While schools are locked down for nearly a month after a wave of protests swept through Kashmir, the academic losses of his son, a Class 8 student at Srinagar’s prestigious Burnhall School, don’t bother Faisal Majid in the least.
It is part of upbringing in Kashmir... It is in his syllabus ..... It was in my syllabus and it was in my father’s syllabus too. This is a story of inheritance in Kashmir.Faisal Majid, referring to the fresh civil uprising in the Valley which has entered its fourth week
Rashid, a soft-spoken man touching fifties, works at a senior position in the health department of Jammu & Kashmir. He belongs to a generation of people who were the first victims of insurgency in nineties, which caught them at the crossroads in the prime of their youthful lives.
“Many of my friends and two relations died. I am very lucky to have survived. We have seen so much bloodshed. So many people have lost their lives. Now, even five year old kids are being maimed. There should be an end to it,” he said.
Schools, colleges and universities in the Valley are shut since July 6 when the state was preparing to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr. On third day of Eid, Burhan Muzaffar Wani, the charismatic Hizb commander who has caught the imagination of young Kashmiris with his appearances on social media, was killed in a dramatic shoot-out.
Burhan’s killing sparked mass unrest, attracting thousands of people on the streets. Many people rallied to his home town in south Kashmir to participate in the funeral on the next day. Some slept on roads, using stones as cushion, to ensure their participation.
To curb protests, at least 50 civilian protesters have been killed. Hundreds of young boys and girls, who have made security installation their prime targets, have suffered fatal injuries. At one village in south Kashmir, a heavy bulldozer was hired by locals to raze down a security installation while the forces ran for safety.
The state government’s response has been cliched. Stung by an unprecedented wave of protests, the government is seemingly buying time to tire out the protesters, hoping that normalcy will return on the streets. The anger has, however, only grown on the streets. On Friday, nearly 100 protesters were wounded, some of them critically, in widespread clashes across Kashmir.
It doesn’t look like the situation is going to improve. Teachers are unable to come to school because of curfew. Now I go to tuitions but even that is becoming difficult because of restrictionsBurhan, a student of SP School in Srinagar
Burhan’s school is at a walking distance from his home. He is troublingly aware of the consequences of his journey through multiple checkpoints manned by police and paramilitary personnel carrying automatic weapons.
“I try to stay away from trouble but no one is safe here. You read about Insha. If they can do it to an innocent girl like her, they can certainly do it to me as well,” he said.
Insha was critically wounded when forces fired pellets inside their home in south Kashmir. A class nine student, Insha’s face was perforated by pellets, which excoriated her left eye while her right eye was damaged beyond repair.
At a government-run school on the outskirts of Srinagar, which was at the centre of the education reforms in the state, no one from the teaching staff has reported for duty. “It is impossible to commute in these circumstances. Some teachers do come but no student has turned up so far,” a guard posted at the school, said.
“What good will education do to him when he may end up dying with a bullet in his head or pellets in his eyes. It is better for him to stay at home and self-study. This should come to an end. Even if the agitation prolongs and he loses his academic year, I will have no regrets,” Ghulam Rasool, who works at a hotel in Srinagar, said of his son.
Faisal’s boy is not following my conversation with his father. He is seemingly searching for any sign of an open shop in the deserted Lal Chowk. At home, he is pestering his parents with his teenage frivolities.
“He was getting restless at home,” Faisal said, “So I took him out for a walk. He is asking for ice cream, but I don’t know where to buy it. I have lived through these troubling times. He will learn to adapt too.”
(Some names have been changed to protect the identity of the people)