Rekindle Kashmir’s lost and real connect.

Context: As the government continues to reflect on strategies to win hearts and minds in Kashmir, it would do well to revisit the past of Kashmir.

Remembering the Kashmiris who fought for the greatness of India:

• Foiling Operation Gibraltar: On August 5, 1965 two Kashmiri Gujjars namely Mohammed Din and Wazir Mohammed helped to thwart one of Pakistan’s most devious conspiracies in the Valley.
• Story of Baramullah’s Maqbool Sherwani: In 1947, he helped delay the Pakistan-backed tribal invaders march to Srinagar from Baramulla before the arrival of the Indian armed forces. 
• Ms. Mehmooda Ali Shah: She was a formidable educationist, who faced a minor act of rebellion when one of her students shouted Pakistan Zindabad on the college grounds. 

• Ms. Shah through her word and deed stood up for the ideas that endeared India to the Kashmiris.

• Dina Nath Nadim: In his opera ‘Bombur Taa Yemberzal’, he made an allegorical reference to the clash between Imperialism and Socialism. 

• He also brought the plight of Kashmir to the world, and the justness of India’s cause.

• Ghulam Rasool Santosh: It was the extraordinary art of Ghulam Rasool Santosh that revealed Kashmir’s unique syncretic culture. 

• Larger fusion of the diversity of India within Kashmir’s multiple streams is reflected in Santosh’s art.

• Shamim Ahmed Shamim: It was Shamim’s stirring words in the Lok Sabha in 1972, on the Bangladesh War that found resonance with the people of the Valley. 

• He said that leaders have changed the course of history, but rarely has anyone changed geography.

• Peer Ghulam Hassan Shah: As  a police chief of Jammu and Kashmir, he broke the back of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and the Kashmir Al-Fatah. 

Way Forward:

• Legacy of leaders: lies the future of New Delhi in Kashmir and the future basis of Kashmir’s faith in India.
• Emotional integration: The emotional integration of Kashmir within the national mainstream is the need of the hour. 
• Avoiding Kafkaesque bureaucracy: Which rely more on astrology than common sense. There is a need to discover its new generation of leaders, who could be the pillars of a future Naya Kashmir. 
• Restoration of Statehood and the early conduct of fair elections are essential first steps.