Exclusive Report for Rasa News Agency:

Activist in Indian-Occupied Kashmir:‎ Building yourself through the lockdown in Kashmir

Saif Ali Budgami described the effects of India’s lockdown on Jammu and Kashmir and how ‎the people can engage in self-building despite the present circumstances. ‎

News ID: 450227

Date: 31 May 2020 - 16:13

RNA – In an exclusive report for Rasa News Agency, Saif Ali Budgami, an activist in Indian-‎‎occupied Kashmir, described the effects of India’s lockdown on Jammu and Kashmir and ‎how the people can engage in self-building despite the present circumstances. ‎

The 2019–20 Jammu and Kashmir lockdown refers to a security lockdown and ‎communications blackout imposed to prevent protests during which thousands of people, ‎mostly young men, have been detained in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian government ‎stated that the lockdown is aimed at curbing terrorism.‎

The lockdown started on August 5, 2019 following Revocation of the special status of ‎Jammu and Kashmir via scrapping of the Article 370 of the Constitution of India, Article 35A ‎of the Constitution of India and the introduction of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, ‎‎2019. Since August 5, no foreign journalists have been granted permission from the Indian ‎government to report in Kashmir.‎

Kashmir has been the hub of undeniable personal, public, social, political, religious, ‎emotional, educational and professional issues and problems that have sown the seeds of ‎thorny bushes as hurdles and barricades that ultimately pinch and scratch the careers of ‎students. The growing essence of the modernized lifestyle and the need for modern and ‎civilized education places greater importance on maintaining and balancing the student’s ‎career under this severe lockdown crisis. The continuous closure of educational institutions in ‎Kashmir has led to great changes in the system and has perhaps led to disaster. ‎

Most of the parents and guardians desire to send their children outside Kashmir or abroad for ‎education in an open and unaffected system to develop their educations and career in peace ‎and without any outer interference. Knowing the consequences and loss of their children due ‎to continuous closures, this undoubtedly worked for many of the parents and guardians but ‎at the same time, it has been very difficult for most of the people who live a middle-class ‎life and can’t afford to send their children to develop the state or country to achieve ‎education in a peaceful environment to build their career successfully and the students ‎gaining an education in the Kashmir Valley have gotten used to this environment. There are ‎students, able to analyze the losses and enough mature to cope with the prevailing ‎circumstances, there are students who take the lost opportunities to earn and help their ‎family and there are students who learn while they earn. ‎

I will address all such categories with few suggestive and recommended approaches while ‎experiencing and living such a barricading and hurdling life.‎

I put myself into the same position that you are in because sometimes to grow and to truly ‎change your life yourself under such depressive circumstances, undoubtedly you have to ‎make difficult choices on the gambling table to thrive and become better first, mentally, ‎emotionally and socially, in times of pain. You get so comfortable being uncomfortable that ‎you settle for less when you are destined for success with greatness. Don’t let past ‎sufferings or failures define who, what and where you are because your past doesn’t dictate ‎what your future will be. When you make your plan of transformation remember to visualize ‎to see the end goal, the results of success taking all the prevailing sufferings on the to ‎compromise to struggle. Map out your storybook of triumph under educational and ‎professional disasters.‎

Whether you start any examination or anything major for your career under these ‎circumstances, being under lockdown, it is worth achieving. This means it will take time, ‎discipline, focus, resilience, and determination on your part. You need to be self-reliant and ‎self-dependent during this career crisis. If you quit, you will never know what could have ‎been. ‎

‎“When the unexpected nature of life comes at you full force, disease, divorce, the death of a ‎loved one and a lost job. it will test your faith, but in these difficult times you will see what ‎you are made of when everything changes dramatically.”‎

You see such a crisis will often throw you off balance to the point where you start playing ‎the pity game. Everyone has a right to take a little time to wallow in their grief but then ‎there will come a time when you will have to stop playing the pity game and start taking ‎one-hundred percent responsibility for your life and choices you have made now. Dreams ‎and goals are your responsibility, so if you are not where you want to be in life at the ‎present stage, don’t continue to blame your parents, teachers, institutions, friends, ‎government or God. Instead, even on these darkest days, take just a moment to find a bit ‎of happiness and gratitude compromising with this acute crisis to break all the shackles that ‎stop you from balancing your time despite the crisis.‎

I know what tough conditions you are facing and I am walking with you on the same path. ‎Thus, to better yourself, and live your best life, you must be willing to learn, grow and ‎change. Let go of anyone or anything that doesn’t add to your growth. To continue to have ‎toxic people in your life or to continue to engage in negative and self-defeating actions or ‎behaviours will put you in the same spot one year from now. It’s difficult for sure. Be ‎mindful that in your journey to transform your life now, you will be met with backstabbers, ‎naysayers, those won’t see your vision and those who will call you crazy for daring to do ‎great things these days. Just start to spend your time without fear.‎

How to escape from a depressing life to a successful life?‎

Are you in a quandary about what to lose and what to choose? Don’t make it too difficult. ‎Set a target, be courageous and get all your veins to push your mind and use it for all its ‎conscious, sub-subconscious and preconscious strength. I don’t guarantee that all may ‎change their twenty- or thirty-year long career or ambition within a few months during the ‎lockdown. Yet, I believe what we couldn’t do in our twenty- or thirty year-long educational or ‎professional careers can be done within these few months of lockdown. Imagine! You are ‎being locked up and served everything on the table. All basic needs are placed in front of ‎you. After spending some time, you find it too difficult to live a life as an animal in a zoo, ‎just eating and sitting. Rather you desire to add more things to your life. Therefore, you ‎must find the best means to spend this lockdown to rebuild and heal yourself to become ‎stronger and mature. This can simply, wholly and solely be focused on the target set ‎whether any examination, research or project. You may not get all the resources, materials ‎and necessities for your respective mentioned fields but you simultaneously need to assure ‎your conscience that better compromises or find the best alternative rather than to spend ‎your whole time in demanding and demonstrating for all your necessities. You need to cope ‎with the situation, to cross all the barricades and break all the shackles to imprint your ‎footsteps on the path of success during the lockdown crisis.‎

Therefore, being in the same position as you, I hereby add my final thoughts as you ‎continue with your journey to success, happiness and greatness during these lockdowns. ‎Never let mishaps, mistakes or missed steps derail the dreams of decades. Look when you ‎stumble and fall, you may be bloody and bruised with a few broken bones, but don’t let that ‎stop you. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and then push on toward the finish line. ‎

Rasa News Agency