Kashoo Tawseef
Right to live that too in one’s own place is an inalienable birth and basic human right of any individual anywhere in the world as Nelson Mandela said, “To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.” Jammu Kashmir is an example of such challenge to humanity where this right is being violated every day and night. This time, Prime Minster Narendra Modi was visiting Jammu Kashmir to attend various meetings and address few rallies, good for him. But question remains why people of Jammu Kashmir have to face humiliation at the hands of security forces every time any “leader” visits them.
You must be wondering, what was the connection of his visit to humiliation and harassment that people face. But yes! there is always a correlation. Whenever any dignitary visits Jammu Kashmir, that too when governance has failed to deliver for people of state, it is a day of hostage for them. This time Prime Minster addressed a rally in Srinagar while as people of Jammu Kashmir were held hostage in their own homes so that he could address the “rally”.
Hundreds arrested; many securities check points installed at each and every corner of the state and undeclared curfew was in place and unfortunately the people of the region had to face strangulation at the hands of security forces. Security was beefed up and all communication channels were monitored, because the world’s largest democracy doesn’t trust the people of state who constitute the statehood.
There were security check points at every nook and corner of the Jammu Kashmir, one had to show ID’s (Identity Cards), whenever you go out and you are alien in your own home place, while as the place where Prime Minster sits in New Delhi, people are free to move around and no one asks you for such ID’s.
They say in democracy, you have more freedom and more rights, why this democracy seizes to exist in Jammu Kashmir, and why such rights vanish in air. The world’s largest democracy is doing all it can to beef up security, but to Prime Minister its business as usual. For Prime Minister, it’s good to have strong cooperation with the state but why is he ignoring the human rights violations at the hands of world’s largest democracy.
It would have been nice to see if Prime Minister highlighting the issue of human lives that are being lost in Jammu Kashmir under the rule of world’s largest democracy. Let Prime Minister not ignore the sufferings of people of Jammu Kashmir, otherwise history will not forgive him.
How long can you snatch the basic rights from the people, how long will they be strangulated. Closing eyes doesn’t mean everything is faultless in world’s largest democracy; the human rights issue of Jammu Kashmir needs to be addressed and if Prime Minister raises this issue with his deputies, his visit would be viewed by analysts as more balanced.
How long will people of Jammu Kashmir have to die, have to face humiliation, have to face destruction as Mahatma Gandhi points out, “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
Let the people of this region taste this holy name of democracy as was mentioned by Gandhi very eloquently.
The author can be mailed at k.tawseef@gmail.com
