The silence of Kashmiris?

 Why are Indo-Pak making the bodies of Kashmiris as their battleground?

 

inam ul rehman                  

 

A couple of top army commanders that include Srinagar based 15 Corps, Lt Gen D P Pandey, and director-general of the Defence Intelligence Agency and deputy chief of the Integrated Defence Staff, Lt Gen. KJS Dhillon, chided Kashmiris for remaining silent on civilian killings that took place in the month of October. The latter used the words “selective dementia” and “silent majority” while referring to civilian killings in the Valley   (https://www.aninews.in/news/national/general-news/why-selective-dementia-happens-to-silent-majority-when-theres-terrorist-killing-in-kashmir-lt-gen-kanwal-jeet-singh20211021001143/). 

 

Since the army does straight talk, I will say it point blank. 

When the Sikh pogrom took place in 1984, it was expected that the silent majority would show its regret to what happened, instead the silent majority voted the Congress party back in power with a thumping majority. When the new millennium came everyone thought that the past riots, and pogroms would not be repeated and the Indian public will give a befitting reply to any political party orchestrating such heinous things. Instead, the Gujarat pogrom took place and we saw the silent majority voting Narendra Modi for the office of prime minister. Where was the silent majority when Babri Masjid was destroyed? Where was the silent majority when the Golden temple was trampled? Where is the silent majority of India when riots targeting Muslims, Christians, and Dalits happen?  Does it mean that the silent majority is incapable of speaking? No, sirs. It is not the majority that speaks, it is the intellectual class that is the conscious voice of what you call “silent majority”. The ruling dispensation, then, and now, creates fear of speaking out, and the people who could have spoken remain quiet to speak at some other time. 

 

The top brass of the army gave sermons on human rights but forgot that when political rights and social securities of the people are demolished the people speak through their silences. Despite the atmosphere not favourable to speak on political matters in Kashmir, many masjids still took a stand against these killings, a few were reported and many were not (https://thewire.in/security/two-srinagar-mosques-call-on-public-to-protect-pandits-restore-minorities-confidence). 

 

Do the army commanders know that the government of Jammu and Kashmir forbids any government employee to express his political opinions? Do they know that even some journalists were arrested, or some summoned to police stations to explain their reportage? These two were the main people who would express their political opinions regardless of where their sympathies lay. Do the army commanders know that recently almost all two wheelers were seized in the Kashmir Valley ahead of the visit of home minister, Amit Shah (https://scroll.in/latest/1008346/police-seize-two-wheelers-in-srinagar-shut-down-internet-in-some-areas). It caused great discomfort and resentment to people, did Kashmiris said anything? 

 

Now if the “silent majority” should raise questions as per your wishes, sirs, then they would also question the men murdered by the men in uniform? Would you, sirs, then come to their rescue once the state institutions summon them to police stations, slap sedition cases against them, or arrest them? Do you know, sirs, that a human rights activist cum political worker was arrested for raising questions on the suspicious killing of a civilian at the hands of the paramilitary forces? (https://thewire.in/rights/jk-activist-who-sought-justice-for-man-killed-by-crpf-booked-for-promoting-enmity).  Do you, sirs, also forget that former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir were arrested? In this scenario how can common men express his political opinions when anything done, written, and said, can be brought under the ambit of ambiguous anti-national activities.

 

This conflict is not the creation of Kashmiri people. People had no say when this conflict was created in 1947. Then why are the bodies of Kashmiris becoming battleground for Indo-Pak? Why are Kashmiris blamed for everything? Why are Kashmiris provoked to lynch their own people (https://scroll.in/latest/1010388/reports-of-china-building-a-village-on-indian-territory-are-not-true-says-chief-of-defence-staff). Why are Kashmiris threatened that if they don’t speak, as per Lt Gen. KJS Dhillon, they may not get chance to speak at all (https://www.aninews.in/news/national/general-news/why-selective-dementia-happens-to-silent-majority-when-theres-terrorist-killing-in-kashmir-lt-gen-kanwal-jeet-singh20211021001143/). Why are Kashmiri people treated as guinea pigs? Why are they expected to fight the guns, when you don’t want the state to remove the notorious armed forces special power act (AFSPA), disturbed area act (DAA)? (https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/afspa-s-removal-to-impact-operations-peace-in-kashmir-because-of-it-army/story-4ZKVa7KfrzVRKZEvOZMdPO.html, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/indian-army-opposes-revocation-of-afspa-in-jk/articleshow/51068633.cms?from=mdr). When as proud army men you have conviction that armed militants can be wiped out only through arms why implore civilians to fight your war? You, sirs, always reiterate that the Pakistani state stokes fire in Kashmir, agreed; but, then isn’t the killing of innocents by men in uniform providing them the fuel to stoke up the fire? You always say that militants kill innocents on the behest of Pakistan, agreed. Does it mean that your men are also working for Pakistan when they kill innocents? 

 

If you, sirs, still need AFSPA, DAA, in Kashmir then how come you are here to protect the people? You are a disciplined, trained, and professional force, then, sirs, why do you need these anti-human acts to operate against a few hundred militants?   

  

And, sirs, you are asking people to stand against the guns, may we ask you when men in uniform kill innocent people what do you do? Do you take any stand against the killing of innocent people by your men? Do you make sure that these men are handed over to the civilian law authority, and not protected?  If you are not able to do anything other than fearing “morale loss to the forces” how do you, sirs, expect people to make militants accountable? All the uniformed men come under institutions and institutions have institutional memory to back up. But, sir, why are men in uniform not punished for smearing your institutions?  In every conflict innocents get killed but the armed men who take people as their own never make it a habit (https://thewire.in/rights/after-outrage-jk-admin-returns-bodies-of-businessmen-killed-in-hyderpora-shootout).  

  

We are always reminded that there is nothing which cannot be resolved through talks but why are talks discouraged? We are, sirs, helpless in front of the might of the state's institutions, your guns, and militants’ guns?    

  

Let us, sirs, not go into the past. Let us come together to discuss, debate the today of our tomorrow. Let us not come with rigid or concluding minds, let us assemble for universal rights of human beings and work toward a world where man made borders do not define our identity. 

And lastly, sirs, we need a cordial atmosphere to express our views, not “atmosfear”.  

Pic courtesy: Wikipedia 

 

 

 

My colleague the artistic Akhtar was never given institutional recognition

 inam ul rehman 

Like all great artists, and concerned citizen of his community, Akhtar Rasool was a lonely person. He had several friends, was a star of his community, but he held many views which were contrarian. He groomed artists, gave them suggestions, and didn’t shy in saying that Kashmiri artists do not have that perseverance, grit, and imagination to grab the attention of clients.    

Akhtar Boss, as I fondly used to call him, belonged to a minority community which is also marginalised in Kashmir. I used to see his artistic work in the Greater Kashmir pullout magazine. It was Urdu weekly Kashmir Uzma, where he changed the view of newspaper editors and layout designers. He designed Kashmir Uzma in his own novel way. His frontpage illustrations combined with Riyaz Masroor’s editing skills made this weekly a household name.  

In 2007, I joined the daily Etalaat, an English newspaper. Here I came to know Akhtar boss’s work. He was the overall head of this newspaper. At that time newspapers in Kashmir would come out with banal layout design. He made sure that the Etalaat was a game changer. And sure it was when it came to layout design, fonts, its colours, and placement of pictures, and news, Etalaat was above everyone. It forced many newspapers to concentrate on its layout. The closure of the Etalaat always remained a regret for him. Whenever we had a discussion, he would lament the closure of the Etalaat, and partly blamed his community for not embracing it. He believed that the Etalaat would have uplifted his community, and given a say in Kashmir affairs if it had survived.  

 After the closure of the daily Etalaat his proteges were taken up by many newspapers, and it resulted in improved layout designs and fonts. Sadly, in this part of the world, no one will give credit to Akhtar boss for improving the layout design of most newspapers and websites. And this is not limited to newspapers even within the University of Kashmir, and the Educational Multimedia Research Centre, Srinagar, where he was working, he was not given the due credit. He designed almost everything in the University besides the routine work at his centre, yet he was not given any institutional recognition.  

At times his credit was omitted from award winning films, but no action was taken. He wanted to do work on an Urdu calligraphy project, after initially getting the nod, he was not allowed to do so. It rankled him. It resulted in him skipping office picnics. But on September 18th of this year, he agreed to come to a picnic cum farewell of our colleague, it was not an official picnic, but what we call in Kashmir, baradari trip. 

His last selfie with office baradari.

He introduced EMMRC, Srinagar to Apple technology. He had a great eye on the emerging technologies in the world. He always kept himself abreast with the latest developments in technology, but sadly his inputs both in production and technical were not valued. To show his anguish with the official system he was making a face illustration which he had titled Lava. He was also hurt from the behaviour of his community friends working in the University.

 Apart from being an artist par excellence, he was a resourceful person. As a member of the minority community in Kashmir, I had many opinionated discussions with Akhtar boss. He always maintained a decorum. It was he who told me that not all Shias in Kashmir are pro-Iran, he told me that Ayatollah Sistani had a greater following than any Iranian Ayatollah, he was resentful about waving the flag of Hezbollah in Kashmir, was critical of Iran not doing anything for the Shias of Kashmir without becoming their proxies, particularly on educational front. He would brief me about minority politics, fears, complexes that minorities have, and importance of symbolism in Shia sect, et al.  

He was a foodie, believed in quality life, and when he would dirge for the martyrs of Karbala his poignant voice would bring tears to the eyes.  A couple of years ago he was operated on for a throat problem. It recurred this year. He consulted his doctor and was planning to get under the knife again, but before destiny we are helpless. 

He leaves behind a three-year-old son and eight months pregnant wife. The University would absorb his wife and secure the future of his children, but we will never get back our Akhtar boss. His parents, wife and children will continue to miss him, and so will we, perhaps.     

 

 

 

Rahul’s book fails to answer questions, but details are revealing

Book: The lover boy of Bahawalpur: How the Pulwama case was cracked 

Author: Rahul Pandita 

Publisher: Juggernaut. 

inam ul rehman

 

As the car laden with many hundred kilograms of explosives rammed into a paramilitary convoy on February 14, Kashmiris watched in disbelief that killing of such magnitude took place in “world’s most militarised area” where surveillance of every human is unparallel. After the initial disbelief murmurs of this blast being inside job started to do rounds. It picked up, and even photos were circulated to prove that the suicide bomber Aadil Dar was paraded before a press conference by police. Do these rumours have any source? Of course, Aadil Dar the suicide bomber, and Aadil Dar the arrested one were different entities.

 

You know what is common between Noor Muhammad Tantary, Ashiq Nengroo, and Abbas Rather. Noor is considered revivalist of the Jaish-i-Mohammad, and one who put “many boys on a suicide mission”. Ashiq, and Abbas were overground workers and also provided information to the police. Noor was termed as the “merchant of death” by Delhi high court and sentenced for life. Then how was Noor released? According to the author in jail, some persons met him who convinced him to work for them. In order to facilitate his release and make it look ordinary, he was first transferred to Kashmir and later released on parole.    

 

Before being released Noor beseeched “a central investigation agency to use his services to counter-terrorism in Kashmir”. To prove his words, he provided information to the intelligence agency, but only of those men whom “the Jaish wanted to bump off,” according to the author. Noor was finally killed but not before he had set up an elaborate network for the Jaish militants. His militant organisation had so much trust in him that it would say even if it sees Noor in an army chopper it won’t suspect him of betrayal. 

 

Now let us assume what Rahul has written is true and fact, but how does it stop one not to think that maybe Noor was working for the agencies, or Ashiq was also involved in the suicide bombing? Maybe the agency or agencies responsible for handling these people were tasked to go for a low-level suicide bombing to favour certain individuals or political party? Maybe the handlers involved in it were not expecting that they would be tricked again, and the bang would be a colossal one bringing India Pakistan nearly to a nuclear war? Although the author does pick up a line that the people said it was done to boost Narendra Modi’s victory in the 2019 election, but he brazenly dismisses it without answering why not to take these rumours seriously.  

 

Similarly, Rahul is unable to put it on the record how Waiz-ul-Islam, a teenager, came into the militancy network. His case is narrated in one line without informing how militants were able to make such an elaborate network. We know in the Valley once an overground worker is identified, or someone becomes a militant the police use universal forensic extraction device (UFED) that bypasses every password to monitor the activity of his relatives and friends. Didn’t the police use UFED to spy on OGWs? 

 

It does not mean that it was done at the behest of the Indian prime minister. Since the Jaish came into contact with worldwide proscribed al Qaeda outfit it learned stealth, and here Rahul tells readers that it used this stealth to confuse intelligence agencies.

  

The use of human resources depends on who uses their energy effectively for efficacy. And here the author says that militants were ahead of intelligence agencies to use their sources which they had meticulous cultivated. 

 

The mastermind of the Pulwama attack were Pakistani nationals belonging to the Jaish militant organisation. They were led by Umar urf Idrees Bhai, according to the author the latter made a small mistake that helped the counter-insurgency grid to eliminate him. But as per Rahul, he cannot reveal the “small mistake” because investigators have barred him. What is the fun of writing the book on the mastermind if you cannot reveal that one “small mistake”?   

 

There are no easy answers to how actionable intelligence was not acted upon, or how militants outsmarted the counter insurgency grid. We would never know many things that took place in Kashmir because the longer the insurgency goes the murkier it becomes.  

If you watch crime patrol stuff on the television you won’t question Rahul Pandita’s book, because it is written in such a pacy manner that the reader will glide through the book without questioning many things. 

 

But you must read it. There are many details including photos which will surprise readers. Lastly, it won’t be a surprise if a movie or web series is made on this book.

Author's image courtesy: twitter

Dilip Kumar named Dilsoz Colony in our area, and it has stayed so.

inam ul rehman

 

The first time I heard the name of Dilip Kumar was in the early 90s when my father mentioned to me that the name of our adjacent Dilsoz Colony was kept by the former when he used to frequently visit the Valley. At the time I had no interest in him. 

 

I was puzzled why of all actors Dilip Kumar’s name of the colony stuck with the people.  Those days Doordarshan used to telecast classic Bollywood movies once a weeknight. As a teen, I had no interest in black and white movies which langured on. But the puzzle of why Dilip’s name stuck with the place made me uncomfortable.  Internet was not yet to be midwifed, google was in clouds, and the only source was books. But a school-going kid reading books on film stars was taboo. 

 

So, I started to read magazines, particularly Urdu film magazines and there was plenty written on him. His film Saudagar was then a runaway success, Urdu magazines went over the top to praise his acting prowess at the age of 70. I realised that the Urdu magazines were always putting him on the highest pedestal! I also came to know that his real name is Yusuf Khan. His being a Muslim may have been one of the strong reasons why the people of Kashmir liked him, and why the name of Dilsoz Colony stuck on the tongues of the people. 

 

Then I watched late-night Bollywood classic Daag at my uncle’s home, (it was a time of the early 90s when we used to move to our Uncle’s home because of encounters, and fear of paramilitary troops frequently searching homes) followed by Yahudi, Azaad, Aan, Mughal-e-Azam, Madhumati, Ganga Jamuna, and many more. Later Doordarshan started to broadcast movies daily on afternoons. It was a chance to watch Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Shami Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, et al. As I watched Dilip and his contemporaries I noticed he uses silence as his strong point, his eyes were expressive, was adept at dancing wearing a dhoti, he was the character in his movies, not the actor, songs in his films were not catchy unlike Shami Kapoor, Raj Kapoor, or Dev Anand. But strangely couldn’t watch Devdas, because I thought it was too gloomy. The strength, as I realised, of his films was Dilip Kumar.  

After watching his movies, I developed interest to see what was then called “art/parallel cinema”. I began to see Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azami, Deepti Naval, Farooq Sheikh, Pankaj Kapoor, Pawan Malhotra, Amol Palekar, Nana Patekar, et al, all on DD. 

Then in 2002, Shahrukh Khan’s Devdas was released. I didn’t watch it either. Many critics panned Shahrukh and rightly so for his ham performance in Devdas. As a student of mass communication and journalism at the University of Kashmir in 2003, one of our senior’s submitted his student dissertation on “Devdas vs Devdas”, it sparked an interest to watch both movies.  I decided first to watch Devdas of Dilip. The artisan that he was Dilip looked every bit the character. His character of forlorn, doomed, and self-destructive lover was perhaps possible for him to play because he had experienced it in his life. He was in love with Kamini Kaushala, but she married her brother-in-law following the death of her sister.  Anyways, Devdas of Dilip is unmatched. Both he and Suchitra Sen are exceptional in the movie. Shahrukh on the other hand was loud, exaggerated, and never the character but every bit the star.   Devdas was the apogee of his acting, although Ganga Jamuna is considered his pinnacle.

 

 After that Dilip became redundant. But he returned. 

 

This time as the central character of all movies starting with Kranti. His show off with the then reigning superstar Amitabh Bachchan in Shakti movie once again reinforced that Dilip is not only the star but the actor as well. Like almost in all films here also he overshadowed Amitabh Bachchan. To his credit, Amitabh also held his own in front of the regal acting of his co-star. Shabir Mujhaid, a former producer at the DD Kendra Srinagar, once told in a gathering that during an interview with Raj Kapoor he asked him about his contemporary actors to which Raj Kapoor said that he believes that except Yousuf Saeb all have stagnated.    

 

One can say his acting was class, films were meaningful, essayed the characters which were politically progressive. His élan, grace, grip, and ebullience were unmatched. You can’t find both the star and the actor in the same person in Bollywood except Dilip Kumar.   

                        

Image courtesy: Filmfare

Review: When borders become sacrosanct at the cost of humans it is time to question their validity

Book: Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India

Author: Suchitra Vijayan

Publisher: Context

 

 

inam ul rehman 

 

God made men, and what did men do? Men made borders, divided humans in mine and thine country, created a humanitarian crisis in which humans are at each other's throat all in the sham faith of protecting the country at the expense of human lives.

 

Suchitra’s seven-year research brings her to the same conclusion that man-made borders have wreaked havoc on the earth and created a rift between humans in which a human being is judged from the place s/he comes from.  

  

“No human being is illegal. Existing is not illegal.” These two sentences sum up the author’s motive for writing this book. The book is a drift from the normal readings we generally like to have. It is about the borderlands of India with Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Pakistan to a lesser extent. These disfranchised people are living on Indian borderlands for many many decades but don’t possess a sheet of paper that will claim them as lawful citizens of India. It is the story of these people who are real but do not exist on the bureaucratic papers. Their existence is not worth it unless a lowly government official approves their human existence officially. 

 

“Words are powerful,” writes the author about disfranchised people who face hate every day, “and they have the capacity to normalise hate. To call a human being illegal is not only racist and inaccurate, but also dehumanising.”  Her seven-year foray to the parts of India where even brave men would think twice to venture brings out an India of 150 million people living in 111 border districts with many not having any form of identity card, “and often face harassment on account of not being able to prove their identity.” It is a dark hole with its own rules.

Among the places, she takes her readers one place is Nagaland, a Christian majority land where people openly challenge the might of the Indian state. The Indian state has wrested back some semblance by reportedly “burning villages again and again unless villagers finally surrendered” but has not been able to remove memorials built by the defiant population. The writing on the plaque of Khrisanisa Seyie, the first president of the federal government of Nagaland, states: “Nagas are not Indians, their territory is not part of the Indian union. We shall uphold and defend this unique truth at all costs and always.”  In fact, the author writes that in most Naga villages “gravestones bear the name of their war dead, how they were killed and which Indian regiment killed them.”   

 

Suchitra does not let readers forget that communal riots, and massacres of the minority are not only the BJP’s prerogative, even the secular Congress party abetted it. She cites one of the worst and forgotten massacre of Muslims in Neile, Assam of 1983. When the then Prime Minister of India, Indra Gandhi, was questioned about it she notoriously said, “One has to let such events take their own course before stepping in.” Being a humanist the author is worried that in 1951 under the Congress party rule the national register of citizens (NRC) was employed but was not maintained until now which she fears will result “largest crisis of statelessness in human history.” 

 

We are also introduced to people who are building their own prisons where the state would put them, and possibly let them rot to die without anyone bothering. 

Of course, if the author takes us to borderlands Kashmir cannot escape, a place “where my grammar of dissent found political and moral clarity.”  

 

The book is filled with quotes that will reverberate for many years. Here I put a few of them: 

· “The borders have made our minds smaller, our languages to die without care and our people petty.”   

· “The military occupation makes weapons of the people they seek to control, turning them into agents of their oppression.”

· “When you are powerless, time will acquit every crime committed against you.”

 

Drawbacks 

For her the oppression of Kashmir started with the Mughal army marching toward the Valley in 1586. It is historically wrong, because if you look at the history of rulers virtually no one from Kashmir ruled the Valley, and the Mughal army was invited by the revered saints of the Valley to stop the persecution of Muslims at the hands of Shia rulers of the Chak dynasty. Secondly, if her argument is taken then the RSS and Hindu nationals are right in saying that Muslims occupied India and oppressed Hindus from the 13th century to the 19th century. 

 

Her sources in Kashmir tell her that no execution of police and army collaborators being filmed took place in Kashmir. If she only had googled she would have got many such videos of police and army “informers” being executed, or even grotesquely beheaded. She also ignores that the two teenage girls killed in 2011 by militants at Sopore were later declared by a Kerala evangelist as part of a Christian group (https://indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/web/sopore-girls-part-of-christian-group-says-kerala-evangelist/). Her resource persons didn’t tell her that a strike call was issued by the then head of the Hurriyat Conference (G) chief against this killing ((https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/hurriyat-hardliners-call-for-a-shutdown-in-sopore-on-friday-127853-2011-02-03).  

 

It also feels strange to read when the author states that since August 04, 2019, she has been calling her friend’s landline number but always hears the same automated voice “that the number is unreachable”. But after August 15, 2019, at a few places of Kashmir landlines were restored and by October most landlines were reactivated by the state. Her sources also led her to believe that there are only two groups of political leaders: pro-Independence, and pro-India. That a significant group of pro-Pakistan is active in Kashmir has been brushed aside. 

She also quotes her sources that tanks rolled out in the Srinagar city post “abrogation” of Art 370! It is a surprising and astounding claim. No one reported it, and importantly no photojournalists, who risked sedition charges, clicked any pic. The absence of evidence does not mean that it didn’t happen, so I called a few of my friends to check its veracity but everyone denied having any knowledge of it. Why should lies be told to an empathetic voice? What is a lie going to serve to any Tehreek anywhere in the world? 

 

Apart from these factual inaccuracies the pictures, barring a few, in the book are bland and do not add up anything to the story she is narrating.

 

 

 Do these howlers on Kashmir make her book less credible? No. Because post the August 05, 2019, events when the Valley was shut down for everyone she had to rely on her sources. They have let her down, but it does not colour her work as she has herself been to all places and reported from the ground.  

 

The author is among the rarest of human beings who does not want borders to define human beings. She wants to break borders “to reclaim what was denied to us, so as to not pass this loss on to our children.” It is a topic which states do not like people to take up, and only a minuscule authors voice their concern toward this man-made barrier.  

 

 

 Image courtesy: From the author's website. 

 

                          

Review: Mostly engrossing, partly disappointment

 inam ul rehman

Book: Rumours of spring: A girlhood in Kashmir

Author: Farah Bashir

Publisher: HarperCollins 

 

“On the deserted streets of my neighbourhood, in the presence of so many military bunkers and the gaze of the unknown men inside them,” writes Farah Bashir, in her refreshing memoir, ‘Rumours of Spring’ “I suddenly became aware of my body and its contours. (I) felt naked. I tried to fold into the school bag clutched in front of me.” It resulted a perennial hunch in her back, the author says. 

 

“Rumours of spring” is an intriguing title, already a novel of the same name has been published in the late 80s. It is a title that does justice because there is no spring ahead only the rumour of it. 

 

Bobeh epitomises Kashmir of yore

 

Farah crafts her memoir around Bobeh, her grandmother epitomises the Kashmir that stood for syncretism until 1994, that is where she ends her book. The year 1994 marked the secular, independence seeking the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front giving up of armed resistance as both Indo-Pak, and pro-Pakistan Islamist militants tried to exterminate it. Unable to counter both the state and non-state actors, the JKLF resorted to peaceful means to achieve its objective of independent Kashmir from both the nuclear states. The year in which the author ends her memoir also marks the hegemony of pro-Pakistan Islamist armed parties in Kashmir. 

 

She begins her memoir with a sombre dead scene of Bobeh. And until she is buried, Farah goes back and forth to narrate her 18-year-old journey. She has intelligently narrated anecdotes in which she takes readers to intricate details of her growing up in a small city where everyone knows each other. It is a Kashmir of the late 80s where girls going to saloon, wearing skirts is not a taboo, it is a Kashmir where pilgrims upon returning from Makkah brought video and audio players as a souvenir, a Kashmir in which special screening of movie is held for all the relatives including women, where a father takes her 9-year-old daughter to watch an English movie.  It is the Kashmir of her Bobeh where whenever there is a function in their neighbour’s house, who happened to be from Pandit community, the two houses would be merged by a wooden plank. They would keep their windows open to have a chat even in the freezing winters of Kashmir. It is Bobeh who imparts the author with local myths, traditions, fables with a broth of religion.   

 

The armed Tehreek 

 

All this changed when the Tehreek erupted in Kashmir, and selectively some Pandits were targeted, and a couple of their women were raped, which created fear psychosis among the minority community. And how does the author narrate this ordeal?  

She notes their absence even in dreams, and questions herself, “Why was it that the ones ‘present’ included only my Sikh and Christian friends and teachers, but hardly any of the Pandits?” Through Bobeh she tells readers how hardworking and well-mannered Pandits were when the former mentions that her neighbour, a doctor, “was always up before I wake up for Tahhjudd” (a prayer performed at the last leg of the night) “and she never forgets to say adab arz to me.”

 

The Tehreek also unleashed a new thing: women must veil themselves, there were sporadic incidents of acid being used to threaten women to comply with the new diktats. And here the author expresses a dilemma that women face in a militarised area. “With troopers stationed everywhere walking on the streets made me feel uneasy. It felt like I was inviting their lecherous gaze. To an extent the scarf made me feel protected, and yet, that feeling of unease never quite left me, completely.”

 

There are snippets of militants harassing families for money.  She also mentions the murder of Mirwaiz Farooq, who was the father of one of her friends Rabia Farooq, and the dread of asking her how she coped with the death of her father. 

 

The militarised conflict             

As Kashmir became a military fortress its people were subjected to humiliation. People developed strange idiosyncrasies to ward off potential terror at the hands of troopers. One day she sees her Pophtaeth in the middle of the night, who had come to stay in their house as she had lost her house in a fire that had engulfed their neighbourhood in an encounter, saluting repeatedly to a patrol party of troopers, “I thought,” explains her aunt, “next time there is a search operation or an encounter in the neighbourhood the troops would show some mercy. Maybe they will remember that some from this house saluted them.”  

The author herself starts to pluck strands of hair whenever in tension, and her mother ties knots to her dupatta for the safety of family members.

When her mother hears about the alleged mass rape in twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora, she mutters along herself that they are lucky not to have any bunkers below their house and that they only have to “put up with the patrolling party a few times in a day”!

She compares the bunkers initially with weed and later as landmarks and addresses, ‘the house next to the small bunker’, the land before the large bunker’!

 

The author also writes of persons who became “collateral damage”. The rise of mental cases in Kashmir, the suicide of a neighbour whose husband was beaten by the troopers who in retaliation unleashed his violence on his hapless wife, a father “who mistook a window in the corridor for a door fell to his death” because he was engrossed in his son’s custodial death, a woman who lost her senses because she couldn’t understand why Kashmiris are killed.   

 

 

Disappointments 

 

I understand that the author is the god of the book. It is her prerogative what to write, and what to skip.  But there are some things that need to be mentioned.

 

The old city of Srinagar popularly known as Downtown has always been the contrarian. The people of Downtown firmly opposed Sheikh Abdullah when every other party was trying to woo him, they were the ones who revolted against the Dogra rulers. This contrarian attitude goes back to many centuries. Be it Mir Khalid’s Jaffna Street or this book both have not delved into this important history.

 

As a growing-up teenager the author strangely skips road Romeos and vagabonds who would frequent the city schools to harass girls. 

There is never a mention of what the girls of elite schools thought about militants, troops, daily killings, protestors gunned down, the response of the state; did they ever discuss the extraordinary situations, the author is silent on it. Or perhaps the elite schools were immune to the situation around them?      

The author never mentions what was Bobeh’s reaction on acid throwing, forced veil, militants, et al. The author also skips any romanticised feeling toward militants at the early stage of the Tehreek. It was common those days to look upto the JKLF militants as fashion trend setters. Romance between girls and militants was a known thing, and so were teenagers eager to dress, walk, and even to hold guns for the sake of romance. 

There is no mention of fratricide killing between the JKLF and pro-Pakistan Islamist militant groups.  

 

 Verdict

 

It is an important book (perhaps the first memoir written by a Kashmiri woman) as it offers fresh perspective, grippingly tells the ordeals that women face in militarised conflict, their daily chores amid the bombs and guns outside.       

 

All the chapters are short, some are insightful, sharp, and there are stories within a story making it interesting for the readers. The book is light read, and as such will find a good number of readers. And the second part of it may prove a runaway success.  

 

Book review: A plague called Kashmir conflict

Book: The plague upon us

Author: Shabir Ahmad Mir

Publisher: Hatchette India 

 

inam ul rehman 

 

Anyone familiar with the writing as a craft, not as a talent, will vouch that writing is spine bending work. You give up your cherished things for the craft of writing. But what matters for all writers is how public receives their product.  

 

“The plague upon us”, a debut novel of Shabir Ahmad Mir, is a complex story of Kashmiri characters. It is as complex as the Kashmir situation is in itself. An average reader has to have his attention span stretched to understand this book. It is a thinking man’s book where the author lets his readers to form their own opinions, and judge the characters on their own experiences.  

 

Set in the 90s when Kashmir saw massive armed uprising against the Indian state, all the characters in the book go through many transformations. Be it Oubaid­–the narrator of stories­– an intriguing person who goes through phases as the conflict eggs on, Muzaffar who wants to introspect things in a new way, Latief Zaeldar who wants to reclaim the feudal glory that was taken away by the “lion of mountains”, or Sabia’s conundrum love story. 

 

Conflict shapes characters, and this conflict although segregates them, but the complexity of the conflict gravitate each other’s path although everyone takes decisions in its own interests. Whenever any conflict drags on it tests the character of people. Longer the conflict murkier it becomes. There is no one shade which defines the character of people, in fact, it is thousand shades acquired in the conflict that shapes people living in the conflict. 

 

The author shows how the gun made downtrodden powerful, and at times baleful as well as leashing power on the wealthy, rich, and the poor people. There is undercurrent of caste, inter religious marriage, love between two unequals, and the conflict becoming a corporation for most people. The author has fascinatingly told a complex tale of rich people playing to gallery on both sides, and their vulnerability, at times, exploited by both the sides. It is not an average book where you can decipher things easily. The confluence of four different stories and characters get engulfed in a plague that is the bane of Kashmir.   

 

The state, in the novel, is represented by Major Gurvinderpal. The latter’s motto is: “I don’t need people out there to like us, I just need them to need us.” In fact, Major Gurapal is omnipresent in all stories

 

The author reserves the best lines to sagacious Ashfaq, a college teacher. Ashfaq has friends who have become militants, he does not endorse their methods, but maintains his friendship.  “In our history,” says Ashfaq to a perplexed Muzaffar when he questions his stance on azaadi, and militants, “we have been made to take so many turns, so many byroads that we have created a labyrinth of our own. (E)veryone who is here wants to get out of the labyrinth: everyone who is here wants azaadi–but everyone does not necessarily want to end up at the same place.” He monologues on: “My azaadi is not to replace one labyrinth with another; it is a place outside all labyrinths. (W)here I have the freedom to decide whether I want to recreate the boundaries or redraw them, or not to do either, or even to have no boundaries at all. Where others have the same freedom as I do––to choose and to decide for themselves.”  

Then he questions his own notion of idealistic azaadi: “Those with a practical achievable and workable azaadi, don’t they deserve to have it?” 

 

Before he parts, he leaves Muzaffar with some thoughts to ponder on: “What if the act that was supposed to be a means to something becomes an end it itself? What if the metaphor undermines the meaning? That is when, quite unwittingly, a rebel becomes a proxy for some geopolitical rivalry that he had nothing to do when he started his rebellion.” 

 

But the life of sages in Kashmir conflict is short. Before he is killed in a protest against the state, Ashfaq sifts the fog of political and moral clarity which has engulfed Muzaffar. The latter, on the death of his mentor, picks up the gun. A dissent which his mentor didn’t like but the one which Muzaffar finds irresistible.  And here is added another shade to his character. Muzaffar later realises, “No matter what you do, there are always regrets.” 

 

The author has created characters which are the creation of a ruptured society where everyone fiddles with murkiness. There are no conclusions only complexities that the conflict creates in human nature where survival at times means to kill the other just to breathe a few more hours.   

  

But the book is skinny. Literature demands that characters should be etched out with lots of flesh. In making this novel pacey Shabir does not put flesh on the characters.  This is where he falters, and here the fault lies with his journalism stint*.

         

I have learned over the years not to compare books or authors, but I thing I cannot shrug off after reading the book: it feels as if I am watching the movie Haider! But it takes nothing away that it is one of the better fiction books on the Kashmir conflict. But as mentioned earlier an average reader will find it difficult to read.  

 

I have noticed one thing among Kashmiri writers that their imagination remains fixed within a certain geography in Kashmir. I haven’t come across any Kashmiri writer who has based his story in Chenab Valley, or Jammu! A south Indian writer, Madhuri Vijay, in her debut novel “The far field” bases her story in Kishtwar, Kashmir. Our writers are yet to think in terms of nation.  

*Shabir Ahmad Mir was never a journalist. My apologies for it.