Kashmir must look beyond hartals, but how?

As a cub reporter, out of sheer curiosity, I once asked ageing Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani, what have we achieved by observing hartal for so many years? Frail yet unrelenting, he replied, if you have a better option, please tell me. I was dumbstruck.

On October 16, 2016, the current unrest in Kashmir registered the longest ever continuous hartal of 100 days, to once again remind people in the power corridors of New Delhi that Kashmir is an unfinished business.

Geelani hailed the occasion as a "historic victory" for the people of Kashmir and urged them to continue with the resistance. "These 100 days of our struggle has defeated New Delhi and brought Kashmir back on the world stage. The uprising has thoroughly exposed and isolated People's Democratic Party, which now stands alongside the disgraced and decimated National Conference," Geelani said in his statement.

However, in the past two weeks or so, there is pep talk going on in the Valley that it is time to think beyond the stratagems of hartal and invest in innovative means to keep the current momentum intact in a more effective way.

Many articles written by prominent journalists, columnist and writers of Kashmir, and even by outsiders, are making the rounds in the market, telling the resistance leaders to break the ongoing status quo of hartal and find an alternate mode to assert the prolonged demand for the right to self-determination.

But, interestingly, no one - at least not in the public eye - has written about constructive ideas of protest other than hartal. Perhaps, it is not the job of a writer to give suggestions; as bystanders they can only reflect on the situation that takes place before them.

No doubt there is dire need for broaching some alternative forms of protest. Hartal is not a cohesive action plan if one has to achieve conclusive results. Hartals can work as a short-term method of protest, but 100 days are too long and bound to make it a failure.

It is an open secret that the majority of people in Kashmir share the ideology of resistance leaders, and hence, after the spontaneous uprising which was triggered by the killing of popular militant commander Burhan Wani on July 8, they are religiously following the weekly calendar of protests in which hartal tops the list.

But fatigue is a natural phenomenon and Kashmiris are not immune to it. The whispers have started and it is now only a matter of time before people are willing to choose anything but hartals to agitate. However, the question is, what?

On October 18, Geelani, who along with other resistance leaders has been spearheading the ongoing uprising, sought suggestions from across the society to seek the way forward.

He wrote to traders, transporters, bar associations and members of civil society to know how to continue the ongoing struggle. Even though most responses supported continuation of protest resistance in whatever form the leadership deemed suitable, nobody gave any concrete suggestion that could have been a better option than hartals.

In such circumstances, the resistance leaders are not be blame - they are obliged to continue with the hartal and people are required to follow it. Moreover, in Kashmir, one cannot entirely do away with hartals.

Many argue that at a time when the government has choked and crushed all other peaceful ways of dissent, hartals are the only non-violent option left at the disposal of resistance leaders.

It is a fact that over the years, frequent hartals have created a severe dent on the fledging economy of the state. In the past 26 years, Kashmir has observed 1,900 days of hartal. Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) figures reveal that Kashmir loses around Rs 130 crore everyday during every strike or curfew. Going by the rough estimation, Kashmir Inc has already suffered a Rs 14,300-crore loss in the past four months.

This is not the first time that a debate on alternative to hartal is in the public domain. People for long have been asking and questioning, both on the ground as well as online media, resistance leaders on an alternative to hartals.

On November, 2015, the chairman of the moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in a first-of-its-kind, held a day-long deliberation with people on Twitter, especially with the youth, to think of alternate means of protest.

Many criticised the Hurriyat for not being able to deliver on expectations, yet when it came to suggestions to hartals, people were short of ideas.

On February 13, 2016, scores of youth, representing Kashmir Reform Group (KRG), an NGO to spread awareness about socio-economic reforms, held demonstrations at Srinagar's Press Enclave urging for alternative and effective ways of protest. However, they too couldn't provide any solution.

It is true that the onus lies on the leadership and it's their job to devise policies that would suffice needs and at the same time aspirations of people, but leaders are no supermen.

Leaders are not self-made, people make them. Leaders make mistakes. Leaders lack ideas. If people of Kashmir aspire for the right to self-determination - which they do - than they can't just shun away their responsibilities and blame leaders for shortcomings.

Kashmir is witnessing the longest spell of hartals till date - stretching over four months. New Delhi's unflattering policies, despite a few clichés, are not serving the cause.

It is high time that, apart from resistance leaders, the intellectuals of Kashmir put their wise political heads together and steer the current uprising in a new direction to make it more productive than ever.

It is hard to digest the fact that after 26 years of resistance, the think-tank of Kashmir still can't find a single alternative to break the never-ending chain of hartals.

Speak up. Don't be dumbstruck like me.

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