I am so jealous of these Ganderbal guys. Yeah, they have 4G, “mere paas kya hai?”
Atif Lone/
Its been so long since the high-speed internet was first suspended and then given at a trickle, ostensibly for our own good. It ensured that we lived in a period of relative peace! Ahh yes, I did enjoy a brief period of self-discovery after the initial withdrawal symptoms receded.
However, self-discovery ended soon and I sought my dopamine dose back through internet. Yes, I have the broadband and the fibre that keeps me confined to home longer than I want to. The winters came and went without a whimper. Just as the snow thawed and we were looking forward to summer, the COVID lockdowns hit us. While the World was inconvenienced by the lockdown our pain was probably lesser. Government or the separatists had kept us in an undeclared lockdown after 05 Aug 19. We learnt new methods of survival like the half shutter economy. After the lockdown the world moved to internet economy. Work-from-home and internet marketing were the new buzzwords, we were told to adopt the same, someone forgot that we needed mobile internet for that! Just try doing serious work on 2G. Try online classes or web conferences or webinar or running a ecommerce site cased on internet.
The summers are gone. We had a flurry of events on the anniversary of 05 Aug, both by Pakistan and the State, sorry UT government. Each tried to tell us how lucky or unlucky we have been after the legislative action. Pakistan has been crying hoarse at our pain while it continued to kill its own. The central government focussed on us only when the Chinese allowed it to.
The last LG made some statement that the UT government was okay with opening of 4G, we saw ray of hope. It was a mirage, soon the LG was packed off, we are not sure of the reasons. Then one day 4G was allowed in one district each of Jammu and Kashmir. Ganderbal was lucky from Kashmir valley, true blood kashmiris quickly used social media to denounce it as reward for ‘mukhbirs’ of Ganderbal. I wish I was from Ganderbal simply because the idea of having 4G is so appealing. It is like the toy that has been denied to me for such a long time. Now we are told the next review is sometime in October, hope we pass the ‘mukhbir’ test. I abhor violence and assure you that I will not use 4G to cause or instigate or celebrate violence, I wish there was an online system to give such a certificate.
What surprises me is the pain being endured by Jammu for too. I can understand Kashmir being denied 4G to prevent collaboration and instigation of mass violent protests, do Jammuites fall in same category? It seems someone in decision making is working hard to make it seem neutral and equal in treatment of Kashmiris and Jammuites. Some kind of secularism and equality at play! I am not sure but hope someday we come to know the formulae used to decide where and when to open the 4G network. Till then we live in hope. Looking forward to the next review and hope the new LG can understand our feelings and get us the internet freedom.
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