Do you recall when India snapped the internet in Kashmir around the time of the 2016 uprising & crackdown & the young were so electronically savvy that they used VPN technology to continue reporting on social media? As if that internet lockdown didn’t exist? That’s why India imposed the telecommunications blockade. Because they knew they weren’t smart enough to stop communications unless they did.
Now we see reports that Kashmiris are using their traditional tactic of shutdowns, now called “people’s curfew”, to prove ‘all is not well’ or calm, as India claims. They are using the curfew against the Indian Army. In the Soura neighborhood in Srinagar, they are building moats & barricades to make it a “no-go zone” for Indian troops, something we also saw in the Egyptian Arab Spring.
The Kashmiris are not going to submit to colonial occupation & will continue to develop forms of resistance. But they need the auxiliary force of international protests, a boycott of India, petitions, forums & panels, conferences, solidarity organizations coordinated around the world to join them in demanding the withdrawal of all Indian troops, the release of Kashmiri political prisoners, the end of pellet guns & live ammo, the end of rape as a weapon of war, the end of vandalizing & razing homes, the end of hunt to kill operations.