Khushboo Jan is the new icon of the Kashmir “resistance”. Jan is a Class 11 student of Nawa Kadal Higher Secondary School. She lives in Noorbagh, a Srinagar suburb. On April 17, Jan was struck on the forehead by a flying missile – a stone.

The image of her fainting and falling and Associated Press photojournalist Dar Yasin carrying her in his arms went viral on social media. Some say that was the defining moment of the Kashmir protests this summer. Last summer’s defining moment was that of Burhan Wani’s funeral, and of schoolgirl Insha blinded by a pellet gun.

And the summer of 2017 has only just started. But right now, Jan is the most sought-after person in the Valley – media, relatives and friends throng her home in Noorbagh. “I was part of a peaceful protest”, claims Jan. “In Sakidafar locality, a paramilitary trooper threw a stone and it hit me on the forehead.”

The “anti-India” protests in Kashmir have morphed from last summer. This month, the protests have been infused with girl-power. Schoolbags slung on their backs, some holding basketballs, their faces half-covered by dupattas, schoolgirls have joined the ranks of the protesters. They are as adept at hurling stones as the average lumpen Kashmiri stone-thrower. They are unafraid to jump into any volatile “conflict zone”. The “azaadi-seeking” Kashmiri schoolgirl seems unafraid of taking risks. Which may explain how Iqra, a student of Nawa Kadal College, was struck on the head by a flying stone which she alleges was flung at her from a paramilitary picket. The stone dented her skull, fracturing the bone.

“We were having normal classes the entire day”, says Jan. “But once rumours of Iqra’s deteriorating condition spread in the campus, we went on a peaceful protest march downtown. I got hit by the stone at Sekidafar.” Jan fainted and fell, an incident which triggered intense stone-pelting in the locality.

Finding itself at the centre of the storm after its personnel reportedly left two girl students bleeding on Srinagar streets, the CRPF distanced itself from any such action. “We don’t take any hard actions against women stone pelters,” a Srinagar-based CRPF PRO told 101Reporters. “But when they pelt stones with boys, our jawans only try to disperse them. Rest, the reports that the two students were injured in downtown by CRPF are baseless.” The PRO said that in future, they would deploy women personnel to counter the women stone-pelters of Kashmir.

Price of protest

Jan also alleges that the principal of her school has “typed out her expulsion letter”.

“How can I be expelled when the whole of Kashmir is burning?” she asks. “In that case, she (the principal) will have to type expulsion letters for the entire batch of schoolmates as everyone was out on the road chanting ‘Azaadi’.”

On her return home that evening, with the strip of white “bandage” stuck on her forehead as a badge of resistance, her irked father wanted to know how she could have had the audacity to join the protests. That parental reprimand, she says, hardly bothers her. “There is a limit to everything”, she says. “Beyond that, comes a do-or-die situation.”

The new dissent

Jan represents Kashmir’s new age woman in school and college campuses across the Valley. On April 17, they came out to protest the police assault on students of a Pulwama college, where 54 students including girls were injured. The videos of the protests were widely shared on social media, triggering a fierce reaction.

In Srinagar’s commercial centre – Lal Chowk – female students of MA College formed human chains and sang songs of “Azaadi”. That day in downtown Srinagar, Ayesha (not her real name) of Nawa Kadal Higher Secondary School was also out on the street with her schoolmates.

“The police baton-charged us and fired pellets inside the campus and classrooms,” alleges Ayesha. She says the protest was the “long-brewing” reaction to “atrocities” meted out to “our brothers and sisters in Kashmir”.

“We are not safe in our schools and colleges. We can be fired upon anytime, anywhere, by anybody. We don’t want the Indian Army in Kashmir”, says Ayesha. “How can we make peace with such a disgraceful life when the Indian Army and police keep raiding our homes at night, slap PSAs (Public Safety Act) on us, make us blind, kill us, jail us?”

Ayesha wants a final resolution to the Kashmir issue. “We are fed up with this life. Every day, our conversation in school delves on the killings and insane politics done by those sitting in Delhi and here. Unlike other children in India, we have only torture tales to tell.”

Freedom over education

Much like Jan, Ayesha too was “scolded” by her parents for taking part in the protest.

“I told my mum what is the fun of living such a life where every day there is curfew, strikes and protests, where my own brother is booked and beaten for no fault of his?” says Ayesha. “What shall I do when even a peaceful protest is denied to us? Isn’t it better to die challenging it once and for all than live with it and die every day?”

Ayesha believes stone pelting is a “globally accepted” form of protest. She insists the Kashmir protests are not sponsored by Pakistan. “We neither want (to be with) Pakistan, nor (to be with) India. We just want to live peacefully like other humans in the world, we want Azaadi.”

She says 90 per cent of the students in her school favour freedom to education. “If our principal gives a DC to even one student, all students will leave.”

A tactical shift

One Srinagar-based journalist says the phenomenon of schoolgirls joining the movement, is a tactical shift in street dissent.

“There is a defining moment every year. In 2010, it was youth making human circles and chanting ‘Ragda, Ragda’. Last year, every alley, lane, bylane, shop and market square was named after Burhan Wani”, says the journalist. “Now, these schoolgirls – basketball in one hand and a stone in the other, raining kicks on police vans, have become the defining moment of the movement.”

The summer of 2016 still rages in Humaira, a Humanities student of Gandhi Memorial College. “We can’t forgive India for killing our beloved brother Burhan Wani. They pushed him and others to take up arms and then labelled him a terrorist,” she fumes.

The blinding of Insha has also not been forgotten. “The new generation doesn’t have any tolerance left for abuses and insults,” says Humaira. “We can go to any extent to achieve freedom.”

Sadiya, a journalism student of Women’s College Srinagar, was at the Lal Chowk protest on April 17. “Boys of SP College entered our college premises seeking safety, but our campus was gassed,” says Sadiya. “In rage, one girl student broke the arm of a female constable. How can we stand and watch our brothers get beaten up? It boils our blood.”

Unhealed wounds

Meanwhile, in a ward in Srinagar’s SMHS, college student Iqra Sidiq lies with a fixed gaze, staring into nothing. Doctors say her skull caved in after a stone struck her head. Iqra has sustained brain injuries. The stone was allegedly flung at her from a CRPF bunker at Eidgah Chowk on April 17.

“Look at her? This is what they are doing to our children. Now, tell me, who is pushing our kids to the extremes?” asks a family member.

Conflict generation

Most of these schoolgirls are in their teens, born and raised in the post-insurgency period. Unlike the previous generation, they don’t mince words.

Jammu & Kashmir DGP SP Vaid says schoolgirl protests can be tackled only by teachers and parents; that the police can only deploy female constables to control the protests. A top executive member of the banned Kashmir University Students Union (KUSU), which had given the call for the April 17 protest, told 101reporters.com that the call wasn’t specifically for schoolgirls to join the protests.

“Their overwhelming participation though underlines the anger in the state,” he said. “Women have always been at the vanguard of protests against wrongdoings of the State.”

Is this then the new face of the Kashmiri stone-pelter?