Chapter Sixteen

‘Then, it is your fault!’ quipped the old man. ‘Yes,’ replied the young man. ‘Now I’ve learnt that one should use a good, strong lock to keep one’s shop safe.’ ‘Is this something to learn only after making a mistake? When you decided to become a shopkeeper, you should have known, from the very first day itself, that you should use a strong lock for your shop!’ the old man said. In matters like one’s shop or other such personal affairs, I wrote, it is possible that if you make a mistake, you can correct yourself. But it is entirely different when it comes to national questions. In personal matters, after once suffering a loss it is possible to again turn the situation in your favour through hard work. But in national affairs, the moment you lose the handle that controls the power to make decisions, the problem becomes very complicated, and naturally very difficult to resolve. I further remarked that leadership of a nation is only for those who can envision the future in the present. People whose vision is limited only to the present and the past, and who see the future only when it turns into a reality and bombards them, simply cannot lead a country—although, through their unwise actions, they can certainly entangle it in enormous problems. I have continuously repeated this line in various other articles that I have been writing on the Kashmir issue over the last many years. If all that I have written on the subject were put together, it would form a voluminous book. It is with God’s grace that thousands of Kashmiris have benefitted from these efforts I have made. Many of them have cleansed themselves of their militant mentality and are engaged in positive work. I keep receiving letters and telephone calls from Kashmiris in this regard. Every political movement is attributed to a community or the general public, but, in actual fact, it is movement of and for its leaders. A few leaders incite people through their writings and speeches and then extract the price of their leadership in the name of the people. Such a situation greatly increases the leaders’