Arshid Malik
The latest phase of resistance in Kashmir, which lasted around five odd months, deeply altered the contours of the Kashmiri society. These alterations, ranging from internal dynamics of the basic social unit, the family, to large scale organizational and institutional upheavals and downfalls have been the subject of hot debates among the intellectual circles of Jammu and Kashmir; rest of the country and to some extent rest of the world as well and shall attract many shades of dialogue in the coming years, even though scanty research has been conducted on the socio-economic levels as to the influences of this agitation. Our intellectuals, academicians and scholars need to delve deeper into the shades of the recent turmoil in Kashmir and map the whole episode for the common people who happen to be at loss when it comes to dealing with the “post-ragda-ragda” 2010 situation.
I have personally witnessed changes at the grassroots level within Kashmir vis-a-vis the “ragda-ragda” 2010 episode. I have seen demarcated changes in the overall behaviour, mentality and attitude of the Kashmir people. I am not here to debate whether the past months of resistance were good or bad for the overall Kashmiri community but rather to introspect and understand the changes that were integrated into the scheme of things without any outside or inside influence, by way of natural principles and edifices. Simply put, whenever we carry out an act, there is an intended resultant and a naturally arising quotient which we can neither evade nor escape. I am interested in this quotient and would like my fellow men and women to perceive all such affects arising unintentionally because of a social circumstance.
I figure that it is very important for all of us, Kashmiri people, especially the intelligentsia and the civil society to map the natural quotients arising out of the past few months of civilian strife. I have rarely met people who are aspiring to ask and answer such queries. We happen to take the whole thing too matter-of-factly and I assume too casually which is not good for our overall growth as a people. We may be pushed towards mass consumerism, severe alienation (while we already stand alienated in the political as well as the social sense), egotism and even nihilism due to the workings of the long periods of strife and that way we could be walking our way straight “into the mouth of the man-eater”.
I have noticed a majority of Kashmir people turning a sorry face towards everything good and we most certainly stand desensitized in terms of reacting to adversities. Now, we as a people may or may not believe in attending intelligently to all social and economic problems arising in and out of the post-resistance period(s), but we should be wary of the affects these may have on our children. It is not us, the grownups, who may exactly “face the music” at the end of the day but the children of the soil who would have to deal with our “leftovers”. If we care about our progeny, we must act now and attempt to sketch the journey of resistance and the sidelong evidences of principally damaging after-effects and with all mind and matter minimize the longstanding aftershocks and fallouts.
