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I am political, emotionally and intellectually exhausted. At this point, I am unable to find the right words to describe the complexity of our time and age. As Orwell writes, “In our age, there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.” Living outside the margins of the language is a curse in a society which has bound politics only to drawing rooms discussions based on shouting on talk shows. The digestion of new ideas has become way too difficult. The scarcity of new vocabulary is narrowing down everything into half-witted prejudices. Therefore, the concept to understand what is happening around and the deconstruction of the events have lost in the midst of all the constructed conclusions.

The question is why such despair when I am living in a country which covers news of my homeland every day. A state which announces holiday as well in solidarity with the living and the dead. The Kashmiris should feel honored that every killing is broadcast by the Pakistani state religiously. The Kashmiris living in Pakistan should thank every politician, state-sponsored expert, activist, and a general when they feel the pain of the cruelty of Indian forces and talk about it in a linear expression on tv screens or stages. The same version of accounts which they repeat millions of times at thousands of platforms. But when they get off from their podiums and television screens, they ensure Kashmiris to know how ungrateful they are.

For this utmost insincerity, I shall thank them?

Kashmir is a perfect scapegoat to create an image of “Insaniyat” for the state. And also for those who are trying to show the real picture of the state that is hiding behind the cloak of “Insaniyat” and killing its own people. The people who are suffering by the hands of a state openly dehumanize the Kashmiri struggle which is against another state to take off masks from the culprits face. The effort is now confined to few mere slogans and repetitive, monotonous and futile narratives, as what George Orwell writes, “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” But this narrative is adopted by the resisters as well to support their cause.

With the blood of the people, the war industries in South Asia flourish and bloom. Indian and Pakistani elite make each other feel important by continuing the conflict. Beyond the ideas of nationalism, patriotism, and borders life seems hopeless for them. The duty of the British to manage the occupation is taken by the rulers of modern subcontinent. And hence by those as well who are dissenting against them.

Whom shall I thank more?

The borders were drawn in the minds and language as well. People follow the pattern of emotional sentiments created by the rhetoric so, “they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another — but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying.” Such patterns are followed in every sphere of political debate in South Asia. A political debate which is confined within the borders of thinking and language. But Kashmir is a classic victim of dehumanization; of the state, by the state, for the state. The valid question should be what kind of resister we want to be?

Beyond the demarcations of reasoning and writings. How to get out of the cycle of the same political experiences? Is there any way out? Like Arundhati Roy, while speaking to people in Kashmir said, “Justice is the keystone to integrity and integrity is the keystone to real resistance.”

How can we say I can have justice but not the other man or woman? What sort of society do we imagine for our future generations?