Peace is an undervalued blessing

Many years ago, one afternoon in Kashmir an 18 year old was getting ready to hang out with his friends when he and his mother heard a loud noise. Having lived in Kashmir all their lives they immediately figured a grenade had exploded on the street in front of their house. The first reaction, like a reflex, is to lie flat on the floor so that if any shots are fired you would not become another number in the total casualties of the conflict. So the mother and the son did exactly that.
The mother told her son from another room not to go out. Whenever a grenade exploded in the streets of Kashmir it would be followed by shooting and result in more deaths. However, that day was different. There was complete silence on a usually busy street only to be broken by the painful shrieks of women. This teenager slowly raised his head to look out the window. He saw two women lying in the middle of the street crying for help with no one else in sight, as if everybody else vanished. He could see the helplessness of those women and feel the fear in their hearts, the fear of death.
If nobody helped them they would bleed to death, he thought. So he rushed down to the street to help them. As he reached near these women, he heard the sound of loading guns. He turned around and saw at least 20 guns pointed at him by the security forces who were outside the outlets. He also noticed lots of people huddled in those outlets, scared and surprised. Everything was clear now, the silence and the vanished people. The teenager realized that is it. This is the end of his life. He thought about his mom who still thought her son was in the next room. He thought of the rest of his family and his friends whom he was never going to see again. His life rolled in front of his eyes in those few seconds. His first reaction was neither to become a hero nor a martyr, so he raised his arms and started heading back toward his house. However, just before he would enter his house the thought of those women dying on the street came back. At this moment, he turned around and started running toward those two women while yelling for help. As he reached the women, he was joined by around 10 other people and a car came which took those women to the hospital. It was learned later that those two women survived.
The teenager rushed back to his home and when asked by his mom if he had gone out, he replied, “no, I was just closing the front door”. Unlike some other days that day was good because no lives were lost. Many years later peace still remains elusive in Kashmir and people continue to die young. If you are living in peace, cherish and value it. There are people in this world who never get to see it.

Salaam (Peace).

Nayeem

P.S.: This article originally appeared in the Coloradoan on August 14, 2011

Human Tragedy

News: 7^th Std kid shot dead by Army in Chennai when he entered their residential complex (To collect almonds)

Only a few days back I heard a few prominent Kashmirs’ discussing situation in Kashmir when one speaker touched the point of impunity with which security personnel operate in Kashmir and other troubled parts of India.

Killing innocent people for gallantry & monetary awards or just killing people because they are mere suspects and then they are not accounted for their actions.

Other crimes like abuse, rape, humiliation and demeaning behaviour are used as suppressive tools.

When these security personnel get used to such behaviour the chances of behaving them in similar way when they are moved to un-troubled parts are more.

This incident looks like part of same cycle.

PS:

I read this news article on of the Indian news channels website and comments posted by people about the incident were too shocking.

Majority of people there have no sympathy with the poor boy, they are blindly supporting army because they are protectors and fight enemy. Even some calling it a “trivial issue”

I don’t know what has blinded them and why can’t they see any human tragedy here. And may be same reason doesn’t let them feel the agony Kashmir’s are going through.

Think about it

BIG QUESTION:

Are we really giving our best to the work we do and do we actually love what we do as a profession or are we just doing it for a living, a source of income?

We see some people excel and shine in their professions and others don’t.

So many of us perform our professional duties in a monotonous way, just following a script , while few others take it as a passion and are creative and innovative in what they do.

So is it really only exceptional and great minds who can perform great jobs or has each one of us a potential to do something great.

Well I think we all do have some potential to do something great but only when we are fully dedicated, committed and in love with what we do.

There are many examples of people who were really ordinary but when they realised their potential saw what they wanted and got an opportunity there was no stopping.

I think the most profound achievement in one’s life is to indentify that potential and then work towards that.

Kashmir discussed by Kashmiris

....And the siege continues

Year 1993: It is a calm October afternoon. The fall colors look beautiful and the breeze is a little chilly. However, the serenity did not last too long and was broken by the sound of gunshots. Within a few minutes we found out that armed militants were surrounded by the army in a neighborhood near mine. These gunmen and many civilians took refuge in a mosque, less than half a mile from my home. I could see the beautiful white marble dome and the minaret of this lovely mosque in our neighborhood. The mosque was sieged and so was the entire neighborhood, including ours.

In a situation like that the world gets divided into two groups those in uniform with guns on the streets and the civilians without the guns inside their homes. I belonged to the second group. Nobody knew how long it was going to last. It lasted over a month while the negotiations between the army and the holed up people were in progress. During this time we were under curfew. For the first week we could not get out of our houses at all and the weeks after that we could go out only for an hour. Army was positioned even in the homes of our neighbors' attics. At the end of each hour the securitymen atop these houses would blow a whistle signalling us to head back to our homes.
My father was Additional district magistrate at that time. He was the one responsible for giving out curfew passes to get out of the area in addition to his other duties of trying to break the deadlock. However, I did not use this opportunity because I did not want to leave my home and family behind. The one hour break in curfew broke the monotony of our lives. I would hang out with my friends.

While we were under siege, the rest of Kashmir wasn't normal either. Life had come to a halt. People were demanding the siege be lifted and one of those protests turned very ugly. On October 22, people of the town of Bijbehara came out in a rally and as they walked through the town, the border security forces fired on the group leaving 40 dead and 160 injured. The investigations that followed, concluded that the security forces were involved but nobody has been arrested or punished yet. While we were under siege, this town was burying their dead. Kashmir was hit by yet another tragedy, one of the many.

Eventually, after over a month of negotiations with the people holed up inside the mosque, the government reached an agreement and all of them were allowed to walk free to avoid any bloodshed. Those who were carrying the guns were also allowed to leave, only to be killed in another house in the same neighborhood a few months later. The people holed up in that mosque surivived that ordeal, but the protesters of bijbehara were not that lucky.

While the siege was physical, it left a psychological impact. An entire population was restricted to their homes. Such a collateral damage is very dangerous. It was getting more and more difficult to really stay normal. The one hour deal in curfew was not enough to find enough food. However, human endurance was at display as the neighbors helped each other. Traditionally kashmiris have been storing food in their houses which came in handy during that month and so did the kitchen gardens. While people took care of the food to some extent more or less, 40 people and a month of our lives were snatched from us forever.

Sixteen years later people are still struggling to live a normal life. Although the siege of our neighborhood was lifted after a month, the siege of Kashmir still continues. It may not be apparent as the siege of 1993, but it has a much deeper impact on the way the civil society functions in Kashmir.

A 12 year old falls to police violence on the birthday of non violent Gandhi

Gandhi led one of the most non-violent struggles in the modern world, to lead India to freedom. While India takes pride in the non-violent tactics of Gandhi, its police rarely displays this pride on the ground. In Kashmir people witness police violence day in and day out. On october 2nd this year, when India was celebrating 140th birthday of Gandhi, its police painted a street of Kashmir, red, with the blood of a 12 year old boy. He was killed by a smoke shell fired by the police.
It makes good sense to celebrate non-violence but how about practicing it on the streets of Kashmir once for a change, may be on the birthday of Gandhi at least. I don't understand, what would happen if people are allowed to express themselves once without hurting them, without killing kids. Shed the hypocrisy of celebrating the non-violence of Gandhi when your police in Kashmir is perpetrating the violence of the worst kind. They don't even spare kids. I am at loss of words to express my disdain for what has happened on October 2nd. After all that Kashmir has gone through, does India still think it is going to win the hearts and minds of Kashmiris. I suggest going through a reality check.

Conviction

There have been hundreds of inquiries into acts of violence and killings in Kashmir. Rarely do we see any convictions, though. I don't care who the perpetrator of the crime is: army, police force, paramilitary, militants, unidentified gunmen, whoever, all I want to see is the conviction in murder. A very reasonable demand but almost impossible to see in Kashmir.
This absence of justice leads to frustration and a sense of helplessness. A few big recent cases that shook this valley: Tabinda Gani(14) raped and killed by 4 men, who were arrested but we haven't seen any convictions yet; sexual exploitation of young girls by top police officers, bureaucrats and politicians, a case handled by the top investigating agency of India, Central bureau of Investigations (CBI), yet no one has been convicted for the past 3 years; a recent case of rape and murder of two young girls (17 and 22)in Shopian, top police officers of the district have been arrested for a cover up and destruction of evidence, yet no one has been convicted; some unidentified gun men killed a man and his 3 year old son, no body has been arrested.
These are just a few examples. There are thousands more. Conviction rate, probably the lowest in the world.