Retrofit: ‘Intifada’ lessons from Israel (Sandeep Bamzai, South Asia Monitor)

Failure normally is a fog through which one can glimpse triumph. Unfortunately, the civil-military administration in Kashmir has been unable to get a handle on how to tackle the Palestinian-type intifada that has again gripped the state, despite the fact that it first emerged in 2008. Intifada is an Arabic word meaning “shaking off”, and can be loosely translated in English as “uprising”. First devised by Syed Ali Shah Geelani after the Amarnath Yatra protests and taken to the next level by his ideological heir Masrat Alam in 2010, its construct seems disturbing. The rapid spread of puranitical Wahhabi and political Islam through the Internet acted as a catalyst for the Kashmir Valley’s dissatisfied youth. The symbolism seen through images of protesting stone-pelters changed the dynamics in Kashmir, as a violent new way of civil disobedience emerged.

http://southasiamonitor.org/detail.php?type=n&nid=18429