DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Security:

Security can be the feeling of being secure, protected in your own surroundings or relationships. Security is having a certain amount of control over things.

I live in a conflict zone where security is one of the biggest concerns especially for women. Kashmir has been a disputed region for long where an armed insurgency raised its head some two decades back. Even though the struggle has turned from an armed to peaceful one now still there has been no dearth in the security issues in the lives of people in Kashmir.

People in Kashmir are living a very uncertain life where there is no security of any sorts particularity of life.

Lack of Accountability:

It means when the system is such that a person or authority is not answerable for its actions.

The human rights violations in Kashmir are stark example of a case of lack of accountability on part of the state and its security agencies. The dreaded Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) gives the security forces in Kashmir the power to arrest a person on mere suspicion as well as legal immunity saving him from any consequences of any wrong doing on his part. This is just one of the examples of lack of accountability of the state agencies in Kashmir. The list goes on.

Transparency:

When things are done in such a manner that they are clear for everyone’s understanding. It involves sharing of information at all levels with the public or people involved or those affected so that things are clearly understood.

Wherever there is lack of accountability there is no room for transparency. It’s true about Kashmir as well. A lot of people have been arrested with terrible consequences without either telling them or their families the reason of their being arrested in the first place.

Fairness:

When all the sides are given an equal opportunity to pursue their case.

When a place is under occupation there is no chance of fairness. In Kashmir even when the lawyers have succeeded in proving the crime of security personnel nothing could be done as the sanction from Government of India is needed to give a go ahead for the prosecution of the guilty.

Social Injustice:

When there is an unequal distribution of resources or an unequal access to resources in a social set up social injustice creeps in. Social Injustice is when there is discrimination on the basis of economic status, caste, colour, gender, religion, education.

Things are no different in Kashmir. The conflict has had its own fallout in Kashmir. Like it has increased the number of socially vulnerable group of widows and orphans , apart from half widows; that is the women whose husbands are missing.

There is a large injustice happening around on the basis of gender, caste, economic/educational status like any other developing society ridden with many social evils.

Corruption:

When a person does the work that is part of his /her job not as part of his routine course but against a consideration or when any work that is not right is done against some consideration.

Kashmir is ridden with the disease of corruption. It is so rampant and people have got used to it so much that if someone say a government official does your work on his own, people feel they should give him something. They kind of feel that they owe him something even when he is just simply doing hiss job.