Developing mutual understanding among all the stakeholders may provide a starting point towards the lasting solution
Ravi Nitesh
World has celebrated International Human Rights Day on December 6. Conferences, seminars, debates and other programs have been organised all over the world. Many promises were made and governments and NGOs repeat the pledge to protect the human rights. All these activities brought us a hope for future of a better world with harmony and coexistence.
In fact the issue of human rights exist in our society since ancient era and we all were enjoying our rights knowingly or unknowingly, but with the time, we formed groups, developed society and framed a set of rules to avoid conflicts. Here at this point, sometimes absolute freedom faced restrictions, sometimes groups, kings, and governments forced new rules as per their interest and thus it was needed to form a well defined guidelines for human being to let them aware about their rights (and duties too) and to live happily without fear of any.
The most important factor of human rights is our civil and political rights because these rights include the most necessary duties of government. Some rights in this section are: Right to life, Right to freedom of speech and expression, Right to equality before law and because of its nature to have certain rights against government (against because we demand it from government or state), here the conflicts come more often. No government wants to give absolute freedom and it imposes restrictions on its citizens. By the time, it has been observed by various survey agencies that in this world, there are many places where human is unable to enjoy its freedom. Apart from its pros and cons, the simple way is to live your life happily and raise your voice whenever and wherever someone harms your dignity, happiness or freedom.
J&K is one of the places where the human rights violation is the matter of grave concern. Now in the context of J&K, everybody is aware about violations of rights there. Under the AFSPA, one have right to kill which is totally opposite to our right to life, one have right to arrest without warrant which is mimicry of right to know. Voice raisers are the prime target of government, and security agencies. Recent attacks on leaders and FIR on whistle blowers shows the violations of right to speech and expressions. Kashmir is most militarized zone in the world. The Government always detest human rights agencies from visiting Kashmir. However they are granted permission, they came out horrifying revelations about the human right abuses.
Kashmir, which is blessed with beautiful mountains, open meadows, rivers, saffron and nuts, is replaced by stones, teargas, and bullets. Why the peace of this paradise is lost? Who is responsible?
Over the yeas the situation has become more complicated and instant solution is nearly impossible. Developing mutual understanding among all the stakeholder may become a starting point towards the lasting solution. In fact, there must be a debate about an issue which is common to all stakeholders. . Let us start with the issue of human rights; if a resolution be passed: no human rights violation should be accepted and voice should be raised against those who are responsible.
There is need to create awareness about rights and duties of general public so that they can understand their importance. If we move with a common minimum programme, it will be fruitful for future and it will help in developing a better understanding and empowering people. This collective effort will bring an environment where human will be free and will be treated as human.
Author resides in New Delhi. He is petroleum engineer, social activist, blogger, and Student of Human Rights. He can be mailed at ravinitesh@gmail.com
(Published in Rising Kashmir dated 27 DEC 2010)
http://www.risingkashmir.com/news/let-us-work-together-4842.aspx
