It’s The Only Thing Kashmiri Wants.Denial Is Delusion

The well-endowed peace industry,speaking on people's behalf say "Kashmiris are tired of violence & want peace".What kind of peace they are willing to settle for was never clarified.Over the last two months,the carefully confected picture of an innocent people trapped between "two guns",both equally hated,has,pardon the pun,been shot to hell.A sudden twist of fate,an ill-conceived move over the transfer of 100 acres of state forest land to the Amaranth Shrine Board(which manages the annual hindu pilgrimage to a cave deep in the Kashmir Himalayas)suddenly became the equivalent of tossing a lit match into a barrel of petrol.Rightly or wrongly,the land transfer was viewed as the thin edge of the wedge.It triggered an apprehension that it was the beginning of an elaborate plan to build Israeli style settlements,and change the demography of the Valley.Days of massive protest forced the valley to shut down completely.

Eventually,taken completely by surprise at the ferocity of the response,the government revoked the land transfer. But,by then the land transfer had become what senior separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani called a "non-issue".Now,massive protests erupted in Jammu & it snowballed into something bigger.Hindus began to raise issues of neglect & discrimination which led to more protests & eventually led to the blockading of the Jammu-Srinagar Highway,the only link between Kashmir & India.yhe real blockade waxactually a psychological one.The last fragile link between India and Kashmir was all but snapped.And,to expect matters to end there was of course absurd.Hadn't anybody noticed that in Kashmir,even minor protests about civic issues like water and electricity inevitably turned into demands for azadi?To threaten them with mass starvation amounted to political suicide.

Raised in a playground of army camps,checkposts and bunkers, with screams from torture chambers for a soundtrack,the young generation has suddenly discovered the power of mass protest,and above all,the dignity of being able to straighten their shoulders and speak for themselves,represent themselves.The circumstances in Kashmir is hard for the spin doctors to fall back on the same old claim that it's the work of the Pakistan's Intelligence agency the "ISI".Well,I don't think it's the ISI this time.The one question which should be emphasized is "who is actually responsible for creating such a situation that it brings back memories of the partition of India,when millions lost their lives." Is it the Pakistani ISI, or the Al-Qaeda, or the Hurriyat leaders, or is it the Indian Government itself ????