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.

I was taught to believe what they wanted me to believe, not necessarily what the truth was. I wasn’t the Einstein type at school—I hadn’t even heard of the Internet—so I just let it be. I mugged up enough and got good grades at school. (No, I’m not trying to show off; it’s just that everybody gets good grades in 4^th grade.)

Miles away in Charar-e-Sharief, Kashmir is this pretty boy with pink lips who is studying the same textbook in his class. Confusion fills his head. He cannot relate what the book says to the reality happening around him. Earlier in the year, the Indian Army had destroyed the Muslim shrine that he used to frequently visit in the area. Following the incident, his best friend’s dad was killed in the conflict between the civilians and the Indian troops. His own grandfather was shot in the elbow in the insurgency of 1989. So he thought he had enough reason to believe that India was the foreign enemy here. The teachings of his textbooks puzzle him, but he dares not talk about this to his teacher or parents.

November 2010

The country has just settled from discussions over Arundhati Roy’s statement “Kashmir was never an integral part of India” at the Azadi: The Only Way convention. A Delhi court on Saturday ordered the registration of an FIR against Kashmiri separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani, writer Arundhati Roy and five others for allegedly making anti-India speeches. This got me thinking back to what my textbooks taught me, and I decided to rely on the World Wide Web to teach me history. True, unbiased, unopinionated history.

India and Pakistan have been bombing Jammu and Kashmir for over six decades now to mark their ultimate claim on the land. But whose land is it anyway?

I discover for myself how Kashmir, pre-independent India, was a princely state and had very little role to play in the Indian struggle for independence, or Pakistan’s separation from India. I wonder if the self-proclaimed experts who use religion to justify the gobbling up of Kashmir know that the same land’s history speaks about Muslim, Hindu and Sikh rulers in addition to a mentioning about the communal harmony that existed in the valley for centuries before the war for the land began.

The reason why Kashmir acceded to India was that the then maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh, needed military assistance to defend itself from the Pakistani tribes that had entered Kashmir. So does that union mean that Kashmir is like every other state, in spite of the fact that the country’s government promised the state special status in 1957? Have we been fair to this promise we gave them, or have we just been too selfish and preoccupied to notice the difference?

The Indian Armed Forces in Kashmir have been accused of innumerous atrocities against the civilian people in Kashmir. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) act protects members of the armed forces and other officials involved in crimes against Kashmiris. These soldiers responsible for murders, human rights abuse or torture are rarely investigated or held accountable for their crimes.

In 1989, a widespread armed resistance to Indian rule began in the Kashmir valley. Many separatist groups in Kashmir openly called for the independence of Jammu and Kashmir from the Indian Union. This insurgency also marks with it the victory of the evils of religious extremism. By now many radical Islamists managed to convince a majority of the separatists that religion was their ticket to a free land. A major cause of this was that thousands of Hindu Pandits who have lived in the land for centuries had been forced to flee from the state. As consequence of the rising insurgency conflicts between the Kashmir civilians and Indian military force increased.

Around 25,000 Kashmiris have been killed in the past six years by official counts. Two-thirds of these deaths are blamed on the Indian Army. So the same military that is supposed to protect these people has been destroying their peace, murdering their men and raping their women. This is not my idea of “One India.” It reminds me of the controversial cases of the Catholic boys who were abused by Catholic priests.

Militant groups have been accused for causing disruption in the valley, but weren’t members of these dangerous militant groups peace-loving civilians yesterday?

When today these Indian Kashmiris cry for freedom and independence, are they justified? Or is a justification even necessary: Don’t they have the right to self-determination? Isn’t that a basic human right we all need to have? How long will we keep fighting for this land? Do we have it in us to win back the confidence of its people? Do we even know what they want? Do we even care?

I wonder about that little boy in Kashmir, who 15 years back struggled with the same textbook I did. He must be around 24 now. Did he get married and start a family of his own? Or is he one of the civilians that attacked the AFSPA forces with stones? Did he go on to join one of the so-called militant groups in Kashmir? Or was he one of the innocent victims who had to pay with his life in between this conflict for his land, which he calls home, this land that his forefathers have nurtured? This land that the rest of his so-called countrymen call paradise and believe they have a right to burn, torture and rape as long it remains a part of theirs forever. So that the head is connected to the body. Or did he escape to green pastures? I cannot know. But one thing I am sure of is that he definitely would not have needed Google to teach him that his 4^th-standard textbook’s story on Kashmir was a lie, for he saw the truth with his own eyes. He and his people live in the midst of the truth.

PS: To avoid any confusion, let me state that I do not support Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan.