Kashmir: What future when the present holds nothing
Atul Chatterjee
August 15, 2008
There is a knock on the door and security forces take away able bodied men for interrogation. The minimum is a cuff on the ears after which they are let off. This is fairly common when there is a ´crackdown´ or a search for militants, Kashmiris are used to it.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his Independence Day speech appealed for communal harmony. But what is going in on Kashmir is not communal disharmony, there are very few Hindus left in the Kashmir Valley. After 1989 large sections of the Hindu population were driven out of the Valley as part of a clearing operation.
Pundits are still a displaced lot, even the ´Hindu´ government of Atal Behari Vajpayee at the Centre (1998- 2003) failed to do anything for them. Many live in refugee camps outside the Valley. They fled Kashmir leaving behind movable and immovable property. Statistics regarding them are sparse or not available.]
The current protests are anger at the security forces (not so much the state police as the central forces) and India. A large section of people see themselves as distinct from India.
Every year on Independence Day (orig. 15 August 1947) hordes of school children in Kashmir and all over India participate in functions. Not so this time, there were no children participating in functions. There was a boycott in Kashmir.
Why are so many Kashmiris out on the streets protesting? One reason is obvious anger at the recent events in which the highway out of Kashmir to India was blocked by Hindus at Jammu.
Another reason is the supposed transfer of land, actually that land being transferred to the Amarnath Shrine Board has always been used by the pilgrims. There was an attempt by the previous Governor of Jammu and Kashmir to give it legal status in the form of a formal transfer.
Another reason that may seem absurd but is a fact is UNEMPLOYMENT. Kashmiri youth suffer high rates of unemployment and not having work stokes anger. So whenever there is a problem they are ever ready to take to the streets. Had they been employed they would have gone to work.
Statistics for Kashmir are not given out easily by the government agencies, but a simplistic look at the Kashmiri economy would tell you that.
The main thrust on the money economy is 1. tourism. 2. export of fruit 3. sale of handicrafts. Barring this the Valley has little industry and nothing to speak of the services sector. (Jammu on the hand has industries.)
Over the years the Central government has provided subsidized food and fuel to the Valley. However, it has not built up educational or other vocational institutes. The onus of non performance does not lie entirely with the Centre, but also with the state government.
The net result has been a people who are unemployed for a large part of the year. Further, they do not have skills or qualifications with which they can come to the mainland and work.
As for the demand of a section amongst them to be joined with Pakistan, there is nothing new in that. But a large section who have seen the way things are in PoK Pakistan occupied Kashmir (Azad Kashmir) and elsewhere in Pakistan know the Indian Union is a better place to be in.
A number of Pakistanis enter India, quietly throw away their passports acquire papers and settle here. They are not terrorists but economic refugees, the India government for some absurd reason does not tom-tom this statistic.]
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his Independence Day speech appealed for communal harmony. But what is going in on Kashmir is not communal disharmony, there are very few Hindus left in the Kashmir Valley. After 1989 large sections of the Hindu population were driven out of the Valley as part of a clearing operation.
Pundits are still a displaced lot, even the ´Hindu´ government of Atal Behari Vajpayee at the Centre (1998- 2003) failed to do anything for them. Many live in refugee camps outside the Valley. They fled Kashmir leaving behind movable and immovable property. Statistics regarding them are sparse or not available.]
The current protests are anger at the security forces (not so much the state police as the central forces) and India. A large section of people see themselves as distinct from India.
Every year on Independence Day (orig. 15 August 1947) hordes of school children in Kashmir and all over India participate in functions. Not so this time, there were no children participating in functions. There was a boycott in Kashmir.
Why are so many Kashmiris out on the streets protesting? One reason is obvious anger at the recent events in which the highway out of Kashmir to India was blocked by Hindus at Jammu.
Another reason is the supposed transfer of land, actually that land being transferred to the Amarnath Shrine Board has always been used by the pilgrims. There was an attempt by the previous Governor of Jammu and Kashmir to give it legal status in the form of a formal transfer.
Another reason that may seem absurd but is a fact is UNEMPLOYMENT. Kashmiri youth suffer high rates of unemployment and not having work stokes anger. So whenever there is a problem they are ever ready to take to the streets. Had they been employed they would have gone to work.
Statistics for Kashmir are not given out easily by the government agencies, but a simplistic look at the Kashmiri economy would tell you that.
The main thrust on the money economy is 1. tourism. 2. export of fruit 3. sale of handicrafts. Barring this the Valley has little industry and nothing to speak of the services sector. (Jammu on the hand has industries.)
Over the years the Central government has provided subsidized food and fuel to the Valley. However, it has not built up educational or other vocational institutes. The onus of non performance does not lie entirely with the Centre, but also with the state government.
The net result has been a people who are unemployed for a large part of the year. Further, they do not have skills or qualifications with which they can come to the mainland and work.
As for the demand of a section amongst them to be joined with Pakistan, there is nothing new in that. But a large section who have seen the way things are in PoK Pakistan occupied Kashmir (Azad Kashmir) and elsewhere in Pakistan know the Indian Union is a better place to be in.
A number of Pakistanis enter India, quietly throw away their passports acquire papers and settle here. They are not terrorists but economic refugees, the India government for some absurd reason does not tom-tom this statistic.]