J&K’s enduring flame keeps ‘ray of hope’ alive

Srinagar, Nov 30: On the cold Thursday morning, a bulldozer operated by the Jammu Development Authority (JDA), in the presence of Jammu and Kashmir Police and paramilitary personnel, lurched forward in Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

Moments later, it began tearing down the walls of a modest 40-year-old family home of journalist Arfaz Ahmad Daing.

Bricks split.

Windows shattered.

Thick dust rose.

By noon, the Daing family had no roof, no rooms, and no belongings.

As soon as the destruction of Arfaz’s home was carried out in what the authorities termed an “anti-encroachment” drive, videos flickered on screens across J&K.

Condemnations poured in.

People asked how a house that had stood for 40 years could become illegal overnight.

Opposition leaders questioned the “selective implementation” of the demolition drive.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that the officers were carrying out the drive “without seeking consent from the elected government” and pointed a finger at the role of Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha’s administration.

Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ravinder Raina said the drive had not been ordered by the LG’s administration but by the elected government.

The matter was all but done and dusted.

Yet it unfolded in a chain reaction of acts of humanity.

For the Daing family, the demolition was more than the loss of brick and mortar.

It was the erasure of inheritance.

“No notice, no hearing, just force,” Arfaz said quietly, standing before the ruins.

His voice never rose, but the silence afterward said what outrage couldn’t.

Then fate intervened.

As the debris settled, Arfaz’s neighbour, Kuldeep Kumar Sharma, came forward with empathy and a legal deed, while the state machinery had arrived with a demolition squad.

He was not going to allow this incident, unlike many born in J&K, to settle in bitterness.

“He lost three marlas. I give him five. This land now belongs to Arfaz,” Sharma said in front of the community members.

Sharma’s daughter, who would have gone on to inherit the land, stood beside him, nodding firmly.

The offer wasn’t symbolic like the one’s made by the politicians, political parties, and the governments.

The offer wasn’t conditional either.

It was registered on a stamp paper, signed, and handed over on-the-spot without photo-ops often associated with the politicians and bureaucrats in the region.

The bulldozer violence had met its opposite – a pen signing away land for communal amity.

Social media captioned the scene with the most clichéd, used, overused, and abused word, ‘Kashmiriyat’.

The story didn’t stop in Jammu.

Sharma’s generosity resonated deeply across the Pir Panjal mountains.

Around 300 km away, people in the apple-rich Shopian district were pleasantly surprised to watch this “good news” in times of “Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim” prime-time television debates.

They felt something stir.

Soon, videos began circulating showing a businessman from Kashmir offering land not to Arfaz, but to Kuldeep, who had given away his own plot to Arfaz’s family.

“If he could give five marlas,” he said. “I will give him 10.”

Another Kashmiri announced that he would gift Sharma a 1-kanal plot in the Valley.

Someone loses their home.

Someone gives land.

Another offers double, yet another quadruple in gratitude.

In a region where stories of division are easy to find, this one felt like a rare inverted chain reaction, an escalation of kindness.

It felt like J&K’s enduring flame, echoing Mahatma Gandhi’s historic belief during the communal carnage following the division of the Indian subcontinent that he saw a “ray of hope” only in Kashmir.

In J&K, communal harmony wasn’t a slogan.

It used to be rehearsed daily in festivals, weddings, and grief.

On Thursday, the bulldozer spoke first.

But humanity replied louder.

The demolition could have added another layer to the region’s wounds.

Instead, four families rewrote the ending.