I first visited Kashmir in the ‘60s, with a group of adventurous fellow medical students on a shoe string budget. The most endearing memory of that trip was the peaceful beauty of the place and its soft spoken genteel people. Coming from the chaos of Calcutta where the buzz of heated political debate reached you a good twenty meters from the coffee house, the contrast in Kashmir was unforgettable. Every parting in any hotel, restaurant or service provider included a standard Urdu expression which roughly translated into “if there has been any lapse on my part, please forgive me”. I was told this was the normal goodbye. The second trip was in an official capacity about five years back. The beauty still remained, enhanced this time by the orange hued magnificence of the chinar trees in autumn, which made you “stand and stare”. The landscape however, though relatively calm, was pockmarked by bunkers manned by security personnel. Getting in and out of the airport one ran a gauntlet of check points and pickets with law enforcers armed to the teeth.
The current media coverage of young men barely in their teens pelting stones at troops and burning tyres in protest makes one wonder what precipitated this loss of innocence. Why is it that children, who should be in school busy with their computers or fighting over possession on the football field end up dead or maimed and blinded by shotgun pellets? The glib standard answer is of course that they are brainwashed by Pakistani propaganda and led astray with militant ideology. This is difficult to accept. How can a nation that out-ranks the Pakistanis in every imaginable parameter, be it social, political or economic, be so vulnerable to such onslaughts? It has to go deeper than that.
To understand a patients’ problem one always looks at it from the patients’ perspective; and that led me to ask: what does the average Kashmiri see as his current status?
Successive governments have regarded Kashmir purely as a territorial possession. The people of Kashmir were merely a vote bank deserving attention only at the time of elections. Their needs and aspirations never figured in any national socio-economic planning. As a result, the ground realities for the average Kashmiri today provoke desperation. A recent article in ISHAs’ journal states “healthcare infrastructure throughout the State in general and rural areas in particular seems to be ineffective and unresponsive. Inadequate and unbalanced financial outlays, mismatch of resources, duplication of services, lack of accountability, dereliction of duties and less emphasis on prevention of disease and health promotion are adversely affecting the system.” Old killers like Tb, RTI, UTI, and diarrhea are increasing; newer diseases like hypertension, heart disease, cancer and diabetes have joined the list. Even basic amenities like sanitation and safe drinking water are lacking.
The suicide rate has not only shot up, but 76.3% of suicidal deaths in Jammu & Kashmir are below the age of 44 yrs, imposing a huge social, emotional and economic burden on the society. In 1989-90, suicides in Kashmir were virtually zero. Post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) has emerged as a major mental health issue. Kashmir’s only hospital for mental and psychological diseases had about 1200 patients registered in 1989. In 2011 this went up to about one lakh. As in the rest of India, because of social stigma, many cases go unreported. A survey conducted by Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, showed that 55% of the valleys’ population is victim to some psychological ailment or the other. Tragically, in the last two decades, nearly 2000 security personnel have also committed suicide.
70% of the population is under 31; and rather than being the drivers of growth, 48% of this group is unemployed. Being a largely agrarian society, job opportunities are hard to come by. The government is the largest employer; the private sector being virtually non-existent. The current unrest has decimated tourism, the only other major source of employment. Stalwarts like J.P. Narayan in written communications to Indira Gandhi, had predicted this turn of events unless concrete measures were taken to bring the state into the mainstream of national development.
The advent of the current government introduced new and disturbing parameter. A 19year old boy was burnt alive on the Jammu-Srinagar highway along with the vehicle he was in on suspicion the van was carrying beef. Lynchings on suspicions of cow slaughter only added to apprehensions. What confidence would this inspire in the average Kashmiri in his desire for assimilation into the mainstream national agenda? He is told if he wants to eat beef he should go to Pakistan! When young Kashmiris shout pro-Pakistani and anti-India slogans, is it because they truly harbor pro- Pakistani and radical Islamic ideology or is it because they do not feel, and have never felt they were apart of India and its rhetoric of democracy, secularism and globalization? An entire generation has grown up knowing only unrest and the military response. 100days of lock down; nearly 100 dead; over 8000 injured and counting; these are figures from a battlefield not a democracy. And when Mohan Bhagwat declares that the ‘gau rakshaks” are doing a righteous job (contradicting the PM), the sense of alienation and despair is complete. Even if the sanctity of the cow is accepted, the extension of the ban to the bull and buffalo is nothing short of mercenary agenda. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 is yet another display of bias against the Muslim as opposed to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi.
All this prompts the average Kashmiri to ask himself ‘what future do I have in India’; and unless this government can display the maturity to reach out to the Kashmiri people, not only will Kashmir continue to bleed, but the tragedy will spread to the Dalits, the Marathas, the Adivasis and others.
(Dr Gladstone D’Costa is the Chairman, Accreditation
Committee and member,
Executive Committee, Goa Medical Council.)
