Integrity Score 120
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To be realistic, we made great efforts, we never won freedom and we did not even live with dignity and respect.
This story reminded the hard narratives of thousands of young people seeking freedom in my country.
Not Just Cricket continues....
During the three-hour drive from Srinagar, we regularly passed military convoys and many makeshift camps housing security forces. Soon, we reached the house where Sajjad’s secretary had asked me to come.
It was the day when Sajjad was launching his campaign, one that many felt could be a turning point in Kashmir’s political history. I introduced myself as a Kashmiri Pandit on a journey of rediscovery with no malice or hatred in my heart.
Busy, distracted and on a tight schedule, Sajjad briefly said that he was happy to let me be part of his entourage for the day, which included few scheduled meetings in villages surrounding the town.
That day, I saw first-hand how difficult it was for Sajjad to make people understand his turnaround from being a hardcore supporter of Azadi to now agreeing to swear by the Indian Constitution.
Over the course of my interactions with him on that day and some other occasions since, I found him to be a pragmatic person. He said that after the 9/11 terror attacks in the USA, the world had changed forever. ‘Let us be realistic, we can now never get Azadi and have to look for options that allow us to live with dignity and respect,’ he stated.
He carried his late father’s walking stick everywhere to serve as a reminder to his people that he was carrying forward Ghani Lone’s legacy.
Sajjad would emphasize in his speeches that he had not sold out to India but would now air their grievances in the Parliament. On the way to one of the villages, we had lunch at a local’s home, and later had tea at someone else’s home; in each place he did not forget to remind his assistants to take care of me. In one of the public meetings, he even forced me to sit on the makeshift stage with him, and told people that a Kashmiri Pandit from Delhi was among them and it was their duty to rebuild the old, broken bridges.
To be continued...