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Sunday 28 November 2010

How long will we keep fighting?


November 1995
Post-lunch classes were always a drag, so I wasn’t listening to my social studies teacher that afternoon when she spoke about Kashmir issue. Instead, I was looking at the Indian map on the same page of my textbook. I imagined it without Kashmir; I even covered the Kashmir part with my still-growing palm. The image looked weird, like a headless body, I thought with a silly grin.


Was that my own imagining? Or something that was indirectly inculcated into me by my teacher, who just taught us what the book said and didn’t have an opinion of her own? Or from the textbook itself, and from my previous years’ textbooks that told me that Kashmir was a vital part of India that Pakistan tried to steal?
A 9-year-old’s world is simple: You relate to things with your preconceived roles of villain, hero and the helpless soul that needs saving. To me, there was no doubt that India “the hero” would save Kashmir from Pakistan “the villain.” I believed that Kashmir the “head” was an original and essential part of the Indian body, as I was taught. But now as I hear all this controversy about whether Kashmir is an integral part of India, and as I use the “Google god” to learn more, I realised that I was taught a bunch of lies. My conception of the pretty state of Kashmir with the breathtaking mountains and the beautiful valleys was all based on lies.