by Masood Hussain

If the flags, paintings, murals and road slogans are any indication then the south Kashmir will take some more time to get “normal”. Indications from the belt that pushed Kashmir into the ongoing crisis, now in the fifth month, suggest the element of fatigue has set in. There are various other truths not public so far. The unrest had cemented people and not divided them. There is more acceptability to a Salfi in an area where Barelvis have a strong footing and vice-versa.

The surprise is that no social, political or a sectarian grouping stayed away in last four months. Even people from Tabligh-e-Jama’at, hitherto seen in and around mosques, were part of the processions, perhaps for the first time. The Milli gatherings, involving all faith-linked divisions of the society, were the main cohesive platforms that have helped the otherwise fractured society to stay together.

While part of one truth is that the exploitative factions in business have made lot of money – in villages a litre of petrol still sells at Rs 100 and 100 kg of CAPD rice fetches around Rs 2800, the flip side suggests an impressive public charity set-up that is still taking care of the people, rendered destitute by the unrest.

Behind the fatigue are rampant arrests, frequent raids by the police and, above all, the massive losses that the apple growers suffered by pushing their crop to the outside markets in one go. It triggered glut and led to nose-diving of rates, creating situations that some people have lost most of the income to the costs, maintenance, packaging and freight of the crop!

But the ground realities were missed by most of the participants who were invited by the separatist trio – Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, spearheading the ongoing unrest, to Hyderpora last week. There were speeches, some of them reportedly very impressive, but it did not change anything on ground. A few days later, the ‘calendar’ gave the same four day evening relaxation and suggested the manufacturing and the transport sector to avail this much of time. Tragically neither of the participants could point out that when hearth or oven of a major factory is put on, it takes anything between Rs 3 to Rs 10 lakh of fuel in one go. These hearths are put on for a season and only stopped when there is the requirement of maintenance.

Interesting about Hyderpora conclave was that some participants who were strong votaries of a more-relaxed calendar had ended up speaking ferociously in support of the status quo. It even shocked some of the separatist leaders who were expecting a sort of appeal to be flexible in the coming days. There were quite a few voices supporting a clear shift: one was a cleric who lacks much of the credibility, another was a social activist.

The other thing that seemingly played against the status quo ante, as was pointed out by one of the separatist leaders later, was the comment of Chief Minister. As the durbar opened in Jammu, she had said she hopes “good news” from Srinagar. Coupled with a group of young men shouting Soudabaazi Nahi Challay Gi, as the meeting was going on inside, it was pretty much clear that the three will not give-in in the very first meeting that Ms Mufti has permitted for the first time in four months.

All stakeholders Meet on Nov 08 in Hyderpora.
All stakeholders Meet on Nov 08 in Hyderpora.

The governments in Srinagar and Delhi have consistently insisted that they will not give in. They have cemented the alliance too. They have already taken the battle with Islamabad at a much larger scale. NHPC’s Kishanganga is again being examined by a court of arbitration that World Bank has announced. Even the abandoned Rattle project is being readied for a Neutral Expert. The Foreign Offices of the two countries are engaged in a serious cold war. At a time when the elections are in hand, Delhi is not expected to do anything that will hamper its prospects. The victory of its “natural ally”, Donald Trump could possibly harden her stand till Washington opens its cards on Syria, Russia, Beijing and Kabul.

The wisdom – “we are in stress but none of us is dying of hunger” – that a bourgeoisie talked about last week befits a class and not the society in total. A barely six-million society that has almost 1.5 million of its able-bodied making a living from the private sector – manufacturing, retail and services, is seriously tense. There are businesses that are on the brink of closure. The slump has hit the market and in coming days, Kashmiris will be seen in Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur and Chennai in much larger numbers that they were seen last winter. The bourgeoisie have already left for Jammu with their kids readying for the next examination.

These are basics of a larger society that leaders from both sides of Kashmir’s ideological divide need to take into consideration as early as possible. Off late, the state is unleashing its power in complete disproportion to the realities. Pellets, bullets, raids, indiscriminate arrests and destruction, as the south Kashmir preacher would sing, Na Bhai Na. Open up to larger engagement which is seriously sincere. Kashmir cannot always go for self-flagellation to convey its pain. The self-claimed “irrelevant” Prof Abdul Gani Bhat rightly put it when he said: “We gave you the light of our eyes so that you can see the reality about Kashmir.”

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