A footballer returns

CALL it mother’s love or coercive persuasion, but the end was sweet. A Kashmiri youngster, barely out of teens, teetered on the point of no return; but, with his parents urging him to renounce his new-found gun-toting friends, he returned to the mainstream with a helping hand from the security forces. Kashmir needs more such Majid Khans, who walked unarmed into an Army base and renounced the path he had taken barely a week back. Instead of totting up one more chalk-mark on their kill-or-arrest blackboard, the security forces have aided his absorption into society by withholding the full force of the law.

Majid might, at best, be arraigned under the Arms Act. This is a much different ending from the usual trajectory of hardly-trained youngsters getting gunned down after pulling off a caper or two of targeting security convoys with a random burst of gunfire. It also speaks of a unity of purpose among the security forces which was in short supply in several past instances. But the civil society in Kashmir has to travel a long distance before it can persuade back more of the gullible youth to give up their infatuation with the gun and its potential to solve problems.

But a solitary swallow doesn’t make a summer. Kashmir has mostly been subjected to fake sympathy. The policy of tough love, lack of a political solution and an atmosphere of siege has kept the assembly line of militants going: one Burhan Wani gets replaced by another; only a few turn out to be Majid Khans. The dispatch of the Interlocutor to the Valley shows that New Delhi has realised the heightened alienation that was reflected in 7 per cent voting in the Srinagar Lok Sabha byelections and indefinite postponement of elections for Anantnag, a seat held by the present Chief Minister. Whatever tricks and strategies Delhi has up its sleeve, these must be geared towards Kashmiris reposing their faith in the Indian democracy’s promise to address their desires and dreams. Kashmir has lost too many youngsters to the culture of the gun. It needs to gain more Majid Khans.