CHILDREN OF INDIAN ILLEGALLY OCCUPIED JAMMU AND

KASHMIR UNDER LOCKDOWN: THE WORLD A SILENT WITNESS TO

THEIR SUFFERING

Touch Modality,
Finger # 1, 2, 3,
Right Street,
Hand Avenue,
Tranquil soul.

Faculty of sight,
Lobe # 2,
Cerebrum Street,
Brain Avenue,
Taciturn soul.

Dear human race,

I am writing this letter to understand if you are fully aware of your identity as
a human taxonomy. Unquestionably, there are handful of other terms that you humans go by;
the human species, mankind, humankind, even just people, but above all, you are known as
humanity. Needless to write, you have the human bit of the word, after the whole Homo
sapiens discovery and the dilemmas after. In spite of that, what about the rest of the word, the
“ity” part that completes the expression “humanity”? You certainly owned the absolute term at
least once in the life of humankind, but you misplaced it. You lost it, found it and left it in a
horde, humanity. I have a question for you all. What is the criteria for a situation to be known
to every individual, to be consequential enough to gain the conscious of the world web? I
believe that the matter circling around humans alone is adequate for reactions from around the
global village. Similarly, the situation of the children of Jammu and Kashmir, illegally occupied
by Indians, being under lockdown is significant enough to not stay silent for. Not anymore at
the minimum.
The clampdown in occupied Kashmir by the India government completed its one year in August,
2020, with life far from normal for millions of Kashmiri children. You think you had it hard,
staying at home with your family during quarantine? Along with their four hundred day lockout,
the coronavirus lockdown only added to the hardships of the Kashmiri. Did it ever occur to you
that when mother-nature forced you to quarantine yourself due to COVID-19, it was perhaps to
make you realize what every Kashmiri is going through since 5 th of August 2019? What no one
understands is that Kashmir is at the state of war every single day, security operations against
Kashmiri freedom fighters have accelerated, which has put 2020 on course to be one of the
bloodiest years for quite a while. With no access to social media, the Kashmiris have no way of
communication, which leads them to anticipate that no one has their back, that the world is
inaudible and that the only escape they have is through themselves. Remaining in lockdown for
thirteen months is torture itself for the Kashmiri children. On top of this, the young also get
tormented through the sufferings of their loved ones. A recent case of this kind of occurrence
was the killing of a harmless elderly man in front of an innocent minor who also happened to be
his grandson, during a gun battle with Kashmiri freedom fighters, in July 2020. The only ones
who were concerned with this incident were the relatives of the victim, who even troubled
themselves to protest and shout slogans as they grieved. Disregarding all religious beliefs
regarding the prospects of community, this practice does not even come in the vicinity of being
humane or portraying any sort of humanity.
Fast forwarding a decade since the emergence of this matter, our now covered with
technological wires sphere got auto updated, without the “What’s New and How to Use” guide.
Regardless of that, you humans figured the whole system out and made good use of it. Citizens
in every part of the world post everything on the net, starting from their outfit of the day to
local and global concerns. You didn’t hesitate to post an Instagram story regarding the
Australian wildfires, you didn’t once stop to think before tweeting a picture of yourself taking
part in a “Black Lives Matter” protest, and neither did you ever get cold feet while signing
petitions seeking justice for victims of police brutality, then why? Why not Kashmir? Why not
the children who haven’t seen the light of day for four hundred days? Why not the adolescents
who instead of having their faces covered in whipped cream have blood on them? Is this not an
issue big enough to invite your attention?
Internationally, this subject is most definitely familiar to renowned organizations. What they
are unaware of, are the further sub divisions of the worldly known Kashmir situation, including
the one year lockdown till now. What is the reason behind this unawareness? The lack of
concern, the absence of involvement, the non-existence of knowledge regarding any captured
and deprived region for that matter, and most importantly, the uncommonness of humanity.
For additional reference, Kashmir is the only piece of land which, exactly one year after gaining
independence from the foreign rule, was invaded by the Indians. Today, there is not a single
soul in Kashmir who has seen more than one year of independency, let alone the children. In
fact, countless generations of Kashmir nationals do not even have an insight of being truly
independent. There is no feeling in the world that can describe the deprivation of freedom.
Even in the years of being under the control of the Indians, all that the Kashmiri see is
bloodshed and warfare, the mothers of the children go through emotional sufferings, just
imagining if their child is even alive in this vile lockdown, and the children, live like prisoners in
their birth place, without knowing that there is such life beyond, where people are by-standing
this behavior against their wounded little souls. What do you exactly do though? You observe
everything from the front row seats, situated around the globe connected through the
electronic highway, but instead of recording the observation for further action, you silently
delete it and post a Snapchat story on how raccoons dying in your locality is brutal.
Drawing things to a close, pretending to be mute and deaf would not prove to be of any worth,
its torture to the human brain itself. Watching people die, listening to the vivid screams of
children staying in the dark and the sounds of gunshots will ring in your ears, at least until you
feel guilty and responsible. All because you said nothing. You, as a witness were of no help to
the police in investigating the case. Till now, I presume that you, being citizens of this heavenly
body acquired the basics of fulfilling your duty as a fellow earthling and an individual human by
giving the mute an actual voice and by not just being an onlooker.
Regards,
Fellow Spectator.