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Guns and
stones have given nothing to Kashmir: Minister
Tuesday February 08, 2011 10:09:09 AM,
Binoo Joshi, IANS
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Jammu: Guns and stones
have given nothing to the people of Kashmir Valley "except death
and destruction", says senior political leader and Agriculture
Minister Ghulaam Hassan Mir, adding that he believes the youth of
the valley can change the destiny of the people through positive
thinking and action.
Mir has called for "a shift in the strategy" in the Kashmir
Valley, that saw a violent summer last year, to achieve a "place
of dignity for the people of Kashmir".
At a time when there is a clamour for the reduction of troops and
withdrawal of the special powers of the security forces in Jammu
and Kashmir, Mir has been holding meetings in the state and
particularly in the Valley on his campaign for a "shift in the
strategy".
Mir, who is president of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Nationalist
Party which he formed after parting ways with the Peoples
Democratic Party in 2008, is asking people to "take their
frontline role in decision making of the state by channelizing
their skills through technology, economy and education, as the
guns and stones have delivered nothing to the people of the Valley
except death and destruction".
Talking to IANS about his campaign, Mir said: "This is the outcome
of ground realities on the situation. Today our youth are
struggling to find government jobs, and the reality is that there
are not enough jobs to accommodate all of them. Hence, the
frustration drives them to those who exploit them."
"They (youth) have been exploited for the past several years and
in the past more than 20 years what we have seen is the extension
of the frustration. The problems have multiplied. A campaign based
on emotions was launched and the consequence of that is that there
are more security forces and more laws and the struggle has been
reduced to seek their withdrawal," he said, referring to the armed
insurgency that was launched in 1989 and till date has claimed
more than 50,000 lives and displaced more than a million of the
population in Jammu and Kashmir.
"The youth in Kashmir have the capability to excel in the fields
of economy, education and technology and find a role in the
decision making process through competition," Mir told IANS, and
cited the example of Shah Faesal who topped the list of IAS
candidates last year and three others from the state who made it
to the civil services.
Ridiculing the separatist propaganda that the international
community was pressuring India to offer concessions on Kashmir,
Mir said the fact of the matter was that "President Barack Obama
of the United States and heads of the state and governments of
four other permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council visited India, a recognition of the importance of the
nation in the international sphere, and none of them spoke about
Kashmir."
Mir said that he "trusts the youth of Kashmir" and they "alone can
change the destiny of the people of Kashmir through positive
thinking and action and I see the signs of that already emerging
on the landscape of Kashmir".
The summer of 2010 saw more than four months of violent unrest,
triggered by the death of teenager Tufail Mattoo in June after
being hit by a teargas shell. More than 100 people were killed in
clashes with security forces.
(Binoo Joshi can be contacted at binoo.j@ians.in)
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