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Mobile restoration an opportunity for residents

ThE opening of mobile services in Kashmir on Monday is an opportunity for the people of the Valley to put themselves on the track to normalcy, for that can pave the way for more opportunities coming their way.

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Arun Joshi

The opening of mobile services in Kashmir on Monday is an opportunity for the people of the Valley to put themselves on the track to normalcy, for that can pave the way for more opportunities coming their way. That should also enable the Centre to fulfil all promises that it has made to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, especially to those in the Valley where each household has a story of hardships to tell.

The mantra now is simple: “Sooner the normalcy returns, the doors of opportunities will open wider.” The restoration of the mobile connectivity is not an end in itself. There are many more things to happen, and those can happen only when this opening is seen as an opportunity. A burnout would be suicidal.

It is time to realise that the government, as Principal Secretary Planning, and government spokesperson Rohit Kansal, pointed out at his press conference in Srinagar on Saturday, that the decision to open the mobile connectivity should be read as a continuation of the previous decisions, starting with the opening of schools, restoration of land line services, lifting of travel advisory for tourists, setting up of Internet kiosks at the tourist places. The combined effect should help bring normalcy. More than 80 per cent of the grievances, he claimed, had been addressed, with the opening of the mobile services.

Kashmiris have suffered immensely in the absence of the mobile connectivity for over two months. They were living in an island where the world’s modern devices and means of communication were rendered useless.

How can one forget that Kashmiris’ hardships multiplied when they found themselves out of touch with the world? In the modern-day world, the communications and instant connectivity serve as a means to maintain relations, attend to emergencies and conduct trade and business. It is a human necessity of the modern-day world.

The next step should be to look at the restoration of the Internet services to complete the circle of full communication that was ripped apart on August 4-5 midnight. Everything went off. Keyboards started gathering dust.

Nothing was in sight on the blank screens of the mobile phones. Landlines went lifeless. Lease lines were shut. The communication channels in all their forms and manifestations were ordered shut.

The government had its own reasons for doing so. There was a widespread fear of eruption of furious and violent reaction to the scrapping of Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. It had been apprehended that a virulent and terror-triggering campaign from across the border on social media, calling the youth to protest, could result in a series of carnages. The fears were not unfounded. The speeches and actions of Pakistan in the post August 5 era have proven that.

A question was repeated endlessly, “Is a phone call important or the call to graves?” It was a genuine question. But equally genuine concern was, “How do we attend to emergencies.” Both views had their valid reasoning. The extraordinary patience of the people after the “big bang” August 5 announcements – demise of the special status of J&K, its statehood and bifurcation into Union Territories – are recorded in the Kashmiri mind.

The government has offered opportunity by lifting restrictions on mobile connectivity, and it can earn the confidence and deliver on its promises only when the newspapers are published with the latest news from the nation and the world around, traders can exchange notes unhindered. For that, it is necessary to shed the captivity to orthodoxies. It applies to all.

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