Going Home (Part II) - by Ajay Raina Back   Home  
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In 1990, the Militants of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Hizbul Mujahideen dealt my sense of self and my identity as an Indian a humiliatingly serious blow. 12 years since, it is still hard for any of the people who belong to my community to consider going back home.

When we cried for our people then - some shot in the head with a single bullet, some tortured to death, some hanged, some sawed off into a hundred body parts and some gang-raped to death, and when we cried for our homes, farms, orchards and a heritage of traditions and beliefs left behind - we were graciously enough provided ‘tents’ and a ‘migrant’ status within our own country, so we could be left on our own to wipe our tears and pick up the threads of life in exile.

Nobody spoke up for us then, and not enough. The wounds of ‘forced exile’ of an entire community of Kashmiri Pandits have begun to fester and bleed again after the events of Godhra and Gujarat. My heart cries out for them but the tears have long dried up.

How can I even defend what I have become?

But yes, Gujarat affects me too. It affects me enough to remind me of my own secondary status as an ‘exile’ in my own country. When I saw the images of death and destruction and read about the horror tales from Gujarat, I only saw annihilation of my race in Kashmir re-re-revisited upon another hapless community of people who belong to a religion in whose name the hapless and non-violent minorities of Kashmir valley were forced into exile.

Some wise man has said, "Rebellions are normally started by the hopeful not the abject poor." I am not sure if, when the people of Kashmir rose up in revolt against India, they were really hopeful of winning, or even if they were really sure about the real contours of the ‘azadi’ they were seeking.

The success of the ‘popular’ revolt that lasted only a few years – till the slaying of Professor. Mushir-ul-Haq, I was told - was due partly because of the frightening power of the gun over the local populace, and mostly because of the collapse of every organ of local governance and the abject surrender of will by the then inept Chief Minister of J&K.

If only, if only they had refused to release the JKLF militants in exchange of Rubia Sayeed. If only, if only they had not started the sudden night time searches on January 19-20, reportedly on nobody’s orders because that day Farooq Abdullah had already resigned. If only, if only the massacre at Gow Kadal had not taken place. If only, if only the procession carrying Moulvi Farooq’s Dead body had not been fired upon by panicking CRPF soldiers. perhaps the contours of the ‘militant-azadi’ movement that picked up as a consequence of these errors of judgment may have been different today and may have led us to the real reforms the people of Kashmir genuinely sought.

But these are the big If’s of ‘our’ folly and Faroukh Abdullah’s ‘manipulative’ hold over the reigns of power.

The failure of the ‘azadi’ movement is much more stark in the 12 years of continuing violence, destruction and robbing of every charm of Kashmir. The fact is, the vale of Kashmir is a deafening wail now, desperately looking for the bottom of the abyss into which it has sunk, into which all its blood flow pours.

In the Kashmir of 1989-90, all the dissenting voices against the violent movement were silenced by death or by forced silent acquisition, so it had appeared that the entire population was with the revolt. Only now, when the local militancy has almost dissipated and been replaced by a dangerous variety of pan-Islamic militancy, are more and more Kashmiri people coming out to speak against the militants who started it all.

A well-known senior journalist in Srinagar said to me. "Before 1989, were we ever prevented from offering prayers in our mosques?" This is a sentiment almost echoed by a successful doctor in Srinagar, my classmate at school, who I met again after 12 years, "Who did ever stop us from practicing our religion here?"

A young journalist friend who I met in Srinagar, sounding bitter in retrospect about those ‘euphoric days of revolt’ said to me, "The people who used to lead the ‘azadi’ processions, wearing shrouds in defiance of death, are still alive today, while the people they led are long dead now."

The Srinagar of today is a contrasting picture of destroyed old landmarks and burnt out structures and of new constructions in the downtown and newly sprung up suburbs. Comparing Srinagar and a city like Ahmedabad in terms of population density ratios, I was surprised to know that there are more Marutis on Srinagar’s roads than in Ahmedabad.

Looking through my nostalgic eyes, I was certainly struck to note that Srinagar today is positively more affluent than it was in the days when militancy started. How has this phenomenon come about in a land devastated by violent instability?

"Those who only had a grass mat to cover their mud floors are today living in palatial houses." This is a common bitter refrain by the affluent class of old, when they speak about Kashmir’s neo-rich, who started off as foot soldiers of the ‘militant’ movement.

Of the many people I asked, "Why is militancy still continuing, when people are so fed up?" I was told again and again, "it is the people with the vested interests - the militants/politicians/surrendered militants/and neo-businessmen, 'the 5% of people' - who do not want the uncertainty to end, so that they can thrive."

I recall a modern Kashmiri story, which to my knowledge best describes the ‘the present mind’ of the Kashmiri collective mass in these times. The story, An Infernal Creature by Amin Kamil, is about a village that used to be, but is no more.

The village, called Zeegyapathir, had six mohallas and five graveyards on the borders between each mohalla. One day, the only son of an old woman, borne by her after several miscarriages, dies. The dead son is buried after the performance of all the sacred Muslim rituals, but the old woman, unable to bear the sudden loss of her only son, loses her mind. In the middle of the night at the graveyard of her son, she espies some dark mysterious figure up to some mischief…

The next day morning, her dead son’s grave is found dug up and the body is left without its shroud. The body is promptly covered in a fresh shroud and re-buried. The next night, the same deed is repeated and some other fresh graves are similarly found despoiled off their shroud. There is much hue and cry and commotion in the village. Every suspect is questioned. Every villager is suspected, but the shroud stealer is never found.

The deed becomes a regular practice in the village. The villagers, at first curious and angry and perturbed, slowly reconcile with the mystery of the shroud stealer. ‘In this way, when all the dead bodies of the Zeegyapathir, men and women alike without exception, got robbed of the shrouds, it by and by became a custom with them. Nobody got agitated on this, nor did anybody show any kind of fear. They got used to speaking and hearing of this for two decades.

"We were at the graveyard. Has he robbed it? It looks like that. Let the hell take him.

"These four sentences were at the tip of the tongue of everyone at Zeegyapathir. You would be greeted by these words correct to a syllable for it had assumed the form of a ritual like giving the last bath to the dead, and burying the body."

Twenty years had passed so. One day a villager by the name of Ghani Mokul dies. In his last statement before death he confesses to being that mysterious shroud stealer. He is roundly cursed, but the piety of the villagers ultimately rescues him from any idea of an after death revenge.

"The truth, however was that the soft-hearted people of Zeegyapathir did not like to go so far."

He is therefore properly buried. The villagers as a matter of habit continued to curse him but also felt relieved at having been rid at long last of a big calamity.

However, the next day morning they find his grave not only despoiled of its shroud, but also "left exposed to the elements at the edge of the grave." Which the first man – Ghani Mokul had never infact dared to do ever to any dead body. Ghani Mokul is however, re-buried as had been the practice in the village.

And the morning after the next, they find him, and a few other fresh dead bodies too, again exposed at the edge of the grave in stark nudity.

"It now dawned on the people that it was not simply a case of wreaking vengeance on Ghani Mokul – the original shroud stealer, but a new monster was on the rampage…Everybody at Zeegyapathir got scared and said to one another, "We can not find another man like Ghani Mokul. He no doubt divested the dead bodies of their shroud, but naked by no means did he leave them, this hellish creature is far worse than a brute."

Then onwards, the people showered blessings on the original shroud stealer and cursed the new monster with all the abominations of the hell."

The collective mind of the mass of Kashmir is today resigned to the death and destruction they see happening around them in a similar way as the people of the fictional Zeegyapathir were resigned to the ritualistic robbing of their graveyards. The people of Kashmir are not only hopelessly resigned but also totally powerless before the Frankenstein’s, they themselves helped create and breed among them.

In TV discussions over our satellite news and entertainment channels, the experts opine that, "what’s going on in Kashmir is a war of attrition, which nobody seems like winning or losing." They say, "our sibling neighbour is ‘bleeding India by a thousand cuts’, but on the ground, there are people of flesh and blood - fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and friends, the people of Kashmir and the soldiers of India - actually being killed and robbed of their human dignity.

As you will be reading this - the rioting and the killings will be continuing in Gujarat…at the same time, in some remote hill village of Kashmir, a family of Hindus or Muslims will be yet again be massacred by a band of people fighting ‘jihad’ for the liberation of Muslim majority kashmir…On an average about 10 -15 deaths are reported everyday. In the past 12 years of ‘militancy’ in Kashmir about 62,000 people have already died. In the past 12 years of ‘militancy’ in Kashmir about 62,000 people have already died. When is this killing ever going to stop?

When is this killing ever going to stop?" I asked of some in Kashmir

A friend said, "In Kashmir, the right to natural death does not exist."

My driver said, "The only solution to Kashmir is an Atom Bomb."

A young writer, who wants to work in Bombay films said, "Our ‘problem’ can only be settled by a war between India and Pakistan now. Whosoever wins, gets Kashmir."

A human rights activist (he used to be a Launching Commander of Hizbul Mujahideen in the young days of the revolt) said, "The killings will never stop, there will be a civil war here, as in Afghanistan."

The waiter in my hotel said, "The gun is a source of money and power to those who wield it, how will they give it up easily."

Over there in Kashmir, they call it ‘Gun Culture’. Over here in India, we prefer to cover our head in the sand, and we say, "It is cross-border terrorism." – but, when are the killings ever going to stop?

In Srinagar, the job of a journalist these days is writing ‘obituaries’:

The independent press of India (the one that lay prostrate before the forces of Emergency when it was only required to bend) championed the cause of the homegrown militants of Kashmir, because it felt the ‘revolt’ was an answer to the decay within Kashmir’s polity.

True! Can’t be denied. But the 12 years of militancy have not at all affected any change in the decay that was; the decay in fact has decayed further. The political order remains the same. The ruling party is more hated now than it was before 1990, corruption has in fact become a way of life and unemployment has increased many folds. The rich have become richer by addition to their ranks of another class of the neo-rich.

There are more beggar women on the streets of Srinagar when there were none earlier. There is still no electricity. The villages are still without roads and safe drinking water. The only thing that has shown any remarkably real progress in Kashmir is ‘the proliferation ‘ of local newspapers advocating human rights. I counted about 10 English and about 20 Urdu newspapers but still none in Kashmiri language.

The Indian press has by now lost all interest in the happenings of Kashmir unless there is something really horrendous to report, but what is the Independent Press in Kashmir championing now? Developmental issues? Azadi?

Almost 11 years to the day, when the Revolt erupted in Srinagar, there was a suicide bomber attack near the main entrance to Badami Bagh Army cantonment of Srinagar. I was visiting an acquaintance, from my college days, in his newspaper office. He was busy trying to get the details of the attack.

First he called up his sources in the Army and the Police for their official ‘Death Figure’. They said one Army person and five ‘locals’ including the suicide bomber had died. He than called his local journalist friends one after the other, and about 10 of them - who must have similarly arrived at a consensual figure amongst ten others at their own end – collectively arrived at a figure, decidedly and purposely much higher than the official death toll.

Their ostensible objective: to project – that the suicide mission was a ‘success’.

A few days later, at the airport, I met a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Madras regiment from the Indian Army. He was accompanying the coffin of a dead comrade to Chennai. It was the coffin of ‘The’ Jawan who had stopped the suicide bomber at the Badami Bagh cantonment gate.

The Subedar told me "only one soldier died, the newspapers always exaggerate. The terrorists always attack us when we are having our lunch, change of guard or when we are about to wake up in the morning."

He did not know, I may one day write about it, because I never thought I would. He also told me, "We burnt down the shopping complex opposite the gate. We thought there were terrorists there, but there were not any actually."

The next day, based on the pictures of the bombed site taken by a stringer, and after making a few phone calls, my journalist friend wrote an ‘eye-witness’ report, which was published in some of the National English language papers at Delhi.

In Kashmir, along with the dead, they also bury the truth everyday.

They bury the truth in tomes of newsprint, poetry and propaganda. They announce its death at Human Rights Meets in Geneva and New York, where rival Human Rights activists, representing rival points of view, speak of deaths as ‘points’-- for and against -- on a score sheet of victory and defeat.

Javed Ahmed Mir, the leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, the freedom fighter of Kashmir who pioneered the ‘selective killings’ of ‘pro-Indians’ (mostly Kashmiri Pandits and National Conference workers – the leaders were spared) said,

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Ajay Raina is a film maker. His film about homecoming - "Tell them, the tree they had planted has now grown" - won the Golden Conch award at Mumbai Festival 2002 and the RAPA award.