Put your ears to the ground and listen carefully. You may hear a new sound in Kashmir.
This is a different voice from the usual All Parties Hurriyat Conference call for an immediate solution or from the rhetoric of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Mehbooba Mufti. This is the cry of post-insurgency youth, born after 1989 when militancy crept into an otherwise quiet scene.
This is violent in the sense that the protesters pelt stones, but different because they have not taken arms from Pakistan as the militants had apparently done. Nor have they any top contacts.
This angry, amorphous force has no defined leadership. The baton of the movement is in the hands of the new generation. What binds them together is the anger against the establishment in Srinagar and in Delhi.
It is not correct to say that hard-liner Syed Ali Shah Geelani is their leader. He sees to it that he is not out of step with them. Yet when he tried to convert them into non-violent protesters he failed. The pelting of stones is their way of saying that they do not agree to the various formulas which have been presented for the solution of the Kashmir issue.
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DAWN.COM | Columnists | A different voice in Kashmir
This is a different voice from the usual All Parties Hurriyat Conference call for an immediate solution or from the rhetoric of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of Mehbooba Mufti. This is the cry of post-insurgency youth, born after 1989 when militancy crept into an otherwise quiet scene.
This is violent in the sense that the protesters pelt stones, but different because they have not taken arms from Pakistan as the militants had apparently done. Nor have they any top contacts.
This angry, amorphous force has no defined leadership. The baton of the movement is in the hands of the new generation. What binds them together is the anger against the establishment in Srinagar and in Delhi.
It is not correct to say that hard-liner Syed Ali Shah Geelani is their leader. He sees to it that he is not out of step with them. Yet when he tried to convert them into non-violent protesters he failed. The pelting of stones is their way of saying that they do not agree to the various formulas which have been presented for the solution of the Kashmir issue.
More...
DAWN.COM | Columnists | A different voice in Kashmir
