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| Bandh, Bandh, Bandh: Kashmiris fed up with the bandh culture | | |
RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, June 23: The immediate fallout of the shutdown always is the closure of business establishments and educational institutions, disruption in all the economic activities and transport service and a very thin attendance in the government and semi-government establishments. The government activities also come to a grinding halt. The common people suffer in the process. They face the difficulties.
And, if the disgruntled and frustrated separatists give a shutdown call when the tourist season is on, the immediate result - apart from what has been referred to above - is harassment and inconvenience to the tourists. The hoteliers; the restaurant, tea stall and dhaba owners and Shikarawalas also suffer huge financial losses. Besides, the shutdown calls discourage tourists from entering the Valley, thus causing financial loss both to the government and those engaged in tourism industry. Yet another fallout of the bandh culture is the possibility of clashes between those enforcing bandh at the behest of the likes of Geelani and the security forces, which sometimes result in loss of precious lives, thus further adding to the woes of the common Kashmiri Muslims.
It has happened several times in the past and, if the bandh culture continues in its present form, many more invaluable lives would be lost and the victims would be not the Geelanis, not the Mirwaizs, not the Maliks, not the Khans and so on. The victims would be innocent Kashmiri youth, who always walk into the separatists' trap and take recourse to means that ultimately lead to the police-crowd clashes. Any thing can happen during such clashes.
As mentioned before, Kashmir Valley again observed shutdown on Monday and Tuesday. The frightened people of Kashmir did not observe bandh on their own to protest against the killing of the two Muslim youth. They observed bandh because they were forced to observe bandh. They would not have observed bandh had the Omar Abdullah-led government not cooperated with those who ordered the businessmen to down their shutters; and auto rikshaw, taxi, matador and bus drivers not to ply their vehicles or remain off the road.
The hapless Kashmiri Muslims observed bandh on Monday and Tuesday because they knew that there exists no government worth its name in the state that could protect them against the separatists' onslaught. The common Kashmiri Muslims have come to believe, and rightly, that it is the desperate, defeated, frustrated and out-on-the-limb separatists and militants who give call for a shutdown and it is the Omar Abdullah-led government that enforces the bandh by ordering the law and order agencies not to allow the people to come out of their houses.
It needs to be underlined that whenever the separatists order the common Kashmiri Muslims to observe bandh, the government does its best to make the bandh a grand success. The government asks the security agencies to lay barbed wires on all the important entry points, roads and bridges and place the armoured vehicles almost everywhere to seal the localities, particularly in the Old City or the downtown area so that the people remain indoors. There is a general complaint in Kashmir that the common Kashmiri Muslims want to carry on their normal activities even when there is a call for shutdown, but the government doesn't allow them to undertake economic and other activities by forcing them to remain indoors.
Ask any common Kashmiri Muslim if he willingly joins the militant-sponsored strike and his answer would be a big NO. He would say since the law and order authorities are there to enforce the separatist-sponsored bandh, he has no other option but to join the strike, suspend his work and suffer losses in the process. Ask any school-going, college-going, university-going student or any student who is undergoing training in any of the Kashmir-based technical and professional institutions if he/she willingly boycotts his/her clases on the day of bandh, strike or shutdown, whatever you may call it, his/her answer would be simple and straight. He/she would abuse, rebuke, castigate and denounce in downright language all the Kashmiri extremists and separatists and say in unambigupus terms language that they are fed up with the bandh culture and that the extremists and separatists are playing with their career. Similarly, ask any Shikrawala; hotelier, restaurant owner, teastall owner and dhabawala; auto driver, taxi driver, matador driver and bus driver; daily wager; vendor and who not if he really wishes to join the bandh, the answer would be a big No. He would curse those who order bandh on a daily-basis and culture both the separatists and the government of playing havoc with their lives.
Now it is for the common Kashmiri Muslims to expose and defeat those who believe in the destructive bandh politics and those who issue bandh calls on a daily-basis to further their own selfish intentions. They have to imitate the Sikhs of Punjab who resisted with full might the Khalistanis in the 80s and 90s and helped New Delhi establish peace and normalcy in the insurgency-hit Punjab. They have to defeat the separatists of all varieties in order to avert all such eventualities that have the potential of provoking the security forces to retaliate in self-defence. They should remember that it is the Pakistani-supported Kashmiri separatists who are responsible for the death of a large number of Kashmiri youth. If they really wish to lead a peaceful life and if they also wish that their human rights are not violated, they have no other option but to take on the militants and separatists. The sooner they do so the better for them. The government has also to act against these separatists who pit the innocent youth against the security forces for purposes ulterior. (Concluded).
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