Is STRIKES a solution?

Lets analyse the effectivenss of a STRIKE in Kashmir:
Issue: Demilitarization of the region
Strategy: None
Tactic: General Stirkes and Shutdowns

Effected population: (mostly Kashmiri's)
1. Students
2. Business owners
3. Employed People
4. Daily Workers

Now let us examine the nature in which each of these are effected:
1. Students: Loss of a day, week, month, or a year depending on the duration of the strike. Courses completed in time which goes beyond the stipulated duration. Prospects of a current or future placement for education or employment adversely effected.

2. Business Owners: Shops remain closed or even if a small percentage is open there is no business since there are no buyers or sellers.

3. Employed People: Since businesses remain closed, they don't have to go to work. Since the employer isn't making any money they don't get paid.

4. Daily Workers: Shutdown means no transport, no work and no jobs meaning no money. Now its pretty clear that the results haven't been promising so far. Lets analyse it a bit more;Students not completing their courses in the stipulated time period means that they have are handicaped when compared to their counter parts elsewhere. What this maginifies into is something more difficult to deal with and possibly hard to accept - lack of opportunties that they deserve or are worthy of. This happens equally in education and in employment, and when this happens THEY think Kashmiri's are discriminated against (sometimes true-but that doesn't make it a rule), well in fact the truth is our students might not have the same credentials (Yes friends completing your courses in time is one of them).

Lack of selling and buying opportunities for business owners doesn't just mean that they earnings are effected (and some of you don't care since they can afford it), it also means that they people they employ lose their earnings (o yes we do care for the non-so-rich). Many of these employees are parents to these unfortunately student class. So these people now don't qualify as a seperate class, but infact if you are a STUDENT your problems just compounded, your parent's hands are now a little more tied up financially than otherwise.

Daily workers - do we even know this class exists? Yes it does, these are the same people who live a day to day life, earn just enough for the hand to mouth living. Anyones who goes out everyday looking for work and is paid on a daily basis falls in this category. And now you can imagine what a day off in their lives mean....hmm you do know it.

As far as my humble opition goes, I don't think there is a strategy to what the Hurriet is doing or just trying to do, remember Strategy is long term and has to be sustainable. Given the picture I tried to paint above, how to you sustain an indefinite strike and expect people to do nothing when this tactic gives them nothing but just asks of them.

A people that can think and understand is a people that that knows what it NEEDS more than just what it WANTS. Sometimes in our unquenched thirst for what we want we forget the more important thing in life - what we need. Education is what I feel we need, education doesn't just mean fancy degrees and big qualifications, it goes beyond. It is having the strength to listen to different schools of thought and have empathy.

What we are stuck in is a sheep culture, following the head-sheep without any thought or consideration. Education means the ability to question things and rate them on their merit, it is the ability o see the Right from Wrong...Yes being able to identify the RIGHT when many others don't see it yet, can be an uphill task, breaking away from the herd of sheep is like swimming upstream, but thats what makes us HUMAN I guess, and not SHEEP