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.