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(Editorial - The Daily Excelsior 7 June 2004) Another circus It is hardly surprising that after the International Kashmir Alliance's conference in London another organisation, World Kashmir Freedom Movement, is going ahead with its own show in Birmingham --- all in the name of our cursed State yet thousands of kilometers away from it. As our correspondent's report from the British Capital suggests the former get-together has been labeled as 'an Indian show', whatever that may mean, and the latter is meant to neutralise it as 'a Pakistan show'. Ironically, the agenda is both the cases is the same: 'forging a strategy to settle the Kashmir inferno'. It is an open secret that Kashmir has become a big money-spinner in international bazaar more than just a problem that the United Nations has failed to resolve and the one that does figure in the agenda of India and Pakistan as the two neighbouring countries courageously move forward to resolve their bilateral tensions. Many exponents of Kashmir, Kashmiris and Kashmiriat have emerged on the foreign soil interpreting almost every contentious issue in the manner that invariably adds fuel to the fire rather than extinguishing it. The irony is that all this is done with great pomp and show. Does it not amount to causing an insult to hundreds of young persons who have died after being caught in a vicious tussle of the gun in this State? Those who have come from London are wonder struck at the level of hospitality offered to them. Could they not have met in simpler and sombre surroundings? What have the innocent ordinary citizens in this State gained with the millions spent in their name without any benefits actually accruing to them? Why couldn't this money be fruitfully used and diverted for the welfare of women and children in particular who have suffered immensely as nobody has done in the recent years? As stated in these columns earlier as well, these conferences don't serve any useful purpose because they are far away from the scene of actual occurrence. It is better to organise them within Jammu and Kashmir itself or in its immediate vicinity. They suffer from another shortcoming: they are invariably without participation by the actual key players who can influence the course of events. In London, for instance, barring National Conference patriarch Farooq Abdullah and his party colleagues, and to an extent People's Conference's Sajjad Lone, People Democratic Party's Bilal Lodhi and his former colleague Babar Badar nobody could have really claimed to play a meaningful role in the Valley at any point of time during militancy. What have they --- or for that matter Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Hari Om and Leh's powerful leader T. Samphel --- contributed to the deliberations except for merely reiterating their known positions? Would it not have been better for them to sit together at home in front of a seriously and genuinely concerned audience and made an attempt to resolve their own contradictions as a first step towards helping restore peace and sanity? These international circuses must stop. They send a wrong signal to the gullible youth that Kashmir has become a profitable avocation and those not making the best use of the opportunity are certain to be left behind. Thus, they make the resolution of a complex issue more complicated. It is only too well known that those making capital out of Kashmir are revelling in luxury and have comfortably placed their children in affluent countries while luring the poor and innocent young persons to lose their lives in the name of jihad. Let the participants also seriously ponder over this and decide how they will like history to judge them.
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The Unseen Conflict Beneath the crackle of gunfire and shrouded by the sound and fury of political rhetoric, a silent conflict is raging within Kashmir - a conflict that surfaces in ways, that, on the surface, are unconnected with its origin. A seething and foaming of contradictory currents is not unknown when values clash in a society in transition. But people fortunate enough to be firmly rooted in their history are not swept away by this storm; they ride it out, and emerge stronger and wiser. Behind the question 'What is to become of me?' that every Kashmiri asks today is a more disturbing one: It does not find expression in words but is evident in the behaviour of our new generation that adopts and discards philosophies with the rapidity of fads, drifts with the prevailing winds - be they intellectual or sartorial - and does an effortless turnabout when the winds shift the other way. Doubt and bewilderment cloud their eyes when they are pulled up short by some particularly horrible episode of bloodletting, or are shaken by some act or decision that runs contrary to their faith in a just, harmless world and find it an arbitrary imposition on individual choice. It is then that their subconscious asks: Who am I? Mature societies always foresee this moment, and arm their children with the intellectual equipment required to battle this uncertainty. But Kashmir, which needs such moorings the most, has been left adrift, ironically, by an obsessive pre-occupation with its political status; ironical, because the peculiar dilemma we find ourselves in demands an acute and keen awareness of our past. This land will not forever remain in the state of political uncertainty that has been prevailing here for more than half a century. It is neither misplaced optimism nor extra-ordinary prescience to say that the problem will be solved, and in accordance with the aspirations of the people - for that is the dynamic of history. True the heart-rendering tragedies that have taken place in Kashmir over the decade have bruised the Kashmiri psyche and personality. The human loss suffered during the past decade is irreparable and cannot be made up by any compensation. Another tragedy, worse than human loss, that has overtaken Kashmir during past five decades is the gradual death of Kashmiri personality or identity. For instance, how many of our youth know that the concept of democracy was introduced in this land much before any other part of South Asia, that foundations of constitutional governance were laid here in 300 B.C. during the period of Jaluka? Do they know to what degree statecraft had matured here in now-forgotten times? And what about the upheavals, invasions and plunders that desperadoes wreaked here during our five thousand years of recorded history? Or of the magnificent defence that natives put up? The golden era of Lalitaditya, the influence and power of Yashomati, Sughanda, Didda, Kota, or the magnificence of the Muslim period, which is full of accounts about women of eminence who contributed to socio-economic transformation of the society? The younger generation in Kashmir has been, and is being, kept ignorant about the history of Kashmir. One of the most important collaborators in this conspiracy has been the State Education Department which way back in 1977 removed books containing information about Kashmir from the syllabi of the classes of government and private schools all over the state. Loss of identity for any nationality or sub-nationality has dimensions far dangerous than political uncertainty. This is how conflicts start within the minds of people and they are made incapable of making sound individual and collective judgments. These are preludes to continuous anarchy. The remedy is to begin at the beginning; to go back to the younger generation, and through a rationalized and revised educational system, tell them who they are. Colonialism reduces the culture of the colonised person to the level of folklore and propaganda. (Andre D'Allemangne)
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Arshad Meraj There are about 22000 child labourers in only two districts of the valley facing a long list of health problems. This has been revealed in a research report Adphail Gulab(Unbloomed Roses) carried out by UK based NGO, "Save the Children" in collaboration with Srinagar based NGO "Better world" in Budgam and Srinagar districts.The report was released here Thursday by two working children, as chief guest, minister for education, Muhammad Shafi Uri, failed to come on time. More than 18,749 children are working in the carpet manufacturing units in Budgam and 2000-3000 children are working in automobile workshops here the report said. Holding economic compulsions and ongoing turmoil in the valley responsible for child labour in the valley, the report reveals that children are worst sufferers in the present present strife as the loss of breadwinners had compelled them to work even under inhospitable conditions. Nearly 9,212 children below the age of 14 and 9,537 children between 15-18 years are employed in carpet weaving industry in Budgam. In Srinagar district the figures are 4004 children below the age of 14 years and 2048 in the age group of 15-18 years. Pointing towards the government inability to stop child labour the report says that governments inability was promoting child labour.The paltry stipend of Rs 300 given at training centres set up by government lures the parents to send their children to these centres, the report says. The children working in the carpet industries confront lack of basic amenities, wage disparity on the basis of sex, absence of definite wage structure and six-day working week. Nearly 80% of them suffer from myopia and retinal detachment due to the constant eye strain. The children are also vulnerable to throat infections, joint pains and headache. Highlighting the problems of more than 3000 children working in automobile sector in Srinagar and Budgam, the report said the children working in automobile industry faced immediate and long term implications including accidents, cuts and burns, chronic bronchitis, chest pain, cough, dysphasia and bacterial endocarditis the report said. Long working hours, low and irregular wages, no educational opportunities and hazardous working conditions are other adjuncts. The child labour has shown phenomenal increase during the past two decades. According to 1981 census, the number of child workers (main workers) engaged in an economic activity for six months or more than year was 109,000. Besides 149,000 children worked as marginal workers for less than six months. The state government in 1997 made a startling revelation that about 24,000 child labourers were working in hazardous conditions in the Kashmir valley, the report said.
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