‘Silence is shameful’: Junaid Matoo asks Kashmir leadership to speak up for Yasin Malik
Junaid Azam Matoo
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Stoic, deafening silence on Yasin Malik does not just reflect the fear of persecution and allure of State patronage among Kashmir’s political “leadership” but also an abject and meek political and moral surrender before the BJP and the apparatus it currently controls.
Yasin Malik abjured violence, gave up the gun and chose a path of peaceful dialogue and official engagement – with none less than two Prime Ministers of our country, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
One understands why the powers that be want to make Yasin Malik a symbol of their radical ideological vengeance and perhaps use his case as a political plank in the rest of the country. Coming from them, that’s unsurprising.
What is extremely surprising and disappointing is, regardless of political and ideological differences, the silence of our leadership in Kashmir.
What is being done to Yasin Malik today will be done to other Kashmiri leaders tomorrow. The blood-baying won’t stop with Yasin. The “collective conscience” will keep baying for Kashmiri blood.
While the powers that be celebrate engaging with the Nagaland separatists or others who held on to arms till yesterday they want to set an example when it comes to a Kashmiri separatist leader who gave up violence.
What is being done to Yasin Malik will not be restricted to Yasin Malik. Or for that matter what is being done to Shabir Shah. This trend of punitive and retributive vengeance will not stop at the threshold of separatist leaders. Complicity, guilt – nothing will matter. Every Kashmiri leader who doesn’t fall in line will have a noose waiting for him. This vengeance won’t discriminate between ideologies. It won’t leave mainstream leaders out.
I disagree with Yasin Malik’s political ideology and denounce the path that he chose (and then gave up) but what good is our conscience and voice if we can’t stand up and oppose this campaign of brutal, ruthless retribution against him as a larger vindictive message to the people of Kashmir who have lost thousands of its sons and daughters to turmoil and conflict?
A State has to be magnanimous and large hearted in engaging with dissent and contrarian views. The idea of India is not an idea of retribution but inherently an idea of reconciliation. If the idea of India is reconciliatory when it comes to the North East, why must it be retributive when it comes to Kashmir? But the very idea of India is lost on the BJP so none of this makes sense to them.
Our leadership must shed this cowardice and speak up. Starting with the Chief Minister! We must seek reconciliation and healing without being afraid. A nation aspiring for greatness and prosperity cannot live in the past forever!
We must seek a future of peace and engagement regardless of how unpalatable it is to the powers that be. Silence is shameful and those who remain silent are complicit.
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