Kashmir on Facebook

Beyond Kashmir’s '3 Idiots' controversy

Arjimand Hussain Talib

Internet - and now social networking sites - have changed our lives in incredible ways. The letter-writing era has really gone with the wind. Political propaganda machines too have changed almost totally. The means of networking and mobilisation have radically transformed. Today, battles of ideas have shifted their battlefields – from books and other printed material to Internet. Printing press-driven movements seem to be a thing of the past. It does feel little awkward seeing today's children laugh when we share stories of our letter-writing era with them. But that is how things are today, afterall.

Winds of change have swept across Kashmir too, albeit at a slower pace. The past couple of years have especially brought about many changes, which are mostly invisible. Mobile phone-based Internet browsing has totally changed the approach to and the attitude for information access. Technology has penetrated deep, and, in the process, creating a whole new world of possibilities. Facebook is increasingly taking over from stones being thrown on Kashmir’s streets at a system which they see unjust and unacceptable.

What is interesting is that all this isn’t happening in Kashmir’s cities and towns alone. Learning about the number of people - especially the youth - who access Internet in rural Kashmir sounds astonishing. A few years ago, it would have been really hard to imagine a graduate from a remote Kupwara village, for instance, applying for a master’s degree at the Harvard from his mobile phone. Likewise, it would have been difficult to think of someone in a remote snow-bound village in the Pirpanjal mountain range discussing political change on Facebook sitting at his home. All that is happening in real today.

This widespread Internet use has suddenly opened great newer vistas of educational, business and job opportunities before the Kashmiri people - which they seem just grabbing. Today, Kashmiris' international movement is perhaps at its peak - thanks to Internet. A vast number of our educated and business communities are today truly global citizens - transcending all barriers, and reaping economic benefits of the globalized world just like any other global citizen.

There are some other interesting facets of this fascinating tool serving some other purposes as well. Today, many Kashmiri youth are finding their soul mates through the Internet. The Pakistani-Kashmiri chemistry seems to be working the best - at least for now. God alone knows whether that romance will sustain in the longer term when it will come to the hard realities of life, the stringent visa regime and cultural shocks.

Humour apart, let us come back to the main topic. There is another significant change happening in Kashmir - a slow and steady transformation of its political movement - from the street to the Facebook. There is a perception that as the street is too risky to voice one’s political opinion, and other media of expression are generally chocking, Facebook is a natural option. May be.

The fact is that since Internet became popular, Kashmiri political movement's visibility on this medium has remained relatively poor. Its political forces - across the divide - are still struggling with the right e-mail format and etiquettes of reaching out to the people. Barring a few sites - created by some young and zealous non-resident Kashmiris - most of Kashmiri websites are not too interactive and participative. Few are designed to reach a wide audience.

Similarly, Internet-based activism has been largely unimpressive if we do comparisons with other movements at the international level. Over the years, the noise of myriad actors present on Kashmir's political mosaic hasn't been heard so well globally. The only instance when considerable noise was generated was when a doctored '3 Idiots' image was posted on the Facebook recently. A furious National Conference, straightaway, laid the blame of the act at the PDP's doorsteps. Interestingly, the PDP's leader, Mehbooba Mufti, never refuted that, and, instead, asked the government to focus on development on the ground, rather than follow the Facebook.

An objective analysis of the incident and the pattern of the friendship networking that the anonymous person unleashed on Facebook before this posting makes one to seriously doubt whether the PDP had anything to do with that doctored photo at all. Be whatever; it seems NC’s knee-jerk reaction made it to lose more than it had expected to gain. It gave just the right kind of attention and publicity to the issue, just as the doctors of the image might have prayed for. But the question is why did the National Conference take to a defensive stand? Did such a Facebook issue – which, nevertheless, is not a novelty on Internet, warrant so much of attention and concern?

The fact is that Internet-based political expression has come to matter in Kashmir. Given the wide spectrum of networks and networks of networks hooked through Facebook, political opinion-making through this tool matters too. There is another interesting side of this Internet and Facebook windfall - the transition of Kashmir's street protests to Facebook.

Today, Facebook postings and the slant of the messages overwhelmingly symbolises the anger of the Kashmir’s street. There seems to be a clear disapproval of the political status quo and all the policies which go to strengthen that. Facebook has become a safe medium for people to voice their opinion and share with a very wide audience. As Kashmir’s streets seem to have been silenced for now, the accumulation of forces on the Facebook and their messages make it amply clear that while the stones on the streets are largely gone, the angst remains. Politicians of varied hues regularly share their views on this site. And then there are comments and counter comments. That is something which must not be missed by those who have interest in Kashmir.

On the other side, there is a remarkable feature of Facebook-based activism, which is in contrast to the political divide visible at the social level in Kashmir. If one sees the patterns of friendship groups, the political divide across friendships do not seem to matter much. There is clearly a feeling of greater accommodation and tolerance for each other’s viewpoint.

Say whatever, Facebook is here to stay for a while. This medium offers freedom; is easy to work with and is cheap to afford. For a landlocked community like Kashmir, it is a freedom redefined. And it has some unmistakable social and political spin offs too.

Feedback at arjimand@greaterkashmir.com