Two killings and a house on fire

On Monday, when three militants entered the house of the PDP worker Mohammad Ramzan Sheikh to kill him, they were hardly prepared for the resistance from the family. In the scuffle that broke out, not only Sheikh but also one of the militants Shaukat Kumar alias Falahi was also killed. There are various versions of how Kumar was killed. Some say the family killed him. Others say the killing was accidental fallout of the scuffle. And yet another version is that he came in the line of the militant fire at Sheikh. Such versions may appear inane but they assume importance in the light of what followed. Killing of two people was not the end of the tragedy, long banalized by its now familiar pattern. The day after a mob angry over the killing of Kumar burnt down Sheikhs house. According to eye-witnesses the mob returning from the burial of Sheikh first threw stones at the house and then brought hay from the adjacent orchards, set it afire and hurled it inside Sheikhs house. The chain of events seems unbelievable but this is now the normal in Valley. If anything, the incident puts in sharp relief the chilling public consensus in Kashmir against the mainstream political parties and their workers. While a mainstream workers killing and burning down of his house struggles to extract some grudging sympathy, a militant who accidentally dies killing him touches off widespread grief and a violent reaction. It brings to light an uncritical public consensus in Kashmir in favour of the killings of the persons associated with the establishment. On the contrary, a spontaneous and an overwhelming grief seizes the people when a militant is killed. Social media reflects this state of affairs more pronouncedly than any other. The expression of outrage over the killing of Sheikh was largely confined to the people in the government. And they too had to face some ridicule for taking such a position.

What do you do about such a reality? Taking righteous and moral positions serves nobodys cause. Such positions only bolster one kind of politics against another and are inherently selective. Because the people who are outraged over one kind of atrocity adopt a studious silence over another. And the institution, agency or an individual who feign such outrages are hypocritical in their approach. For they look at the tragedies in purely political terms to be exploited in the service of one or another narrative.

This is an approach that governs the state of affairs in J&K. Killing by one side are atrocious and condemnable and those by another justifiable or at best regrettable. This has created a situation where it has become impossible for almost anybody in J&K or for that matter in the rest of India to speak from a moral high ground. Least of all the state government which has now so many civilian killings and blindings on its hand. The result is the creation of an unfair and unjust order which far from promoting peace and reconciliation will only perpetuate turmoil. It is therefore critical that our outrages are even-handed and impartial. That alone will promote trust and confidence in the society, a pre-requisite for peace.

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