More than a hundred volunteers, led by a prominent peacenik walked for peace and harmony in Kashmir on Friday, to culminate a long journey they started last year from Kanyakumari.
The leader of the “Walk for Hope”, Mumtaz Ali who is known as Sri Madhukarnath, urged the people of Kashmir to initiate a dialogue within the community to find ways for resolution of the Kashmir issue and restoration of peace and harmony.
The peacenik who heads the Manav Ekta Mission began his “Walk for Hope” on January 12, 2015 on the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. “We met millions of people during our walk through various States of India,” Madhukarnath, fondly known as Sri M by his friends and volunteers told The Pioneer.
He said that he was not happy to see gun-wielding soldiers moving around in Kashmir. “Anybody would be upset if you see people walking around with guns,” he said but defended the imposition of Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) in the region that gives immunity to the armed forces handling the counter-insurgency operations.
“You see Kashmir is sandwiched between two Governments (India and Pakistan). It is not possible to suddenly withdraw (the laws). You never know what the other side will do,” he said.
He said that Manav Ekta Mission believes in dialogue to resolve the issues because violence is answered by the violence. “Violence is met with violence. If I have one gun, the other has two. This is the game of vested interests. They don’t belong to any community,” he said.
He said the issue of Kashmir came into existence when the British sold off Muslim majority Kashmir to a Hindu ruler. “Read the british writers what they have written about Kashmir. They write about the beauty of kashmir and not its people. This is the root cause of the issue,” he said.
He said the Kashmiri people have to generate an internal movement for the resolution of Kashmir. “The Governments of India and Pakistan will think in terms of their national interests because they are nationalists. Can both of them be willing to give freedom to Kashmir,” he asked.
He said the people of Kashmir want to be free and happy and some of them have adopted the violent means for the goal. “Unfortunately, for a revolution, a part becomes armed. This has happened everywhere in the world but somehow young people, intellectuals have to be convinced for peace. This movement has to come from Muslims of the State who are in majority. The leaders must think and decided that they need to have peace and not the disturbance,” he said.
He said it was difficult to assuage the wounds especially for the people who have been downtrodden for years.
Sri M lamented that Kashmiri students were targeted in educational institutions outside. “This is not the way to handle. How can you bring out mature people (from the educational institutions) when they don’t have the freedom to thinkIJ” he said.
He said that he walked through places like Godhra and asked the people to look for preventions rather than the cure.
Referring to recent incidents in north Kashmir’s Handwara where security forces shot dead five civilians, Sri M said that the armed forces must be made accountable. “Everybody should be accountable. The Army too must be accountable. The armymen and police personnel are also the citizens of India,” he said.
He said that curfews, lockdowns and house-arrests would not work to bring about peace.
“This is not the way to handle it. It is burning. You can’t see it on the surface but it is simmering inside. But the situation can be pre-empted. This is my prayer,” he said.
