- A new computer game highlighted the struggle
The Kashmir liberation struggle has been going on for nine decades. The hopes of Kashmiris to escape the tyranny of the Dogra Raj in 1947 were dashed when Indian forces illegally occupied the Valley. The 1947-48 Kashmir War resulted in the liberation of only one third of the Occupied Territory. The Indo-Pak Wars of 1965 and 1971 failed to bring relief to the Kashmiris so they decided to take up the cudgel for achieving their just rights in 1989. India retaliated by deploying 700,000 soldiers to crush the uprising. Aided by draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act and POTA, TADA and so on, the Indian security forces have massacred over 100,000 hapless Kashmiris, raped their women, razed their houses to the ground and incarcerated thousands of Kashmiri youth.
On 8 July 2016, popular youth leader Burhan Wani was brutally assassinated. When unarmed Kashmiri youth came out in droves to protest, they were fired upon with pellet guns. Over 500 have been martyred but more ominously, 3,600 have been permanently blinded. The just struggle goes on while other Kashmiri leaders are sporadically put behind bars and tortured. A fresh turn of events came when Narendra Modi took up the reins of government in India. He had a sinister agenda, to annex Kashmir permanently into India. He tried to rig the state elections in 2014 with his 44+ agenda, by virtue of which BJP was to get maximum seats in Indian Occupied Kashmir’s Legislative Assembly, enabling him to have Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution rescinded. These articles grant special status to Kashmir. Repealing the articles will pave the wave for amalgamating Kashmir into India. The people of Kashmir ensured that the BJP did not win a majority in Kashmir. Modi tried resettling Hindus into the Valley to change the demography of Kashmir and turn the majority Muslims into a minority.
Burhan Wani’s assassination led to a new Kashmiri Intifada, in which youth turn up in streets armed only with pebbles to hurl at the armed Indian security forces. The Indian security forces have wreaked havoc on the youth, and do not refrain from tying up Kashmiri youth to the bonnet of their jeeps and using them as human shields. Ironically, such an inhuman gesture, instead of being chastised by the Indian Army Chief, was applauded by Gen Bipin Rawat, who awarded the perpetrator of the heinous deed, Major Nitin Gogoi of the Rashtriya Rifles.
In a fresh development, game designers have given a new twist to the struggle of the Kashmiris. The Kashmir Intifada website and game has been launched to commemorate Kashmiri freedom fighters, especially Burhan Wani and Asiya Andrabi. Under the guidance of Dr Umair Haroon, The Digital Intelligence company has developed Kashmir Intifada Platform and game, to expose atrocities meted out to the Kashmiris by the Indian forces. It shows how the entire Valley has been made a torture cell for the Muslims, and that how the new breed of women, emerging from years of crisis, are both fearless and devoted to the freedom struggle. The role of Narendra Modi’s atrocious National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in installing the Islamic State in Kashmir has also been unravelled. The game could be played on mobile as well as on desktop.
On one hand it will provide the Kashmiri youth a venue to vent its rage on the digital platform, while on the other, the web-based game will attract the attention of the world
Leading writers, intellectuals and celebrities from show business would be participating through blogs, video blogs, articles and messages to express their views on the situation in Kashmir. The ultimate aim of creating this digital community is to enlighten people, especially the youth, on the Kashmir issue.
The Kashmir Intifada would also provide a platform for the consolidation of lone and scattered voices on the brutal Indian occupation of the Kashmir Valley, paying tribute to the Kashmiri struggle and resilience on digital media, and to mark the martyrdom of Burhan Wani.
“In the history of the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination, two heroes left an everlasting impact on Kashmiris, Burhan Wani Saeed, a digital freedom fighter, and Asiya Andrabi, an iron lady who has haunted the tyrants of India. This game is a tribute to both warriors,” stated Umair Haroon, project lead of The Digital Company that developed the game. The game aims to develop an insight into the oppression faced by the unarmed Kashmiris, to raise awareness of the organisations that are struggling for freedom and the ever-increasing Indian brutality in IOK.
In different missions, the thrilling game takes users through various difficult days that Kashmiri youth have to face, starting from the day they decided to support Pakistan to celebrating Eid to the ban on meat on Eidul Azha. The official song of the game takes the audience through different ways that the Kashmiri youth has fought and struggled for their rights and freedom.
With the re-election of Narendra Modi, hopes of the Kashmiris dwindled as they are bracing for a new wave of violence, which has begun. Unarmed Kashmiris are being savagely beaten to death. The OIC Summit in May 2019 failed to take cognisance of the plight of Kashmiris. The world largely ignores the plight of the Kashmiris and apart from Pakistan, hardly anyone pays heed to Indian brutality since India is an emerging power, and has the wherewithal to launch massive propaganda campaigns and drown the screams of the brutalised Kashmiris.
In this milieu, launching a web game Kashmir Intifada is a sensible step. On one hand it will provide the Kashmiri youth a venue to vent its rage on the digital platform, while on the other, the web-based game will attract the attention of the world.
