My dear fellow Indian Accept my heartfelt greetings on your Independence Day. None values a blessing more than the one who is devoid of it. As such, I can understand your fervor and great zeal to celebrate your freedom. Of the best blessings in this world is to breathe free air. Your one great leader rightly had said that “Freedom is my birthright and I shall have it.” It of course is a birth right and at par with the right to live for what is life without freedom. It was after 200 years of continuous struggle by your predecessors that today you are breathing in a free India. However, it is equally unfortunate that a nation that has been one of the worst victims of occupation and colonization, doesn’t mind keeping a population of 13 million under its occupation and oppression. It is ununderstandable how can a victim become an oppressor. Isn’t it true that English constructed great roads, buildings and infrastructure in your country? Isn’t it true that your constitution as of now is still largely influenced by English constitution? But still it didn’t make you accept them as your rulers for you held that they were the “other” and you were the “native”. India is an emerging superpower. We may have a great future with you. Great roads, big hospitals, big buildings, large malls and everything modern world boasts of, can be achieved within a matter of few years with you. But we simply don’t want it—FROM YOU. For the freedom is a much more important value than it. You may be holding that Indian security forces are here to protect us from “terrorists” as your movies love to tell you. But that isn’t true. They are here to keep a vigil on us and our demands. As you are gearing up right there to celebrate 15th Aug, we have been harassed a million times for last week. Checkpoints, frisking, search operations, unnecessary blockades on roads have been order of the day here. That is how they ensure a swift tv relay is made from the Doordarshan so you can think of everything is normal here and Kashmiris like those movie characters are very pro India. We aren’t anti India. We are anti oppression and anti occupation—That is how I guess every free soul wants to be. You claim to be world’s largest democracy , yet you deny the very basic democratic right of people of Jammu and Kashmir—the right to decide how they want to live their lives. Laws must be there to ease our lives and not to oppress and deny the basic rights of people. Your constitution is often tossed against our demands, for you wont accept a thing outside it. Did you ever think Why? Your great leaders made this constitution to ensure a free and just society after 200 years of enslavement and not to enslave and imprison others. It should pave the way for letting people decide their matters rather than restrict them. I won’t here go into the history and geography of Kashmir conflict. I am approaching you from a very humanistic point and letting you decide whether a population should be let decide their future or rather be kept hanging onto you with brute force ? Your least priority, An Occupied Kashmiri [collected] #IndependenceDay
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 19:11:29 +0000