Valleyties getting weary of traditional ways of lodging protests

http://www.risingkashmir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=914&Itemid=51

Baba Umar:

In the past eighteen years of conflict, Kashmir had witnessed hundreds of days of Hartals and Protests. And every hartal would end up in the same fashion— shops closed, stones being pelted and separatists getting bundled into the police vans, only to be released by the evenings.

But people seem to be weary of the old-fashioned ways of lodging their protests. Getting fed up, they have now thought of something novel.

“Let us register future protests in a unique way,” says Mushtaq Khan, a book seller on the Residency Road. “Imagine shopkeepers do not pull down their shutters, instead keep their shops open—form a human chain outside their establishments, and prevent customers in.”

Then there are people like Fazal Ahmad, who feel it absurd to stay back home and do nothing on hartal days. He says people should do their routine work and simultaneously register their protest. “I will tell you the new way of observing hartal,” says Ahmad.

“Simply go to your work, and pin a black badge on your sleeves,” he says. Many believe that launching protest campaigns on evenings would do the job. They think protests could be registered without any impediment in one’s work.

“I would like to do my job first and participate in a candle light march on evenings,” says Basit Umer. “He says people in the west are getting worldwide attention from these kinds of protests and Kashmiris too can adopt the same formula. “Candle light protests really make a difference,” Umer says.

“Well, if you remember, all the closed cases like Jessica Lal murder and Priyadarshini Matto were reopened using this sort of protest.”

Danish Khan, a media student, however, wishes to participate in the silent protests without making any noise and ransack. He doesn’t believe in the positive outcome of violent protests. He says the aim of hartal is to get noticed and some novel ways (silent protests) would do. He has a novel idea for getting attention too.“I would love to take out my handycam, cover the silent protest, and send the footage to all of my friends, relatives, political leaders and those against whom I would be protesting. We can also upload it on sundry websites visited by millions of people across the globe,” he says.

The last couple of months saw two very unique ways of protests. The first one was held by Kashmir University Students Union (KUSU) against the growing human rights violation at the hands of troopers in the valley. They came out on the city’s Residency Road and held a peaceful candle light protest on the evening of December 10 to observe the International Human Rights (IHR) day. And the second unique kind of protest that never ever happened before was tossing of eggs by the protestors in the city’s Press Colony. By breaking eggs the protestors tried to mock at the ‘Zero tolerance of human rights violation’ slogan by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.