Kashmir is burning.

Zaffar was sad yesterday. He is my classmate and he is from Kashmir. The events that are happening in his home town are not pleasant. The town is under a curfew. Atleast 5 people have lost their lives in the police firing at the protest march to Lal Chowk, the centre of the town. Zaffar is not very political. He is a sort of happy go lucky guy. When people asks him whether he want independence or want to secede from India or join Pakistan, he used to answer that if people wanted freedom, he'd also support it. He was not much agog about the opression and occupation.
We were both reading from the library when he suggested we have a cup of tea from the canteen. we sat with our cuppas on the verandah. he said that he had got a call from home. and then he started talking and me listening. his brother had called to inform him that a deaf and dumb person in his neighborhood got brutally beaten up by the force since he didn move out of the street at the announcement of curfew.
Then he started talking about the history of the Kashmir problem. He blamed Sheikh Abdulla and his family for all the ruins that had come upon the Kashmimris. Sheikh was never a champion of democracy and had again and again rigged election results to clinch on to the power.

Then he started talking about the amarnath land issue, which is now the burning issue in the valleys.
The Gulam Nabi Azad Govt decided to transfer 100acres of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board. Amarnath is a famous hindu pilgrimage centre. The cave was discovered by a Kashmiri muslim nomad and since then thousands of hindu pilgrims have been visiting the place. one third of the annual profit was given to the family of the muslim nomad who found the cave. The Govt. decided to stop that also.

Initially the govt. claim was that the land id being transfered on a temperory basis, but the document said otherwise. The samiti was free to construct and lay tunnels and drainages if need arises. One asks whether the samiti will construct anything for just the pilgrimage period of 2 months? The Kashmiris were being hosts to thousands of pilgrims every year and not a single case of communal tension had registered during these years. Now the politics behind the sudden decision of the Govt. to transfer the land to the board is dubious. Kashmiri land was always occupied since independence. Nehru had promised a referendum regarding the independence long back and it is still to happen. 671 batallions of army and reserved police are stationed in the valley. There is, on an average, one Indian 'security' person per 10 Kashmiris.(Imagine how terrifying it would be for the people) Each battalion require some 150acres of land for themselves. So that much of land was forcefully grabbed them already. The military acquired orchards, fields, schools et al for their operations. The ethics record of the army in Kashmir was never good. The atrocities and brutalities that they have unleashed are uncountable. Kashmiris were always living under the guns of occupation forces. The latest issue of land transfer was bound to invite resistance from the already occupied people. Morover they have never cried for the blocking down of Amarnath yathra

Once the protest started, the army stepped in and started firing against virtually unarmed-except for the stones- masses. That is when NN Vohra took charge as the governor of the state. He decided to make the land transfer null and void. This sparked off furious protests from the Hindu dominated areas of Jammu. Hindu Fundamentalist forces took the issue into their hand and gave it a dangerous religious overtone. People took to the streets and destroyed schools, ransacked government offices and et al. The softer attitude from the army was appalling.

Meanwhile an economic blockade on the Kashmiris were already in place. The Jammu-Srinagar Highway, the only road which connects Kashmir to India, was blocked by the samiti protesters. Being the harvest season, tonnes of fruits were packed and ready to be transprted. But the blockade meant that any truck going through that road will have to face attacks from the protesteers in Jammu. Till today worth fruits crores of rupees are getting rotten due to the blockade.

The mainstream media portrayal of Kashmir as pro-pakistan was scoffed at by Mirwais Latif, a leader from Kashmir. He said the use of pro-pak and pro lashkar slogans are just means of their protest against the indian state and its army. They are aware of the political developments in Pakistan and they dont want to give themselves away to a highly unstable and corrupted state apparatus of Pakistan. Even pakistan seemed to have lost its interest in Kashmir and its problems. Even pro-pakistan people blame the pakistan media for the lack of interest in covering the current issue

The cry for azadi(freedom) is growing day by day, that too in a never before way. Thousands of people are joining the protest marches. They are unarmed, which makes it difficult for the army to "manage" the situation as they had done before. The people now thinks even if India is prospering, even if the independence means going backward in time, even if they couldn manage to support infrastructure, even if they are heading to darkness, they would still prefer independence rather than the integration with India. Why are still clinging on to Kashmir. All independent referundums strongly declares their will to be free. We all thought we're living in a democracy. How foolish we were.