Over a million youth of Kashmir valley have grown up in an abnormal atmosphere of neighborhood sponsored terror, oppression, frisking, crackdowns hartals, mysterious shootouts and ASFA and what not.
These teens were either kids in 1989 or were born after that dreaded militancy. Any psychologist will accept that they will have behavioral and attitudinal difference from those of our children in rest of the country who have grown with all comforts of life and peace and freedom. When I worked as Vice Chancellor of Kashmir University between 2001 and 2004,I studied the psyche of Kashmiri youth in depth and even published my memoirs “Fire under Snowflakes”.
The Kashmir politics is different from that of Jammu. The complexities of relationship of people and state government and that of the state government, the people and the Government at Delhi are so intricate, but the public opinions are formed on the basis of shallow and half information, more driven by emotions than logic.
The Media could have played a more positive role to reduce this distrust between all stake holders. All that we know today is that peace did not return to Kashmir with policies we followed so far. Kashmiri youth continue to feel insecure and alienated in many parts of the country because of the image of them built over a period of time, which is actually far from truth.
Militancy has not completely been eradicated as was done in Punjab. Whether it is disturbed state or a city or a university, if conventional and beaten track policies fail, one has to try other “out of the box” strategies which will be always not appreciated by the common man and even the political rivals and parties.
Mr Mufti Mohamed Sayeed’s experiment to win the hearts of all the stakeholders, give a healing touch should be given a chance for one year. I brought a change and a turn around in Kashmir university not being a hard administrator but by winning there confidence. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji came to Kashmir in 2002 on my invitation to university through the then Governor G C Saxena for the convocation address, which was held after 7 years. No one in large part of the country knows that over 10000 students go to JandK from North India and stay even in the remotest areas and Study BEd program in over 75 BEd colleges.. No one was ever hurt for the past 25 years by the militants, which convinces me that this is not a communal issue at least. When I mentioned this to Mr Vajpayee ji ,he himself was surprised as this positive side of information about Kashmir was not told to him. We are all aware of hundreds of Pandit families living and working in the valley.
The coalition partners of PDP , the opinion makers and Media should give Mr Mufti’s Government a chance to prove his approach to bring peace to valley through reconciliation and goodwill. It is unfair that some of the national channels were uncharitable to call him anti-national, pro Pakistani and so on. We all want peace in Kashmir and we all know that could not be achieved through our present policies. We must trust the elected chief minister and give him a chance to try his ways of bringing peace, through goodwill and reconciliation.”
Prof J A K Tareen
(Padma shri)
Former Vice Chancellor of Kashmir University,
Pondicherry University,and member of UGC
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