 |
| Writing On the Wall In Pampore...Ghazwa-e-Hind. |
PAMPORE is where south Kashmir begins - the nerve centre of Jamaat’s might that
has seen majority of encounters between security forces and terrorists in the
last two months. The Entrepreneurship Development Institute
(EDI) building is targeted for being a symbol of Kashmiri youth’s escape from
the clutches of trans-border Jihad. As Army engages the militants, and local
police provides back up support, a third ring is thrown around the operation by
the paramilitary forces. Over an arch of two kilometers, the commandoes stand guard with their backs towards the encounter site. I ask the commandant about the queer placement. The boys
from the villages pelt stones at forces to distract them from the operation.
The third ring is to merely prevent that, he explains. A bunch of students with public school appearance in blazers and ties stops a few meters away, shouts Nara-e-taqbir Allah-hu-Akbar, and leaves as if nothing else needs
done.
 |
ASHRAF owns and drives a cab through the tourist circuit of Kashmir. He has a 9-yr old daughter with an ailment that needs a complex
procedure in her head every year or so if she has to keep living. Two summers
ago as she lay dying, a doctor couple came honeymooning from Delhi. A bond
emerged as Ashraf took them around the snow clad meadows of Gulmarg and Pahalgam made famous
by score and more of Bollywood flicks from Bobby to Haider. The doctors
realized they could help. Since then, Ashraf has driven twice to Delhi, and got
her treated for free. How does this affect his thinking? My unit engineer
is headed for a guest live in the evening on the outskirts of Srinagar. As the
car passes Batmaloo, he asks Ashraf wasn’t this the spot of an encounter a week
ago where two terrorists were gunned down? An agitated Ashraf corrects him that they were not terrorists but Mujahids. Over next four days he betrays emotions for Azadi, and speaks the language of
victimhood nevertheless.
MILLENIA before the British were born, Pandavas left no mountain range from Himalayas in the north to Vindhyas in the south, where they did not spend some time of their exile, thus marking out lose boundaries of India that is Bharat. So while following a trail of signages for a Pandava hideout in Tangmarg, I bump into Ahmed Bhat, a small time contractor with the state forest department. He invites home for tea. Perched atop a cliff overlooking the scenic Drung valley famous among anglers for its trout, the wooden Bhat home is straight out of a picture postcard. Making us comfortable in the carpeted warmth of his guest room, he vanishes for a while. Just as I start wondering if something is amiss, apprehension melts as Ahmed reappears with tea and biscuits in a tray. His teenage son is studying computers in Ludhiana, and daughter goes to village school. “Have you seen a terrorist?” I ask a cub reporter question on first assignment to Kashmir. "So many of course. They come and stay in any home in the village they want. Who can stop them?" It's a melange of emotions ranging from fear of the gun to camaraderie of a cause, from motivation of Islam to memories of those dead that connects the terrorist and the Kashmiri. Often its the sheer triteness of a situation that hangs as a cloud over the valley most times of the year, year after year. “Who in right mind would want this uncertainty around life? But its beyond commoners like us now. Only thing I could do was to send my son out of this ecosystem and hope for the best,” Ahmed says, pouring more tea.
 |
MUDASIR
is a quintessential Kashmiri: passionate, emotional, hewn of the Kashmiri
literary tradition. Once, in his youth, he might have been a stone-pelter,
shouting Azadi. Now he is a cop. As a sub-inspector heading the Janglatmandi
chowki in Anantnag – at the centre of the post-Burhan Wani unrest – Mudasir
stands at the other end of the stones, proof of which he carries all over his
bruised body.
I
meet him the day a blog-post by a young Kashmiri IAS officer has gone viral.
The harangue is how alienated the officer feels in the valley because of
jingoistic national media in Delhi. While the articulate babu only has to
choose on which channels his profile should get aired, Mudasir is more of a
nuts-and-bolts man on the ground. “What
the terrorist indulges in is visual spectacle,” he borrows from Aristotle. And
then adds: “We need a tough body controlled by a calm mind to handle the situation.”
Between Newton and Gandhi, the latter is the obvious choice for him. “India won
its freedom through Gandhi. We can’t fall in the trap of equal and opposite
reaction.” Would this end? He says it won’t. Aristotle concluded in Rhetoric
that spectacle was the least artistic form of tragedy. Kashmir’s present is a
tragedy wrapped in a spectacle indeed.
HIS name needs to be protected. So let’s call him K. As the Kashmir crisis broke in
1989, K crossed over to Pakistan and spent a year training as a terrorist
across the region from Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistani Punjab to Khosht and
Jalalabad in Afghanistan. From 1991 to mid-1990s, he remained a militant in
the valley carrying jihad against India. That was the time when the foreign
elements free from Afghan theatre started gaining upper hand, leaving the local boys disillusioned. They
could not connect with the Kashmir that was being introduced to them from
across the border. Assisted by the establishment, some of them turned against
Pakistan and came to be identified as Ikhwans. K lives a quiet life somewhere in
south Kashmir now, and admitted to feeling both suffocated and threatened. His
suffocation has led him to social media activism against the Hurriyat
narrative, which in turn has brought him under the radar of separatist forces
that would want him “sorted-out” as he says, by which he means he might be eliminated. With their hands full post Burhan
Wani, security apparatus too can’t offer him anything beyond neglect, thus
making him wonder if he chose the right path. His facebook posts however show
he still has hopes from Delhi, which in turn should give Delhi some hope.
 |
MY guide for the Makhdoom Sahib dargah perched atop Hari Parbat in downtown
Srinagar is in his early-20s. He is clean shaven and wears denim. As I get in, he stops at the
entrance. Says he does not believe in dargah worship. Inside, the shrine has equal number of men and women partaking
spirituality without segregation. Haji Ali, take note. Makhdoom Sahib in many
ways represents the original instrument of accession of Kashmir with India. A
contemporary of Akbar, and a seventh generation convert from a Chandravanshi
Rajput family of landlords, the saint had invited the great Mughal to take
control of the valley and contain the spread of Shia influence of the waning
Safavids to the west. By the mere act of refusing to enter the shrine, the
young boy disowns the very Kashmiriyat for which the stone pelters are
ostensibly fighting. Till about a decade ago, Asiya Andrabi would orchestrate
acid attacks to intimidate young Kashmiri women into wearing hijab. Now,
sisters Atiya and Nafsia Rizwi have opened an Abaya shop in Hawal area, selling
designs they call a fusion of Arabic and Iranian cultures. Arabic? Iranian?
Kashmiriyat?
(Should there be part-II to this Paradise Lost?)
