By Peerzada Mahboob-Ul-Haq and Nasir Khuehami
What has changed in Kashmir since the onset of armed conflict? A lot, probably. The conflict started in the 1990s, though some academicians or historians might situate its roots in pre-independence history. We, however, want to locate the genesis of the current spree of death and destruction in the period that structurally changed the contours of the region.
Kashmir, to be perfectly honest, has never been a normal state. Therefore, trying to treat it at par with other federal units would be disastrous – like the disaster that occurred on August 5, 2019. Let us be brave and politically honest in calling out the events that have followed the unilateral downgrading of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into a centralised Union Territory.
Since then, any spaces for expression that were still available have been choked, politics has been held hostage by bureaucracy, the economy by political whims, and the state apparatus has hardened – so much so that even Machiavelli wouldn’t have wanted his king to be this brutish.
Under such circumstances, how do you imagine the local population would act or react? Would they be submissive, apologetic, anaesthetised, or forcibly ever-grateful?
With the recent Red Fort attack, a familiar ache returns, an ache that travels with Kashmiris – once again, every Kashmiri stands under the glare of suspicion for a crime they had no connection to.
With one death, he killed many innocents. And we mourn every innocent life lost and denounce the hand that carried out this horror – with both our grief and our condemnation unstitched from the cloth of identity.
We live in a thriving democracy, a prosperous nation that is holding stardust, aiming for the sun, the moon and the unachievable. Yet Pulwama, Pahalgam, Red Fort happen. Do we dare ask why? We ought to, for we are not mere bystanders but the architects of this republic. Therefore, we ask why these shocks continue to pulse through the country, reaching even the capital’s fortified heart? Perhaps the answers exist, the truth may be known yet unacknowledged, understood yet unspoken.
And what of the state’s strategy? A panopticon ever watching, never hearing, where choked voices ferment into the very storms we fear.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
