NIT Fiasco

Mir Liyakat

The day right wing forces came to power in Delhi; the already malignant democratic face of India become more darkish and perilous particularly to those who have been the victim of her colonial instincts since 1947. The ‘Ache Din’ promise of Modi is continuously translated into ‘Burhe Din’ agony for those who differ with their ideology, whether he is a student at JNU or a beef eater Muslim. The saffron Tamashaa at play is busy in re-scripting history, renaming roads; messing up in the academics, food terrorism; moral policing and turning the universities into concentration camps. These are all seen their desperate attempts to generate a fascist political discourse in India to hound minorities and muzzle dissenters.

The ongoing cascade of rioting, lynching, coercion, polarization and suppression has interestingly again reignited the debate of ‘you’ and ‘us’ clash by repeating the history, when the two nation theory exactly propounded the same in 1947.

The latest pre-planned communal endeavor was staged in the NIT Srinagar, where a handful of local students cheered for West Indies cricket team after their win over India in T20 sparked wrath, rage from the outstation students. Not only they beat local students and staff members to the pulp but ransacked the entire institute for many days. They indulged in provocative spat, after they felt highly inspired, when the Indian vicious media machines ran nonstop broadcast of hate mongering. To further fan the drama of hatred many fictitious characters including actors, academicians and filmmakers from outside the state were airdropped in the valley.

Thanks to the administration and the state police who barred many of them at the Srinagar airport from entering NIT and doused the imminent communal standoff.

However a little known extremist group in the disguise of Bhagat Sena sent its bunch of students from Delhi to march towards NIT, which according to many observers believe was part of a covet response from the BJP, so that not to annoy its ally in the state.

Despite their dire attempt to communalize Kashmir and the ongoing resistance movement they failed to find any local reactionary character, even from the separatist camp to execute their nefarious plan. Any tri-color hoisting is not going to change the ground reality of Kashmir which remained a disputed territory and the most militarized place in the world.

Majority of the People here do cheer for any cricket team that plays against a country viewed as a monster of all miseries, is not a new revelation which is hard to gobble.  From Sheri-Kashmir cricket stadium to NIT Srinagar, cricket has been seen as one of the medium of resistance to express anger against India. They (Kashmiris) were promised before the world community, that they will be given a chance to decide their political future, but still it remained a distant dream.

The last 60 years of ongoing forced marriage between Srinagar and Delhi remained swaddled in the robes of iron fist rule, trust deficit, countless miseries, violence, disappearance and miscarriage of justice.

The NIT drama may prove in future as a serious security challenge for Kashmir students studying outside the state, but it exposed once again the writ of local regional mainstream political parties and administration after they were completely sidelined by Delhi. The way state police presence inside the campus was replaced by the CRPF shows how they are not considered a reliable force that manages their entire security grid and safeguard their interests in Kashmir.

On the other hand, the second innings of Mufti’s ‘unholy alliance’ may not complete its term but it will certainly jeopardize the bond of harmony and change its demography for power struggle. If the ruling party believes that the economical initiatives and the hollow chants of development will solve the political issues of the disputed territory, then the self denials and hubris may end their game of thrones forever, as what happened to National Conference in the past.

The NIT controversy is just a tip of an iceberg, we may see more incidents like that in future but it taught us a lesson that how irrelevant and rubber stamps are mainstream political parties in the state.

Those who are seen collaborators at home and anti nationalist in Delhi were caught between a rock and a hard place. Time and again it was proven that Delhi holds the real power no matter how long Abdullah’s and Mufti’s claim to be the decision makers of state.

How on earth few bruises of outstation students became the national prime time debate and when Kashmir’s fall to the brutal bullets they maintain criminal silence?

This double standard and political discrimination has now pushed the third generation of the conflict to the edge where they celebrate every event in which the defeat is inflicted on their mighty oppressor. The Kashmiri students at the NIT were not first time celebrating the defeat of Indian cricket team. If we turn the pages of history, it is a chronic Kashmiri desire. The cricket particularly after the T20 format is emerging to be no less than a battleground of ideas in a territory where the anti India sentiment runs high. By taking minor altercations so seriously which happens in a cricket frenzy region and then flare up the communal tension for the political devious designs was unfortunate and deplorable. The NIT controversy, from every angle looks like a pre-planned attempt to push the state on the embers of hate and fear.

But kudos to the people of Kashmir who exhibited utmost sense of maturity and sent a strong message to the world and the people of India in particular that they are not communal although they continue to be besieged by the forces hell bent to bleed them.

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