Wake up... its burning!!

Its August 15, 2010. Its independence day today. 64 years ago, our leaders fought for freedom and independence. Finally we became the masters and makers of our destiny. For some of the most silly reasons, human errors, erractic egos, we divided the country. People who were cordial neighbours belonging to the same roots suddenly bacame staunch enemies. Like all enemies, we needed a reason for hate... We successfully found it ... Kashmir!!

Since then, the valley of beauty and wonder has never seen peace, never experienced bliss. Since 1948, Kashmir has always faced wars, terror attacks, the so called 'cleansing missions' etc. The 1948 agresssion, the 1965 war, the 1989 cleansing mission which drove out all the Kashmiri Pandits from their homeland and the 1999 war again...Each one of these cowardly acts has made the valley unsafe. Call it our procrastinating attitude or appeasing politics, we have failed in establishing our hold on the valley not only in the internataional scenario but also nationally. We have not provided any basic necessities to those people in the valley. The media and the governments have failed in creating that sense of empathy in other parts of India towards those suffering in the valley.

As a result of those continuous blunders that we have been committing since 1948, today we are facing another major problem. All these days, we had blamed Pakistan for all those erractic acts of terror and aggression in the valley. We blissfully slept over the issue assuming that the people of Kashmir will remain with us at all times. Alas, it is not so, today the issue of Kashmir has become so complex that our own people have decided to move away from us. Ask the Indian Government today, if it has the guts to go for a plebiscite... the answer is NO!! WE will be terribly defeated in the plebiscite... Maybe if we had had leaders in 1948 who had the 'audacity' to accept their victory over Pakistan, or atleast in 1965, or in 1989, if we had had the political will to rehabilitate the pandits in their homeland ... we would not have seen this day. The only time we have done right was in 1999 kargil war. But that is just not enough.

Today, I hear dicussions that indicate on giving up Kashmir. Why are we so lenient on losing things? And by any chance, if you tend to term this as sacrifice, I am sorry, I strongly differ. Losing your identity is defeat and not sacrifice. It is only the strong willed who know sacrifice.. we are talking about the weak willed... they only give up. When such things are going on, I feel terrible to even wish happy independence day! This time the independence day is tense! We might lose a part of our country... atleast now let us respond proactively to the problems of Kashmir. The little bits that can be done from our part is to increase tourism to those places, choose home stays, create employment to those people by opening our branches there, basically letting them know that we are for them forever, we belong to one bharatiya family and are hurt by their distress. That is the need of the hour.

This special care has to be carried out not only for Kashmir but also for the North east. North east has precisely seen the same kind of treatment and China is making use of that. Today Kashmir is burning.. if we continue the same attitude North east will be the next sensitive spot.

Wake up guys... and resolve to re-solve.