Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Story of despair

Tathagata Bhattacharya and Haroon Reshi report from ground zero

Sixty five protesters killed, more than 3,000 agitators and 2,500 security personnel injured, general strike and curfew for more than two months, businesses and shops shut, banks closed, hotels empty. This might not seem unusual in a state where more than 1 lakh people have been killed since 1989. Nothing is abnormal in an abnormal state. But what is indeed unusual is the longstanding ostrich-like attitude of New Delhi, no matter which party is in power. There is a problem in Kashmir and this needs to be acknowledged first. Only then can one start working at a solution. And the solution, it is obvious, is not in managing the situation by sending in more and more security forces. Even the Centre has admitted that there is little militancy in the Valley except in the Baramulla and Kupwara sectors which border Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. But there are roughly 7,00,000 armed security forces personnel in the Valley. And still, places in the valley erupt every now and then in the name of the Quit J&K Movement.

We visit the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) where the injured are rushed in by groups of youths every now and then. The usual quiet of the hospital corridor is suddenly broken with cries for independence like “Hume kya chahiye... azadi/Bharat ka gundagardi nehi chalega.”

Dr Reyaz Ahmed tells us, “This is a tertiary care referral hospital and we have already treated over 400 cases of bullet injuries. Most patients were hit in the head or upper torso.” We meet 20-year-old Sumera Dabloo who went to rescue her father hit by a bullet. She was herself hit in the chest by two bullets. We come across a 24-year-old Tariq Ahmed on life support. He has a bullet in his arm and has received severe head injuries. His uncle, Mohammad Amin, says, “The local hospital in Tral was ransacked by CRPF men. Tariq was helping the injured when he was shot at and beaten up.”

The roads of downtown Srinagar are deserted with security forces in every nook and corner, the Valley resembles a beautiful prison. The generation of Kashmiri youths who are pelting stones is an abnormal one. They are mostly born after 1989, they have seen militants and forces all around, guns blazing, blasts ripping off bodies. Their reaction to situations is abnormal. “When the police starts firing, people generally run away. In Kashmir, they come closer,” says a top state police official, himself a Kashmiri Muslim, on the condition of anonymity. We will call him X for future reference.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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