Valley residents fed up of violence: Sri Sri

Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 23

Asserting that the people in the Kashmir valley are fed up of the continuing violence and the youth have been caught between strikes and curfews, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of the Art of Living Foundation, today said the decade-old strategies would no longer work and there was a dire need of out-of-the-box initiatives to involve all stakeholders, intellectuals for everlasting solution to end the cycle of violence.

He added that only the people of Kashmir could find an everlasting solution for themselves. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said this during an interaction with the media on the sidelines of a day-long conference on the topic “Kashmir Back to Paradise” at the Abhinav Theatre here today.

“I have no readymade mantra to bring peace in Kashmir, but there is immediate requirement of new think tank to launch a platform to involve diverse stakeholders to share their views on the current situation and ponder over a peaceful solution. The prevailing violence in the Kashmir valley has eventually resulted in a trust deficit,” he maintained.

“The 70-year-old strategies will not work because time has changed and so has the thinking. The recently launched South Asian Forum For Peace is an initiative for bringing sustainable progress in South East Asia, where people can put forth their views without any fear and pressure etc,” Sri Sri added.

“Unfortunately, countries in South Asia have created a hell for themselves by indulging in violence which has resulted in loss of precious lives. It is really sad to see the youth being deprived of education in the valley due to burning of educational institutions which has put their academic career at stake,” he opined.

The spiritual guru also termed the terrorists and separatists as cash-cows, adding that 90 per cent of the neglected people in Kashmir wanted peace.

“A majority of the population living in Kashmir wants peace, but they feel neglected and ignored as their voices are not being heard and highlighted by the media too,” Sri Sri said after the launch of South Asian Peace Forum programme organised by the Art of Living Foundation.

The spiritual guru added that some Imams (religious preachers) also met him and batted for peace, but expressed resentment that nobody listened to them.

However, in reply to a question regarding Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, who was killed in an encounter with security forces, Sri Sri said: “You cannot say that if he was kept alive and not killed by forces, there would not have been much violence, protests or killings in the Valley.”

He also condemned the mutilation of the Indian Army soldier by the Pakistani army.

While talking about the demonetisation issue, Sri Sri hailed the decision saying that it was an important step. He also supported that there should be a survey to know the views of the general public regarding scrapping of old currency notes.