Azadi demands commitment

The greatest honour Allah can bestow upon any nation is to make a plurality of its inhabitants, adherents to Allah’s path. Kashmir has been bestowed such an honour.  The Kashmiri nation has chosen a treacherous path to achieve its goals of self-determination and the rule of Allah’s law, rather than an easy path to submission to the will and might of a greater power. It is a choice that has been willfully made, and is being willfully worked for, if the streets,shops, houses, and graveyards are seen throughout the valley. What could have been the greatest tourist destination in Asia, perhaps the World, is now a declared war-zone, where only a fraction of the possible number of tourists brave the dangers to see its beauty.
Sacrifices have been made at every level, in every sphere, whether economic, through the destruction of homes and property by the actions of the Indian armed forces, or emotional, through the ‘forced’ migration of honest, law-abiding Muslims to places elsewhere, for their own safety and for their peace of mind and existence. After a lull for many, many years, the Kashmiri nation has woken up again to its great responsibility, and has restarted its march towards the goal of Azadi. Kashmir is not just another nation of people, it is a nation built on the foundations of great sacrifices, struggle, and survival against the worst odds. Kashmiris have fought off great powers, and have won, and lost, but have never given up their quest for freedom.
The youth on the streets are asking now: what can we do for Azadi?
Here is an answer. First, everyone cannot do everything. A movement has many constituent parts; like working parts in a machine, they all have to function together, at the same time, in a coordinated fashion, to achieve the best results. When functioning together, the movement is greater than the sum of its parts. Each right-thinking Kashmiri, with the interests of his society in his heart, can play a part in this struggle. Each person has to find his or her own great strengths, and use them for the furtherance of the goals of Azadi. So a computer geek blogs on the web about the recent sufferings of Kashmiris. An artist draws paintings of the suffering of Kashmir. A poet writes poetry about the travails of the common man. A doctor speaks about the torture cases he saw. An engineer brings to light the encouragement of corruption in his department. The trader trades in an honest manner, in deference to the struggle of righteousness that his nation is waging, and in tribute to the Muslims of yore, who brought Islam to the shores of Asia without raising a single sword. Azadi may not be achieved overnight, may be not for ten years, but in a nation where each individual plays a positive role in moving the people towards this fundamental goal, Azadi will never be too far away.
Constant dripping hollows out a stone. Second, Kashmiris should learn to believe in themselves as a nation. There is a sullen lack of self-belief, a lack of imagination, a lack of commitment among the general populace in Kashmir. Kashmiris focus too much on the now, and too less on the future. They think too much about their rich neighbours, and too less about their poor relatives. They worry that they might go hungry, but they are not worried about those among them who already are. These are symptoms of a nation that lacks self-belief. Success will visit us when we start working for the poorest amongst us, bringing to them education, religion, and understanding; only by alleviating the suffering of the poor can we hope to become a strong, unified nation, because a nation that cares not for its weakest, is no nation at all.
Third, the youth should begin to invent new ideas for the showing of their resentment against Indian rule. In 1998, in response to reprehensive laws in the erstwhile Yugoslavia, a student group was founded in the University of Belgrade. It was called, ‘Otpor!,’ or, ‘Resistance!’ In 2000, it was widely credited with the overthrow of one of Europe’s strongest dictators, Slobadan Milosevic, after it organised a campaign called, ‘He’s finished!,’ which saw thousands of people spill into the streets and campaign against his policies, believed to have led Yugoslavia to ruin. The Paris Protests of May 1968 are credited with changing the very face of one of the oldest civilisations of the world. These riots were engineered by students, who were later joined by industrial workers, and caused the ultimate downfall of the de Gaulle government in France. The social changes that were brought, in the form of employment guarantees, healthcare, and social security, have had a long lasting impact on the country.
Both of these examples show how a small group of well-organised, determined, and focussed youth, can effect change in a country, without even letting a shot be fired. The youth of Kashmir should remember, ‘Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.’
Fourth, it is important for Kashmiris to equate the freedom struggle with the struggle against the propagated social evils. Through menace and malice, India has installed puppet regimes one after the other, who have brought further misery and suffering on the people of Kashmir, and with that, have encouraged dishonest, corruption, nepotism, and sycophancy. Along with these distasteful attributes, the ruling class has demonstrated a distinct discomfort, even antagonism, with political Islam, something that cannot be accepted by the Kashmiri youth, who are acutely aware of their Muslim heritage and existence. By virtue of being a region with historical continuity, and political identity, and by being a Muslim-majority state, a majority of the youth of this nation wish to be governed in accordance with the law of Allah, not according to laws enacted by humans, for other humans.
The struggle for Azadi is not only a struggle for the symbolic end to Indian rule, it is the struggle against the instruments of the Devil himself. The youth should keep in mind, ‘Happy are those who dream dreams, and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.’ The Kashmiri youth have dreamed of Azadi, and will be happy to pay the price to make Azadi come true.
Lastly, the youth of Kashmir should develop a vision for themselves and their own nation. There is great success in a nation which produces the best scientists, the best doctors, the best businessmen, the best engineers, who can dream big, and achieve big. Kashmir is a land full of the greatest resource any nation can have: intelligent, innovative and informed, people. The youth of Kashmir need to travel to learn, and reap the rewards of hard-work. A Kashmiri scientist working hard in MIT in the US, enduring separation from family and friends, who is advancing the frontiers of knowledge, is a greater asset to the nation than another Kashmiri man, who wishes to earn a fast buck dishonestly by sacrificing his Islamic principles. The latter has lost both his ‘Deen’ (religion) and his ‘Duniya’ (world), and will be an object of hate in both worlds.  The former is earning rewards, in this world, and the next.
Goethe wrote, ‘If you must create something, then you must be something.’