By: Dr Mohammad Aleem, Editor-ICN Group
NEW DELHI: India, our beloved country is reeling under debilitating pain of the unfortunate killings of our brave CRPF personnel a few days back, who lost their precious lives just because we couldn’t do our job properly as a sensible nation. It is easier to blame others, but very difficult to own it. How on earth, such a huge convoy of the para military forces could come under such a brutal attack by a few lone wolves? Where we’re all security apparatus and security agencies? Why they didn’t sanitize the whole travelling route? How a car laden full with explosives could come so close to the convoy team? Where we’re our security people who couldn’t detect such huge lapse?
We glorify always Kashmir as one of the beautiful parts of India and also very integral like an organ of our body. But unfortunately, we did little so far till today to save it from all kinds of illness and animosity.
It is very nature of human life that if one part aches, the whole body feels it.
Not a single day goes without such killing. Sometimes, our young soldiers fall to the bullets and sometimes, it is the militants (mostly homegrown and disgruntled Kashmiri youths), and innocent civilians who bear the brunt. Sadly, in all cases, many precious lives get lost.
But the question arises here so naturally that when these killings will stop. What is the remedy of this long held political problem? When will the valley experience a normal life as it used to do before the 1990s when the militancy had started spreading its vicious tentacles?
I have many friends from the media and television industry from this beautiful state. Most of them I found as patriotic as any other Indian. They want to live peacefully with the rest of the nation as a true Indian. But they are also fearful about their own safety and they fear to opine their views fearlessly and boldly due to the stifling nature of the political voice the country.
When the BJP government was formed five years back under the stewardship of Narendra Modi, it was said that there is a magician who has the power and capacity to change the destiny of this nation within a few years with just some strokes of his actions. But what happened finally? A complete five years tenure got lost but outstanding issues remained the same as we see in case of J&K. Why a government with absolute majority could not bring warring factions on the table of negotiations? Why situation is getting worse day by day?
Many among our fellow citizens are crying for blood in exchange of our martyred soldiers blood from Pakistan, but they forget that what a full-blown war will bring back to this country where still half of our populations have no proper livelihood and jobs to survive. What will happen to those poor people who wait for their every day’s earnings of their hard labor to bring a few kilos of grains to feed their impoverished children?
Unfortunately, there is not a single political party in this country which can boast of practicing pure and sacred politics which love to adhere to the larger and sacred goals related to the interests of the nation. All have a single goal that how to grab power and exploit the riches of this country for their own comforts. We don’t see that our political leaders have such power and seriousness to engage all warring factions of the valley to end these killings and stalemate forever. Political situation of the country is so confusing and murky that we hardly see any hope.
I am not a pessimist, but also not a warmonger. I Know which types of devastation can bring if we start a war with Pakistan.
The situation in Kashmir is really very alarming. Any full-fledged confrontation with Pakistan will be catastrophic and apocalyptic due to the nuclear capabilities of these two neighbors. In that case, the most sufferers will be the local Kashmiri people and the general Indian citizen at large. Have we not seen the brutality of wars and conflicts in the countries like Syria, Libya, Afghanistan or Yemen? Would we like to get our beloved country slip into that kind of chaos, anarchy and instability? I have firm believe that if the political leaders and rulers of these troubled countries had acted prudently, raising themselves above their own petty and narrow political gains, then the situation would not have worsened as bad as we see today.
I hope that in Kashmir, it will not be repeated like the same.
Kashmir issue demands a non-partisan approach from the mainstream political parties like the BJP and the Congress. It should not be viewed with the angle of Hindu and Muslim conflict. It is purely a political issue and it can only be resolved through negotiations with the concerned and related parties. Gun and bomb can’t solve it till eternity.