A day long relaxation in the protest schedule would usually give the people in the Valley a breathing time. They would buy the essentials and also get their emergency tasks done. But from past some weeks government even snatched this opportunity from the people of Kashmir as a stringent curfew was imposed on all such days that Hurriyat calendar would spare from strike. In this backdrop yesterday was a rarity. There was no strike call and the news that did rounds in the evening was that no curfew would be imposed. Frantic calls were made by the people all across the valley to know whether the decision of curfew being relaxed for the day was really official or not. In the morning when newspapers flashed the news that no curfew would be imposed and the no-strike schedule stays, everyone prepared anxiously for the day. There was a backlog of months and everyone was busy in deciding the preferences for the day.   But the shock was just in the offing. Though the civil-lines was relaxed but the entire area called Downtown Srinagar was disallowed any movement.  In a state of distress people from Downtown localities started calling their uptown contacts to confirm if the scene was the same elsewhere. The news that there won’t be any curfew on the day ultimately proved a macabre joke played on them. The question that props up is this; how has government planned to restore normalcy, and how a relentless curfew is going to help it get through the plan? The overall scheme of things that has taken shape through all these months of complete breakdown has made the mind of government elusive to an empirical grip. If the decision has been taken to put the population to such hardships as to break them in one particular context, then all one can say is to derive lesson from past twenty years. The kind of grim experiences this people has undergone is a telling reminder that things never work with people by way of coercion. If the idea is that by imposing curfew on the days when separatists want people to carry the usual activity government can make things difficult for its adversary then it is a perversion of sorts. This way government has morphed itself into a disruptionist force and only followed the path of its adversary. It can only be laughed over. The job of the government is to produce a condition that can enhance the chances for the life to return to normality. This can never be done by resorting to a tactic like imposing curfew on all the seven days of the week. It alludes towards the bankruptcy of ideas. Second, it exposes the government’s inability to meet the challenge politically. And finally, it underlines its reluctance to accept the failure. Had the things been looked at from a different angle may be some window could have opened through which the light could travel into the dark room that Kashmir has turned into. By imposing restrictions on most of the City areas on a day when it was declared that no curfew would be imposed, the above impressions have only accentuated. By disallowing people to come out on a day that is now a rarity in Kashmir, people have only derived the message that the responsibility of caging them in is only perched on the shoulders of the government. It is time for the authorities to review the mind that has been conducting the affairs for these months. By sending out the news that no curfew is imposed in Kashmir but practically allowing it to continue could have worked in a world where news traveled at less than a snail’s pace. Today it’s all electrifying. It gets circulated may be even before it happens. The undeclared curfew brings more trouble than perhaps the declared one.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 29 Sep 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:00:00 IST