Open letter to Umar Khalid
Dear Umar,
Yes! Allow me the maturity to address you as dear Umar just as any thinking elder would address a misguided youngster because I am no politician with inherent agendas. I would rather talk like a parent. The trolls can kill themselves over this but I seriously don’t care.
Since I neither live in China, nor do I owe my allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) or to a country like North Korea, I still have the right to my reaction and I remain responsible for my action. When I address you as Dear Umar, I am exercising the right to my tolerance and decency just as you have exercised your freedom of expression to negate the idea of India and its unity. So let us start from a level playing field.
Noticing your disillusionment with India, I feel a strong urge to introduce to you, my nephews and nieces.
They left Kashmir during the first few springs of their lives when their parents were displaced, nearly 25 years ago. Today, they are well turned out men and women, established professionals, and surprising as it may sound to you, continue to be responsible citizens of India. They have done us proud and I know they are special - special because they too have fought their own battles – battles against unsparing destiny and not against their nation.
Don’t for a moment live under the illusion that you are the only victim of indifference. When they were uprooted, not a single leader, politician, academician, artist, actor, spiritual guru, spared a sigh for their difficult childhood. I am witness to their surviving blisters during their first unforgiving summer outside the Valley without basic amenities like fans, cold water and refrigerators. I saw them live out of ice boxes made of thermocol.
In my heart, their battle though unsung, evokes respect and yours does not. For them, nationalism was never decided by the indifference of a bunch of useless political parties that left them to fend for themselves when they needed the nation the most. Their value system still makes them salute the tricolour with pride.
Their Kashmiriyat is entrenched in their DNA and has not eroded during their strife to find their ground in a nation that has neither offered them any reservations nor handsome quotas. But their Kashmiriyat is not at cross purposes with their being Indian.
Dear Umar, these youngsters are your reflection. Just that they are better, sharper, civilised and the real fighters. They fought personal battles to become achievers. They were weaned away from their roots and were forced to leave Kashmir where they belong most.
But they did not spend their life force in fighting the system, nor did their teachers and elders pour their own poison into them. Their community gave them the fire in the belly not to protest and play the victim card, but to compete and excel. They are my heroes and heroines for they fought the odds as against fighting their nation.
There is a truth to be told and this is for you. Students must never give up debating the future of the country. You are welcome to do that. But for that you will have to belong to this country and acknowledge its idea. It cannot be accomplished by declaring themselves the nemesis of the nation.
Yours,