monster needs to be destroyed to find again the Reshi-Peer Valley we all Kashmiris aspire for
Reapan Tikoo
The cold-blooded murder of Lt. Ummer Fayaz of 2 RAJ RIF, in captivity makes everyone of usful numb with grief. Last winter at a conference, I met alumni of my school, Major Gen. Mohd. Amin Naiak, who after retirement was now working with an engineering company. He had not visited his home at Tral since 1990 on the suggestion of the Army. Why wasn’t this suggested to Lt. Fayaz as soon as he joined the NDA?
The anti-Kashmir forces have manufactured the enemy that is today engaged in the stone-pelting in the Valley. No one knows how to dismount this monster; which has consumed our pluralism, our ethos, our way of life, our economy and is now consuming our youngsters and Lt. Fayaz is the latest victim.
In 1988 the monster first drove out non-Kashmiris out of the valley. With USSR withdrawing from Afghanistan by February’1989, the arms, violence and destruction moved into Kashmir. The silent majority in the Valley knows how miniscule fringe elements hijacked the collective consciousness in 1990 and drove fellow Kashmiris out of the Valley on the basis of religion and political affiliation. Today this monster is driving out Kashmiris on the basis of class; any Kashmiri who can afford to set-up a home in Jammu/Delhi/Goa/Bengaluru etc has moved his children and family out of Kashmir.
Then the damage was done by the Kashmiris themselves, by not stating the obvious to the children, that our Army saved Kashmiris in October”1947 on the invitation of Kashmiris and drove out the enemy with the active support of Kashmir”s Salamati Fauj.
In 1980s, while I was growing-up in Srinagar, most of the houses in our locality comprised two storeys; usually the ground floor was rented to the family of the security forces (SF); our civilian colony was between the Defence Airport and the BSF head office on the old airport road in Srinagar. As children, we would play with the kids of the security forces’ personnel. I received a puppy as a
gift from one of their families living in our neighborhood. The puppy enriched my childhood. As a middle class school children we would ski in Gulmarg with Army’s High Altitude Warfare
School (HAWS) participants.
All this changed on January 25,1990, when a non-combatant, unarmed Air Force personnel who used to live in our civilian colony, was killed in cold blood and his family members injured.. The JKLF’s Yasin Malik owned the responsibility for the killings. That is the last we saw the security forces” families living with us. Things have never been the same in Kashmir since that dark day.
The wounds of people in the Valley will not heal with hatred towards anyone. We deserve a leadership that can take us out of the abyss of hopelessness and gloom; and guide us to a path that serves us; the leadership that doesn’t mortgage our children’s future.. And this leadership has to come from within us; each one of us has to be part of the change we seek; and violence has not served us in last three decades and is likely to destroy us completely, unless we do a course correction.
To blame politicians for the situation is convenient. Actually each one of us has failed Kashmir and it”s main asset, our children.We have to invest in bringing Kashmiri history, poetry and culture back to schools..
Jalobhav the monster was destroyed to give birth to Kashmir from Satisar lake.The present monster needs to be destroyed to find again the Reshi-Peer Valley we all Kashmiris aspire for.
(The writer is a J&K resident)
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