groups, in an interview to Reuters said, “I think Kashmir and Northern Ireland do have similarities – the fact that it’s the will of the people to be their own masters and not under the hegemony of one party or the other.

 “If you look at Northern Ireland, it has moved from confrontation to cooperation. That is what we have to do.”

Not only in Kashmir, the Northern Ireland conflict resolution process has also found takers in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s former human rights minister, Shireen Mazari also proposed the Northern Ireland model as a possible solution to “Kashmir dispute”.

At a webinar organised by Islamabad Policy Institute, a prominent think tank of Pakistan, Mazari said, “Pursuing the model of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 brought together all parties to the conflict in Northern Ireland and ended decades of violence. The Northern Ireland model can be a possible approach to resolving the Kashmir dispute.”

Abrogation of Article 370

On 5 August 2019, Government of India (GoI) decided to annex the semi-autonomous Kashmir region while abrogating Article 370 of the Indian constitution.

For over a year, people did not have access to the internet.

The academic activity in schools, colleges, and universities suffered with students unable to attend the classes due to undeclared curfew, shutdowns, and a civil disobedience movement against New Delhi’s unilateral decision of stripping the region of its special status.

The business activity in the region suffered a body blow with the Kashmir economy witnessing loss worth billions of Indian rupees.

GoI not only downgraded the status of the semi-autonomous region but also divided it into two union territories – the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, and the Buddhist-majority Ladakh, both controlled directly from New Delhi without any role of local governance.

The development of the region, the premise on which the GoI took this decision, is completely missing from Kashmir.

People of Kashmir believe that the real reason for abrogating the special status of the region is their distinct ethno-religious identity.

New Delhi’s decision of doing away with the special status of Kashmir has complicated the matters further with disenchantment spreading even among the pro-India political parties in the region.

Even three former chief ministers, Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, and Mehbooba Mufti remained in detention for around a year and have been placed under house arrest from time to time.

Issue of Identities

Clearly, India has not been able to handle its ethno-religious identities well.

Contrary to this, the United Kingdom seems to have handled the experiment of nationalities within in a better way.

While India stripped the special semi-autonomous status of Kashmir and is on a path of ‘Ek Vidan, Ek Pradan, Ek Nishan’ (One constitution, one state head, and one flag), democratic movements in the UK led to autonomy and devolution of powers.

Over the years, the UK has yielded benefits by allowing devolution of powers in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales with democratic movements from the ground up. Time to time referendums have also been conducted.

The British way of dealing with the issue of nationalities within, devolution of powers, and autonomy has proved to be successful.

That the capital centres of London, Edinburg, Cardiff, and Belfast have come to co-exist in a four-country kingdom explains why “military might” should not be used to subdue a population and hold a region hostage.

The second half of the 20th century witnessed violence of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland and counter-violence.

However, the repercussions of hardline stances taken by the state as well as the population were damaging.

It is praiseworthy how, despite differences, each political party in the United Kingdom has people who stand for the devolution of powers and how their decisions are not driven by a fanatical minority.

The thinking has been that the people at large – the majority – should be consulted, but at the same time, the minority not forgotten.

In the Northern Ireland conflict, the players on both sides came to the negotiating table, saving thousands of lives in the process.

This is an approach that Kashmir also needs to adopt to save the region from a nuclear war, something that almost started after a 20-year-old Kashmiri youth, Adil Ahmad Dar rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into the convoy of the Indian paramilitary forces on 14 February 2019, killing 40 Indian soldiers.

With the warring factions adopting the hardline approach on Kashmir, the developmental activities of the region including healthcare and education have been hampered while people continue to get killed in the mindless violence every day.

As often the structural violence is government-induced, the Indian state has lost the Kashmir argument both on greed and grievance debate.

Peace a Process, Not an Event

Jonathan Powell, a central figure in the construction of Britain’s foreign policy under Tony Blair and his chief negotiator in the Northern Ireland peace talks in his book ‘Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland’ wrote that there was a craving for peace not just in Northern Ireland but Britain too that led the peace process forward.

“By the early 1980s, people on all sides in Northern Ireland were becoming weary of the cycle of blood, and the pointlessness of violence was clear. The IRA realised that they could not win militarily, and the British Army knew that, while it could keep a lid on violence ‘at an accepted level’, it could not win either. Everyone started to look for the exits.”

He stressed that the peace process was not a one-time thing but something that needed to be carried forward with planning and care.

“Breakthrough agreements are the beginning not the end of negotiations. Peace is a process, not an event,” Powell writes.

Powell’s words resonate among the people working on the peace process in Kashmir.

While states are very protective of their borders, most groups are not.

A British national, Tahir Aziz, who leads the work of Conciliation Resources on South Asia said that his organisation wants to “promote spaces” for the people to “think and talk”.

“We try to help people in Kashmir, India, and Pakistan find non-political ways to talk about things. People have been using media outlets and films to talk about the issues of governance and security,” he said.

Conciliation Resources started work on Kashmir in 2003-04 and by 2007, the organisation was spending money on practical exercises on either side of the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir into the Indian and Pakistani administered parts.

By 2008, the Confidence Building Measures like the cross-LoC trade had started between India and Pakistan.

The trade continued even after the Mumbai attack of November 2008 in which 170 people were killed.

While holding the government to account these days is considered anti-national and anti-government while the act is labelled as treason, institutions play a key role in peace processes and the interaction of the people with these institutions plays an even greater role.

Aziz said that one of the main things that helped de-escalate violence in Northern Ireland was the police reforms.

Former Superintendent of Police and counter-terrorism expert, Ken Pennington could not agree more.

“Police have a plan, but militants have a cause. Sometimes violence is the only agency and criminalisation of violence doesn’t help. The state has a moral obligation to human rights,” he said. “Conflict isn’t black and white, but grey, murky, and moving. Folding a murdered colleague’s uniform has been the hardest thing for me.”

While the peace process finds many takers both in Northern Ireland and Britain, some sections feel the dice are loaded in favour of the Irish nationalists.

Tom Roberts, a former member of the pro-state Ulster Volunteer Force, who served 13 years in jail, said, “An Ireland at Sinn Fein terms isn’t acceptable. The Sinn Fein’s aggressive pursuit of constitutional change does not improve the situation.”

According to him, Northern Ireland was one of the most law-abiding societies till 1968.

“We couldn’t have risen as bad people one fine morning,” Roberts said.

Endless Peacekeeping Trap

The peaceniks have to be careful about the peace processes as peace building often witnesses fatigue.

Editor of Accord, Alexander Ramsbotham said that sometimes there is not a clash of historical facts but a clash of myths.

There is a phrase ‘Save Georgia from the Georgians’ but there is also another phrase, ‘a thoughtful person is worth a thousand fanatics,’” he said.

Peace processes often witness an increase in the number of proxy peace actors and conflict entrepreneurs, leading to wars within wars.

In the Balkans, Sudan, and Myanmar, the peace processes were pushed and hence did not last long.

On the other hand, the peacekeepers in the UN missions do not even leave their barracks, making the critiques of peace building weary of the endless peacekeeping trap.

They feel expressions of distrust, pessimism, and even cynicism about liberal peacebuilding have become common and they resent expatriates from imposing their ideas in a manner both disrespectful and humiliating.

The peace builders have to keep the balloon analogy of expanding space slowly and slowly in mind.

In Japan, when vases are broken, the broken parts are joined and the vases repaired with gold-coloured adhesive or even gold. In Cyprus, the sewerage system led to dialogue. The Srebrenica massacre happened just 26 years ago in an emancipated and educated Europe, making it all the more important for peacemakers to stay vigilant of the spoilers.

As conflicts are not frozen, peace processes cannot be frozen either.

A Difficult Love Story

While the people affected by conflicts want to reap the benefits of peace, there are also certain spoilers.

Director of Causeway Institute for Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution International, Kingsley Donaldson said that both the Irish and the British were dreamers but some people on both sides wanted to rock the way.

“Our peace process is like calling time out. Brexit has not helped either. The politics of both Ireland and England affect us. There is absence of violence rather than presence of peace. We live on constructive ambiguity. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” he said.

Donaldson calls for investing more in civil society in Northern Ireland.

“We were tending to our wounds. Today we are tending to our scars. We carry a grudge. However, there has been a transition in policing and justice, which are now much more reflective of society. The energy and engine of our past is shaping our future. After all, the British ran an empire without the internet and the telephones,” he said. “In Northern Ireland, we are in a very difficult love story.”

Women Power

Donaldson credits women for having stepped up and making the credible impact in the Northern Ireland peace process.

One such woman is Avila Kilmurray, the Migration and Peacebuilding Executive of the Social Change Initiative.

“Women at the grassroots in Northern Ireland refused to be sidelined and mobilised for the peace process. They had to be smart to know what happens after peace negotiations, what happens after a rollback, to ensure what happens in the implementation phase while sitting in the negotiations phase, and to tap the global network of people who could help them influence,” she said.

Like Kilmurray, Sara Cook, a social worker who worked on conflict response, peace building, and mediation in Northern Ireland, said, “When the British soldiers were in Northern Ireland, there was not much talk of peace. So, I worked with the wives of British soldiers and family members of the Irish Republican Army. We connected the families of the two together. That created an ‘I own it’ atmosphere. We also encouraged inter-generational discussions.”

The United Nations’ Resolution 1325 also calls for the role of women in peace processes.

Political and Religious Toxicity

While women played a positive role in the Northern Ireland peace process, religion and politics have often been toxic.

What do you do with the legacy of the past conflicts?

According to Reverend Gary Mason, who spent decades ministering to Protestant loyalists and Catholic nationalists during Northern Ireland’s conflict said that toxic politics and toxic religion has shaped the place for too long.

“The toxicity of memory will pass on from generation to generation. It was the words not the machines that created Auschwitz,” he said. “The state of politics actually reflects the state of our souls.”

Reverend Mason calls for addressing the structural problems leading to the killings instead of trying to stop the killings.

“Laws are important but laws can’t heal, facts are important but facts can’t heal,” he said.

Role of Media

There is a great proverb that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

The objectivity and partisanship of the media in reporting conflict plays an important role in how peace processes shape.

Jean Seaton in her book ‘Pinkoes and Traitors: The BBC and the nation 1974-1987’ writes about the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process.

Delving into how the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported the Northern Ireland conflict, she writes: “At the start, the BBC was unthinkingly on the side of order in Northern Ireland. Yet, the legitimacy of this order was contested and its exercise seen as unjust by the Catholic population. This was compounded by the situation the BBC faced in London. By 1976, Parliament and Labour and Conservative governments were more of less united in their approach to the crisis (although Labour was committed to a policy that Jonathan Powell, the then chief of staff for Tony Blair’s Labour government had to unpick eventually as a precondition of negotiations in the 1990s) while the ‘nation’, at least in Northern Ireland, spiraled into ever more monstrous division. The BBC was exposed because of this cross-party consensus in Westminster, which meant that any opposing views came from beyond the parliamentary system. It could look as if the BBC were encouraging them, yet was obliged to reflect the swelling disagreement on the ground in Northern Ireland. It appeared as if it was sponsoring opposition rather than reporting it. The Corporation is always in difficulty when an issue concerns the integrity of the British state, which the Troubles precisely did.”

By and large, the British media has covered the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process fairly objectively.

Laura Noonan in her article, ‘You have to be violent to be heard: Northern Ireland’s teens take to the streets’ for the Financial Times writes: “I grew up 200 miles south of Belfast. Northern Ireland’s grass is the same distinctive green as the fields of the Irish Republic where I spent my childhood. Its dramatic coastline evokes the same feeling as Connemara’s. Belfast has a zone of shiny, modern apartments and offices, the Titanic Quarter, not unlike Dublin’s Docklands. And yet, for all the familiarity, so much about Northern Ireland feels foreign.

“It’s not just the Union Jack flags that weave their way over and back across the Shankill Road, 15 minutes’ walk from Belfast’s main shopping street. It’s not the enormous murals of men in balaclavas holding automatic rifles, a sight that still unnerves me. It’s not the practicalities of a different currency, different road signs, and different speed limits. It’s more the sense of the place and my feeling of otherness within it.”

The US Role

Like the role of the media in highlighting the Northern Ireland conflict, the United States, particularly during the tenure of President Bill Clinton also played a positive role in the peace process between Northern Ireland and Britain.

Roger MacGinty in his article ‘American Influences in the Northern Ireland Peace Process’ for the Centre For Digital Scholarship’s UN Libraries Journal writes that traditionally, US government interest in Northern Ireland has been minimal, which makes the level and the extent of the interest shown during the peace process of the 1990s quite remarkable.

“A number of Irish-American entrepreneurs had become significant players in corporate America. They were also allies of Bill Clinton, and had been active in his 1992 presidential election campaign. They pressed Clinton to make a number of commitments on Ireland during his election campaign, and after his election, began briefing the White House on Ireland. In September 1993, the significance of this lobby was revealed when the IRA observed a seven day ceasefire to coincide with a fact finding visit made by a group of prominent Irish-Americans to Ireland. The most tangible sign of US interest in the peace process came with President Clinton’s visit to London, Belfast, Derry and Dublin in late November 1995. The visit was very much a celebration of the peace process,” he wrote in the journal.

Like Northern Ireland, people in Kashmir too have been craving for the US intervention for the resolution of the 77-year-old dispute. The call for US intervention in Muslim Kashmir is quite contrary to the rest of the Islamic world where the US intervention is often resented.

Navnita Chadha Behera in her report ‘Kashmir: Redefining the US role’ for the Brookings writes, “Beyond some public pronouncements addressing the popular aspirations of the Kashmiris, US policy has demonstrated little understanding of the multi-layered and complex nature of the Kashmir conflict.”

Tailpiece

Conflict sometimes is good but violence is not the solution.

In Uganda, a rebel group that fought for 30 years overthrew the government and is ruling the country now.

For peaceniks, recognising violent conflicts is more important than recognising political conflicts.

There is a need for public participation in the peace processes, a need to discourage competitive victimhood and encourage inclusive victimhood.

The different stakeholders in conflict need to be willing to waste time with each other rather than spending it.

In Kashmir, there is a realisation, “Kashmir is part of the world. The world is not part of Kashmir.”

There is a realisation that to save its next generations, its leaders need to shed the rhetorical flourish to engage the rival party in negotiations.

There is a realisation of being morally virtuous but not idealistic to head on a long-winded way to peace.

There is a realisation of learning from conflicts that were resolved or are heading toward resolutions, of taking lessons from peace processes like Northern Ireland.

However, there is also a realisation that Kashmir cannot keep waiting for the other side to make its move and that it needs to be proactive to make things happen.

Bryan Steveson in his TED Talk said, “When we get close, we hear things that can’t be heard from afar. We see things that can’t be seen. And sometimes that makes the difference between acting justly and unjustly.”

[everythingkashmir]

Inclusion, not Exclusion

Jammu is Kashmir

CM Omar Abdullah must take the moral high ground to redefine J&K politics

By Faisul Yaseen

Assuming charge of the National Conference (NC)-Congress coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir following their INDIA alliance’s win in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls, Omar Abdullah faces a knotty but critical challenge. The challenge is that of tackling the aspirations of Jammu’s Hindu heartland.

The region, a bastion of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), only elected BJP legislators and faces the prospect of being on the wrong side of the corridors of power. Since the BJP could not get its man to the governing seat, Abdullah had to balance the concerns of this politically important constituency while setting a narrative of inclusivity and equity that avoids the polarising dichotomy oft made at best by the BJP.

He did so by including Satish Sharma, an independent legislator elected from Chhamb assembly constituency of Jammu district, among the five ministers who were administered Oath of Office and Secrecy as part of his cabinet.

The road ahead is tough, but it is here that Abdullah has a chance to chart a different agenda – an agenda that should appeal not only to Jammu’s Hindu heartland but also respect the aspirations of traditionally marginalised regions such as the Chenab Valley and Pir Panjal while also reaching out to the Kashmiri Pandit community.

The Hindu heartland of Jammu for all these years has become synonymous with BJP dominance. The party found fertile ground for its rhetoric of Hindu nationalism in this region, where development and identity-based politics, interwoven with issues of security, resonated deep within the population. However, after electing only BJP legislators, the fear of being sidelined looms large. Abdullah would do well to be cautious here. Let him not alienate the very important constituency but also ensure that he is different from the model of governance that the BJP seeks to preside over. Unlike BJP, which has enormously relied on majoritarianism across India to consolidate its vote bank, Abdullah must take the moral high ground.

He can tap into the Hindu heartland - not with empty words, but with a true expansive intent to win over their economic, social, and political anxieties. This might potentially do a better job in mending fences by rejecting the exclusionary politics which BJP has often used in mobilising its own base.

But that alone will not be enough, and only symbolic at best. Development in the Jammu’s Hindu heartland cannot be set against the needs of other areas, and past grievances should not be drowned by new goodwill gestures. Abdullah’s government can take one step forward toward inclusive economic policies for all regions so that Jammu’s sizable Hindu population feels not forgotten or singled out for special treatment at others’ expense. Perhaps the most injurious narrative that Abdullah needs to work much harder to break is the communal rhetoric routinely trotted out in political speeches in Jammu and Kashmir. A classic example was the plea for a “Hindu chief minister” or a “Dogra chief minister,” one that dominated governance as an identity-based battle.

Such appeals are usually phrased in the rhetoric of “regional pride,” but are intensely exclusionary and based on the politics of division. He should outrightly refuse the communitarian and even racist undertones and instead voice support for governance, which does not make subservience to the supremacy of one community over the other. This moment for him as a Kashmiri gives him the opportunity to be the emblem of the very ethos of the culture of Kashmir – erected on pluralism, tolerance, and the spirit of Kashmiriyat.

Outreach to both Hindus and Dogras would give Abdullah a chance to make an unequivocal statement that governance needs to be about competence, fairness, and development, and not identity. It asks for leadership that not only rejects the poisonous communal politics of “us versus them” but projects a sense of belonging to all communities.

It’s the enormous heart that Kashmiris have, and it can wake up in the form of building trust bridges under Abdullah’s governance, having dialogue with each and every section of society – and conversations around mutual respect and understanding, acknowledgement of the fears of the Hindu heartland but not letting it feed, and standing firm against forces that would seek to divide Jammu and Kashmir on communal lines.

Outreach to Jammu’s Hindu heartland is important, but Abdullah also needs to reach out to the long history of marginalisation of regions like Chenab Valley and Pir Panjal. Both these regions have suffered political and institutional neglect in the past at the cost of both Jammu's Hindu heartland as well as Kashmir valley. More often than not they have been too introverted and given a backstage in the apparatuses of state functioning in Jammu and Kashmir. For decades these regions remained victims of economic deprivation, lack of infrastructural development, and limited political representation. Abdullah’s government needs to ensure that people from these regions are brought out in public and voiced. No doubt, Chenab Valley and Pir Panjal have considerably contributed towards the cultural as well as the economic landscape of the region, their voices, however remain peripheral. Maybe Abdullah’s biggest task would be to make policies that uplift these regions and bring them into the mainstream of Jammu and Kashmir’s developmental framework.

Investments in infrastructure, education, and healthcare in such regions will definitely send the signal of a breakthrough from the past when certain regions were politically sidelined due to religious or ethnic characteristics of the population.

This political hegemony of the Hindu heartland of Jammu needs to be balanced with proper representation and distribution of resources for these relatively neglected areas. It is not only a political necessity but a moral imperative in addressing the expectations of the people from these areas. The government led by Abdullah needs to prove that this government stands for the whole of Jammu and Kashmir, not for the oft-noise-making-only regions.

An outreach to the Kashmiri Pandit community should be an important part of Abdullah’s governance. Displaced from their homeland for decades now, their alienation has only grown with time. Adding to their miseries, the community has gotten assimilated across different cultures and is losing the exclusive identity it was known for.

Unfortunately, this discourse about their coming back has been hijacked by self-proclaimed Kashmiri Pandit activists seeking a communal ecosystem portraying every Kashmiri Muslim as an extremist and the entire community as abetting their displacement. It has only made it tougher for both the parties to get real reconciled.

Abdullah has to move beyond the divisive narratives and reach out to the Kashmiri Pandit community. He must tell them it pains and hurts them but simultaneously dismantle the dangerous rhetoric that tries to demonise an entire community. Abdullah needs to tell the people unequivocally that this is not a matter of a physical resettlement in Kashmir but rebuilding those ties of trust and coexistence that once existed in the Valley. However, this outreach should be genuine. Reconciliation cannot be overnight work, but honest dialogue can initiate the healing process. The creation of arenas for conversation, discovery of real fears and concerns of both Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims, should start the slow yet necessary healings under Abdullah.

It is here that the high ground matters most, not in settling political scores but in goodness, patience, and understanding becoming a recipe for lasting peace. This is an opportunity for Abdullah to be a change agent in the political paradigm of Jammu and Kashmir, at a time when the region has slipped into communal and regional divisions. He can offer an alternative vision of inclusiveness without divisive politics like that of BJP.

Outreach to the Hindu heartland of Jammu, reconciling aspirations of Chenab Valley and Pir Panjal, and outreach to Kashmiri Pandits could set a new style of leadership in the region. The politics of exclusion must yield to the politics of inclusion. The politics of settling scores must cede to the politics of compassion. And the politics of division must yield to the politics of unity. And in all these, Abdullah from his acquaintance with the corridors of power can now change. The question is whether he will rise to the occasion and lead Jammu and Kashmir into a new era of equity, justice, and hope for all its people. After all Jammu is Kashmir’s. Jammu is Kashmir. 

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Education Experiment

When common sense took a holiday

By Faisul Yaseen

What can only be described as an absurd experiment in bureaucratic stubbornness, Kashmir has been put through a rather strange adjustment in the academic calendar.

The shift, like most of the political diktats descending from Delhi, was executed without so much as a courteous nod to the people whom it hurts the most: students, teachers, school administrators, and even parents. It is as if education mandarins have decided to play a game with Kashmir’s future because why not? It seems our bureaucracy has found a new playground and our students are the fresh batch of lab rats.

For years, the educational schedule of Kashmir possessed a simple logical rhythm. Then would come the exams in October and November, just when the dreaded winter was going to set in. Now, however, thanks to the brainwave of the genius policymakers and the intellectual bureaucracy of Kashmir, our students wait a whole five months – yes, five months - till March or April to appear for their exams.

That is where the tragicomedy begins. Instead of such winter months spent in preparing for the next academic year, students wait for exams that won’t come.

The previous October-November session used to allow the students to make use of the winter break by spring-time. But those days are behind us now. Now, students who, from December to February, wait for hours rather than laying solid foundations for their following courses are simply condemned to a monotonous limbo. The long winter break which acted as a breather before new academic beginnings has now become a drawn-out purgatory of waiting.

And all for what? For an education policy that imagines Kashmir in some manner as some kind of singular experimental case. Just imagine the Kashmiri students – poor guinea pigs running on some bureaucratic treadmill, uncertain about what they are running toward. Let us see what happens, the policymakers shout with gleeful shrugs, tweaking here, pulling lever there, as if the futures of our students were something they could just tinker with.

Worse, no one in charge bothered to ask the stakeholders: not the schools, not the teachers, not the parents, and certainly not the students directly affected by this outrageous disruption. But then again, when has consulting actual experts or involving the public ever been part of the grand political blueprint for Kashmir?

If it weren’t tragic, it might have been funny. One could even call it an incredible farce. In the name of modernisation and streamlining Kashmir, this move was orchestrated, which quite ironically, left out all the specific geography of the place, its harsh winters, and the academic world that had developed over the years. Apparently, our climatic changes, schooling culture, and common sense are not nearly as important as those pragmatic goals of appeasing some arbitrary, countrywide educational checklist.

But wait-there is a faint glimmer of hope on the horizon! Here, Minister for Education Sakina Itoo hinted at the possibility of returning to the original schedule that existed at the academically flawless October-November schedule. Yes, you have it right. The same old schedule that had worked seamlessly for years till it was shattered in the name of reform. An irony of welcome is that the government is finally coming around to realising that maybe, just maybe, the system as it was wasn’t so broken after all.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if, before rushing to implement drastic changes, policymakers took the time to consider local realities? If only they respected the voices of those who actually understand the implications – teachers, parents, educational analysts? But no. Instead, we have become the reluctant subjects of a far-reaching experiment in educational engineering that feels more like a cruel joke at our expense.

Meanwhile, the Kashmiri students pay the price of these lab experiments – months lost and valuable learning time flushed down the drains, all while politicians and bureaucrats sit in their air-conditioned offices, blissfully disconnected from the realities of the ground in Kashmir. One can only hope this latest flirtation with reforms is corrected sooner than later – before another academic year is lost to the whims of political gamesmanship.

But hey, why stop at education? Kashmir could make a wonderful lab for more innovative policies, right? What’s next – shifting the summer to winter? Ending weekends? Whatever the case may be, here in Kashmir, we have learned to expect the unexpected.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

A Play without a Prince

A pathetic drama without its protagonist, the political theatre waiting for its absentee lead

By Faisul Yaseen

The first polls in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 seemed like staging Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

Like the removal of Shakespeare’s great tragedy’s most iconic character, removing Article 370 from J&K left an irresistible void in the drama of Kashmir’s politics – one that removes the very cause that has defined its identity, politics, and relationship with the country over decades.

The Article 370 has provided the founding element in the historical and political context of Kashmir. Ensconced in the Constitution of India in 1949, it endowed Jammu and Kashmir with special autonomy, providing the State with its own constitution, laws, and considerable powers to govern its internal affairs. In simple words, this special status was symbolic of the unique political and cultural identity of the region.

The Article 370 has been an integral part of the political discourse in Kashmir for decades and constitutes the very core of mainstream politics that gave it a legal and a constitutional cloak. Regional parties like the National Conference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) built their entire political narratives on protecting this special status. For separatists, it acted as a stepping stone toward their broader claim of resolution of the Kashmir issue. Whether it was for or against it, Article 370 was the one unifying element around which political life in Kashmir vibrated.

The sudden abrogation of Article 370 by the Government of India (GoI) on August 5, 2019, rocked the political contours. It was cited as a necessity to improve and assimilate the nation but brought down the provincial autonomy with the very act. For many in Kashmir, this was a blow not just to their political identity but an existential blow to their very existence. Divided and downgraded into two union territories – J&K and Ladakh – from an erstwhile the State made the situation even more ticklish.

In the months and years after the Article 370 repeal, the political scene in Kashmir went into a kind of paralysis. Political leaders were arrested, political dialogue was silenced, and elections were postponed. The mainstream parties, who had once been the preferred guardians of the Article 370 issue, found themselves hastily seeking answers to where they fit in a post-Article 370 scenario. The response was the formation of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) coalition demanding that the pre-2019 status be restored. However, it proved impossible for it to translate that into concrete political action and PAGD died its own death.

Elections were held in J&K for the first time without the region having its special status. The analogy of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark was served painfully. Missing but not, absolutely not, from the talk of the elections was the question of Article 370 that over time has been the pulsating heart of Kashmir’s political life. And because it was removed, it created a ludicrous situation where elections became a pale imitation of what this exercise used to once be – full of emotional and political weight the Article 370 previously carried.

The abrogation of Article 370 proved a huge problem for local political parties, specifically for the NC and PDP. Having founded their electoral platforms on the protection of Kashmir’s autonomy, they then faced the immense challenge of relating to the electorate without central planks of their political identities. While they continue to demand the re-establishment of statehood and some form of autonomy, demands appear diluted in the face of a political reality that no longer entertains the return of Article 370.

In a way, the mainstream parties in Kashmir are playing this political drama without its defining role. It is like playing Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. The necessary narrative strand that should glue this play has been woven into the sidelines. As such, it forms a hollow performance in which the audience only questions the spectacle on display.

In the absence of Article 370, the rhetorical discourse of elections was utilised to technocratic themes, such as development, employment, and governance. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that was instrumental in the scrapping of Article 370, mobilised the very campaign around promises of economic development and putting an end to corruption. It presented the abrogation of Article 370 as more akin to good governance and integration with the country. Such developments include bringing federal laws to the region and potential investments.

This message of development must surely work well for many of the voters and especially in Jammu region. The promise of jobs and infrastructural developments with better public services is enough to carry weight in a region long in stagnation. Yet this shift in discourse will ring hollow for much of the population of Kashmir whose very political identity and autonomy, not least, continues unresolved.

The promises of the Centre to usher in development are necessary but cannot fill the emotional and political vacuum left by the removal of Article 370.

One cannot see that it was not the economic condition that had shaped the political character of Kashmir. Instead, it was the historical and cultural character which simply cannot be addressed through material development.

Elections may seem like an exercise in futility for many in Kashmir. They may see it as yet another effort to mount a political drama without its lead actor. Removal of Article 370 may have disillusioned several large sections of the electorate and left them skeptical about mainstream politics managing their anxieties.

The prioritisation of pragmatic governance and local issues, though crucial, has the emotional appeal the debate over autonomy once had in store. A situation like that where there is disconnect between the political class and the electorates, posed a threat to the legitimacy of the elections.

Election in Kashmir without Article 370 was like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. A sense of incompleteness runs deep within the politics of the region. In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet goes forth to stage the drama of the work; his is the angst and his is the quest for justice as well as his findings with existential questions that give the play its depth and meaning. Take him away, and the play just becomes a hollow shell, with no conflict at its center.

Article 370 has been Kashmir’s central figure in a political narrative. Abrogation does not erase just the legal provision but also obliterates the core, around which political identity, autonomy, and conflict for decades revolve. Elections during the post-Article 370-era are more like a performance with its leading character missing – an empty contest that misses the central tension of Kashmiri politics.

While development and governance are important, they cannot replace the deep political and emotional questions that Article 370 once represented. The elections in Kashmir would go on to be incomplete and would seem like a pathetic drama without its protagonist, the political theatre waiting for its absentee lead.

The elections have come and gone, governments might have been formed, and policies might even have come, but without the completion of the central question about Kashmir’s political identity, the political story of the region is incomplete.

As the curtain falls in elections in Kashmir, like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, it is a story in which the central conflict is left unachieved, leaving the audience on their quest for what the play meant to say.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Misaligned coordinates

Long distance relationship

By Faisul Yaseen

The distance from Delhi to Srinagar is not just 818 km by road or 643 km by air. The travel time is not 24-hours by road or an hour-and-a-half by air. The real distance cannot be known using a distance calculator or Google Maps. The GPS technology is of no use either. The distance is long.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on Thursday during a rally at Sher-e-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar is the acceptance of that fact.

On June 24, 2021, PM Modi said he wanted to end ‘Dil Ki Duri’ (distance of heart) as well as ‘Dilli Ki Duri’ (distance from New Delhi) with Jammu and Kashmir.

Fast forward to September 19, 2024, PM Modi reiterated that he would remove ‘Dil Ke Duri’ and ‘Dilli Ki Duri’.

A question that needs to be asked is what the government did in the past 3 years to bridge this distance or to be precise 1184 days since the statement was first made.

On June 24, 2021, PM Modi made one of those statements that make political speeches fascinating, if only for sheer flagrancy. Declaring a desire to “end the distance between New Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir”, he reflected an ambition to bridge not just geographical gaps but also the proverbial “distance between hearts”.

After the PM's statement on September 19, 2024, one could be forgiven for wondering if anybody in the government has examined a map or even a thesaurus for ‘distance’  since those declarations.

Taking the PM’s word one assumes that J&K is just some quaint little hill station waiting for a bit of government transport. Yet for the people of the region, the reality is anything but snug.

Three years since this pronouncement, one can see a paradox as the distance between New Delhi and the people of J&K has only grown with policies that have turned bridges into barricades.

Let’s walk down memory lane to revisit those words. On that fateful June day in 2021, the PM seemed to be actually acting under an illusion to dissolve decades of mistrust and disenfranchisement through words.

However, his government decided to double down on constitutional changes that effectively deprived J&K of its special status.

A master move in Indian politics, no doubt, but not exactly the bridge-building exercise that he would have even before imagined.

September 2024 rolls on, and the slogan is back from the dead.

People of J&K have been faced with the heavy cost of New Delhi’s policies since then. And what happens when constitutional overreach becomes the norm and laws are imposed? Local governance is significantly eroded. Any person won’t fail to notice the irony the government promises to bridge distances by uprooting the very framework of regional federalism.

What’s next? A ballad on democracy by the very people curtailing it!

And then, of course, there’s the Big Boss that seems to have been deployed for the management of dissent. The irony, once again, is delicious. The Big Boss speaks of connection even as it ensures that the people live under the omnipresent cloud of surveillance. The sort of love that might have made Orwell raise an eyebrow.

Such brazen contradictions do leave one wondering whether the government has been through a crash course in irony or they just continue playing a well-rehearsed tune irrespective of the discordant notes coming from the ground. It must be heartening for the people of J&K to see such delicately ignored aspirations in their favour, weighed down under political posturing. Such is the gift beautifully wrapped, which turns out to have no substance.

Even as another round of PR exercises is undertaken, perhaps it is time for New Delhi to introspect on what “bridging distances” really means. And until and unless the equation includes genuine dialogue, respect towards the local governance, and an end to surveillance on citizens, people of J&K are going to keep on feeling this deepened alienation.

Perhaps then there is still a vision of connectivity, but the reality is hard: between words and actions, distance unbridgeable through rhetoric. If only promises made by politicians came accompanied with maps and plans in hand, then perhaps we did hear some real progress instead of declarations that echo through the valleys of Kashmir, unfulfilled and forever to the fore.

Till then the distance of the hearts and the distance with Dilli will continue to remain hard to bridge and the relationship will remain a long distance one.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

The glass ceiling that won’t break

By Faisul Yaseen

Despite much rhetoric about gender equality and women’s reservations by the major political parties, the distribution of mandates among the female folk in the J&K assembly polls points to their failure to walk the talk.

Among 902 contesting candidates for 90 assembly seats, only 42 women have got the mandate from political parties or are contesting independently – a total of just 4.65 percent of the total contesting.

This sad statistic is merely the beginning of a larger, more disturbing tale.

As it frames up with the major political actors in play including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peoples Conference (PC), Apni Party, and Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) into its fold, the statistics paint an even bleaker picture.

These mainstream parties have, together, fielded just eight women, or a meagre 0.89 percent of the total candidates contesting.

The BJP and Congress have fielded only one woman candidate each in J&K, while the NC has fielded three candidates, PDP two, Apni Party one, and PC and DPAP zero.

Compared with this, 21 women are contesting as independents and all the other parties in total are fielding 13 female candidates.

A total of 58 of the 90 constituencies do not have a single female candidate.

Another 22 constituencies have only one female candidate while seven constituencies can afford to watch two female contesting candidates.

Three female candidates are contesting a constituency in just two rare cases.

While the BJP and Congress have given tickets to only one female contestant each, who are both political newbies, NC has given mandate to a trio of women candidates including Sakina Masood (Itoo) and Shamima Firdaus, both of whom have experienced the turbulent storms of J&K politics, while only one is a newbie.

Similarly, among the two women contesting from the PDP, the party has fielded former legislator Asiea Naqash and Iltija Mufti, daughter of PDP President Mehbooba Mufti.

This is a classic case of elite capture rather than a commitment to gender parity as such.

A day after the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, to reserve 33 percent seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies was cleared by both Houses of the Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the bill presaged a new “democratic commitment” in India.

However, the BJP giving the mandate to only one woman among the 90 assembly seats in J&K illustrates that the commitment remains unfulfilled.

Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi in his message on the 40th anniversary of the All India Mahila Congress (AIMC) said, “In a system often stacked against women, each one of you must fight for and stake your rightful share of social, economic, and political power.”

The fact that Congress has given its mandates to just one woman in J&K suggests that even the Congress party’s system too is stacked against women.

Speaking with reporters in central Kashmir’s Budgam district in September 2023, NC Vice President and former chief minister Omar Abdullah said, “Fifty percent of our population is our sisters and mothers. They should get a chance to become representatives of the people.”

Abdullah said that NC had no scarcity of female leaders of calibre.

However, why then did it only give the mandate to so few women is perplexing.

PDP President Mehbooba Mufti had welcomed the union cabinet’s decision to approve the Women’s Reservation Bill and termed it a great step.

“Having navigated the rough terrain of a predominantly male political landscape myself, I am happy to see that finally, the Women Reservation Bill will become a reality. We’re grossly underrepresented given that we form half of the population. Great step,” Mufti posted on microblogging site X.

However, having given the mandate to just her daughter besides an ex-legislator, Mehbooba and her PDP too seem rather unwilling to give meaningful representation to women.

Former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had also congratulated the government on passing the Women’s Reservation Bill and said that it should have been passed 30 years back.

However, the fledgling party itself has not given mandate to even a single woman across J&K.

Apni Party leader Altaf Bukhari has been a vocal voice of 33 percent reservation for women in the J&K Legislative Assembly.

“Our party believes in real empowerment of women in J&K, and that dream will be realised when we have a considerable number of women lawmakers in our Legislative Assembly,” Bukhari said at a party function in Srinagar.

Why did his party then field only one female candidate across J&K?

For sure, in the corridors of power, perhaps the assurance of a 33 percent reservation for women may have come with more cheers and optimism.

However, the real question now is not so much if women can shatter the glass ceiling but whether the political establishment is ready to let them.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Game of Thrones

Engineering Rashid?

By Faisul Yaseen

In politics snakes marry rats and bulls chase lizards. This holds particularly true about the politics of Kashmir.

Engineer Rashid’s political comeback in Kashmir after his release from Tihar Jail is an unfolding chapter in the region’s turbulent political saga. Outspoken and often virulently critical legislator, and with politics in the most unorthodox of flavours, Rashid’s reentry comes just at the time when the waters of Kashmiri politics run very turbulently – a seat of dominance of the regional parties and decay among the youth.

Rashid’s meteoric rise in the parliamentary polls was not at all an electoral fluke. His soft-separatist stance sang to that particularly excluded voice of Kashmiris in the post-Article 370 era. Catering to pro-Kashmir sentiments, he often challenges the New Delhi’s narrative. Rashid tapped into an undercurrent of discontent, especially among Kashmiri young voters. The triumph over two heavyweights of local politics – Omar Abdullah, the former chief minister, and Sajad Gani Lone of the Peoples Conference (PC) – marked the shift in Kashmir’s political mood.

Abdullah and Lone have been stalwarts in mainstream politics for long. Their defeats at the hands of Rashid indicated an increasing impatience with traditional power structures. Traditionally, the NC and the PC, and for that matter the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), have had to walk a tightrope between Kashmir’s regional aspirations and their engagements with New Delhi. For Rashid, there was no intent to walk this tightrope: The message stayed squarely on a pro-Kashmiri and anti-Delhi plank – a message of identity and autonomy.

To much of the young generation, Rashid’s anti-establishment rhetoric is especially attractive. They have grown up in an age that has seen greater military presence, more frequent curfews, and a clampdown on digital expression.

For these voters, then, his categorical criticism of New Delhi and his commitment to Kashmiri offer a refreshing alternative to the PDP and the NC stances-that seem so placatory. His ability to question New Delhi with openness has made for him a loyal constituency of citizens who feel disenfranchised by both New Delhi and the old party networks in the region.

The youth was a significant factor in Rashid’s success in parliamentary polls. Unlike the mainstream parties, Rashid has been candid about his reservations regarding the kind of concessions he feels have been made to New Delhi and has stressed the importance of dialogue and negotiation more than once. His politics is boldly strident and that goes down pretty well with the youth in Kashmir who will have little time for sweet talking. He is the voice for their issues in their minds and is, by his own words, ready to fight for the very rights they are denied. Rashid gives voice to the frustrations, hopes, and aspiration for a freer tomorrow.

The rising Rashid might fracture the erstwhile hardcore electorates of both the NC and the PDP or the Congress. The NC and the PDP have traditionally called the shots in regional politics, and voters have felt them to be the best bet in the mainstream political establishment. But what Rashid has done, with his very straight, often combative politics, is in contrast sharply with the more nuanced New Delhi-oriented politics of Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, which was where his strength actually lay.

The NC and the PDP, though contesting over the traditional votes of each party, have, over the years itself, found it difficult to sustain these voter bases because of the respective internal divisions and shifting allegiances both these parties had to contend with. The regional parties will now face the challenge of forming their political identities yet better enough to satisfy voters not satisfied with the established political elite; in which Rashid is trying to present an alternative. They can no longer rely only on the politics of representing New Delhi in Kashmir but have to turn around, not just the narrative but deliver by representing Kashmir in New Delhi. Rashid has shown that a more direct approach to politics can yield most political benefits, at least for voters who feel they have been excluded from old political frameworks.

Rashid’s rise is also intertwined with fluidity of the contours of a relationship between Kashmir and the BJP. Pro-BJP stance subscribed by some regional parties has furthered that polarisation of the electorates. While the NC and the PDP have found it hard to retain any level of autonomy in talks with New Delhi, the PC and the Apni Party have hitched their wagon to New Delhi, a strategy that they claim makes sense in terms of bringing development and stability to the region.

However, this alliance with the BJP has antagonised a considerable section of the Kashmiri electorate who view it as a party that functions with policies detrimental to Kashmir’s special status and cultural identity. Rashid’s anti-BJP rhetoric has capitalised on these feelings. His political rise, in part, becomes a reaction to the growing feeling that just like the PC and the Apni Party thought to be furthering Delhi’s agenda, the regional parties – the NC and the PDP have sidelined Kashmir’s interest always when power was on their side. In positioning himself as a bulwark against this perceived erosion of Kashmiri identity, Rashid has marshalled the support of the disillusioned voters who felt let down by the pro-BJP stance of other regional players.

Rashid’s return to the stage of Kashmir politics reflects a larger shift in the electoral landscape of the region. His ability to ride the soft-separatist wave, attract youth, and split the traditional vote marks him as a force to reckon with for any contender. His politics, based as they are on pro-Kashmir posturing and anti-Delhi sentiments, resonate with a population increasingly feeling itself to be marginalised in today’s political climate. As the regional parties reorient themselves to his challenge, will Rashid’s role in shaping up Kashmir’s political future increase or will he by being close to New Delhi end up eroding his own support base like Ghulam Nabi Azad, only time will tell.

It does not take long in Kashmir for things to change. The new Mehbooba Mufti became the old Omar Abdullah. Today’s Rashid might be the new Mehbooba Mufti. Tomorrow’s Rashid might be the new Sajad Lone and G N Azad. In politics, nothing is stagnant. Everything changes. And in Kashmir politics, doves turn into hawks and hawks into doves. How will the dice roll in the game of snakes and ladders? Only time will tell.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Non-playing captains take centre court

By Faisul Yaseen

It is a Wimbledon of words and non-playing captains are calling the shots.

Welcome to Kashmir’s political court where the non-playing captains do not touch a racquet, yet their every serve is scrutinised, every rally dissected.

Their juicy rhetoric and intricate political maneuvering on Kashmir’s electoral landscape have turned the campaign for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections into a fascinating spectacle.

Sitting on the sidelines, these veteran strategists, with decades of political acumen, are the true maestros of this championship, their players mere extensions of their game plan on the electoral court.

The forehand of the non-playing captain of National Conference (NC), Farooq Abdullah, a three-time chief minister and party’s president, is capable of wrong-footing even the most nimble opponent.

Playing at the centre court, his game is a potent mix of charisma and political savvy. A rallying force, his aura permeates alleyways and villages, his presence commanding crowds, as though every political rally he touches turns into a grand slam event.

His team may be the ones playing the game, but it is Abdullah’s forehand that sets the ball in motion.

NC spokesman Imran Nabi Dar says that the party revolves around Abdullah.

“He is a crowd puller and a mass mobiliser,” Dar says. “His aura is not limited to Jammu and Kashmir.”

Across the net stands Mehbooba Mufti, former chief minister and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president, whose refusal to contest in the upcoming assembly polls is drenched in nostalgia for a time when Jammu and Kashmir’s special status was intact.

She coaches her players from behind the net, boosting their spirits, to compete on her behalf in this tense political game.

Her baseline strategy?

Stay off the court, but ensure her team is ready to smash through the opposition’s defences.

PDP Youth President and its candidate for south Kashmir’s Pulwama constituency, Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra says that while Mufti might not be contesting herself, she boosts the morale of the contesting candidates of the party as well as the PDP supporters.

“Everybody in the party wanted her to contest but she is not contesting because she believes that she was the chief minister of a state which had a special status…,” he says.

In Kashmir’s political court, where the art of the “drop shot” is less about finesse and more about dropping bombshells that reverberate across the Valley, the court is crowded with players from all corners of the political spectrum.

But this is no ordinary tournament.

While some non-playing captains are coaching their team players to serve aces, others are happy to let their squad members play from the baseline and hit backhand shots to win the bigger political rallies.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, leading the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP), brings his years of experience to bear, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s high command in New Delhi tosses policy decisions from afar, their influence felt with every backhand play.

BJP J&K unit’s General Secretary (Organisation) Ashok Kaul says that while senior leaders like Ram Madhav, Gangapuram Kishan Reddy, Ashish Sood, and Tarun Chugh are looking after the affairs of the party for the upcoming elections in J&K, the party high command including the BJP’s star campaigners Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh are reaching out to the voters to set the ball rolling.

Like the BJP high command, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is also assuming the role of the non-playing captain for the Congress in J&K.

Senior Congress leader and former legislator Ghulam Nabi Monga says that Gandhi has a lot of love for the people of Kashmir.

“A sea of people – young and old, men, women and children, came to welcome him when he recently visited Kashmir while his Bharat Jodo Yatra was also impressive,” he says. “He is our star campaigner and connects well with the masses as he talks about Kashmir from the heart.”

Even from behind bars, Engineer Rashid, the incarcerated president of the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP), manages to make his presence felt on this political court.

His absence from the court itself only seems to amplify his political voice, bringing into sharp focus the unique nature of this high-stakes game.

Rashid’s son Abrar, who successfully led his campaign in the parliamentary polls and is now campaigning for the upcoming assembly polls, says the campaign not only in north Kashmir but also in south Kashmir is witnessing massive crowds.

“Yes, Rashid Sahab is the major factor in our campaign,” he says. “This is because he has tirelessly worked for the people.”

The match might have started at love-all but the rallies are getting longer and longer.

Meanwhile, the electorate watches with bated breath as the score teeters between advantage and deuce.

As the political grand slam unfolds in J&K, a single fault may be forgiven, but a double fault could cost the entire match.

With the final set approaching, the tension is palpable. Who will emerge victorious in this most unusual of championships? Will it be the seasoned veterans, their experience guiding them through the trickiest of tiebreaks? Or will a dark horse emerge, armed with a powerful serve of fresh ideas and grassroots support?

One thing is certain: in the grand arena of Kashmiri politics, where the lines between sport and statecraft blur, there is no such thing as a simple game. Here, every point is a policy, every set a mandate, and the match itself is nothing less than the future of the region.

October 8 will determine who wins the point, game, set, match, and this grand slam called Kashmir’s political theatre.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Still Drowning

Kashmir’s 10-year flood recovery mirage

By Faisul Yaseen

In September, 2014, a devastating flood engulfed Kashmir, leaving people distressed. Streets were flooded, houses disappeared, and the River Jhelum became an agent of destruction.  The disaster claimed hundreds of lives, left many people homeless and hopeless. Ten years on, people question: “Has anything changed?”

The government vowed to implement extensive infrastructural changes in response to the devastation. They devised ambitious plans for flood control, infrastructure reconstruction, and early warning systems.

Ten years later, as Kashmir’s water bodies swell due to rains, people feel the threat of another impending disaster.  People from Rajbagh, an area that was hit hard in the September 2014 floods, recount their experiences.

“The government promised us strong embankments. They promised dredging of the River Jhelum,” Mushtaq Ahmad, a shopkeeper, says. “Ten years have passed and we are still waiting, still living in fear.”

According to Ahmad and others in Rajbagh, the River Jhelum’s dredging was an essential task that could have been done more efficiently or even completed sooner to prevent future flooding.

While cosmetic measures were taken, these measures became increasingly ineffective.

Experts Sound Alarm

Environmental experts are equally frustrated. Altaf Ahmad Bhat, an environmentalist who has been studying the rivers in Kashmir for many years, says that the Jhelum’s floodplain is shrinking.

The ongoing urbanisation, blocked flood channels, and deforestation in the upper catchment areas all add to this. He says that the government’s focus on environmentally sustainable flood management solutions were overshadowed by immediate political gains, which provided little relief. “The vulnerability of Kashmir lies in the evolving climate,” Bhat says. He says that if action is not taken now, history will repeat itself.

Rebuilding a Broken Life

Flood survivor, Ghulam Nabi Shah of Batamaloo stands in front of his rebuilt home, weaker than ever before. The 2014 flood left him with nothing.  Shah merely took steps to reconstruct his house.  Today, he still worries. “The system’s gaps are more pronounced than those in our homes,” Shah says, pointing to his small two-storey house.

Despite assurances of rehabilitation, many victims like Shah have had to rebuild on their own.

Why is that?

Compensation was not distributed evenly and relief packages were lost due to bureaucratic delays, leaving families to pick up the pieces without government assistance.

A Hollow Assurance

The government continues to emphasise its responsibility for flood preparation. A senior official says that there were complications with the system and unexpected expenses. “We have made progress. Relief systems, embankments, and flood warnings are in place,” he says.

The official says that the 2014 floods were of an unprecedented magnitude and recovery was taking a long time. Those who are constantly in danger find these words to be empty.  Even now, the embankments are not strong enough, and the drainage systems have become substandard, leaving many flood victims living in areas considered hazardous.

A Decade of Inaction

The urgency of the situation is apparent.  The unpredictable weather caused by climate change has put Kashmir at a risk of another disaster unless action is taken.

Kashmir’s seven million inhabitants are at risk due to lack of ecological preservation, political incapacity, and an inadequate infrastructure. Ten years after the waters flooded Kashmir, promises made by the government prove as fragile as those embankments that failed 10 years ago.

Hope has started to fade as Kashmir waits for answers.

“We survived the flood but can we survive this negligence,” Mehtaba, a resident of Bemina says.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Sons of guns ready to fire?

By Faisul Yaseen

A fresh breed of political scions has arrived on the scene.

Carrying the legacy of their influential fathers, these “sons of guns” are poised to carve out their own space in Kashmir’s turbulent political landscape.

Each of these young politicians brings with them not only the weight of the family name but also freshness and a different kind of ambition that might mark the region’s future differently.

Generational Grace

Mian Mehar Ali, son of Member of Parliament Mian Altaf Ahmad, represents the fourth generation of his family into politics from Kangan.

His induction is more than just a mark of continuation from his family.

It is also an indication of the lasting influence the clan has among the community and in the region.

Having a strong base and roots in Kangan, Mehar is expected to continue with family tradition while at the same time tackle current challenges that the residents of his constituency are faced with.

New Blood, Old Roots

Salman Sagar, the son of National Conference (NC) General Secretary and former minister Ali Muhammad Sagar, is ready to further entrench his family’s hold in Kashmir’s political fabric.

Given that NC is an important force in the J&K mainstream politics, Salman’s rise in the party ranks means more years of service by the Sagar family to the ideals of the party.

His youthful energy and modern outlook may inject fresh blood into the NC’s playing approaches, making it more attractive to a younger target audience.

From Bureaucrat’s Heir to Political Player

Ahsan Pardesi, son of Ghulam Qadir Pardesi, enters the political arena with a track record of flexibility and a can-do attitude.

His father, a bureaucrat turned politician, was known for his versatility as a quick changer of political sides.

Ahsan’s foray into politics has been followed with interest ever since he started to be perceived as his father’s inheritor, who would either continue the pragmatism of his father or break new grounds in politics with greater ideological cohesion.

How well he can navigate the perilous political waters of Kashmir remains to be seen.

Political Poetry

Tanvir Sadiq, the son of politician-poet-environmentalist late Sadiq Ali, inherits not only a political legacy but a cultural one too.

Sadiq Ali was a senior leader in the NC and later joined Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Tanvir’s father had been close to NC founder Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, and that may have shaped his approach toward politics.

Tanvir could appeal to that section of voters who value both political acumen and cultural heritage.

Kar’s High Bar

Irshad Rasool Kar, the son of former Congress leader Ghulam Rasool Kar, is an extension of a storied political career.

However, his father’s extensive service in the J&K government and as a Working Committee member of the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) – raises the bar high for Irshad.

Irshad has a sound knowledge of the political dynamics and influence that his father had and can help him in politics.

Following Footsteps

Sajad Shafi, son of Muhammad Shafi, will emulate the footsteps of the politician who represented the Uri assembly constituency for years.

The affiliation of his father to NC and his staunch commitment toward his constituency will surely give him a good foundation to which he can add his bricks.

The task ahead for Sajad now is to retain the faith of the die-hard supporters of his father and simultaneously rise to the existing needs of the people of Uri.

Badge to Ballot

Javid Reyaz Bedar is the son of a senior politician Ghulam Qadir Bedar.

A retired IPS officer, Bedar enters the political fray with a background steeped in politics, discipline, and public service.

The political background of his father and himself serving in the Police and then entering politics brings in a pretty out-of-the-ordinary perspective that Bedar has on governance and security.

As he enters the battlefield, it is time for him to balance his father’s legacy with the expectations of a new generation of voters.

The Speaker’s Successor

Hilal Akbar Lone is the son of former Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Muhammad Akbar Lone.

He wears the mantle of an experienced politician with important assignments in the J&K government.

As his father served as a cabinet minister, Speaker, and later an MP, Hilal’s entry into politics is seen as the perpetration of an influential legacy.

Hilal’s success will lie in how well he steers his way through the labyrinthine complexities of the J&K political establishment.

Earning Their Stripes

NC spokesman Imran Nabi Dar, who himself carries the mantle of his late politician father Ghulam Nabi Dar told Greater Kashmir that all these second-generation politicians who are getting mandates had been working on the ground for years not because of their family legacy.

“Salman Sagar has already been the mayor of the city. These people are not getting anything on a platter. NC as a party wants a formidable face to win the seat. They secured respectable leads for the party in all their respective assembly constituencies.

That should be the parameter and that was the parameter. The party is confident that they will be able to replicate their success in the assembly polls,” he said.

Dilwar to Yawar

Yawar Mir, the son of Muhammad Dilawar Mir of the Apni Party, has already served Rafiabad constituency as a Member of the Legislative Assembly and carries the legacy of his father, who also served as a legislator from Rafiabad.

Daughter of Destiny

If sons rise, can a daughter be far behind?

Daughter of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and granddaughter of former Union Home Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, Iltija Mufti is perhaps the most high-profile of all the debutants.

With her articulate and forceful views on many issues, particularly after the abrogation of Article 370, Iltija has already made a mark on Kashmir’s political landscape.

However, she will have to carve her own space in politics much unlike the members of the Mehbooba’s kitchen cabinet of the past.

If she enters formal politics, it would undeniably change the course of the PDP.

STALWART SONS

Carrying the Abdullah Mantle

Former chief minister and National Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah is a third-generation politician whose father Farooq Abdullah has been a three-time chief minister, Member of Parliament, and union minister while grandfather and NC founder Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah was the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir popular for land reforms.

Maulana’s Heir

Khalid Najeeb Suharwardy is the son of former legislator Maulana Ataullah Suharwardy.

Though Khalid has established himself as a politician and already served as a legislator and minister, he brings a perfect blend of religious influence and political ambitions.

As his father was a former legislator and a religious figure, Khalid had that rare platform to start his political career.

Now Khalid faces the uphill task of balancing his religious heritage with the demands of modern politics in a region as diverse and complex as Jammu and Kashmir.

Sogami Legacy

Nasir Aslam Wani (Sogami) has also established himself in politics and served both as a legislator as well as a minister.

Wani is the son of late Bashir Ahmad Wani (Sogami), a former minister and Member of the Constituent Assembly.

Carrying the Torch

Tariq Hameed Karra, who has served as a legislator, a minister, and a Member of Parliament in the past carries the legacy of Ghulam Mohuiddin Karra, another member of the J&K Constituent Assembly and founder of Political Conference.

In a League of His Own

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Monga said that nobody other than the J&K Congress chief Tariq Hamid Karra was a second-generation politician in JKPCC who would be contesting the assembly polls.

Pahalgam’s Pillar

Rafi Ahmad Mir is the son of Ghulam Ahmad Mir, a member of the J&K Constituent Assembly.

Rafi Mir is a political heavyweight who served as a legislator from Pahalgam.

A veteran in politics, he was associated with the NC and PDP in the past and is now a senior leader of the Apni Party.

Generational Shift

Rafi Mir’s son and Apni Party spokesman Imad Rafi said that in his party his father and Yawar Mir were the only two second-generation politicians who would contest the assembly polls.

Rebel to Ruler

Sajad Gani Lone, the son of former Congress legislator and Peoples Conference founder Abdul Gani Lone who was assassinated on May 21, 2002, has already served as a legislator and minister.

Lone delved deep into the mainstream politics of the region after years of being a separatist.

Cleric’s Child, Politician’s Prodigy

Imran Ansari, a noted Shia cleric, who served as a legislator and minister, is the son of four-time legislator and former minister Moulvi Iftikhar Ansari.

Earlier associated with PDP, Imran is now a close aide of Peoples Conference President Sajad Lone.

Tailpiece

The upcoming elections in the J&K Assembly can shape up to be a battleground where legacy, ambition, and the urge for change will collide as the mantle shifts onto a new generation of young politicians from their parents.

This new generation of politicians rooted in their familial legacies is ready to make its mark on the political landscape of Kashmir.

But will these politicians emerge to be leaders, only time will tell.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Community and Counseling

Kashmir’s civil service aspirants find home-grown support

By Faisul Yaseen

In the heart of Srinagar, things are changing quietly.

The face of civil service preparation in Kashmir is witnessing a drastic shift and a number of academies and institutions are coming up to guide the youth in their pursuit of the civil services dream.

One such institution is the Exceptional IAS Academy.

However, it is different from other such institutions in the sense that their focus is on community engagement and helping in developing the human resource of Kashmir by providing facilities in the Valley for which civil service aspirants had to visit New Delhi.

Founded by Muhammad Azharuddin Sofi and Saqlain Bhat, it has been guiding youth in Kashmir in chasing their dreams without leaving home.

Director Exceptional IAS Academy Muhammad Azharuddin Sofi says, “We used to dream of setting up an academy for preparing the youth from Kashmir for the civil services since 2015. We were driven by the realisation that everyone in Kashmir cannot opt for preparation of civil services by enrolling at any academy in New Delhi because accommodation and cost of living is out of reach for them. Besides this, the weather in Delhi is hostile for Kashmiris.”

Started at Parraypora, the hub of such institutions and academies, in Kashmir in June 2023, the academy has come a long way and finds a fast popularity among the aspiring civil servants here.

Having enrolled about 400 students currently, the academy is running a chain of programmes suiting different needs ranging from one-year graduate courses to two-year and three-year programmes for undergraduates.

Operations Head Exceptional IAS Academy, Saqlain Bhat says, “We are providing the service of preparing for civil services in a homely atmosphere. We provide facilities as good as any of the best civil service academies in New Delhi.”

Despite the immense potential among Kashmir’s youth, it has traditionally trailed in producing civil servants. While Shah Faisal’s Rank 1 in 2010 created ripples, for years thereafter, the total number of candidates selected remained relatively low. A resurgence in interest is, however, evident with 11 Kashmiris cracking the civil services in 2022 and another 8 last year.

“There is a lot of potential among the youth in Srinagar, but there is not much awareness amongst them about civil services,” Sofi says. “Parents in Srinagar don’t take the civil services as a career for their children seriously. We don’t just have to make the youth aware about the civil services but also their parents, because parents are the major part of the support system that the youth need while preparing for the civil services.”

The differential treatment that is accorded to civil services in Srinagar from those offered in the rest of Kashmir is personally experienced by the founders of this academy.

Community support is one of the core philosophies of the academy. There are stories of people from far-flung areas bringing potential students to the academy, impelled solely by the urge to see their communities uplifted.

“A person from Bandipora brought his friend’s child, a fisherman’s son, to us. This kind of support is very necessary and this is lacking in urban centers like Srinagar,” Sofi says.

Other big challenges are misconceptions about bureaucracy and lack of vision among urban youth.

“We recently spoke to a parent who did not want his son to take the civil service as a path for his career as he believes all bureaucrats are corrupt. Changing such perceptions is as important as providing education,” Bhat says. “We visited a village near the Line of Control in Salambad area of Uri where the community came together to support an orphan’s dream of becoming a civil servant. In Srinagar, such collective support is hard to come across. This is something we need to cultivate. Similarly, there is a need for community ownership and encouragement.”

The academy does not just have an examination-oriented philosophy, but it works on holistic development that includes counseling, personality development, and even basic skills like reading newspapers from a civil service perspective.

“We constantly work on their grooming. Many candidates who come into our programme aren’t able to express themselves at the start, but we make them comfortable and realise that they wouldn’t be judged on their lack of public speaking during our programme,” Bhat says. “We had a student join us in 11th grade who was grappling with depression due to social isolation. It is through counseling and a conducive environment that he not only overcame his challenges but has been able to secure two government jobs while pursuing his civil service dream.”

This is not an exception. The academy has seen a surge in students from diverse walks of life, all with one goal in mind: to crack the civil services exams. Yet, the journey is not about individual success.

“We want to spread awareness about the civil services not only among the youth but even among the parents of the aspiring civil servants,” says Bhat. “Srinagar is full of potential, but lack of vision coupled with a lack of support irreparably dents progress.”

After appearing in JKAS prelims last year, Amara Sehra Qureshi of Srinagar says that she came to realise that self-study was not the way to crack these exams.

“The next morning, I joined the Exceptional IAS Academy because I realised the importance of guidance and a mentor,” says Amara, who did her Masters in Political Sciences from the Cluster University of Srinagar. “Preparing for the civil services here, I developed discipline of studying with a fixed timetable and that positive change helped me with my syllabus-completion goals.”

Amara, who is enrolled in a 1-year IAS coaching track at the academy says that the mentorship class made her understand the dynamics of the UPSC exams and how to go about it.

“The preparations for weekly exams, having weekly predetermined goals helps develop the discipline you need. The guidance of the mentors helps you understand what to study and what not to study,” she says. “The academy made me cautious and the process made me humble.”

One of the rare features about the Exceptional IAS Academy, is the 24×7 library, which has expanded from 60 to 170 seats within a year.

“Some candidates leave the library at midnight or 3 am, and some study throughout the night. Some candidates study 14 to 18 hours in the library,” Sofi says.

The academy also believes highly in community involvement and mutual support.

Rouf-ul-Rafiq of Shangus, Achabal in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district says that after graduating in Mathematics from Amar Singh College, he was in a dilemma about his career path.

“I found my real calling here,” he says. “I feel I’m a completely transformed and improved person from what I was 10 months back.”

Rouf says that the change in his life was due to the support of the academy which offered all the facilities like a library, a counsellor, mentors, faculty, and other infrastructural support at one place.

The academy also implements scholarship programmes and flexible fee structures so that meritorious candidates from all walks of life have an equal chance of receiving quality education.

“We open the scholarships two to three times a year and provide 100 percent scholarships to the deserving candidates,” Bhat says.

The impact of Exceptional IAS Academy extends beyond individual success stories. It’s about changing the narrative and perception of civil services in Kashmir.

“Our vision as an academy is that more and more civil service officers should come from Kashmir and help in the growth of society,” Sofi says.

“As an administrator, one can play a way better role. She or he can be instrumental in the growth of an entire district as a Deputy Commissioner. They can also play a role in policy making and changing the fortunes of a number of people,” Bhat says.

Their efforts are already starting to bear fruit. They have seen improvements not just in their students’ exam performances, but in their overall academic and personal growth.

“We have twin girls from Government Degree College Bemina. Their principal told us that she was amazed to see what we had done to them as they were changed students who were excelling and outdoing their peers at college,” Bhat says proudly.

Like the twin sisters, Irtiza Mir from Pulwama’s saffron town Pampore, is also enrolled in a 2-year undergraduate track at the academy.

A student of Abdul Ahad Azad College, Irtiza decided to pursue her civil services dream after passing her 12th standard exam.

“At the academy, I developed my answer writing skills and improved my knowledge of current affairs,” she says.

Irtiza feels that while she prepares for the civil services at the academy, her improved knowledge and newly-learnt skills are also helping in her undergraduate course.

The Exceptional IAS Academy has also been working with the philosophy of addressing regional needs. Preparing students for exams or building future leaders who understand and can address the unique challenges of their homeland is not all; it is about providing world-class education at affordable prices right in the heart of Kashmir.

“There is nothing like the satisfaction you get on seeing someone qualify for the civil services after starting from scratch,” Bhat says.

Of course, it is this very satisfaction, aided by a deep inner urge to see Kashmir flourish, that has been driving Exceptional IAS Academy ahead in its mission to recast the civil service landscape of the region.

It is the youth, traditionally entering the prestigious professions of medicine and engineering, who now increasingly look up to that pinnacle of India’s administrative service in this transformed scenario.

Younis Yousuf Mir, who works as a mentor at the academy, says civil services preparations have evolved over time.

“A teacher or a faculty member teaches the class but a mentor stays with the aspirant till the exams and makes them exam-ready,” he says. “A mentor checks what level of preparation the aspirant has and also prepares them about the latest trends.”

Younis says that with a fresher they start with basics like how to start the preparations, what books to read.

“Later on, the focus shifts on how to score more in tests, how to write better answers, how to evolve, how much time to spend on studies, and how to have clear goals,” he says. “We also help them with their issues in particular subjects and how to stay motivated besides also working on a Plan B.”

It was through committed mentorship, community support, and a strong belief in the potential within the youth of Kashmir that Sofi and Bhat were engaged with focused exam preparation, but they are laying the basis for a time when such students will lead and inspire.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Secondhand Dreams

Kashmir’s ‘Used Future’ Trap

By Faisul Yaseen

Kashmir’s dream of development has been entwined in the paradoxical embrace of a ‘Used Future’, a term coined by futurist Sohail Inayatullah.  The term highlights the way a community or organisation’s sense of possible, probable, and preferable is occupied unthinkingly, inappropriately, and in all likelihood damagingly, by concepts developed in another context altogether.

Sohail Inayatullah is the UNESCO Chair in Future Studies at the Sejahtera Centre for Sustainability and Humanity, IIUM, Malaysia. He is also a member of the World Future Society and a Fellow of the World Future Studies Federation.

The term ‘Used Future’ brings sharply into focus Kashmir’s futile struggle to navigate with somebody else’s map the uncharted waters of progress. Kashmir is a model that follows the urban development that Western cities did generations ago. This development is coming at the cost of our environment. It is converting our cities and towns into concrete jungles facing overpopulation, water depletion, and climate change. In the process, we have also given up on our traditions where community was central and living with nature was important.

Umar Shgeraz in his academic paper ‘Used Futures as Stumbling Blocks to Sustainable Development’ writes, “The future is a moving frontier and it is equally important to shift images with shifting times.”

To understand the concept of ‘Used Future’ imagine a society driving a secondhand car of progress: a gleaming vehicle, full of the promise of modernity, which sputters and stalls on winding roads in its new home. Perhaps the best way to conceptualise this is through a metaphor: that of the ‘Used Future’, a preconceived conception of tomorrow which refuses to harmonise with the contours of the present and the aspirations of those who seek to inhabit it.

At the heart of Kashmir, ‘Used Future’ manifests as a chain of faded developmental dreams. Take, for instance, the grand Smart City initiative for Srinagar. From claiming to be the biggest developmental project that Srinagar has ever witnessed, this now sticks in the quagmire of red tape, its grandeur reduced to an echo of modernity. The vision for the transformation of the city into a bastion of 21st-century innovation wears like a garment, ill-suited and tailored for another cityscape and spirit.

What was touted as Srinagar’s Semi Ring Road, an infrastructural project that would unshackle the city from the chains of congestion and propel it into efficient connectivity, has turned into a ghostly apparition haunted by delays, land disputes, and fiscal spectres. It was to be a potent symbol of the ‘Used Future’: a development model transplanted from afar without nuance to flourish in Kashmir’s unique terrain.

This borrowed destiny also shows up in the field of education. Good intentions and hefty investments notwithstanding, the region’s academics is tattered with an outdated curriculum and incongruence between classroom wisdom and the practical demands of modernism. It is like arming our youth with weapons from a bygone era to conquer challenges that have, by far, advanced to new battlefronts.

The ‘Used Future’ casts its shadow on the very fabric of governance in Kashmir. That bureaucratic machinery, left over from the fashions past, keeps ticking – ever more intransigently to the 20th century’s lingering nostalgia – its labyrinthine corridors seemingly designed against, not for, change. It is to steer a ship with a compass that points to a world that no longer exists. Yet in that shadow of the ‘Used Future’, there also lies the seed of redemption.

Sohail Inayatullah’s concept forces us to anatomise these futures that have been bequeathed to us, to interrogate the assumptions underlying them, and to create a narrative that would reach deep into the soul of Kashmir.

Whispers of Sopore’s apple orchard and the rhythmic beat of Srinagar downtown’s loom must reverberate within the halls of decision-making

Kashmir needs to tread with determination and foresight. It requires an institutional framework overhaul where the stranglehold of red tape gives a place to breathe innovation and adaptability. Governance has to deliver on people’s needs and aspirations. Stakeholder engagement has to be the lifeblood of any development activity carried out in a region like Kashmir. Whispers of Sopore’s apple orchard and the rhythmic beat of Srinagar downtown’s loom must reverberate within the halls of decision-making. Only by weaving together diverse threads of experiences can something that reflects the spirit of Kashmir be created.

At the core of it all lies capacity building. How to survive through the intricacies of modern development – these are some of the things the leadership should inculcate in the youth so that they can thrive in the global arena, not just exist. A culture wherein innovation is celebrated should be inculcated, and the unknown should be embraced and not feared.

The choice is ours – let us drink in hope as finely woven and resilient as the shawls which warm us through the bitter winters

The last piece in this intricate jigsaw puzzle would be policy coherence, wherein the different developmental efforts would knit shared goals, each resonating with the other to create harmonious growth and prosperity. This journey is long and arduous but it is the one Kashmir has to take if it is to claim its rightful place in the sun. It takes courage to confront the entrenched dogmas and the audacity to chart a new course.

Kashmir stands at the precipice of a choice. Should it succumb to the dark shadows of borrowed dreams and forever strive to pace with the fleeing future, or should it take up the reins of destiny and cut out for itself a tomorrow as extraordinary in its uniqueness as Kashmir is? The future is being woven from threads of our collective imagination like the Chinar leaves kissing the summer sky, so vibrant and eternal.

The time has come for Kashmir to look beyond the horizon of the ‘Used Future’. The choice is ours – let us drink in hope as finely woven and resilient as the shawls which warm us through the bitter winters. Let us strive for a tomorrow that is not a projection of yesterday’s promises but an epitome of the unyielding spirits of a people who still dare to dream.

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Red Tape

File of Lord Bentinck’s time traced in Kashmir!

By Faisul Yaseen

A file of Lord William Bentinck’s time has been traced in Kashmir!

Going through the contents of the file, it is seen that a junior assistant initiates a note on a matter.

He submits it to a senior assistant who agrees with the note written by the junior assistant and remarks, “I concur” and sends the file to the head assistant.

The head assistant in turn remarks, “I concur” and sends the file to the superintendent.

The superintendent marks it to the administrative officer after stamping “I concur”.

The administrative officer sends it to the secretary who, after putting the same remarks, forwards the file to Bentinck who served as Governor General of India from 1828 to 1835.

After going through the contents of the file, Bentinck is amazed and writes on the file, “I concur with the concurers.”

He further marks on the file: “However, the file should have been disposed of by the secretary himself.”

After around 200 years of this incident, there hasn’t been any change in the work culture in the government offices as the offices in Kashmir have carried forward the tradition.

A note initiated by the junior assistant goes through the same procedure even today.

It takes months together and sometimes even years for petty matters to be resolved in the government offices.

Case 1: Suhail Jan whose name is wrongly spelt on his matriculation certificate as Shuheel John, requests authorities of the J&K Board of School Education (BOSE) to make the necessary corrections.

His application moves from table to table and goes from section to section.

After wasting three months in the process, Suhail is asked to publish in some local newspapers the “fault”, which is actually committed by the BOSE authorities.

Only after doing so, will the necessary corrections be made.

Case 2: For obtaining a land passbook from the Revenue Department, Nisar Ahmad Bhat first gets his application written by a petition writer.

He then secures the proof of being a citizen of Jammu and Kashmir.

Afterward, he submits his papers to the Tehsildar who orders a Pathwari to verify the antecedents of the applicant.

After about six months, the papers are completed in the Tehsil office.

Only then is the file sent to the Deputy Commissioner for his signature.

The cumbersome procedure takes a long time and like a bumblebee, Nisar moves from one official to another.

Case 3: In the Sadder Treasury, the Treasury Officer does not sign Abdur Rashid Mir’s pension file despite the fact that two Accounts Assistants have already verified the file.

The Treasury Officer asks Rashid to first have the file signed by the Section Officer.

Although the Section Officer never checks the file, he simply puts his initials for the pleasure of the Treasury Officer.

Bottom Line: There has not been a discernible change in the system and people continue to move from pillar to post in the government offices to get their cases disposed of.

The age-old culture in the government offices continues to be anti-people and common people feel no relief as the show goes on.

(The names of the people mentioned in three cases have been changed at their request)

Greater Kashmir

[everythingkashmir]

Selective Spectatorship

By Faisul Yaseen

Their selective blindness skills would make even the most skilled magician green. The yarn pullers are experts, carefully picking out any strands that don’t fit their preferred palette. Unskilled artisans work tirelessly, their brutal fingers pluck inconvenient truths that destroy their vision of utopia.

In this absurd theater, the stage of pretended wealth is set up. The orchestra pit is shrouded in strangled screams and strained dreams. Those who utter that cacophony wear blindfolds of the finest silk of their delusion. Their wand cuts the air with the precision of a surgical scalpel.

The audience is turned into an unwanted child. Invisible hands pull their strings, forcing them to dance according to their rules. Those who dare to sing their happy song are soon carried off the stage, their voices lost to the thunderous applause of the sanitised history books.

Visuals also play their part in this phenomenon. The mountains that once stood as silent witnesses now form a convenient canvas, offering works that would make even the most hardened critic mess around and the rivers that once flowed now train the inked preparations of antiquity.

Artists of this work say that true vision comes not from explicit seeing, but from selective seeing. A new garden grows – where the unhappy flowers are soon plucked, leaving only the enforced happiness into an artificial meadow.

In this brave new world, ignorance isn’t just bliss, it’s policy. And as the curtain falls over this tragic irony, one can’t help but wonder: where is the visible faith, and what happens when faith goes unnoticed?

It’s called the emerald bed. But where emerald once shone, a masterpiece is now flourishing. Here the artist is not a tortured soul with a brush, but a hero in steel, his eyes always fixed on the horizon.

It has an incredible fabric – snow-capped mountains that have witnessed countless events and now hold a veil of unflinching silence. The once smiling rolling hills now reverberate with a hollow silence. The heroes are rendered in hushed tones. The heat is indicated by subtle pain.

With wonderful brush strokes, the artist painted a landscape that resembled a cemetery, a peacefulness that was as restless as the smiles they wore.

Here, disagreement is a smokescreen that is easily extinguished, and desires are neatly chopped into strips – wavering and infused.

The work is a testament to skill. With a flick of a finger, the artist has erased an entire chapter from the book. They repeat nausea when the picnics fail, and dismiss voice cravings as irritating coughs.

They marvel in their rose-coloured glasses and miss the finer details. The artist himself is still blissfully blind to the masterpiece he has created.

But the fabric reveals divisions – in the ghostly eyes of the children, in the tired deception of the elderly, in the flying opposition just below. It is these brushstrokes that the artist desperately tries to erase, to silence with a whisper.

This is a strange case of selective emotion. But, like all fantastic fantasies, they crumble under the weight of truth. For in the heart of hearts is pictured a special work, and it is not the work of an unseen and irresistible spirit.

Finale

The stage in the main stage is set in a beautiful setting with snow-capped mountains and lush green meadows. Covered in false signals, actors play endlessly. The audience wide-eyed but cloudy in vision, applauding images that hide reality behind curtains.

The air outside the stage is thick with dreamy smoke and tear-soaked earth. The lives of ordinary people are written in whispers, their movements made of invisible threads.

Disguised as an invisible but omnipresent force, puppetry casts a long shadow over every aspect of life. The streets paint their canvas with images of fear and humility. The sky is their screen, where surveillance planes dance.

In this wonderful arrangement, the architects have perfected the art of sweeping. Cries of distress are silenced under officialdom. The tale of suffering is buried under the weight of a thousand petitions, each more tenuous than the last.