Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Summer disease

The political unrest in Kashmir is like an infectious disease that flares up every summer.
I read this article in the Times of India and I thought about how it seems better for winter and cold weather to remain in Kashmir, for as soon as warmer weather comes, so does the protesting.
2008 was a bad summer. June and August, especially, were full of unrest. Curfews and strikes and angry people with rocks in their hands wherever you went. But when I watch this video, it seems to me that the young men with rocks are bolder than they used to be.
When violence escalates the way it has, there is rarely a right or wrong side anymore.
These are not "innocent" youths pictured here.
I think it must be a lonely job to work for the CRPF.
I think it must be awful to have lost a son to a bullet fired into a protesting crowd.
Living in Delhi means I have to go looking for news about what happens in Kashmir. People here go on as if nothing is happening. I do the same.
But I do remember the enforced stay-at-home days, the tires burning in the roads, the school boys who attack cars.
I may not live there anymore, but peace in the Valley of Kashmir is still something I long to see.

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