Roots in Kashmir: 15th Aug Protest-Ponderings and Media Clips

Thursday, August 16, 2007

15th Aug Protest-Ponderings and Media Clips

15th Aug,a date etched in our memory…the day we achieved what is everyone’s right-freedom.Another landmark in our history of 5000 years…shouldn’t this day be a reason for celebration and joy.

Ideally yes, but that’s if you are free. For a half a million souls in exile since 1989 freedom means just another remembrance of the day when they were forcibly thrown out their homes. It also leaves them with a lingering feeling of deceit that the state has played against them.It was this that moved hundred odd homeless and uprooted Pandits to tie their mouths with black clothes, a sign that they have lost voice, carrying Indian flags as if they carry the cross,a cross because of which they were forced out of their homes. As someone in the crowd said”We are paying a price for being Indians”.

We are Indians,is that too much of a sin…I wondered as I sat among the protestors. How could one reconcile to the truth that Pandits were suffering because they are not “CRY BABIES” like their Muslim brethren or the fact they are not politically significant because of their numbers.

Maybe Indian democracy has come of age.