An editorial in the Rising Kashmir highlights a continuing problem in Kashmir where an overdozed civil society is unable to wean away from politics to address remaining 90% of daily issues confronting the society
Under-Mining
Over-obsessed with politics Kashmir continues to be oblivious of the natural wealth that the valley is endowed with, thereby missing remorseful politics
Kashmir has always been full of politics and Kashmiri stand besieged by the political talk. Some of this talk may be fabulous but mostly it’s fatuity that we engage ourselves with. The immediate adverse fall out of this over obsession with politics has been the neglect of other important areas of collective interest. Our politicians, both Unionist and Resistance, never take their minds off the crude political talk and think of what could be a major issue for the people of Kashmir to rally around. It’s the resources of Kashmir.
Although in the recent times, the talk of resources and economy surfaced up and much politics was done around that issue, but there is still a general apathy towards talking meaningfully about the resources of Kashmir. The recent talk, in a way, was all motivated and driven by politics; for example the Kundal Committee report on how the green gold was plundered in Kashmir or how the water resources of Kashmir are being exploited by various agencies in India to benefit the people living in other states ignoring the Kashmiris, the owners of the wealth.
Rising Kashmir Business Desk has carried a report about how the gypsum reserves remain extremely underutilized in Kashmir. According to the news story there are more than 100 million tones of gypsum reserves in the valley, and from such huge quantity only a miniscule amount of 24, 000 metric tones have been extracted from different mines during the fiscal year of 2007-08.
Misfortune has struck valley in the way that our political and social activism is so narrowly focused on certain hackneyed slogans that all else escapes our sight. The unexplained reluctance on part of our political leadership, social activists, and an upcoming brigade of opinion makers is allowing the unscrupulous elements to lay their hands at our recourses. We only come to know about it when somebody else plundered it. This attitude needs to be changed.
The poverty and the overall suffocation at social level can be fought if we stretch the band of our concerns. It will not only yield economic dividends but will alter the socio-political landscape of our valley. An alert political leadership and a watchful society can engage with this concern in ways that can make the collective struggle of Kashmiri full of content; it will also make it look real. Instead of imagined aspirations a concrete aim can be discovered for this people to strive collectively. The way people have behaved during these elections and the manner in which they have dropped a particular message, makes it all the more necessary that the real life issues are discovered, understood and meaningfully engaged with. Attending the map of resources in Kashmir is one way of making the discourse on Kashmir look more real and connected to life