The Kashmiri Intifada

The corridors of power from Srinagar to Delhi and from Islamabad to Washington have been shaken by the uprising of Kashmiri youth. For the past ten weeks, major parts of the valley have seen widespread protests, strikes and unrest. Everyday life has been brought to a standstill in most districts including Srinagar by this forceful movement. And the attempts to crush the movement on the part of the state apparatus are adding fuel to the fire.

The present movement began on June 11 when police fired on protesters in Rajori Srinagar, which resulted in the death of a young man. The police fired tear gas shells right into the protesters which hit a 17-year old student, Tufail Mattoo, in the head and killed him. The news of this gruesome murder provoked a series of protests in Srinagar and cities and towns of the Indian-occupied part of Kashmir. The police immediately imposed a curfew. But despite the curfew two thousand protesters came onto streets on June 12 and demanded legal action against the culprits responsible for the murder within 24 hours. The police and administration used the curfew and brutal repression to control the situation and arrested many protesters.

These acts flared up the uprising even further. On June 14 there was a general strike and there were numerous protests against this barbarism. In some places the youth broke the curfew by force to hold protests and 7 youngsters were critically injured in the clashes. In more than two months the Indian Army and Kashmir Police have killed 70 people in their attempts to curb the movement. These figures are vigorously disputed by the youth in the movement. In the face of arrests, curfews, and barbaric state repression the movement that began on June 14 still continues with the same fervour.

Background

Although an act of violence by the occupying Indian forces sparked the present movement, its real cause can be found in the events of the past 20 years taking place in Kashmir and around the world. Right after partition the newborn states of India and Pakistan tried unsuccessfully to occupy and control Kashmir. This resulted in a an agonising and unfinished partition of Kashmir which has manifested itself in uninterrupted poverty, misery, unemployment and the worst form of occupation on the one hand and on the other it has been a source of constant tension, even wars between India and Pakistan.

The mass anger and hatred of the Kashmiris against Indian occupation found its expression in the revolt of 1987. The militant movement that started in 1987 took the form of an armed insurgency. The tactics of individual terrorism and guerrilla attacks provided the Indian army with an excuse to unleash a savage state terrorism and oppression. Seven hundred thousand regular and paramilitary troops ravaged the valley to quell the struggle. Eighty-thousand lost their lives, thousands of women were raped. Hundreds of homes were burnt down and thousands more were forced to migrate. The Indian army posted in Kashmir has special unlimited powers allowing them to question people on the basis of doubt, arrests without warrant, home searches at any time, and other draconian acts.

The armed insurgency lost its momentum by the mid-1990s and since then it has decreased and now it is almost dead. But the army still has the same powers and the deployment has not been reduced. In Srinagar there is an army check-post every one or two miles where the pedestrians have to undergo humiliating body searches. Women are also mistreated at these check posts.

Protests against this military repression have become a daily routine of the Kashmiri masses and youth. This military repression is more naked in the countryside where homes are searched at night and inmates humiliated. Men are tortured and women are raped and those who resist are shot.

While there is Indian military naked aggression against the people of Kashmir, the social, economic and industrial infrastructure of Kashmir has been completely shattered by two decades of violence. There is almost no industrial infrastructure. Unemployment is endemic. According to a Chatham House (a UK think-tank) report published in June 2010, 83% of people on both sides of the Line of Control think that Kashmir’s biggest problem is unemployment.

A great number of Kashmiri students have studied in Indian educational institutions in the past two decades of tensions. The majority of working class parents also have sent their children to different parts of India for education in order to keep them away from the violence. According to an estimate, there are 350,000 Kashmiri students in different Indian educational institutions. In the educational institutions, and generally in India, the Kashmiri youth are considered to be anti-India and trouble makers and thus face discrimination.

This discrimination is so widespread that Kashmiris almost get no jobs in the government sector and very few in the private. The number of job seekers going to the Middle East, Europe and America has also gone down since the turn of the century, mainly due to the crisis and crisis of world capitalism, and especially after the 2008 crash it has almost ceased.

In this situation the majority of Kashmiri youth after completing their education are unable to find any jobs and return to their homes. Already there is a huge number of educated unemployed in Kashmir. The unemployed youth returning from India bring back with them a burning desire for freedom. Their journey back is full of thoughts that the discriminatory attitude they had faced in India is the result of Indian occupation of their land. They think that if they achieve freedom all their problems including unemployment can end. These are the conditions which have given immense courage and vigour to this movement of Kashmir’s youth.

Starting in 2004, under imperialist pressure, the phoney peace process, even on the diplomatic level, stalled. In the beginning of this peace process the media and the NGOs started the false propaganda about a solution of Kashmir’s problem through negotiations which would result in “peace and prosperity”, but now after six years these NGOs and the mass media are criminally silent in their despair.

The masses never really had any hopes in this peace process, as capitalist exploitation has increased manifold in this period along with state repression. There is state repression, vicious exploitation by capitalism, denial of even fundamental democratic freedoms, occupation, economic impoverishment, the agony of widespread unemployment. A new generation has grown up in this environment and resulting from the combination of all these factors has in the past two decades has risen up and challenged all forms of slavery and exploitation.

Youth and the movement

The engine of this movement in Kashmir is the youth and most of them are below the age of 24. Like all other movements of the youth, this movement is full of unrelenting valour, unshaken resolve and passionate fervour. But what makes this movement really unique is that it has not only completely abandoned the path of armed struggle of the past movements but also completely rejected the rotten programme of all the political parties of Kashmir, along with their compromising leadership’s tactics of negotiating with imperialist masters. Their collective struggle is based on the basic problems and fundamental issues affecting theirs lives and in fact this is the beginning of a struggle to uproot capitalism.

Even without the leadership of an experienced political leader or a party, the way the movement is being carried forward shows that the youth in the movement, if not consciously but surely have learnt a lesson from past movements that the tactics of armed struggle and negotiations have failed and are futile. The political maturity of the youth is mentioned by the famous Indian journalist and analyst Kaldip Nayyar in the August 20 edition of the Dawn thus:

“Put your ears to the ground and listen carefully. You may hear a new sound in Kashmir. This is a different voice from the usual All Parties Hurriyat Conference call for an immediate solution or from the rhetoric of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of Mehbooba Mufti. This is the cry of post-insurgency youth, born after 1989… This is violent in the sense that the protesters pelt stones, but different because they have not taken arms from Pakistan as the militants had apparently done. Nor have they any ‘top contacts’. This angry, amorphous force has no defined leadership. The baton of the movement is in the hands of the new generation. What binds them together is the anger against the establishment in Srinagar and in Delhi.”

Violence becomes inevitable in a movement erupting out of such occupation and repression. In a region where peaceful protests against the lack of even the basic necessities of life are fired upon by the police and the army, in such a tense violent environment, the youth are left with no other option but to throw stones in order to break free from the fear of the state and as a means to retaliate against it. But throwing stones at police is a very peaceful way of struggle given the history and level of violence in Kashmir. It would be criminal to label this retaliation by “stone pelters” as violent. Stone throwing is becoming the weapon of choice for the Kashmiri youth movement.

The BBC Urdu website published the views of one of the youth in the protest movement on stone throwing on July 17:

“Majid, 15, is a resident of Maysmah, which is one of the most sensitive bazaars of Srinagar. His close friend 17 years old Abrar was shot and killed recently in front of his eyes. Abrar took his last breath in Majid’s lap. After this incident Majid has left his education and joined the movement. Majid says ‘I have seen with my own eyes that the policemen killed Abrar intentionally. I have left my education and the only way for me is stone throwing’. There are thousands more like him whose hearts are filled with a passion of revolt resulting from state brutality. Kashmiri youngsters say, ‘The Indian army violates the constitution in their own country but they are decorated with medals and awards and when we protest against this violation we are labelled as terrorists. It seems that the government wants us to become stone throwers. The worst thing is that if you are a stone thrower the police will beat you, but if you are not one, the police will beat you so much that you will certainly become one’.”

Stone throwing is a part of an organized strategy of the youth movement. The youth uprising is not just limited to an angry reaction. In the daylight the state brutality is responded to with stone throwing, and there is a tin pounding movement by night to avert arrests. At night in every part of town, the youngsters stay on guard on the rooftops in shifts, with large tin cans filled with stones which are pounded to give early warnings on seeing the police or the army, and also they make howling sounds to scare off the police and army away.

The youth do not only have a strategy limited to defeating state repression but also about how to deal with all the political parties, particularly the APHC (All Parties Huriyat Conference) and other separatist organizations who are showing hypocritical support for the movement. The stone throwers have announced that if any faction of the APHC calls off the movement, they will launch a campaign against it.

Retired Commissioner of Baramula, Nur Ud Din told the BBC: “The boys now distrust the elders. They fear compromise and they want to carry forward this movement in their own way.”

The youth in the movement don’t trust any party or leader. All political parties and tendencies have lost their efficacy, from the religious fundamentalists to the pro-India parties and from so called national liberationists to pro-Pakistan groups. With the exception of the pro-India National Conference, Congress and BJP, all factions of the APHC, Liberaton front and Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP have announced their support for this movement, but the youngsters do not accept their leadership and do not agree with their policies and programmes.

It was believed that the leader of the hard-line faction of the APHC, Syed Ali Shah Gillani, had some credibility amongst the youth and that is why the Indian and Kashmiri rulers have released him from house arrest so that he can control the movement. On August 14, when home minister P. Chadambaram was briefing parliament on Kashmir’s situation, Ali Gillani appeared on TV and announced an end to the stone throwing movement and stated that he or his party had nothing to do with it. There was public outcry against this statement and the stone throwers made it clear that their movement is not under the control of any individual or an organisation and no one could call it off. They vowed to continue the movement.

Professor of Political Science at Jammu University, Rekha Choudary, commented on the situation, “I think the boys are as angry at the Separatist leaders as much as they are with India”.

On August 15 during the official ceremony of Indian Independence day held in Bakhshi stadium in Srinagar a young policeman (on VVIP security duty) threw his shoe at the Chief Minister Umar Abdullah to express his hatred. This incident of throwing a shoe at the Chief Minister during the Indian Independence Day ceremony is an expression of the widespread class hatred, condemnation of the so called Independence gained in 1947 and a revolt against the submission of the Kashmiri rulers to the Indian State, which is common across all sections of Kashmiri society and also runs deep in the lower ranks of state institutions.

Repression, reforms and the movement

The government of Kashmir has used the state’s oppressive machine with extreme brutality to crush the movement starting on June 11. A hundred and fifty thousand police and 40,000 paramilitary troops are being ignominiously defeated by the young stone throwers. When this force of 190,000 police and paramilitary troops failed to crush the movement, despite measures such as curfews, arrests, torture and murders, the ruling class admitted its defeat and called in the army on July 6 to control the situation. A 30,000 strong Rapid Action Force has been deployed in Srinagar.

The youth has justifiably understood that the deployment of the army is their success and a defeat for the state. Against the hopes of the rulers, this sense of victory has given a renewed hope and passion to the youth and they have come forward with renewed spirit against the army rather than being afraid.

However, the army has been much more brutal in its methods of repression. On July 7 a state of emergency was declared and all media was blocked. The curfew passes of media persons were revoked and their movement was prohibited. Newspapers were not allowed to publish and the duration of news on the TV was reduced from one hour to ten minutes. SMS service on mobile phones was also blocked across the valley.

Also a savage spree of arrests was started, based on the video footage of past protests. This rampage by the state authorities shows that they are losing control of the situation. An indefinite curfew across the valley was thus imposed and 1500 youngsters were immediately arrested including many boys of 13 and 14 years.

This was the first movement in Kashmir since 1947, whose story was consciously blacked out by the Pakistani state and media. This fact shows that the movement of Kashmiri youth and its character is a challenge to the ruling classes of the subcontinent and their decaying capitalist system and the rulers and the media of both states are in an undeclared alliance to kill the movement.

However, all this repression has failed to crush the movement. This was admitted by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who appeared live on TV on August 11 and appealed to the Kashmiri youth to become peaceful and work for a new beginning. After this admission of defeat of the Indian Army’s brutality, a package of reforms is being announced. It cannot be ruled out that the statement made by the Indian PM is an expression of the fear that the failure in crushing the movement by force in Kashmir will spread demoralization and despair within the Army itself, which is caught in similar long unwinnable battles against the Maoists in other parts of the country.

So far the most active layer of the movement has been youth, but it would not be right to say that only the youth have participated in the movement over the last two months. It was the general unrest in Kashmiri society that was expressed by the youth movement and the masses are strongly sympathetic and supportive of the movement. Perhaps for the first time women and children have played a significant and defiant role in huge numbers. The uprising is getting so intense that in the middle of July in Srinagar, Baramula, Sopour and many other areas a great number of women came out in the protests despite the curfew and many were tortured by the state forces. This situation can decisively push the Kashmiri working class, mainly in the services sector, into the struggle. Their conditions of existence are appalling. For them it is the only way forward for survival.

The working class

The situation in Indian-Occupied Kashmir has never been stable in the past two decades. According to the Director General of Police, Kaldip Kamhar Khada, in 20 years of armed insurgency 2008 saw the lowest levels of violence, but it was in that year that a mass movement erupted against the government’s allotment of land to a Hindu religious organisation named Amarnath Yatra Board. That movement, which continued from June 23 to July 1 and then from August 11 to December 5, was the first without any involvement of religious terrorist groups. Despite this, 63 people were killed by the police and the army during the protests, and more than 1500 were injured. In 2009 in the southern district of Shopiyyan there were violent protests and strikes against the murder of two women by security forces.

National Conference got the highest number of votes in the 2008 Kashmir assembly elections. During the election campaign they promised in their manifesto that after coming to power they would remove the military bases from the populated areas and according to the recommendations of the 6^th National Commission there would be a 40% increase in salaries and thousands of new jobs would be created. But the National Conference and Congress’s coalition government has failed to deliver on these promises.

On the contrary, the government has announced an increase in the retirement age in Kashmir. On April 1, 2009, 500,000 workers went on strike for one week against the increase in the retirement age and for an increase in salaries as per the 6th National Commission along with the arrears of six years. The strike ended on the promise from the government of getting more funds from the federal government due to a shortage of financial resources.

On March 9, 2010, 650,000 workers went on strike for five days. But the government did not agree to their demands and the workers’ organisations also feared that increasing the retirement age would result in no new government jobs for the next five years which could infuriate the youth. The strike was called off and on April 9 there was another strike on the same demands in which 500,000 workers took part.

State repression is not only limited against the youth, the workers on strike were attacked using brutal torture, arrests, and forced dismissal from service of striking workers by the rulers of Indian Kashmir. The three general strikes in the last two years lasting a week each show that class contradictions are intensifying and are consequently fuelling the class struggle. The intensifying global capitalist meltdown will give rise to storms of stronger, more militant and fresh class movements in the coming period.

Character and perspectives of the movement

In his book “Kashmir’s Ordeal”, Lal Khan narrates an anecdote of one of the stooges of the Indian state:

“After the arrest of Sheikh Abdullah in 1953, Bakhshi Ghulam Muhammad was awarded the throne of Kashmir who strongly asked the Indian rulers to keep the cash coming. When asked by the Indians about the utilization of such sums of money he replied that while the Indians could not keep one pro-Indian Kashmiri leader Shaikh Abdullah with them, he had to indianize four million Kashmiris which cannot be done without money. When asked whether Kashmiris could really be bought he replied in his typical satirical style that he would not buy, rather an experiment to alter the DNA of Kashmiris would have to be conducted, and only after that could there be the slightest of hopes of making them Indian.”

Such insult shows the Indian rulers’ desire to occupy Kashmir through the most reliable agents of India and exhibits the imperialist designs of the Indian elite. From the rulers’ perspective the situation in Kashmir is moving in a very dangerous direction. Detailed analysis of the two months of this movement clearly shows that this was much more than an angry reaction by the youth, it was an organised movement, carried forwarded in a very disciplined and planned way. The leadership of the movement may not be made up of famous figures but they are very aware, courageous and serious. To throw stones in the face of the firing of a savage army with the latest and most lethal weapons, unlimited powers and hundred of thousands in number, to avert arrests by patrolling the streets and thumping tin cans requires a very high level of courage and determination without which it would not have been possible to carry this movement forward even for a few days.

The movement has shown that along with their zeal, learning from experiences and using creativity, the youth have learnt the necessary skill and tactics required to carry on the movement. Moreover they have shown a very high level of political understanding by not trusting the leadership or the programme of the existing political parties, including the separatists because all of the leaders maintain their privileges intact. Hence, the desire of these leaders for a “peaceful freedom” through negotiations and reforms remaining within the confines of capitalism.

Distrust in these parties reveal that the youth are well aware of the fact that the methods and programmes of all these parties have become obsolete and the leaderships of all parties confine themselves to the present socio-economic setup. Most of them have capitulated to either the Indian or Pakistani states in a compromise. No party has the credibility to lead the present struggle of the youth.

Another leader blown out of proportion by the dominant media, Yasin Malik, who is dubbed as a “double agent of the RAW and the ISI” by the youth in struggle, has totally denied any social or economic problems in Kashmir and declared it as a prosperous state in a TV interview of September 15. This is adding insult upon injury for the toiling masses that have been forced into drudgery by the vicious exploitation of this rotting capitalism in Kashmir. On the other hand the young leadership have come to the conclusion that the question now is not merely of limited autonomy or formal independence but of the complete overthrow and transformation of this decaying system and the brutal state.

Under the yoke of brutal Indian occupation every movement and struggle of the youth and the working class has to fight state oppression from the very beginning. That is why the slogan of freedom from the Indian state becomes the initial demand, but the fundamental character of any movement determines what is really meant by this slogan.

The character of the movement shows that there is growing radicalisation in Kashmiri society and particularly among the youth, and the distrust in religious and so called nationalist parties is proof that this radicalisation is clearly going towards the left. The CPI(M) which has some basis in Kashmir if not vast support, but it needs to provide a clear programme of revolutionary socialism that would inevitably connect with the aspirations of this movement and transform the whole dimension of the conflict in Kashmir on both sides of the ‘line of control’. If the central leadership of CPI(M) instead of following the policy of bourgeois Indian nationalism and the so-called “national democratic revolution” based on the two-stage theory, were to adopt a clear Leninist class policy on the national question by providing solutions to all the problems, including that of national liberation, linked to a socialist revolution and unite the struggle in Kashmir with the class struggle of the Indian proletariat, the state would face a formidable challenge that it would not be able to confront and would be forced to withdraw its armed forces and end these brutalities. Such a victory would open up the floodgates of a revolutionary upheaval throughout the South Asian subcontinent. The compromising policies of the left parties’ central leadership have crippled the CPIM in Kashmir and it has thus failed to gain the support among the youth which it could easily have won.

Any movement, however zealous it may be, cannot go on forever. Every movement has its beginning, its pinnacle and depending on its victory or defeat, also an end. Similarly this uprising of the youth is only the starting point of a new movement in Kashmir. This movement will go on with many ebbs and flows in the coming few years. The ruling classes, their state and media will try to impose leaders who will betray, and taint it with religious and other prejudices.

From all this the advanced layers of the movement will swiftly reach many important conclusions, will feel the need for and strive to make up for the ideological, organisational and strategical deficiencies in their movement. These are the lack of a correct scientific ideology, programme and an organised revolutionary party and leadership. In this situation they will be pushed by their experiences towards the ideas of revolutionary socialism and Marxism.

The increasing crisis of global capitalism and the working class movements, from Venezuela to Iran, from Kirghizstan to Thailand and other regions, will push this radicalisation further towards the left. Especially the growing forces of Marxism across the Line of Control in Pakistani Occupied Kashmir and in Pakistan would have a major impact on the workers and youth in India and occupied Kashmir.

The reactionary rulers of the subcontinent have been shaking in fear from the beginning of this movement. They will use each and every means at their disposal to stop this radicalisation. If it proves impossible to conduct terrorist activities through Pakistani backing, the Indian army has it own pet terrorists who could be used to tarnish the movement.

According to reports by the BBC vast areas of forest are occupied by the terrorists groups who are under the complete control of the Indian Army and the high officials of the army posted in Kashmir are involved in timber smuggling through these groups. A small scale war between Pakistan and India cannot be ruled out if the movement goes beyond a certain point. Although there are many other factors contributing to this confrontation, as a diversion and as a means of crushing the movements in the current situation a war between India and Pakistan would be the last option, not the first.

Thus, the rulers would prefer terrorism and a proxy war to maintain the status quo in the current circumstances. It will not be possible to temporarily cool things down using reforms at a time when the deep crisis of global capitalism has forced the gradual withdrawal of the benefits that the working class had won as a result of their struggles in the strong capitalist countries of America and Europe. The high growth rates of “shining” India have not even touched Kashmir in the last decade. There is no room for any real reforms or improvement in the plight of the Kashmiri peoples.

That is why the promise of economic reforms and the creation of 50,000 new jobs in Kashmir made by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is nothing more than a deception. On the other hand implementing any kind of political reform such as autonomy is also not possible since there are separatist movements in 19 different Indian states, including Kashmir. Giving any such concession to Kashmir or any other state would be a declaration of India’s disintegration.

The problem is that the struggle in Kashmir has been of the longest duration and is the most daring of all and full of sacrifices. The ruling classes and states of India and Pakistan have used it as a political football. These rulers have used the bloody game in Kashmir to safeguard their interests and as a means to continue their exploitation and oppression of the masses in the whole of the subcontinent. The local elite of Kashmir have also been playing with these dirty manoeuvres of the Indian and Pakistani regimes.

Time and again the masses of Kashmir, and specially the youth, have been crushed by state repression but the movement keeps on erupting. However, the present movement is in the hands of a different and a new generation (which was raised in the violent period) and instead of emotional slogans and metaphysical ideologies it is based on the firm realities of deprivation with clear economic and social demands. The rulers of India cannot therefore label it as being sponsored by Pakistan or Islamic fundamentalism.

This has lead to two significant changes in India. First, there are cracks in the common attitude towards the Kashmir movement even amongst the Indian intelligentsia and for the first time the Indian rulers do not have a unanimous strategy about how to tackle the movement. Second, is the fact that the maintenance of the status quo would not end the movement; rather it will rise again and again.

The experiences of the movements and sacrifices have clarified the goals for the new generation. They have realised that the real meaning and aim of freedom is an end to hunger, poverty, disease and unemployment. One of the fundamental aims of their struggle is the withdrawal of Indian forces and an end to state oppression. They have learnt from experience that Indian imperialism cannot bring any improvement in their lives. Poverty and impoverishment have always been on the rise here. This revolt is born out of so much pain and misery and it would be very difficult to crush it.

This vicious cycle of protests against murders and murders during protests will not last indefinitely. The defeat of the religious and separatist nationalist parties on the issue of the “Amarnath” temple was the beginning of their political death. When a movement takes on a revolutionary political character, a new leadership emerges. If the movement is temporarily exhausted and ebbs, it will rise again. It will create divisions not only amongst the Indian rulers; the conflicts and tiredness among the agent Kashmiri leaders are also evident now. The old state of Kashmir was divided into eight parts and this movement will affect all of them because the problems are the same everywhere.

This will also have a revolutionary impact in Pakistani Occupied Kashmir where the Marxist forces are already growing and gaining popular support. The JKNSF has gained a mass basis amongst the youth on a revolutionary programme and with the slogan, “Freedom is our aim, Socialism is our destiny”.

This is ringing alarm bells in the echelons of power in Pakistan. The mysterious silence, indifference, apathy of the Pakistani state shows the fear of this youth movement in their hearts. They fear that such a movement can end their imperialist occupation across the border. The rulers of Pakistan and India who have constantly quarrelled over the “Kashmir dispute” could very soon join their hands in crushing the revolutionary youth on both sides. The indiscriminate firing by the Indian Army is an expression of this desperation of the state. The real need is of penetration of the ideas of revolutionary socialism in this movement and a programme, strategy and a leadership based on it, which could gain support and solidarity for the struggle against the Indian and Pakistan rulers on a class basis from other parts of the subcontinent and the world over.

However, a socialist revolution in Kashmir cannot remain confined to its borders; in fact it is very difficult to carry out a socialist revolution within Kashmir alone without the class solidarity and active participation of the working masses of Pakistan and India and even if a revolution were to be victorious it could not be sustained for long the capitalist imperialist states of India and Pakistan remain intact. But the situation is changing not only in Kashmir; there are new revolutionary storms that impend across the horizon, across the whole of the subcontinent. The conditions for social upheaval and militant class struggle are being created everywhere.

The courageous uprising of the youth in Kashmir is thus a taste of what is to come elsewhere. It is a prelude to a future of revolutionary events and socialist victories that will shape the communist future of the human race. This will bring into being a society that will abolish all forms of national oppression, tyranny, misery, deprivation and need. It will put an end to the exploitation of man by man and the emancipation of the whole of the working people. Such a society would lay the material base upon which all today’s ills could be removed. The youth of Kashmir are showing the way. They will be followed by the workers and once the working class of the subcontinent moves it will put the final nail in the coffin of this rotten system.

Yasir Irshad in Kashmir

Photos by kashmiridibbler