Afzal  Guru is finally hanged. Indian politicians and intelligentsia  by and large welcomed the development. They saw it as a culmination of the legal process completing its due course. But in Kashmir the story is different. To Kashmiris Afzal Guru represents their collective victimhood at the hands of India. His story is every one’s story. Every Kashmiri relates to him. He was an MBBS student. Had Kashmir been a non conflict zone, he might have been a successful doctor by now. His story is a story of victimization. He is a victim of the Kashmir conflict as are almost all the Kashmiris and that is the main reason they relate with and have internalized his plight in such a manner.
He cannot bear  the humiliation of being able to do nothing at this. He sees the daily humiliation which his fellow countrymen are subjected to. He wants to change it. He is sensitive enough. This is something that all Kashmiri youth go through. The story is not new. That has been happening since '90. Having realized the uselessness of armed struggle, Kashmiris even turned to peaceful means to highlight the issue.  But India can take none of it, peaceful protests are not allowed in Kashmir. Dissent is not allowed even on virtual platforms i.e. the social media. Demonstrations are not allowed even for non political issues like for example employee grievances. Scores of teenagers are behind bars even now. The state did not let Afzal live a peaceful life after he eschewed militancy. It is not letting the whole Kashmiri people avenues of peaceful dissent either. It is pushing them to revolt again so that it can punish them again in the same manner as it created a parliament attack convict out of a medical student and finally hanged him. The case of Afzal is so strikingly similar to the case of Kashmir that the people of Kashmir see it not as the hanging of a man but the hanging of a nation.

Shakeel Shaheen
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Lastupdate on : Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 13 Feb 2013 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 IST