Nothing to cheer for Srinagar locals

Arun Joshi
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, August 14

Smiles are missing in Kashmir of today. Reason: the Centre move on the abrogation of Article 370. 

Locals are a disappointed lot since their special status had been revoked and they are made a part of the Union Territory of J&K, with Ladakh being the other such geographical entity.

A conversation with the locals in Srinagar reveals their feelings, which offer them no reason to smile. They are sceptical about their future and don’t trust the overdose of promises made to them. They know that for most of what has happened to them is because of their self-serving leadership that had been pushing them to daydreaming.

The main grievance is that they were not taken into confidence. “We were fed with misinformation all along. What has happened to Articles 370 and 35A was in circulation for a while, but we were told that these were just rumours. But now when those rumours have come true, whom should we trust,” said Ali Mohammad of Abe Guzer, who is witness to the times when Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was loved as the unchallenged leader of Kashmir. They were told that nothing adverse is going to happen to the special status. Moreover, the narrative since the winter of 2018 till the time it happened was that the “elected government will take a call on it”. 

However, residents were left confused with the other unequivocal declaration, which came from their erstwhile mainstream leaders from the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party that “no power on earth can alter the status of Articles 370 and 35A”. Leaders like NC president Farooq Abdullah and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti promised “unprecedented resistance to any move to tamper with the special status of the state”. That this resistance could turn violent was threatened by Mehbooba on at Sher-e-Kashmir Municipal Park in Srinagar July 28. She threatened that any fiddling with Article 35A would trigger blasts that would make all those attempting to do so perish.

Then there was a persistent word coming from Delhi, particularly from the BJP leaders who said Article 370 was “temporary” and had to go.

Sandwiched between these narratives, the Kashmiris had developed their own sense of hope and despair but what they had not calibrated was the way it would be done and what will precede it and come up as a follow-up action.

The political angle was there, but the humane one was more. When they found that they were in a lockdown situation and were not trusted, all lines of communication were cut in a single go.