‘Eid Mubarak, let peace prevail’

Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jammu, September 13

For the first time since 1964, when my tryst with the Kashmir valley began as a child, I hesitated for hours to write a message of Eid greetings to my friends in Kashmir. I did not want to write the simple two magical greeting words, “Eid Mubarak”, for there is nothing to celebrate and there is nothing to congratulate in these times of gloom, when the heart is beating endlessly and hoping not to hear news of any more killings.

As the hours passed on Monday – on the eve of Eid — when normally I would exchange “Eid Mubarak” with my friends and colleagues, I learnt that the internet and non-BSNL phones would stop working after 4 pm. That deadline also did not wake me to moral urgency of sending greetings. After 4 pm, many friends were out of reach. Then came another shocker that all net services would be down in Jammu from 4 am on Tuesday. What to do? How do I send my Eid greetings!

I have been part of Eid celebrations and lot of feasting on these auspicious days. My friends Mehraj-ud-Din, Yusuf Jameel, Munir Qayoom Geelani, Altaf Hussain, Imdad Saqi and so many others never forget to invite me to their place on such occasions.

And, if it happened to be a Tuesday, when I avoid eating non-vegetarian food, they would have vegetarian food prepared for me. Today, also is Tuesday, my friends were locked, as was the whole of Kashmir, courtesy the curfew by the authorities and the shutdown by separatists.

Only after the tempers will cool, we will know who snatched the Eid celebrations. This is not a one-way ticket. Both sides are responsible and both will have to come clean on their record of shutdowns, stone-throwing, curfew, teargas shelling and firing of bullets.

My thoughts went out to the families who had lost their loved ones during the violent clashes and the excessive use of force by security forces.

However, the pain cannot be expressed by writing commentaries on the social media. For me, the pain of the family of Mustafa Mir, who died in Bandipore today, and that of Bilal Ahmad of Anantnag, who lost his life in a grenade attack by militants last evening, is the same. Funerals on Eid speak of greater tragedies than the death itself.

Equally, I am anguished by the killing of cops at the hands of stone-throwing violent protesters, who besides imposing their writ on roads, lanes and bylanes, have harassed people in the need of medical care. They have heaped insult and humiliation on the elderly. Is this the upbringing of our children that we want in Kashmir in the 21st century? Or, is it forgivable because such misbehaviour is to be accepted as part of the struggle? I shudder at the mere thought of Kashmir of the next generation.

“What is there to celebrate?” I agreed with Ishfaq Tantray, a colleague who gave this reply to my greetings, which finally I decided should be, “Eid Mubarak, Let peace prevail.”