Shafiq Mir
Leaders are not those who follow the crowds but those who are followed by crowds. Here in Kashmir, most of the leaders run after crowds and they do not have a courage to utter a single word to stop them if crowd decides to jump in the river Jehlum. At present, when whole of Kashmir valley is boiling, about 55 people have been killed and about 3000 are injured (some critical ) in a shortest span of 15 days since 8th July 2016. But no leader has made any peace appeal to the agitating crowd. The reason is simple . They don’t want to displease the crowd.
I am not here to defend the government actions against the unarmed agitating people. My point is simple, whenever people get trapped in any of the critical situation, the leader gives them direction and gets his people out from the crisis. But here in Kashmir unrest, the story is quite different. Even the persons who claim to be the leaders of masses and crowds get directions and dictates from the streets. Instead of giving directions to the agitating youth on the streets, the leaders follow them on seeing their mood and pulse.
There are two types of leaders in Kashmir. The first type which is commonly known as mainstream or pro-india leaders. In the present times of crisis, when whole of the Indian system is attacked by the agitating people from a police man to CRPF or an army personal, the pro-india politicians are also held equally responsible for the Kashmir crisis . So, there peace appeal matters nowhere and there is no buyer of their any of the comment. Moreover, they have also been exploiting the sentiments of crowds whenever any such situation erupts. They also give pro crowd and mob statements and try to keep them in good humor for any coming election. However, the second type of leaders who are held responsible by the government for all troubles in valley. They are commonly known as ‘ separatist’ leaders. As per the government allegations, these are the people who are responsible for all types of strikes and agitations in Kashmir. It means these people matter among the masses and crowds. But it has been observed that they are equally scared of the mob and they also just follow the agitators and they can not give them direction if required. Because they are also scared of being called traitors and they don’t want to be called like that. I understand most of them might be thinking to see the peace and would be thinking deeply that how to bring out the people from the trap but they must be feeling scared of being lapelled traitor . On the other hand, government of India has not even taken any human step to send a message of healing touch among the masses so that the sentiment would have cooled down. In such a situation, no body, whosoever matters will never take any risk and ask the people to come back which is largely seen as ‘surrender’ in simple words.
It is astonishing to see that even home minister of India Mr Rajnath Singh didn’t bother to visit a single hospital to meet with the injured people and console with their families. So what else the people can expect from the government. It seems that government of India is not considering any sympathetic step towards Kashmir and they just want to crush it with muscles. Or they see it as a ‘Soda Water’ bubble which will vanish after some days when people will get exhausted. This evident from the recent statement of BJP government’s MoS foreign Mr M J Akbar when he had termed the Kashmir unrest as ‘ seasonal wind’. In such a situation, when the the government of India seems in no mood to accommodate the face of Kashmiri leaders so that they can go among the masses and ask them to come back and the leadership which matters in the streets of Kashmir is not coming out due to the fear of being labeled as traitors, it becomes the collective responsibility of the Kashmir civil society which includes, business community, doctors, teachers, legal community , medical community, poets , writers and the people belonging to others shades of life to come with a joint face and ask the agitating people in the streets to suspend their agitation for the time being so that more precious lives are saved . And it is also responsibility of the Indian civil society to come Kashmir and assure the people that they will represent their aspirations at the central level without any blood shed and violence. This is the only way out through which we can save more loss of life .
(The author is a freelancer journalist and columnist).
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