Manufacturing silence: Kashmir’s long tryst with coercion
Inam ul rehman “What would you say to militants if they enter your house,” asked a commandant of paramilitary forces to my father after finishing the search of our house. It was the first crackdown in our area. My uncles and cousins also lived in the same house and were all gathered in our residential compound. “We,” replied my father to the commandant, “can neither deny you nor them as both of you hold guns.” The commandant looked at my father, smiled, nodded, and walked away with his troops. As an 11-year-old, I realised that in front of the barrel of a gun we become nobody. Pattern returns On 10th January of this year, the daily Kashmir Uzma Urdu newspaper published two public announcements, in which former members of the Jamaat-i-Islami Jammu and Kashmir (a right-wing extremist Muslim party similar to the Bharatiya Janata Party) publicly disassociated themselves from the religio-political party. While reading it, I had a wry smile. When the armed i...