Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Azad, Colonialism, Divide and Rule, Extremism, Hindutva, Imperialism, India, Islam, Jammu, Kashmir, Militarism, Nation-State, Pakistan, Pandit, Partition, Secularism, Terrorism
Srinagar, August 22: The gathering at Idgah maidan for Friday prayers and a rally that was addressed by leaders of the separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference.
August 24, 2008
Source: Guardian
For the past 60 days or so, since about the end of June, the people of Kashmir have been free. Free in the most profound sense. They have shrugged off the terror of living their lives in the gun-sights of half a million heavily armed soldiers, in the most densely militarised zone in the world.
After 18 years of administering a military occupation, the Indian government’s worst nightmare has come true. Having declared that the militant movement has been crushed, it is now faced with a non-violent mass protest, but not the kind it knows how to manage. This one is nourished by people’s memory of years of repression in which tens of thousands have been killed, thousands have been “disappeared”, hundreds of thousands tortured, injured, and humiliated. That kind of rage, once it finds utterance, cannot easily be tamed, rebottled and sent (more…)
