We often use two metaphors to describe ignorance and enlightenment: darkness and light. Dark is devoid of light. And what we call ignorance is the absence of realization of truth hidden behind the occurrences. Our uninformedness sometimes pushes us to tread the ways we are not supposed to by our true nature. But the moment reality’s light descends into us, our truth-craving character gets at once illuminated. However, accepting and following actuality is a brave act.

Here is the brave person who wholeheartedly accepted the truth and followed it candidly. And it is our Kashmiri youth, Shahellah Rashid, who recently got appointed as Assistant Professor. Shaella Rashid does not have a story. No, not, but she is a story in herself.
Born in a lower-middle-class family, Shahella was not fortunate enough to enjoy peacefulness ‘in and out’. Neither did she have a poised family, nor did she have peaceful conditions outside her home. At home, She had an uncanny and unconcerned father who was violent towards little angelic Shaella’s Mother. And outside the dwelling, it was the violence of insurgency provoked by Pakistan and its Kashmiri stooges. Thus, Shaella grew up between two violent atmospheres: homely and politically!
Since Shahella was good at studies, her financially independent mother, even under rugged family circumstances, supported her intelligent and diligent daughter, Shahella. Intelligence, metaphorically, is like the finest silk and thus is vulnerable to the outside world’s nudges by dint of its sensitivity. So, like the finest silk, is the case of intelligent Shahella. Her silk-like soft mental makeup as being intelligent made her sensitive to whatever was happening around her. Since she has grown under two violent atmospheres, she became reactive to the violence-causing actions. Because it has grabbed the love she deserves to have from her father as a child, and at the same time, it has affected her studies both at home and college. She has fostered hate towards ferocity. Every ferocity in its very nature is an anger.
Looking at her UG academics, Shahela is an engineering student at NIT Srinagar. But she didn’t continue with engineering her further studies. Instead, she diverted and sought a PG and doctorate (PhD) in sociology, a subject deeply associated with politics. Diversion in her academic preference shows us her attitude, indicating her steepness towards politics, which she exhibited in Deli at JNU as a student.
For Shahela, JNU proved a stage that offered her vent to the psyche she had brought up as a broken child and as a disturbed Kashmiri. Looking at her activism at JNU, we see her contesting elections and organizing protests. She is not limiting herself to elections and street protests but is active on social media X and FB, giving out her anger.
While analyzing her social media X and FB, Shahela seems aggrieved towards India. But her intelligence made her pause and reflect upon her psyche, which her early youth had made up.
In a podcast (organized by ANI), Shahela, with clarity and intelligibility, opens up her heart and mind, saying that Kashmir to India was not a security issue but a political one. She is grateful and credits the state and central incumbent governments for the political solution to the Kashmir problem. She commended the Prime Minister and the Home Minister for the bloodless solution.
She straightforwardly admits that the problem was lying in article 370 as the special status it offered to J & K had created a sense of separatism from the rest of our country, India, in the psyche of Kashmiri people in general. A separate constitution and a flag did create walls between us and the rest of the country.
Intelligence pays you off one day. And in the case of Shahela, her intelligence paid her off! An intelligent person will not remain in the darkness for so long. Sooner or later, the intelligence, the divine candle, guides her (or him) towards the right path.
Shahela should have profoundly pondered over the political developments that transpired here in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of 370 and must have watched socio-political and economic developments happening in Pakistan, the mastermind of insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir. How can a sensible person brush aside developmental initiatives taken by the state and central governments? We can’t brush aside developmental works in road connectivity, rail connectivity, industrial sector and tourism and start throwing blind criticism. In the conversation in the podcast, she has thrown light on all these things. It is how a sensible and intelligent person looks at the political scenario around her (or him).
True dawn is always there, but for those who crave it. No share is in the light for those who turn their eyes from reality.

Email:----------------------furkaankashmiri@gmail.com