Identity is a stranger's cloak. There are people around us who are losing their lives in their quest to establish their identity..their existence.
The ' new face of politics' looked sincere as Priya Dutt , Chandrasekhar(Junior)Muhammad Hamidullah Sayeed, Anurag Thakur and a flank of young Parliamentarians appealed to the youth of Kashmir for peaceful dialogue.
This made it to the front page of the Hindu.
In the next page the Prime Minster assured us that no political resolution would be passed until normalcy was established.
Normalcy, what is normal about India ?
While the Commonwealth officials finance their next 3 generations by ruthless, pilfering of public funds,appointment of dummy Australian marketing organisaions,dubbed SCAMCO instead of SPAMCO, the Orissa tribals find more wisdom in the directives of the Maoists than the official diatribe of the state.
What is the commonality between the youth of Kashmir, and the Maoists of Chattishgarh, AP and Orissa ..the youth have no future to look forward to and no one has the empathy of the 'Reality t.v enamoured' nation.
We who have escaped being born into a victimised state of socio-economic deprivation react to the unfairness of the system , by changing channels. The icing on the cake is the packaging of tv journalism. For example, 'The screen will hit you with poignant frames of impoverished adivasis in Orissa , malnourished children, accompanied by young girls who have been rescued by the police from indentured prostitution'....and then the ad frame- Voila!
The Newest, Glitziest Toyota introduced in the market.
This is the normalcy of India. This is the shame which we bear as our pride. We revel in our insensitivity.I believe there is much to learn from the people against whom the state is at war.
In their insubordination, they are building an identity, they own a value.
The Maoists want to launch,'A People's War' and cripple the state from within , establish a 'people's government' .Young Kashmiris have made pelting stones at the police a 'TGIF' (Thank God It's Friday)activity, but at least in the last twenty years they have been consistent in their resolve of demanding autonomy. Fragmenting or paralysing, the movements, the people within them have a face, a mission, a goal.
As we channel surf through all national misadventures , we the republic assert our democratic right to be divorced from the nation we live in. The identity of ' Youngisthan' is packaged in cola and self-serving ignorance. We might as well give up the hope of ever building an identity?
