Yes, I advocate non-violence in Kashmir: Rejoinder from the stone pelter

I had delivered a speech titled "Has the gun proven to be the enemy of Kashmir? Will violence achieve anything?" reproduced in Scroll.in.

An article published in DailyO, "In response to Scroll.in's 'Hear it from a former stone pelter'" as a rebuttal to my speech, has purportedly deconstructed my facts. I have checked the rebuttal and it is wholly devoid of any healthy logic, but is just as full of sarcastic jibes.

I don't deem it necessary to give a rejoinder but as the subject relates to my homeland, so I felt it was necessary to put the correct narrative before my people.

My friend who wants to teach me the "basics" starts with bizarre, irrelevant points regarding whether the Indian state would have allowed a seminar promoting the gun. I am not a spokesman for the Indian government and that is none of my concern, but the disproportionate space this argument was given, even subtly to ridicule me reveals the shallowness of his arguments.

Then, he levels an ad hominem allegation against the organiser of the conference; not also against him but against his father, citing Quora as his much beloved source of biographical information of an extremely sensitive nature.

Aspersions were cast on my motives of attending the seminar, with me, in a baseless fashion, being accused of being publicity-hungry. I am ready to discuss the same on either platform that my brother wishes if he is dissatisfied with the platform I spoke at. I will be humbled if, I am invited.

Furthermore, he questions non-violence as a means of political mobilisation when the state is an instrument of violence, but it is precisely to gain that higher moral ground and not make this a military battle, but an ideological one and one wherein the legitimacy of injustice is contested, that Gandhi, Martin Luther King (Jr.), Mandela and the likes took to non-violence.

Also, my enlightened friend imagines that organisers at a village level couldn't have been manipulated by others, that learning from personal experience is naiveté, even if that lesson drawn from personal experience has been drawn in a historical context. And yes, that some stone-pelters have a sense of affinity to some pro-India political party suggests that this movement involving pelting stones, which is no non-violent activity, is a confused one and one that has lost its sense of direction, giving nothing to the people of Kashmir in return.

It was not my case to defend the pro-India politicians, and indeed, that many political forces have compromised on ideology to feed off vested interests is the problem that I wished to highlight. Yes, I confess that I was manipulated in my teens and wasn't as rational as I think I am now. Yes, I fell for something like stone-pelting, following the mainstream view around me that glorified it, but I don't see it as having helped us or having any scope to help us, and I say so unapologetically.

Instead of suggesting how and why my point of view was wrong based on reasoned arguments, my friend makes all possible baseless insinuations.

And yes, not only did I condemn the Indian gun as well insofar as the human rights violations by Indian soldiers (with justice often nowhere in sight) are concerned, but I was more than willing to criticise the Indian state for its sham democracy in Kashmir, the dilution of our autonomy and the likes without mincing words, and so, I did say what my friend thinks I would have shied away from saying, fearing sedition or Public Safety Act charges.

I would like to add here that Kashmir is a political dispute of historical nature waiting for its solution. So far, history teaches us that military means from either side have only compounded the problem.

Talking about the two sisters who had been brutally raped and killed, the writer had mentioned that case was immediately hushed up by the Indian state and they were declared drowned. I agree with my brother on this, but it was designed as a curtain to the failure of hartal masters which is quite unsatisfactory.

Of two guns in Kashmir, that the writer has mentioned "one for India and one against India", should have been, one for India and one for Pakistan because the bitter truth is that there was one more gun for Kashmir, that is JKLF, which was silenced by the gun for Pakistan.

But one is not allowed to speak against peers and brothers in green even if their irrelevant methods are outdated and have brought us to the door of destruction. In short, there are some social and political gods according to them whom ordinary people must adhere like sheep of Orwell's Animal Farm, the difference being that this Kashmiri majoritarianism of political opinion is itself sought to characterize itself not as the brute majoritarianism it is but only as some kind of subaltern resistance voice, notwithstanding its own intolerance for contrarian voices.

Let me tell you that the genuine aim of any freedom struggle should be redressing of human grievances. It should be freedom from bondage of sufferings - corruption, unemployment, communalism, poverty, exploitation, lawlessness, brutality et al.

It should be the fight for dignified life of an individual. This is the real freedom one should aim for. It is not the so-called freedom that some myopic people want us to fight for "to unite with Pakistan". Mere alteration of borders is no freedom at all.

And yes, though it's not my case to defend Scroll as a portal, a few remarks at a bakery store are different from a person not from any political party taking such a stance openly.