Shiv Kumar Padha
According to B.F. Skinner, a pioneer of operant conditioning “changes in the behavior are the result of an individual’s response to the events (stimuli) that occurs in the environment when a particular stimulus- response pattern is reinforced (rewarded or punished)”. It means whenever any act of an individual, good or bad, is reinforced (rewarded) the re- occurrence of that response is strengthens.
Stone pelting has now become a part of Kashmiri culture where majority of old and young, women and children come on the roads to protest whenever any dreaded or declared terrorist is killed by the security forces. In order to provoke and compel the security forces to resort to violent reactions the agitators start pelting stones over the security forces, burn their bunkers and set their vehicles on fire. Leaving a section of intellectuals, nationalists and wise men of the Kashmiri society, no one has ever dared to condemn, repent, lament or has shed tears over the merciless killings of the security persons who have been standing by the Kashmiri brethren through thick and thin in the event of cross border terrorism, national disasters and foiling the intrusion bids at the LoC without caring for their lives. Our security men are living in the environment where their killing by the terrorists is celebrated treating their burning pyres as the campfire. Perhaps, Kashmir is emerging as the lonely place in the civilized society where the values of humanity, sense of sacrifice, sympathies, kindness and mercy, Indian Army is known for, is reciprocated in the barbaric, inhuman and Talibani manner. The masterminds of the terrorist outfits in Kashmir have prepared a separate cadre of criminals comprising of the minors and the old. Perhaps, they forget that committing rape or targeting the national forces by any age group is punishable under law applicable for every citizen.
Again there have been an abrupt spurt in the stone pelting in the entire Valley after the killing of poster boy Burhan Wani, during an encounter with the security forces. The killed terrorist was wanted in many terrorists activities in the country and carried an award of Rs. 10 lakh over his head. The protests against the killing of the poster terrorist took the whole valley in its spate Thousands of protestors, irrespective of age and sex came on the roads and pelted stones on the security forces which, according to an official release left 46 young, old dead, thousands of civilians and the security persons injured. Many of them have sustained grievous injuries and many more struggling between life and death in the ICUs. The Valley reeled under continues curfew since the incidence except the small daily skirmishes. With the intervention of State and the Central Government and the local civil society the normalcy could again be brought in volatile environment of the Valley. The State government, in addition to providing for the amenities and the honorable release of near about 645 Kashmiri youth, has sent for the services of the expert team of doctors, surgeons from Delhi for the treatment of the wounded. The separatist and the divisive forces active in Jammu and Kashmir are always in the look out of an occasion which they can exploit better for instigating the youth and gaining some political mileage. The other day some miscreants spread a false news, about the alleged molestation of a Kashmiri girl by army Jawan in the Valley. The violence erupted engulfed the whole Valley into it. The violence resulted into the killing of five innocent youth, burning of army bunkers and vehicles. Later on the tables were turned upon the local youth who did this inhuman act only to defame the Indian army and to provoke the sentiments of the youth.
The 1914 floods in Kashmir converted the entire Valley in a sea overnight, the unexpected floods took in its spate hundreds of precious lives both of the human and the livestock, destroyed the property of the natives worth millions of crores of rupees and rendered many rich and poor homeless. Hats off for the Union Government in Delhi which immediately pressed into service the national disaster rescue operation teams which spared no effort in saving the precious lives and the property of the population affected by the wrath of the tsunami floods which, it is said, visited the valley after a century. Rescue teams not only saved the lives and property of the flood affected people but air lifted the wounded and the sick, air dropped the food packets, bottles of potable water, medicines and shifted the people stranded in the flood to the safer places in the camps.
(To be continued)