[Reader-list] From the English daily, Kashmir Images

SJabbar sonia.jabbar at gmail.com
Tue Aug 31 12:59:48 IST 2010


Waiting for Godot
Manzoor Anjum

The problem with our leadership is that instead of leading, they just follow
the crowds. From its support to gun in early 90¹s to drumming of peaceful
struggle post 9/11 and now patting of stone pelters, the leaders have always
been led by the street.

He is a plumber and lives in a rented room in Jawahar Nagar locality of
Srinagar. He is diabetic and also suffering from some other diseases. His
wife suffers of anemia. The couple has to sons ­ one studying in 10th and
the other in 6th standard. Besides day to day expenses and rent of the room,
the couple has to spend good amount on the purchase of medicines and
education of the children. During the month of June, by hook and crook he
managed
to get some work and run his household. But in July, he couldn¹t even move
out of his home and therefore there was no earning. Whatever little his wife
had managed to save during past months was consumed in the month of July and
in August, he had to borrow Rs. 1500 from his brother.
As the ill luck would have it, his brother needed the money back desperately
and that too just after fifteen days as his wife had fallen ill. This man
had no money to repay and was forced to sell the gold ear-ring of his wife.
And since then he has sold whatever was left with his wife -  ear-rings,
rings, bangles.
Wife insists that they should arrange some tutor for the children who
haven¹t been to school from past three months. Instead of thinking of hiring
a tutor, the man is fighting with all odds to run his kitchen and arrange
two meals for his family. He is borrowing money from here and there and
constant pressure from money lenders has turned him into a psychological
wreck now and to try his luck, he has started gambling and thus borrowing
more money.

Is there anybody who can assure him a respectable earning in the wake of
constant and unabated strikes and protests? Is there anyone who can arrange
a tutor for his kids? He is in depression and running from one shrine to
another to find solace but there is none. He has no money for his diabetes
and if the situation continues, as it is now, he will die of this deadly
disease. And once he is dead, what will happen to his three dependants? How
can his wife run the house-hold? Will she be forced to sell her body to
ensure food and education to his children? Or will the stone-pelting
brigades get two new recruits? And what will happen to the dreams that this
mother had woven around these two kids? Wouldn¹t shattering of a mother¹s
dream shatter all the heavens?
When I heard about this family, the details pained my heart knowing that
there would be hundreds and hundreds of such families all over suffering
terribly due to continuous strikes. My heart pains and I think that the God
who has given me the heart to feel is the one who has given the Œcourage¹ to
those who are issuing frequent strike calls and thus who is going to prove
that who is on the right path ­ me, with my understanding of the ground
situation or they with the determination of going ahead with their protest
calendar.

Sometimes I think, had Gandhi given an indefinite strike call, would the
English have left well before August, 1947, or would they been still ruling
India. Had indefinite strikes been an effective weapon to end slavery and
oppression, Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi would have followed the same
path? Fact is that these great leaders offer personal sacrifices instead of
asking people to make sacrifices.  Mao Zedong didn¹t remove his shoes from
his feet for fifteen years. He continued marching and his people followed
him. He never gave some Chaloo call to attract curfew. He marched himself
towards his goal and every one in his nation followed him. Great leaders
have always ensured that they achieve more than investing. They devise
strategies to minimize sufferings of their people and to maximize the gains.
But here in Kashmir, instead of working towards any sort of gains and
achievement, our leadership is only ensuring more and more sacrifices. Why,
because this struggle is not led by any visionary like Mao Zedong or Nelson
Mandela. There is no Aung San Suu Kyi on the forefront who was imprisoned at
the age of 13 and continues to suffer but resisted every violent move that
was made by her supporters to seek her release.

And here, we are led by the stone pelters whom we call the leaders of our
future generation. No doubt that these young boys seem desperate to seek
freedom from India but fact of the matter is that only a few of them are
acquainted with the history of Kashmir dispute. For most of them, Kashmir is
a religious issue. They think that they are Muslims and therefore it is
their religious duty to get freedom from India. But how to get this freedom,
they have no idea, they just pick up rocks and raise slogans of Islam and
Azadi. Interestingly 40 per cent of the stone pelters are young kids between
the age of 7 to 12 years. These kids should have been in schools or in play
grounds. But here they are, on the streets, pelting stones and shouting
slogans ­ slogans which their innocent minds fail to understand. We curse
and oppose child labour because to make your children work is a crime. But
at the same time we watch our young kids pelting stones on armed forces and
in the return getting injured and killed. We don¹t attempt to stop our kids
from this indulgence but just watch shamelessly and then beat our chests
when some tragedy strikes.

There is no denying the fact that most people from Kashmir Valley want India
out. This is a wide spread sentiment here and the leaders use and misuse
this sentiment to remain on the forefront. They have failed to devise
strategies that would help satisfy peoples¹ sentiments and have even failed
to identify the goal. There is an army of leaders, and each of them has
his/her own goal and are trying to drag masses towards those particular
goals. Now a new leadership is emerging and that is of stone pelters. This
leadership too has its own goal. Though all are raising slogans of Islam and
Azadi, there is a fight for supremacy and in this fight, the common people
are made to suffer miserably. Don¹t we have a right to ask that how long
this stone-pelting will go on and that how it is going to force India out?
We are keeping an entire generation away from schools and think that thus we
will get Azadi.  Our schools are closed and in neighbouring Jammu and
Ladakh, students are busy achieving academic excellence. And if the
situation continues the way it is, after ten years or so, there will not be
a single Kashmiri in government employment. Earlier these used to be 80 per
cent Kashmiri employees working in civil secretariat. Now this place has
been occupied by people of Jammu and Leh. This has not happened because of
any conspiracy but because of our own follies as we have never prioritized
education. And whatever we are doing now, it will never fetch us Azadi but
ensure that in future Kashmiris can¹t get a decent job and wherever they
are, they can¹t dream something beyond a class fourth job.

We can¹t go on endless hartals. Despite pressures and force, people will
resist against these strikes and revolt. That would be a big jolt to the
very concept of the movement. But the leaders seem unmindful of this. They
are busy taking credit for everything and anything, even if that thing
happens to be against the people and the very movement they claim to be
representing.
When gun was the fashion, the leadership missed not a single moment to
support it and say that this was the only way to achieve freedom. And when
it (gun) fell from the grace post 9/11, the leadership suddenly became the
staunch supporter of Œpeaceful struggle.¹ Now that stone pelting seems order
of the day, the leaders too are busy patting these new warriors without
thinking that why and how this new shift has come into force. Syed
Sallahudin, the commander of Jehad Council, whose writ was running allover,
his effigies are being burnt publicly and no one uttered a word of protest
because power equation has changed. And with the change in power equation,
the leadership too has been changing frequently.

Fact of the matter is that the leadership has no idea what is going around.
It has no strategy and no identified goal. It doesn¹t know which secret and
intelligence agency is playing what role here. It is unmindful of what India
and Pakistan are upto. It is a leadership that has no capability to lead. It
just follows the crowds. Kashmir needs messiah ­ the messiah who can heal
its wounds. We need a leader, a leader who is capable of leading and not
following the crowds. We need someone who can rescue us from present chaos
and anarchy and one who can lead us to real freedom. But will our Godot
come?
 


More information about the reader-list mailing list