Opinion Unclench these fists
Children are the focus of the 12th Plan. Lets start with Jammu and Kashmir...
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The city was closed for the third day. I was driving to the airport on my way back to Delhi. There were very few cars on the road; all the shop shutters were down. Suddenly the car jerked. I saw a few kids right there in the middle of the road. My heart lurched. Stone pelters,my gut reaction was to duck. But they were only small boys playing cricket on a deserted road. I felt ashamed.
I was in Srinagar for five days. Out of that the city was closed for three. Everyone I spoke to,every news report I read spoke of the sudden onslaught of a new phenomenon: stone pelting boys and retaliation of the forces. Who are these children,I thought,who suddenly pour out of narrow gulleys and through a profligate act of attacking military vehicles and personnel,expose themselves to hurt,arrest,sometimes death? The stories of Rafiq Ahmed Bangroo (age 24) and Javed Mallah (age 19) were on everyones lips. Rafiq had been caught by the CRPF while he with other boys was hurling stones. He had been hit on the head and other parts of his body. He was admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital SKIMS where he died after an eight-day battle for his life. His cousin Javaid came for his funeral. The funeral procession with hundreds of wailing mourners headed for the Shaheed Qabristan at Idgah. The sight of the security forces made the crowd very angry; it was then that trouble started. Tear gas was fired by the forces. Javaid,at the head of the mourners,was hit in the head hit by a tear gas shell and died on the spot.
In ten days three boys had been killed. The first one was Tufail. How many times I heard this sentence. People had become used to counting their dead. And today as I write this piece,the number of dead has risen. This newspaper reports,1 more shot. Once again,Kashmir faces shut-downs.
A bandh,curfew or hartal means total paralysis. Schools closed,children at home,crouching before TV sets,kitchens idle. No provisions,shops fronted with large padlocks. Newspapers carrying wedding cancellation notices,no shikara wallahs,no bakers,and no fruit vendors. I could not bring back a box of cherries for my family; those boxes must be rotting in some godown. The gloom in the households is palpable. Children sit listening to the older people talk about deaths in the old city. It was absurd for me to sit with my hosts family to watch Indian Idol on TV. Youth from all over India were showcasing their talent but children,at this time in Kashmir,could only play Idol Idol in hidden corners and dream of becoming stars in such talent hunts.
Outside the grim interiors were safeda trees,lake surfaces,and a riot of flowers in the Dal,Nishat,Shalimar,Chashma Shahi. They mesmerised the tourists for whom Kashmir offered the healing touch after the blazing summer of North India.
I was staying with a film-maker,a woman who had documented contemporary life in the valley in her highly evocative films. She often took an evening walk along the bank of river Jhelum. One day she saw a few children,girls and boys,playing at the site of a dismantled bunker. In their small fists they held a few pebbles. What are you doing? she asked. Oh! We are playing curfi curfi, they chanted. Childrens games predictably are an offshoot of the reality they are surrounded with.
In the Planning Commission,one of my sectoral responsibilities is women and children. I saw the entire five days of my stay through a childs lens. I use this lens more so since the prime minister has announced that childrens concerns will be priority in the 12th Plan. My hosts granddaughter is a student in Class Ten. I found her at home most of the time. I happened to see a two-page assignment she had left lying around. It was a biology exercise on human kidneys. Never have I seen handwriting more beautiful. I remember her a few years ago,when things were no different but she was younger. She used to dream of becoming a teacher and played at giving lessons to the trees which lined the front drive. What do you want to do in life,still want to teach? I asked her on this visit. She said,I dont know.
The two mornings when there was no bandh,I went for a morning walk. At 6.30,I saw young girls,their faces glowing under their white scarves,walking briskly for their pre-school tuition classes. Little boys in ties and uniforms,their hair slicked back,waited for school buses. I thought of these children,in a few years,becoming part of the Prime Ministers Skill Training Mission. I thought of them filling the huge deficit of human resources in health which exists in their state. Health is another sector I look after. I thought of them becoming IT professionals,of becoming entrepreneurs of crafts of the Valley,an excellent experiment of which I had just seen at CDI,the Craft Development Institute at Bagh e Ali Mardan in Srinagar. I thought of how the government of India and the state could together attract the big corporates to enter the valley and create employment opportunities for youth.
But the stories of Rafiq Bangroo,Javaid Mallah and Tufail Ahmed drove all such thoughts away. All around I saw boys with no hope in their hearts,no money in their pocket,young and angry. I saw boys who needed education and employment,boys who are brighter and anxious to learn. These are youth who need us as much as we need them; today we are taking steps to give them livelihoods but what about their live anger. We need to place computer keyboards beneath fingers that are curled around stones. But that needs a touch as gentle and healing as the touch Kashmir gives unstintingly to every tourist who gets off on her soil.
The writer is a member of the Planning Commission
express@expressindia.com
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