Your fight against a corrupt system

After a long wait, when there was only one thing that could have decided between our success and failure, it was our hard work. But when we go through the selection list of JK Fire & Emergency Services, we find out there were many hurdles that one had to swim across to reach the shore successfully, and those hurdles were corruption, favouritism, nepotism. I being a candidate myself got an offer as well like many other candidates do, I was told by one person that he can arrange question paper of fire and emergency written test prior to the examination last year, and he told me that he had very close ties with the private company which was selected by the fire and emergency department for conducting the recruitment drive in a transparent manner after a proper bid, and the said private company conducted our physical test in 2018 and it was also their job to set the question paper for the written test as well and as per the Government Order No.1048-Homeof2018 Dated:- 01-08-2018 Departmental recruitment board was framed for this, now coming back to my point when I was told about that offer I outrightly rejected it that time, because first of all I didn't believed on such non sense and secondly because I've never done any bad thing in my whole life before and I better believed on my skills & knowledge I had grasped all these years, but since then the exam got postponed two times in December 2019 and March 2020, first due to some internal problems in the department and then citing Covid-19 the exam got cancelled again and finally it was held on 20 September 2020.
Now when the exam was held on 20th September 2020, the candidates fell flat in the examination centres and many cried after they saw the standard of the paper, the question paper was quite opposite to the prescribed syllabus and the standard of paper was too tough to even score 70 out of 100 points and for an 8th, 10th or 12th pass out candidates can't score 88+ points in that paper, who stayed away from their studies from last 10-15 years. Many candidates who I know personally have degrees like MSc, MPhil, MCA, M.Ed, PhD had failed to score 70 points out of 100 in the paper and I failed to touch 70 points as well and everyone was projecting the cut-off will be near around 50-55 as per the standard of the paper and even my few friends who are already working in the fire department and are posted at good ranks, told me the paper was very tough and the cut-off will be just 55 not more than that, but what when the result was declared by the fire and emergency department on 03 October 2020, every such candidate who had worked hard for the exam was not even in the waiting list, the topper had scored 96 out of 100 and the cut off was 88, it was nothing but slaughtering done by the department with all the deserving candidates who didn't indulge in any such activity like taking the paper in advance before the exams, or none among them was a blue-eyed candidate who had paid a bribe. Now we illegally dropout candidates demand justice from the responsible authority, who claim they changed the status of J&K from State to UT citing corruption in the state done by the dynastic regimes of NC and PDP here and now we want LG Manoj Sinha to intervene in this recruitment scam and all those persons who are involved in this scam should be put behind the bars and strict action must be taken against them, let the central government prove to the world that they didn't change the demography of Jammu & Kashmir for their interests, rather it was done only for the uplifting of the citizens of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. We have pinned our hopes on the judiciary as of now because no one in the administration has come forward on this matter yet and today is the deadline for the government to come clean on this, if they don't cancel this fraud list then from Monday we are going on an indefinite hunger strike. The day before our protest we held a virtual meeting over zoom and everyone was given a particular task and on the day when we were about to start our hunger strike, we reached the busiest market places of Kashmir Ganta Ghar(Clock Tower) and from there, I along with few dropout candidates who had arrived earlier started walking towards the press colony, the air was bitter and we had already passed the autumn and the winter was almost knocking on our doors, one could have smelled the aroma of Chinar leaves, which they produce after they are being burned on the sidewalks of the road every year, which is stretching from Radio Kashmir to Poloview.
On reaching the spot where we had decided to start our hunger strike to our surprise police had already taken the place under their control and they were looking towards everyone with suspicion, and they just needed a hint that we are here to make them run after us and use their batons on our already bruised and broken body. We made some calls and yes it was now confirmed we won't be allowed to hold any such protest against corruption, government. It was simple we just can't use our rights and we weren't supposed to raise our voices against corruption, nepotism and favouritism. Now many candidates had joined us by now, it was around 12:30 pm and we decide to go as per our plan, and one among told us that we live in a democracy and under the Article 19, the Constitution of India grants us Freedom of speech and expression, so on and so as he went with his babble for like 20 mins and then we decided to move out on the road and as soon as we made the move, police personals who were standing opposite to the building which had a signboard in big Capital letters "RISINGKASHMIR" the traffic was moving smoothly, the hawkers on the footpath were selling paintings, socks, wallets, and as soon as we tried to move on the road, I looked back and I saw we were walking like a flock of sheep and as soon as we hit the road, I saw everyone was running helter-skelter, police chased us down and we disappeared like thin air. We were denied every right to raise our voice against injustice but we hold on to the rope of justice and I'm one among those who has firm faith in our judicial system.

 Now after all the struggle we are about to win our case in the CAT Tribunal and I'm thankful for all my colleagues and friends who didn't back down and who didn't give up, our judgement has been reserved, we are pretty much hopeful,  that we'll win this case and the corruption will fail again to make inroads in our lives.

I took my Power in my Hand—
And went against the World—
‘Twas not so much as David—had—
But I—was twice as bold—

I aimed by Pebble—but Myself
Was all the one that fell—
Was it Goliath—was too large—
Or was myself—too small?

(Emily Dickinson)