Khursheed Ahmad Bhat
Corruption is the state of mind where we do not do what we are supposed to do. We as a society are responsible for the economic backwardness of Jammu and Kashmir as a whole. There is a systematic change that we can see all around how our dependence on outside labor whether semi-skilled, or skilled has increased considerably thereby rendering our workforce irrelevant. The reasons are obvious, as we know that our people are either unaware of work ethics and culture or we do not treat work as worship. Everyone acts as a Prince or boss in any field of trade. Let me explain it through common examples and some introspective questions. The fast-food market is growing very fast; we often take our family or friends for an outing at some renowned restaurant. who prepares the food we eat there? Bihari Babu (A common term for non-local workers in Kashmir). Is our chef not professional enough to do his job that forces the owners to hire the services of those who knew nothing about our taste and preferences or we don’t want the services of an under-motivated local chef who does not know the preferences of a consumer and has the least consideration for his skill up-gradation and is reluctant to change the traditional ways of serving?
We go to a saloon even for a normal haircut, who is your barber? A Bihari Babu. Everyone needs the service of a barber at least twice a month, honestly speaking I don’t see more than 10% locals running their saloons, and even those 10% are witnessing the collapse of their ventures. What is the difference between an outsider and the local barber? Who earns more and who earns little? If we go to a local saloon how much is the bill and for the professional barber how much is the bill (50 to 70 rupees) and why so. Our barber does not like his work and even does not feel like modernizing the facilities at his saloon and is unable to manage his family well, while any outsider running a saloon professionally manages at least 5 to 6 employees runs his family and creates assets. How much we pay there? (50 to 500 Rupees on an average).
On almost every occasion we buy cookies for home, who is your baker? Bihari Babu. Venture owner does not even think of employing locals in the factory and his or their preferences go with the Bihari Babu as they are more diligent and understand the importance of producing goods in time with adherence to taste and quality. Here again, we are losing the chance of providing employment to the locals who feel embarrassment to do the job. Similarly, you may consider any field of trade and will find the outsiders there working in construction, car tire filler, spice hawker, and the worst is a non-local street fast-food vendor selling Kashmiri potato chips fried peas, etc. I just feel it is only a Butcher who is purely a Local guy working and is yet to be replaced.
A social taboo in Kashmir (Kashur gov Balai, Kashir chi foutis manz aab Kholmut) Kashmiri people are very intelligent, etc; etc. My question to you is what is the outcome of intelligence? The answer is success. Now let’s test our intelligence and compare it with success in multiple fields. Starting from agriculture, are we self-sufficient in agriculture? Unfortunately, the tenant goes to ration depot for buying the rice as production is so low to feed the family of a tenant, how easily we find locals produce agricultural products here?
Then think of engineering, roads, and buildings and compare it with the rest of the country and understand the difference? Our roads, buildings are completely the worst example of engineering we see in rest of the world. What is the status of the industry here, try to recall few Kashmiri products which form the part of your routine consumption, I am sure you have to think a lot to even name a single item. If we talk of higher education what is the status, the majority of young boys and girls go outside for their higher studies, how many private colleges and universities we have here?
Kashmir once had the world’s biggest factory (Silk) providing direct employment to over forty thousand people, what is the status now? The first power project was established around 1907 and we would have been exporting power to our neighboring states and countries as there is a lot of potential for power production in Kashmir but unfortunately no advancement in this field too by the state administration. Horticulture is the backbone of our economy and who is controlling it?
The world has changed but we still are thinking of mechanization and proper management of the horticulture industry.
Yes, I know, we are too good at studies, we are sharp-minded but we lack work ethics, passion for work, creativity, innovation, and scientific temperament. While reconsidering the causes of weakening economic setup what comes to our mind is that there is a need for skill development in almost every field of trade, be it a barber, carpenter, mason, painter, or any other economic activity. Unless we don’t work for skill development and training the professionals, we will keep losing the share of our domestic economy to non-locals.
We are losing the capital in multiple ways, we spend a lot on the education outside Kashmir and preparing our youth to be managers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc. Businessmen and professionals should collaboratively establish such institutions to provide quality education and generate employment; earn profits thereby reducing our dependence on outsiders and generating employment and revenues. There should be a socio-economic system employing every professional in almost every field. I will be writing about the system in my nest write-up (Pannen Sannat)
Individual Initiatives are needed to protect the youth from falling to drugs and other anti-social activities. If things go on like this a day will come when a 100% population will be addicted. No one would be in a position to do any kind of work and our generations will get lost, and the older ones will be helpless and physical slaves who would they rely on illegal economic activities, we may be mental slaves as we don’t see hope in anything we do or the hatred for work, we must come out of this stigma and engage ourselves into any kind of professional legal economic activity for which the pattern of schooling needs to be modified as well, we should not overburden our children with a lot of languages and subjects.
Active learning must be stressed upon. A student who completes his/her high school doesn’t know what to do afterwards as he/ she is in a state of utter confusion because he/ she could not realize the cause of all the subjects, then the students are confused about choosing the subjects for further studies and seek the opinion of relatives or have to accept the decision of their parents. I believe we should reform the system from the roots by giving our children a cause of living, a subject of their own choice to master it fully so that they are certain about their future and will be independent and occupied in their passion for it.
(The Author is The Chairman Of Greenhills Experimental School, Former Controller Of Finance, University Of Kabul. He can be reached at me.khursheed4u@gmail.com)
