Stone Wars

I wasn’t one of them. I stood at a distance watching, only moving forward when the boys charged, and returning to my place when they were chased back. I did not shout any slogan or throw any stones (I may have handed a couple of small pebbles lying next to me to a teenager—a stone-warrior—who was running short). During the “stone-battles” of Anantnag, however, everyone sheds painful tears. There is no escape from the tear gas, even for those who are not on the frontline. That is why my eyes grew red.

It was still dangerous to stand where I was, but I had an emergency slip-away plan in place. Quite close by is the shrine of Reshmol, my old refuge. Throughout my childhood and teenage life I walked through the shrine almost every single day. I know it and the surrounding labyrinthine alleys and snaky streets like the back of my hand. In early 90s my schoolmates and I often waited out gun-battles and military sieges of the town in the shrine’s precincts before it was safe to go home. The elderly shrine keepers kept us well fed; they would dig out the best date palms for us from their long pheran pockets. They also had almond kahwa ready round-the-clock with the choicest bagirkhanis from the nearby bakery.

It was a June afternoon of a sleepy hartal day. My old friend, a reformed hustler, cajoled me out of my home for an idle talk over tea. I wasn’t interested in tea, or talk, but I had heard that every afternoon young folks assembled in the alleys surrounding the main market square and fought stone battles with the CRPF. I was interested in watching these battles. My friend said there was a chance I might be able to see one. We agreed to meet at a small café we knew kept business running on hartal days behind its downed shutters.

I walked my way down the sun beaten potholed streets of Anantnag keeping away from the main roads, where the CRPF cane-charged (pummeled into pulp with bamboo bludgeons!) anyone they caught a hold of. The shops were closed and no buses or cars were running, but the cacophony of small vendors selling roasted peas and ice-kulfis in the narrow lanes, and auto-rickshaws ferrying patients and old people offset the grey feel that had descended on the town after the violent quelling of recent protests against rape and murder of two women in an adjoining town. Little boys and girls played hopscotch in the alleys, while men-folk sat on shop fronts poring over newspapers, or engage in idle talk. Occasionally, a woman would come out of her house and let fly a barrage of insults at a useless and inconsiderate husband and drag him inside while people giggled. The streets were filthy with newspapers and cardboard boxes lying everywhere, after more than a week of shutdown.

My friend was waiting for me outside the café. He knocked a few times on the shutter. A few moments later the shutter flew open and we went in. The place was full of smoke and raucous talk. While we stood waiting for a table, my friend pointed toward a bunch of spirited teenagers arguing, perhaps about cricket or politics, or both. One of them waved at my friend, and my friend waved back. I paid no further attention nor did I ask who they were. I went to the counter, and ordered some coffee. Sometime later I looked back toward the table my friend had pointed at, and saw the boys furtively talking over their phones. They got up and left. My friend asked me if I wanted to see where they were going. I didn’t know what he meant by that, but thought he meant something. I followed him out.

Once outside, the boys covered their faces with scarves and hoods. An auto rickshaw stopped by and they got together to unload large stones out of it. Another rickshaw followed, and then another. My friend told me the stones were brought from a roadside pile a few blocks away, where they have been lying for a number of years and were originally supposed to fill up potholes in the roads. Soon a number of other teenagers came in out of the adjoining alleys, and joined in. They spread out and started piling the stones in different places, which I realized later, were strategically located.

The bronze top of Reshmol’s shrine glimmered in the setting sun. We followed the boys past the shrine to a place where one had a clear view of the main market. The market had been under strict curfew for the preceding week. There used to be four CRFP pickets there till the year before, but two of them were abandoned after protestors pelted stones at them persistently, despite CRPF shooting directly into the crowds and injuring many. After they were abandoned young men from the town pulled the ugly sandbag bunkers down and freed up space on the choked road that CRPF had occupied for 17 years. But there were two pickets still there, one inside a bank building and another next to a girls’ senior secondary school. Streets merged into each other further down from where I was standing, and more people came down from there. Soon a few hundred people started chanting rhythmic slogans with stones in their hands. My friend asked me to withdraw some distance, but from where I still had a clear view.

First tear gas shells started landing on the protestors a few minutes after the slogans began. A few enterprising young boys had brought with them wet jute bags, and instantly placed them over the bursting tear gas shells. In fact a boy managed to catch a couple of them straight into his bag. Everyone clapped and whistled. This was an old game. Both sides were good at it. In the distance, a couple of armored cars appeared on the scene and started driving fast toward the crowd. The crowd splintered into the alleys. As the lead car reached where the protestors had been, a spatter of stones greeted it. The car stood there stupefied, unable to move, unsure of its purpose. No one came out of it. The intensity of rocks increased. The car retracted quickly. The stone-warriors returned in triumphant joy. They had won the first round. Slogans became shriller.

The Special Operations Group (SOG) of the police, better known among Kashmiris as the Task Force, soon joined the CRPF effort. SOG specializes in torture and killing, and is loathed by one and all. It is believed that the SOG men are paid 1500 rupees a month along with food and lodging for their services. (It may be true for it seems over the last decade “1500 rupees” has become a standard government entry-level salary for an enormous number of desperate job seekers. As exploitative as it is, there is no job security. But that is a separate issue.) Well, the SOG men show a level of brutality quite disproportionate to their puny salaries, and have become a butt of dark humor over the years. When they confront the protestors people shout “1500 and a rice plate” (it sounds much funnier in Kashmiri!), which riles up the SOG men, and makes them even more fiendish. It was no different this time around. In an uproarious glee, people shouted, “1500 and a rice plate”, at the approaching SOG men. The SOG men got wild with rage. They put down their rifles, and picked up stones, and began a charge spewing the worst expletives ever. It was actually fun. I liked the contest with no rifles or any other modern technology involved. The contest was fair. Only rocks and expletives allowed. But it wasn’t before long that the SOG realized they were getting beaten back. They picked up their rifles and began shooting straight. No one was hit. It was a tense moment.

The summer evenings in Kashmir are long. The evening has to pass through all its hues before it lets the night take over. Evening is a time when the working class men after a long day’s work come down to street corners to grab a grilled kabab or a rista, and smoke a smoke. On hartal days they join the town urchins, after filling themselves up with kababs, for a few rounds of stone pelting till its gets dark. As the tempting wafts from grills filled the air I stood there with my friend wondering if I should quickly grab a few or stay put. I didn’t want to go far from the shrine in case the CRPF charged.

Meanwhile, the boys stockpiled stones from the streets amid tear gas and occasional shots that the soldiers fired. Tear gas mixed with the aroma of grilled kebabs creates a perplexing effect. It is filled with a sense of foreboding and melancholia yet it enchants you toward it. A few moments later a boy came running down the street announcing that the CRPF was now firing expired shells. The expired shells emitted no smoke, but were used as simple metal projectiles intended to injure. They were dangerous because you couldn’t see them coming, unlike the tear gas shells. Everyone ran for cover. My friend and I ran toward the shrine, as metal shells hit the streets with a clanking sound. We were only a few meters in when we heard people crying out on the street. “Morukh ho!” (-Murder-). We returned. A young man apparently hit by a shell in his face was lying unconscious on the road. A small pool of blood formed around his head. The CRPF fired shots at anyone who tried to pull the man to safety. Desperation grew. The man was going to die right there in front of our eyes. Someone went into an adjoining mosque and called for help over the loudspeaker. He asked the townsfolk to come out to help retrieve the man. Men and women came out on to the streets and cries of anguish rent the air. Young boys assembled themselves and led a charge. The CRPF retreated for a time long enough to allow the young man to be lifted out. He was piled onto a motorcycle and taken away to the hospital.

The stone battle continued for another hour, but it was dark by now. People looked tired for the day. Fathers and mothers found out their sons and took them home. Another group of boys collected stones and tossed them into the auto rickshaws, which drove them back apparently to the same stone piles from which they had been taken. People soon disappeared from the streets. My friend and I went into the shrine to have a kahwa. Outside CRPF armored cars were moving about perhaps looking to see if they could pick someone up to take revenge. In the night, my friend told me, the CRPF goes into the alleys hurling abuses and beating against the doors of people’s homes. Occasionally they break into the houses, and beat up men, molest women and loot valuables.

I reached home with my eyes red and itchy. Nobody believed that I had only watched. My hands were inspected carefully. How did you manage to run in your sandals? You should have worn proper shoes? I should have. My mother was right. She told me stories of young boys who have died over the years pelting stones. How is this going to help? No one in the world gives a care. But then what else can one do?

Before leaving, my erstwhile-hustler friend asked me if I knew what Einstein once said: “I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth—rocks!” Which war were my stone-warriors fighting? The unsettling yet festive nature of the “stone-battle” I saw made me think of it as a form of sport. It is joyous and full of pain. It is about winning or losing but only for a while, before another contest begins. It is about winning and losing over and over again. It tests human endurance. But as it is now it is unfair. Both sides should be able to hurl only rocks and expletives at each other.

A Place with no Pain

"The regal realm with the sorrowless name:

they call it the Queen City, a place with no pain,

No taxes no cares, none own property there,

no wrongdoing, worry, terror, or torture.

O my brother, I've come to take it as my own,

my distant home, where everything is right.

That imperial kingdom is rich and secure,

where none are third, or second--all are one;

Its food and drink are famous, and its people

dwell in ease and in common wealth.

They do this or that, they walk where they wish,

they stroll through fabled palaces unchallenged.

O, says Ravidas, a good-for-nothing tanner,

those who walk beside me are my friends."

----Sant Ravidas, Dalit poet of late 15th C.

"Begum-pur"

--or, Be-Gham-Pur.

Kaash-mir!

The Bloody Brothers

One day, in the mid-Nineties, I was walking back from school through one of the busier lanes in the Anantnag town, when two Kashmiri gunmen appeared from nowhere and entered a CRPF bunker in Cheeni Chowk. My 14 year-old heart skipped a beat. I couldn't believe that the two gunmen could be so foolish as to enter the camp just like that. It meant a certain death. And remember, it was long before the suicidal fidayeen attacks became common.

I froze in my feet, and waited with bated breath for the sputter of gunfire to begin. A prominent Islamist preacher and politician of Anantnag had recently been assassinated by the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujihideen (HM). His bullet-ridden body had been dumped a couple of miles from my home. Local municipality workers had spotted and recognized his body early that morning, and it wasn't long before the news spread like wild fire.

On that morning, I remember, I had gone out to the market place to get the hot, steamy early-morning lawasa-a kind of Kashmiri flat bread. The baker quickly handed me my bunch, poured a bucket of water into his oven, and pulled down his wooden shutter. He joined a long line of wailing people, men and women, who were running toward the spot. I scampered off to my home, and gave the news to my parents. My father came out onto the street, and I followed. Thousands of people had gathered. They were chanting slogans for independence. Many raised anti-HM slogans. At a distance I could see Qazi Nisar's body, wrapped in a white shroud, with blood still oozing out.

Nisar's body was taken to the Hanafi prayer ground where thousands of people came to see it, and pay tribute. For the next one week Anantnag rang with anti-HM sloganeering.

Although HM had never been a strong force in the town, in adjoining villages it was predominant. In a bid to emerge as the only Kashmiri resistance group, it had managed to kill and silence many of the JKLF men as well as the cadre from other smaller groups. In villages close to Achabal, a town southeast to Anantnag, after fierce turf battles with one of its own splinter groups, the Muslim Mujahideen (MM), it managed to maintain its dominance--even though the MM wasn't completely wiped out, and would come to haunt them. In the town, Ikhwanul Muslimeen, had remained assertive despite its bloody battles with the HM, as well as the Indian troopers.

The commander of the HM in the region was a local young man from a village close to the town. He had personally killed a respected JKLF commander from Dialgam, a man known for having once single-handedly defended Dialgam from the murderous Indian soldiers, who madly chopped to pieces three villagers and a truckload of unarmed Kashmiri policemen.

A week after Nisar's assassination, a major gun battle between the Indian soldiers and the HM in Dialgam led to the death of five major HM figures. All of them were war veterans from the Afghan jihad. Mast Gul, a Pakistani militant commander, who was suspected of having killed Nisar, survived. After the battle was over, and the soldiers had left, Gul assembled Jammat-e-Islami members in Dialgam's central market, and asked them to march with the bodies of his dead comrades to the Anantnag town, which was four miles north.

People fleeing from the gun-battle in Dialgam had told my mother that the Indian soldiers had used my grandfather and my uncles as human shields. My mother got hold of her burka, and in an instant was on the road to her natal home. I ran after to accompany her.

On the way we were met with Mast Gul's march. Dozens of HM men atop trucks, waving Pakistani flags, were raising their fists into the air and singing rhythmic slogans. We could see the five bodies, one of which was of Bombar Khan, who was famous for his bravery, and known for compassion as compared to Gul. Upon reaching my grandfather's home, we came to know that one of the dead mujahids was Captain Tariq, an Afghan, who was shot by soldiers while holding their rifles on the shoulders of my relatives. Apparently, Tariq hadn't fired back because it would have killed my grandfather.

Upon reaching Anantnag, Mast Gul had had the bodies placed in the Ahl-Hadees prayer ground, where prayers were offered for the dead. HM men and their supporters carried the bodies through the town's labyrinthine streets, and challenged anyone to raise anti-HM slogans. The bodies were buried close to Nisar's grave. All the while Indian soldiers were watching with glee what was unfolding in front of their eyes.

On the day the two Kashmiri militants entered the CRPF bunker, Anantnag was slowly beginning to emerge from a month of severe trauma. I waited for the gunfire to start, while slowly retracing my steps and entering another lane. I was in a fix. Should I shout and warn the passersby? But raising an alarm would mean alerting the soldiers, which could foil the militants' plan, and land me in serious trouble. No gunfire started. I wondered what was going on. I could see a startled look on a few other faces, but people continued to go about their work.

Next day, in school, one of my classmates, who had become famous after stealing a bullet from a soldier's rifle from right under his nose, told me Ikhwan had joined the Indian troops. That was impossible! I couldn't believe him. Only a few months back army had laid seige to a house near our school, taken out two Ihkwan members from the attic, and shot them dead a little distance away. How could avowed foes come together!

Over the next few days, I saw Ikhwanis packed to the full in army vehicles patrolling Anantnag streets. Raids were taking place in surrounding villages where old-time Jammat members were rounded up and beaten, and their houses burnt. Jammat members had used the HM to settle scores with their enemies, and many people were happy that they were now reaping what they had themselves sown. Senior Jammat members would hold their own separate kangaroo courts where summary justice was issued to people. HM had acted as the brutal arm as the executors of this justice.

Drunk with new found power, Ikhwan started to soon bare its teeth further. A prominent member of Jammat and respected surgeon from Dialgam was abducted and taken to the town. He was shot dead in front of people as a warning not only to the Jammat but to others too.

What followed was worse than what Kashmiris could think of. Jammat families were targeted with such ruthlessness that you needed monumental courage to say that you were from a Jammat family. The wrath of Ikhwan wasn't faced exclusively by Jammat for long. They set their eyes upon anyone who questioned their brutal authority. Women folk were harrassed, and people were forced to pay money. People were randomly picked up and tortured.

Safely ensconced within Indian security establishment, and with absolute impunity, Ikhwan became monstrous villians who imposed their will with extreme violence. One Ikhwani, Setha Gujar, who was especially dreaded for his brutality killed common people like people kill chicken. One day he beat up a doctor from another town so badly that some people who were watching fainted. The doctor who had returned to Kashmir after spending years in Saudi Arabia left Kashmir the moment he could walk again. It was only two years later that Gujar was shot dead by unknown people.

One of my friends whose family owns an apple orchard up on the hill overlooking Anantnag was slapped and had to prostate in front of an Ikhwani one day. We were walking through the main street, when he noticed a man with scraggy beard, and black sunglasses holding a Kalashnikov. He was an Ikhwani manning the street.

My friend told me that he knew that man, and unfortunately told me a bit too loudly that the guy used to be an orchard worker. The Ikhwani heard him, and grew crimson with anger. He asked my friend to come to him. My friend went smilingly and extended his hand expecting nothing more than a warm shake with an old acquaintance. Instead of taking the hand, the Ikhwani pulled his own hand high up into the air, and landed a big slap on my friend's face. After abusing him for saying that he was an orchard worker, which apparently had hurt his reputation as a much dreaded man, he asked my friend to lie prostrate in front of him and beg for mercy. My friend furtively did as told, and in the process dirtied his shiny white school shirt with street muck.

The Ikhwanis said they were going to rename Anantnag as Ramnagri, probably just to irritate the residents who fondly called and remembered it as Islamabad. In early 90s the Indian soldiers would beat up shopkeepers or tear down billboards with Islamabad written on them. If a soldier asked you where you were from and you accidentally answered Islamabad, that would mean either a big slap or a kick was on your way. People feared this possible second changing of name.

The Ikhwanis established camps in three separate places in their Ramnagri. The one in Kadipora was closest to my school. They would come to the school and start harrassing young school girls. Some of my class teachers were picked up for suspected Jammati links, and tortured. Thankfully none of my teachers was killed. Often our beleagured Principal would ask the students and the teachers to assemble and go to the camp, and request the release of our teachers. The camp was housed in a huge Pandit house would reek of blood and liquor.

One day I was walking near Mattan Chowk, and I saw two Ikhwanis run toward an auto-rickshaw. They pointed their rifles at the occupant in the back, ready to shoot. They asked the auto-driver to continue driving as they ran with on either side. A few meters ahead they fired a volley of bullets in, and then dragged out the limp body of a young boy. I never came to know who that little boy was.

In an incident that happened over a cricket match, an entire team of cricketers and the umpires were roughed up black and blue, when a member of the opposing team, with connections to the Ikhwan, claimed that he was falsely given out. It was the bloodiest cricket match I had ever seen.

When Farooq Abdullah was made the chief minister of Kashmir, Ikhwanis grew even more brazen. They started building and occupying properties in the town. Many vacated Pandit properties were occupied, and some were bought at low prices. A big Pandit house in Janglat Mandi was turned into a camp where poor villagers from far away were brought, tortured and killed, and their bodies left haphazardly strewn across on streets or in sewage drains.

Setha Gujar built shopping complexes on public land like the General Bus Stand. He built another in front of the district court, probably as an open challenge to the judges who might want to issue stay orders on his illegal constructions. Rows and rows of ugly structures, which were pulled down only after his death.

Another top Ikhwani joined politics. He had a palatial house built for himself in a posh area generally reserved for bureaucrats. He started his own political party, which till last year paid poor Kashmiris a hundred-rupee note each to join his election rallies.

Farooq Abdullah's government started the process of integrating Ikhwanis into regular forces. Some Ikhwanis were recruited to form the Special Operations Group (SOG), a mercenary wing of the Kashmir police. Last year when protests broke out against Indian rule over the Amarnath land deal, I saw dozens of SOG men beat up villagers who were peacefully protesting. The SOG men, all drunk, pounced upon the people like hungry wolves devouring a kill, leaving behind streams of blood and gore. For years that I was away in Delhi I hadn't seen such open brutality.

Also activated last year was the Mehndi Kadal camp of the Ikhwan, who had been integrated into India's territorial army. Mehndi Kadal was the third Ikhwan camp in the town, which was also housed in a large Pandit house. Standing right in front of the main police station in Anantnag, the camp tortured people and dared them to go and register complaints.

Last year I passed the Mehndi Kadal every single day, on my way to work and back. Over the run down fence I would see Kashmiris in Indian army fatigues roaming about with rifles slung down their shoulders. There were Indian soldiers too, but they seemed to be largely manning the gates.

The Indian soldiers had a Kashmiri Ikhwani commander, an illiterate man known for his stutter, and for killing dozens of people. It sometimes gave me a fleeting sense of unexplainable pleasure to see the equations changed. For once a Kashmiri was ordering the Indians to stand in line! But the moment would immediately pass. The man was a killer, who had harrassed, tortured, and killed his own people. "Own people"?

Ikhwan in Arabic means "Brotherhood." In Anantnag, the brothers wreaked havoc. For the last 16 years they have visited unimaginable suffering upon the town's residents, and worse on the neighboring villagers. The brothers have a bloody trail behind them. The brutal irony of the brotherhood is probably illustrated by the case of the three brothers from Anantnag, eldest of whom was a famous JKLF commander, who was arrested in the early 90s and released after 16 years in jail, and then shot dead a month later, his younger brother who was roasted alive by the Indian army camping on the hill, and the youngest brother who seeing all this became a vicious Ikhwani.

Today I read in the newspapers that the Mehndi Kadal camp was closed down on court orders. Although the camp will be relocated into the army area, I still think it is a great news. Every time a camp, a bunker, a picket, is removed, it is a joyous moment. It means a little less fear, a little less chance of torture, a little less threat to life for the people.

Charter for a Free Kashmir

“Walo ho baghwaano nav baharuk shaan paida kar;
Pholan gul gath karan bulbul timay samaan paida kar,”

—(Come, O Gardener, create the glory of a new spring day; Where flowers bloom and bulbuls dance, O craft such a way).

Mehjoor’s famous poem was a prayer for a better future, for a new dawn of freedom. 1947, for which the peoples of the subcontinent had struggled and sacrificed together, turned out to be a great disappointment.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz expressed this disappointment like this:

“Yeh daagh daagh ujaala, yeh shab guzida sahar;
Woh intizaar tha jis ka, yeh woh sahar to nahin.
Yeh woh sahar to nahin jis ki aarzoo lay kar,
Chaley tthey yaar key miljaegi kahin na kahin”

—(This stained light, this night-devoured dawn; this is not the dawn for which we were waiting This can’t be the dawn in quest of which, hoping; to find it somewhere, friends, we had set out.)

The struggling people of Kashmir, despite the betrayals of the 1947, continue to hope for that new, real dawn, the Azadi. The many decades of oppression haven’t been able to extinguish the hope. Azadi, which is not so much an end but a process, means Kashmiri people’s perpetual struggle to be able to live in an independent state, where a just and peaceful society could be created.

But what could be the possible contours and contents of such a society?

A number of debates are happening among people who are at one or the other level interested/involved in Kashmir. I here put forward some of the possibilities—I would say goals—which must be pursued. Some of the points/premises have been drafted by others but I agree with those in full.

1. Kashmir would be an independent state, with full status as a member nation among the comity of nations.

2. It would have no standing army and no programs for weaponization.

3. It would harbor peaceful intentions toward all neighboring peoples (in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet, Central Asia and China, and beyond), and it would declare Kashmir as a sanctuary of peace.

4. It would use its good offices and hospitality to bring together contesting parties in the region and help develop mutual understanding and nurture peace and justice for all.

5. Kashmir would be a decentralized, federal republic, with its constituents having a right to secede, as well as to unite.

6. In independent Kashmir all citizens, irrespective of language, creed, sex or caste, would have equal rights. Its citizens will have the right to life with dignity, security and equality before the law, complete freedom of expression and movement, rights of free education and health care, right to work, leisure and recreation. It will seek to make Kashmir a society without prisons.

7. It would welcome all displaced Kashmiris, including the Kashmiri Pandits and those who were forced to migrate to the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, and call for an open dialogue with responsible and peace-loving representatives of all displaced Kashmiri communities. It would set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help account for and address the years of violence in Kashmir.

8. It would treat with respect, pride, and affection the unique cultural heritage and history of Kashmir, and the contributions made by Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and others to this heritage down the centuries.

9. It would take a special care to safeguard the unique biological and natural heritage of the mountains, rivers, forests, lakes, springs, and meadows of Kashmir for the sake of all humanity.

10. People from the world over can freely travel in Kashmir; and the pilgrims would be treated as honored guests. Those who come to its gates to seek asylum or shelter from the repression in their own countries would find welcome.

Of Resignations at the Cost of Justice

By resigning from his position following PDP leader Muzzafar Beigh’s charges of his being on the Central Bureau of Investigations’ list of suspects in the 2006 sex exploitation case Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has, to many, set an example of moral integrity in politics. Omar Abdullah took no time to resign in front of Governor N. N. Vohra, after Beigh made the allegation in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly.

The move to resign was clearly quite calculated, despite Omar’s assertion that it was an emotional knee-jerk reaction. For starters, the resignation was a conditional one; the governor was requested to accept it only if the charges were proved. There was no way to prove it then and there. With both PDP and the NC-led government sticking to their own documents, the CBI and the entire Indian establishment came furtively in defense of its poster boy in Kashmir, who, vindicated in his little histrionics, was suddenly elevated to the status of a role model for all politicians not only in Kashmir but in India too. It was a shot in the arm for Omar whose image had taken a huge hit only a few weeks back because of his “drowning remarks” in the press conference he held after the Shopian rape and murder incident.

Some questions arise here. Beyond allegations and resignations, what do these events in the legislative assembly symbolize? What are the likely implications of these events on the public discourse? And, lastly, what constitutes moral integrity?

In 2006, when the magnitude of the sex exploitation case surfaced, because of sustained public protests in Kashmir, for the first time the nexus between the pro-India politicians, the state police, the Indian troops, and the bureaucrats was exposed. The case became symbolic of the Kashmiri ruling class’ criminality and corruption. For the first time, it was clearly delineated who the Kashmiri masses were resisting. Virtually all the different sections of the ruling class were well represented: two sitting legislators—one a Muslim Kashmiri another a Pandit—, the Advocate General, a BSF DIG, some high-ranking state police officers, bureaucrats, a rich hotelier and many others.

The issue would have been hushed up completely, but there was no let up in public protests. New Delhi, understanding the scale of involvement, realized it would be disastrous to objectively pursue the case, for it could engulf the entire spectrum of political assets the Indian government had nurtured in Kashmir over the years. CBI, which was handed over the case, prepared a list of people named by the victims—who included minor girls. The ones who could not be saved were put in the accused list and the rest—mostly highly valuable assets—were put among the suspects. After a lot of dilly-dally in arresting the culprits, the case was moved out of Jammu and Kashmir to Chandigarh district and sessions court. In Chandigarh the case crawled on very slowly with charges against 14 people only being filed in the March of 2007. With new events emerging the case was lost from the Kashmiri public discourse. One of the legislators from the Congress Party, Ahmed Mir, charged under Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA), contested and won election from his Dooru-Shahbad constituency in 2008. A senior Kashmiri IAS officer, also charged under PITA, was reinstated and subsequently promoted. And the rest of the charged are out on bail.

It all happened when the PDP-Congress coalition government was at the helm of affairs. When Beigh—from PDP—(howsoever ill-intentioned and with no ethical locus standi of his own) referred to the case in the legislative assembly, it instantly caused many a feather to ruffle. So spontaneous was Omar Abdullah’s response that before any one could even talk about the case any more, he turned the attention of everyone toward his dramatic “resignation”. He killed two birds with one stone: first, he managed to draw sympathy from the media and some sections of the public to offset his recently wilting image; second, he killed the case itself.

In the larger schema of things PDP and NC are the same species. Run each by an influential, India-loyalist family, both try to outsmart each other on trivial issues. On substantial issues they silently maintain a similar position. Both parties/families know that as long as they are on the Indian payroll and they serve Indian interests in Kashmir, they will always have power—be they in the government or in the “opposition.” On this substantial issue, however, Indian government gave PDP politicians a quick rap on the knuckle. PDP lost no time in bringing their rhetoric down. This small rupture (events in the assembly) had the potential to become a major event in our recent memory, what with small, hairline fractures emerging within the structures of the Indian occupation in Kashmir; but the fractures were quickly stitched up.

Omar resignation drama has now made it impossible to discuss the 2006 sex scandal in the legislative assembly anymore. All the legislators will be wary of bringing it up. And this is where the question of what constitutes moral integrity can be answered.

Imagine if Omar, instead of staging a resignation drama, had said that 2006 sex scandal case would be investigated afresh, the guilty would be brought to book, and justice would be done to the victims, how ethical that would have been! Is there integrity in resigning from a position you know is going nowhere or in providing justice to the victims when you are in a position to do so?

In 2002, when BJP-led government in Delhi endorsed the Gujarat pograms against that state’s Muslim minority, Omar, then Minister of State for External Affairs, failed to resign (a shame—his two-line apology in the Indian Parliament notwithstanding). In May 2009, when the case of two Shopian women, raped and murdered, was barefacedly described by him as “a simple case of drowning,” he failed to resign in acknowledgement of his lack of scruples. When government forces shot dead four people in Baramulla in June 2009, Omar failed to resign. He did not acknowledge the incompetence of his rule in providing security to the people. But here, when there was a genuine chance to discuss a serious case and provide justice to the victims, Omar resigned—exactly to prevent any such discussion.

The Karobar of Occupation:Media, Cricket and Lies

So, at the end of May, with all the hoopla about assembly elections washed out by a very poor turnout in the Parliamentary elections, ‘Kashmir-watchers’ from India were bitter. So they turned to cricket and other usual diversions. Lucky for them the Indian Premier League was going on; the Indian middle-class divided its loyalties and short attention span toward fancily-named cricket teams—Lions, Royals, Chargers, Knight Riders, Big Talkers, Useless Stinkers. News channels, to show that they also speak about the underside of their Greeeeat Democracy, chose to speak about the low-turnout in Lalgarh instead of Kashmir.

NDTV, which seems to be suffering from some kind of a cognitive disorder, in fact advised the people of Mumbai for their low-turnout(43 percent) to learn a lesson from the faith Kashmiris were putting in the Indian democracy (23 percent turnout). Mumbai attacks last November, which apparently should have stirred their conscience, hadn’t. (And, by the way, if you want more examples of NDTV’s disorder recall when William Burns came to India carrying Obama’s most recent letter to Manmohan urging India and Pakistan to start talks, adding that both India and Pakistan should determine where and when, Vikram Chandra forgot the “both” and self-congratulatingly stated that Obama said India will determine everything.) But anyway, that is how things are.

Around that time, two women were gang raped and murdered in Kashmir. It happened during the night of the last Friday of May, and by Sunday, as news reached and shook all parts of Kashmir, people started pouring out of homes to protest. Monday was total strike. Tuesday and Wednesday witnessed more protest and strikes. As the pace of the protest gathered, the young CEO of Kashmir, the darling of teenagers in India, a two-line-in-Indian-Parliament-wonder-kid (two-lines to wash away his past association with a government that gave clean-chit to Narendra Modi government after the Gujarat pogroms in 2002), said that an enquiry would be conducted but that there was not much to it as it was a simple case of drowning. It didn’t matter that the bodies of the two women had been fished out of land and not water. People got angrier still.

I don’t understand why people get angry with him. As a member of the family that has long represented the interests of Indian political establishment in Kashmir, he said what his brief from India allows him. Nevertheless protests continued.

At this point, NDTV’s polished and articulate Kashmir correspondent Nazir Masoodi came on TV (did you catch it?). With his head held high and a demeanor suggesting a lot of personal commitment, he candidly stated “NDTV’s position”: we have maintained all along that rape has happened but murder hasn’t. After that he had nowhere to go but underground. A friend suggested he might be in a bunker under the 15 Corp HQ information centre in Srinagar. His vanishing act was brilliant, giving a distinct impression that there were these imaginary murderers after his life, when no one gave two hoots about him. But, no, he failed to get attention similar to what journalists imprisoned in North Korea or Iran normally get. You might have also noticed the Sunday story in the Indian Express by Muzamil Jaleel who re-wrote the most popular family story of the Abdullahs? It reminded Delhi of whose son and grandson Omar was, at a time when doubts were being raised about his ability to rule.

People, on the other side, with no other available way to express solidarity with the victims continued the protests. Geelani and his camp followers, with very limited imagination, continued to call for more hartals. And, soon, hartals began to pinch hard. As if the Indian occupation was not enough oppression already, hartals began to look like self-inflicted wounds. I was surprised to see a national movement act like a railway union. I mean, striking is like legitimizing a government; saying that the state (or the Indian) government could address grievance. I mean the only way these governments can address grievance is by not being there; they are the grievance.

Look, how many cases of rape and murder in Kashmir have happened? Has any substantial change taken place on the ground? On Kunan Poshpora incident way back in the 90s, Indian media denied that any rape had happened at all. Then there are rapes in Pahalgam and other places. Unless events like these are woven into the larger struggle for national independence, media will always portray them as small crimes, instead of built-in systemic requirements of a military occupation.

Now that Jan Commission has established both rape and murder, and indicted the administration for carelessly letting vital evidence be lost, one shouldn’t expect any drastic changes. There will be some transfers, some suspensions, just to give an impression that heads are rolling. The draconian laws will continue. Military presence will continue. The karobar of the occupation will continue. And I don’t think evidence was allowed to be lost so carelessly!

Indian media, which was planning to spend the next few weeks celebrating Team India’s T20 victories, is suddenly speechless. Cricket was supposed to smother Kashmir. But, na, it didn’t happen that way! On top of that, the Pakistani win in cricket has come as a personal loss to India.

When a Jessica Lall or a Priyadarshini Mattoo gets raped or murdered Indian media acts as if their own sister or mother was raped and murdered, but when it comes to Kashmir they take the “principled stand.”

The Perforated Sheet

It is nine in the morning. Overnight drizzle has darkened the winter bare trees. The hill, around which the town is wrapped, has disappeared in the mist. I look out onto the road in the distance to see if anyone is moving. There was an explosion a couple of hours ago. It must have been somewhere close. A few jeeps can be seen moving fast every few minutes. I am curious to see if people are going out to vote. My family advises me to stay indoors. We have been without electricity since last evening. I use this fact as a pretext, and announce that I am going to go out to get it fixed. I see large boot prints in our mud-spattered kucha. Soldiers must have been moving about in the night. It is election-day in Anantnag, and the bandobast is tight.

A few meters ahead, after a bend in the kucha, two people from the colony, father and son, are looking dejectedly at the electricity transformer that supplies our neighbourhood. The father turns to me: “Every soldier in this cinema has a heater and a boiler of his own. They get two phases. And the rest of us get one. It can’t take this load.” He is talking about the cinema hall in our neighbourhood which was taken over by military almost 18 years ago, and turned into a camp. It houses more than two hundred soldiers. Our colony has around thirty houses. The transformer was installed way back in the 80s for these thirty houses and the cinema. Each night of the winter the fuse blows. An elderly man comes out of his house with a piece of aluminum wire in his hand. “To hell with them. And if that wasn’t, why would they be here!” he spurts. We laugh.

A military chopper comes out of nowhere, and flies low overhead. Our laughter is drowned in the sound. It disappears quickly; both the laughter and the chopper. We can see the main road from where we are standing. A car is stopped by angry soldiers. The driver is asked to come out. He shows some papers. His door is flung open by one soldier. As soon as the driver steps out, another soldier lands his heavy muddy boot on the driver’s behind. The elderly man standing next to me says: “Oh, ho, they have destroyed his perfectly clean pheran. How will he wash it now in this cold winter with no electricity?” He giggles at his own black sense of humour. His own son was beaten to pulp two months back, and soldiers had dug a hole in his arm with a screwdriver. The driver receives a rain of blows, and soon passes out. Soldiers drag him to the side. The father says the man is pretending to be unconscious. He is right. One soldier kicks him hard in the belly, and the driver is up. He limps back to the car, and drives away.

Two trucks packed tightly with sullen and frozen Kashmiri men move down the main road. A young man, who has joined us, says, “They are bringing people from outside to vote. They don’t need our vote.” A sumo cab is driving toward us slowly. We are alert, and ready to dart back into our homes. It is a Kashmiri driver; it is safe. He stops near us. A thin vein of blood is issuing from the corner of his mouth. He begins instantly, “These sister-fuckers pulled me out of my home in the night, and asked me to ferry troops to Kadipora. They gave me a paper telling me no one would ask me questions on my way back. But at every checkpoint they stop me and hit me, even after I show them this damn’d paper.” The elderly man commiserates: “Hat haz, they have no sympathy, no humanity.” I came back home to write.

For the last two months elections have been taking place. Kashmir’s assembly elections are happening in six phases. Anantnag is the fifth one. Srinagar will be last. Today, like in all other phases, the rest of Kashmir is under an undeclared curfew. It reminds me of Dr. Aziz in Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children” observing the body parts of his future wife through a perforated sheet, one by one.

People have been barred from going out on Fridays as well. No prayers have been offered in the largest mosque in Srinagar, Jama Masjid, for the last six Fridays. People are not allowed to assemble. The main preacher at Jama Masjid, and head of Hurriyat, Mirwaiz Umar, is under house arrest. Thousands of separatist activists have been bundled into jails. Against many draconian black laws have been slapped, which means they will be in prison for the next two years. Yasin Malik, who has already been in jail at various times for a decade, is one of them.

In Anantnag, last month a hundred parents were picked up randomly by police, and asked to warn their sons not to indulge in pro-independence campaign. Many young men have already been beaten up, and warned to stay indoors. A friend, who works with a local newspaper, was threatened, and his younger brother tortured, for reporting police atrocities. He was told to do favourable stories about the election. He is following orders to the word, he tells me. He doesn’t want to leave his job. Pro-government Ikhwani militias, which are funded and armed by the Indian state, who wreaked havoc on Anantnag for a full decade, have been reactivated. Many of the militiamen who were integrated into the army wander about the town in civvies and harass people.

A lot of people want to vote, if not in Anantnag town, then in the villages. They need their representatives to relieve them of the tremendous pressure the Indian state puts on them. During the past few months of pro-independence protests thousands were arrested and harassed. They had no one to go to for redress. Governor’s rule meant one inaccessible Indian bureaucrat controlled everyone’s lives in Kashmir. A legislative assembly means they can go to people who’ve at least some say. That is what contestants are promising. People in jails shall be released. The level of military oppression will be brought down. Government militias will be reigned in again. Major parties, like the People’s Democratic Party and the National Conference, are saying this vote is not a vote for India. And thrown in between are a number of others who have one or the other motivation to contest, and none of which is loyalty toward India. One contestant, who I’ve known since childhood, told me privately that he is contesting to get some special papers and a residence in Jammu so that he can take his ailing mother away from Kashmir.

In Delhi, sharp political analysts are yet again claiming victory over separatists. Indian newspapers and TV channels are agog with percentages, 68, 51, 57… The numbers encouraged Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to come to a village in Anantnag a few days back, to support a Congress candidate from there. The village he visited is surrounded by hills full of bombs. Indian military has one of its largest ammunition depots in the region. Last year the hills in Khundru exploded into a huge ball of fire and gulped dozens of Kashmiri lives. Military asked villagers in fifteen villages surrounding the depot to vacate so that the depot could be expanded. To his Kashmiri audience, Manmohan Singh said India will defeat terrorism soon. He was talking about Mumbai.

Across the stream that runs behind my home, young men from the neigbourhood who were leading stone-pelting duels and protests against Indian soldiers over the summer and the autumn are playing cricket. The stream almost dries up in winter, leaving a little plain island behind. Soldiers can’t see it. It is almost three in the afternoon, and I haven’t seen anyone go to vote, yet. But there are two more hours to go, and who knows.

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But Bush is insisting the shoe didn’t hit him!