In view of the alarming situation of taxes imposed on electricity, especially fuel adjustment tax, load shedding, violations of rights, quota cut, malnutrition crisis,a protest began with huge public participation in POK. The campaign was carried out with hundreds of campaigners in more than a dozen places like Nakyal Padwah Chowk, Milad Chowk, Banala Road, Mujahan Road, Mohra Adda, Pir Kalingar Adda, Market, Chowk. The aim was to organize and mobilize the people so as to avoid economic exploitation; to awaken the ruling class and draw attention to the situation of blocked drains and wells and the dilapidated state of Chowk to Pir Kalingar Road. Drums were used to attribute to the awareness and the protest was a slap on the faces of the ruling class and the authorities.

Speaking on this occasion, speakers Shah Nawaz Ali Sher (High Court advocate), Chacha Shafiq Kashmiri, advocate Sardar Jawad Anwar Khan, Chaudhry Abdul Aziz Jarvi, Mujeeb Alam Chaudhry, Ejaz Chubb, Chaudhry Sadaqat Baghi, Usman Ali, Naveed Ahmed and others said  that all the hydroelectric power was generated from the region and all they needed was just 250 megawatts of domestic electricity from the generated electricity.  They said that they were  also paying the bill of a few hundred units in the form of fiscal adjustment tax and other taxes of more than Rs. 55,000. They complained of injustice done to the people of POK and warned that soon people would burn local trains instead of submitting unjust sky rocketing electricity bills.  They even warned that they would soon announce civil disobedience movement. They said that they were being denied their basic human rights and  that they were being treated unjustly.

Sooner or later, elections to the legislative assembly will be held in J&K. Political parties have begun pre-election activities and mobilization of cadres. It is premature to speculate about the formation of an election coalition because there are not only so many parties and groups in the field but there are varying ideologies and perceptions as well. Given the history of J&K elections, it is difficult to predict the behaviour of the impending political process.

However, a few days ago NC President Dr Farooq Abdullah announced that his party would fight elections jointly with PDP. The PDP Chairperson Mehbooba Mufti confirmed that her party had decided to fight elections jointly with NC.

Election alliances are nothing new to the history of elections in our country.  However, historically speaking, there was no love lost between the NC and PDP.  Some commentators even went to the extent of saying that the PDP was created to undo the dynastic hegemony of the NC and to snatch from its hands the monopoly of Kashmir politics.  Rivalry among political parties is a known phenomenon and rapprochement and reconciliation, too, are part of active and healthy politics.  When the Gupkar Alliance was formed, Dr Farooq retained bossing of the organization and the PDP chairperson was satisfied with playing the second fiddle.

After the fall of Mehbooba Mufti’s government, the PDP cadres began to thin out; it lost its shine. However, the Jamaat-e-Islami continued supporting it and she became the unconventional spokesperson of the Jama’at.  Open anti-India stance brought them together because both felt a threat looming large against the dynastic rule.

Dr Farooq has never been comfortable with the Jama’at.  His father Sheikh Sahib had mended the fence with the Jama’at during his second stint in the office (1975 to 1982) and had established a liaison with the Saudi monarchy, which was instrumental in bringing about a rapprochement between the NC and the Jama’at in Kashmir in the aftermath of the execution of Zulfikar Bhutto of Pakistan. True, Farooq Abdullah adjusted all the teachers of the Jamaat-e-Islami darsgahs (seminaries) into government service yet that did not mean that he had altogether abandoned the ideological difference between what he stood for and what the Jama’at pursued.  Farooq is the last to opt for Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan. It is not for the love of India or democracy; it is because he knows what his fate will be.

Dr Farooq is a victim of his father’s dichotomy about J&K’s accession to the Indian Union in 1947. He is aware wherefrom the scourge of Theo-fascism visited Kashmir valley in 1990. But he deliberately underplays the history when he says that “in 1990 a wave came that was not ours but it came from somewhere else.” He was the then chief minister and he had a large intelligence establishment under his command. He knew Kashmiri Muslim boys were crossing over to PoK in hundreds, joining terrorist camps set up by Pakistan Army where Kashmiri youth were trained, brainwashed and sent back with arms and ammunition to derail peace in Kashmir. As chief minister of J&K, he had the constitutional obligation of gearing up all resources at his disposal to scuttle the mischief of Pakistan. He had the option of approaching the Union government with the SOS request to activate security establishment and stand up to the challenge thrown by the enemy.  We have no evidence of Farooq as chief minister approaching the Union Home Ministry throughout the summer of 1989 for reinforcement of security staff to face the threat. It was neither “a wave nor from somewhere” as he says. It was a calculated and well-planned Fascist attack aimed at the ethnic cleansing of Kashmir and derailment of a democratic dispensation. Dr Farooq remained a silent spectator.

Dr Farooq has begun his election campaign by addressing party gatherings. What is he talking to them about is what we would like to bring under a scanner?  He is fully conscious that the present days are neither of the 1980s nor 1990s nor is his audience what it was then. He is also conscious that the Kashmiri middle class is much more awakened today than it was two or three decades ago.  Therefore, he has changed the strategy of the election narrative.  He is taking recourse to chauvinism and talks of things like “the region at a crucial stage” or “our children, our identity and our historical uniqueness in throes of danger”. He talks of “forces inimical to our unique identity,” and “diktats undermining our constitutionally guaranteed rights”. Then he talks of the “destruction of rural economy and crushing of farm incomes and rural unemployment” etc.

These utterances give an impression that the State is under some repressive and tyrannical forces with an agenda of demolishing and destroying the state and its people. He wants to convey subtly that there is a deep conspiracy somewhere under the sky to see an end to Jammu and Kashmir.  Such irresponsible and emotive utterances are not expected from a person who has been the Chief Minister of the State for decades in the end, and also a Minister in the Union government and presently an MP. Having adorned all these high and respected positions offered to him by the Indian nation, these positions have given him a very deep and clear idea of the philosophy and administrative mechanism of the Indian Union and the broader Indian nation. If with all this fund of knowledge and experience he talks of forces inimical to his state and usurpation of the rights of the people, he has no right to continue as an MP and speak for the people of Kashmir. He should have quit the parliament long back. But he has not, and that speaks of his real intentions.

He started his election campaign by vitiating the minds of the youth against India, against the Indian administration and the Indian democratic dispensation. We clearly understand what he means by “our culture, our identity and our historical uniqueness in throes of danger”. Certainly his “our” does not constitute the people of the Jammu and Ladakh regions. He is specific about the people of Kashmir sans its ethnically cleansed Hindu population.

This is a subtle way of saying that the Islamic culture, Islamic identity and Islamic uniqueness of the people of the valley are faced with danger. Yes, of course, they are faced with dangers like the ones mentioned by Farooq. But who is at the root of the danger and where does the source of the danger lie?  What steps have Farooq and his team taken to forestall that danger? Give me a single occasion when Farooq or his Gupkar bandwagon travellers even once said publicly that the Theo-fascists raised and abetted in Pakistan and warmly received and supported by the local Kashmiri Muslims are the source of the scourge that has befallen Kashmir. Show me a single appeal made by Farooq and his fellow travellers who brought out a mass of two or three lakh Kashmiris on the streets to protest against the unleashing of Theo-fascist activities in Kashmir.  Farooq and other political entities pursuing his line of action had a good understanding among themselves to let terror and fundamentalist ideology thrive in Kashmir so that liberal, democratic and forward-looking elements are suppressed because they had been lately raising their voice against the dynastic rule.

And when he talks of identity and historic uniqueness, he means that the identity of Kashmiris made them slaves and underdogs of dynastic and hegemonic rule, which made them a captive of personality cult, which had mastered the art of bullying the naive Indian leadership by raising the slogan “ sandbox band karoge to bandooq uthaenge”.

The historical uniqueness which Farooq goes on trumpeting is that the Kashmiri Muslims do not consider Indian Muslims as part of the ummah but the Pakistani Muslims are. If Kashmiri Muslims had not stuck to fictional uniqueness, they would have thrown their lot with the 22 crores of Indian Muslims and sought the roadmap from the nationalist Muslim leadership on how they should steer through safe.

Alienating the Kashmiri Muslims further from India by playing the old card of victimhood is not what is in the interests of Dr Farooq or the Gupkar team or the people of Kashmir Valley. If these leaders have an open mind, they should try to find out the pain and suffering of their brethren on the other side of the LoC.  Kashmiris laugh under their sleeves when Farooq and other leaders talk of Kashmir victimhood. We do not mean to say that there is nothing more left to be done in Kashmir. No, that is not the right approach. But we expect a leader of Farooq’s stature to be honest to his conscience and along with enumerating the discrepancies, if any, also note the achievements made by the state in the last decade. The opposition does not mean animosity or malice, opposition does not mean butchering the truth and adorning the falsehood. Opposition means expressing through word and deed the responsibility of ameliorating the condition of the people and chartering the path of progress. There are clear historic realities that have to be accepted. Accession of the State can never be annulled,  Article 370 will never be revoked and democratic dispensation will never be replaced by any obscurantist dispensation. In preserving this status, militancy and Theo-fascism have to be eliminated.

Coming on the heels of locals apprehending two armed Lashkar-e-Taiba [LeT] terrorists [including a self-styled commander’ responsible for many terror attacks and bomb blasts] in Tukson Dhok village in Reasi [J&K], surrender of two trapped terrorists in Hadigam area of South Kashmir’s Kulgam district are both indeed very positive developments for the terrorism weary people of J&K.

In the first case, realising that the time lag between informing security forces regarding the presence of two terrorists in their village, and then waiting for them to come and apprehend the duo would give the LeT terrorists adequate time to escape, residents of Tukson Dhok displayed extraordinary courage and overpowered both themselves.

While the fact that the terrorists were in possession of two assault rifles, seven grenades, a pistol and ammunition didn’t deter the plucky villagers is really commendable, what makes this act even more noteworthy is that it was the resolute and collective will of the locals not to let terrorists come and seek shelter in their village that motivated them to apprehend the two.

This is not the first or only such incident. In 2009, three LeT terrorists led by a self-styled ‘commander’ named Abu Osama, broke into the house of Noor Hussain in Bhatti village in Shadra-Sharief belt of Rajouri district in J&K. They ordered Hussain to hand over his 20-year-old daughter Rukhsana [who the LeT commander had taken a fancy to] and when her parents and brother tried to resist, the LeT trio started belabouring them with their rifle butts.

On seeing her parents and brother being ruthlessly beaten, Rukhsana, who had been hidden by her mother under a bed emerged from her hiding place and grabbing an axe, hit the LeT commander on his head. This prompted another terrorist to open indiscriminate fire in which a relative which her uncle [who had been forced to guide the terrorists to Rukhsana’s house] was injured.

Undeterred by the firing, the young girl picked up the LeT commander’s gun and shot him dead. Displaying remarkable courage and amazing presence of mind Rukhsana grabbed another AK 47 rifle from a terrorist and threw it to her brother. The brother-sister duo fired at the terrorists, forcing them to flee, leaving behind the dead body of their lecherous commander.

[For her conspicuous act of bravery Rukhsana has been awarded Kirti Chakra, India’s second highest peacetime gallantry award, and is now serving in J&K Police.]

The surrender of two local LeT terrorists in Kulgam district on Wednesday is a good sign which demolishes many myths being spread by Pakistan and its proxies in Kashmir Valley. But before discussing this issue any further, a brief account of this episode is needed.

On receiving specific inputs regarding the presence of two terrorists in Hadigam village of Kulgam district, a joint team of Army, paramilitary forces and J&K Police cordoned off the village. As a joint team approached the house where the two terrorists were holed up, they came under fire, and a gunbattle ensued. In the meantime, however, the security forces came to know the identity of the trapped terrorists and so they paused the operation till daybreak and contacted the parents of the terrorists, who quickly arrived at the encounter site.

On Wednesday morning, the parents were allowed to make an appeal to their sons to surrender, and luckily, both terrorists did so, bringing a happy ending to what would have otherwise ended up with the death of two young misled Kashmiris and brought lifelong sorrow to their parents. However, this is not the first time that the army and police forces tried to save the lives of trapped terrorists by getting their family members to motivate them to surrender.

The standard operating procedure [SOP] being followed by security forces and police in encounters mandates that under all circumstances, trapped terrorists would be given a chance to surrender-even when they have inflicted fatal casualties on security and police forces. The underlying aim is to preserve human life and so, the forces make all-out efforts to get the parents and family members of holed up terrorists and request them to appeal to their wards to save their lives by laying down arms and surrendering.  

The Indian army has one of the lowest incidents of collateral damage during anti-terrorist operations in the world, and that’s why Pakistan and its proxies in Kashmir are unsuccessful in their motivated attempts to portray the Indian army and central/J&K police forces as a trigger-happy lot with no regard for the lives of Kashmiris. So, it’s but natural that the international community doesn’t pay any attention to Islamabad’s fake narrative regarding human rights violations in Kashmir.

This incident has yet once again exposed the brazen lies that Islamabad and Kashmir’s pro-Pakistan lobby have been spreading. What’s pertinent to note here is that the moment the security forces came to know the identity of the trapped terrorists, they immediately paused their operation and brought the parents of the terrorists to the encounter site so that they could persuade their wards to surrender. Would this have happened if the security and police forces were trigger-happy?

Today, Kashmiri youth have to understand that they are being misled through misinterpreted Islamic tenets and false promises that taking human life is ‘jihad’ which will be rewarded by a place in paradise. The youth need to realise that paradise is only for those who truly follow Islamic teachings and faithfully follow the five pillars of Islam- profession of faith [shahada], prayer [salat], distributing alms [zakat], fasting [sawm] and pilgrimage [hajj].

Most importantly, Kashmiri youth have to realise that if picking up guns and killing people really earns one a place in paradise, then why aren’t those who preach this, do the same themselves? This question has often been asked and the stock reply of those who are misguiding and radicalising Kashmiri youth is that they would certainly have done so had they been younger. However, this reply isn’t convincing, because even though age may be an inhibiting factor for picking up guns, why don’t these elderly people ask their own sons to do so? After all, which parent in this world wouldn’t like his beloved son to go to paradise?

And thereby hangs a tale!