Podcast; Voices from the Lockdown: Until Centre engages with youths of Kashmir, things are bound to go out of control

This new Firstpost podcast entitled Voices from the Lockdown —which drops at 8 am every day — seeks to explore the ground realities in Kashmir, Ladakh and Jammu under this communications shutdown through conversations with journalists and experts from the Valley. So far it has been 114 days of communication blockade since 5 August, postpaid mobile services restored, internet and prepaid mobile services are still down. In yesterday’s episode, we spoke to Kaiser Andrabi about the situation in South Kashmir. We listened to interviews with families of those who’ve joined militant ranks. We also looked at the manner in which militancy is taking shape in Kashmir in the aftermath of 5 August. In today’s episode, we will continue our conversation with Kaiser where he speaks about how the youth of Anantnag and Shopian are going through an ‘identity crisis’ because of the abrogation of Article 370. This, he says, is creating a sense of alienation among them. Adding to this is the approach of the Indian government to ‘catch and kill’ young, educated militants. The consensus among those Kaiser spoke to in South Kashmir is that till the Indian government engages with the youth of Kashmir, things are bound to further spiral out of control. Included are excerpts of interviews with families of active and slain militants from South Kashmir.