Persecution -- what are you tonight?

Persecution has a shape, and a weight and a texture. This summer it is unmistakably evident in Kashmir. Mornings fetch sad tidings here. The beautiful garden that is Kashmir appears run over by strange creatures. When a crisp blue suddenly gives way to dreary evenings, it is sadness beyond comfort. That has become out subroutine. Kids engage the cops, who in turn shoot them in the head or heart, tempers fray, the government shuffles a tad, strikes follow, there is furious sloganeering and curfew. The action shifts to another corner of the garden. Evil emissaries’ prowl. With whips in their hands. They smell of funk and coconut oil.

I am summering in Kashmir and it is kind of bittersweet. Hopping out of the home is a challenge. My media accreditation cards allow me to drive a bit but I am not to venture near the war-zone. That is where the action is: young men – aged 20 and less – try and engage the CRPF in a battle of wits. A devil-may-care ferocity looms. The police train their guns on the kids. 11 boys were killed in this fashion in June alone. And the spiral continues. The government calls the kids rioters. While the claim cannot be substantiated given the government’s track record of speaking nothing but untruth on Kashmir, one finds it hard to put an exact expression to this fury.

Mosque loud-speakers are blaring out old cassettes. They ask people to get out of their comfort zones and gather. God knows how the magniloquent songs of revolution survived these two decades to mysteriously emerge now when no one even cared to remember the lyrics. I don’t frankly fancy the verbosity of the songs but I must concede that the Azadi sentiment hasn’t exactly withered in Kashmir. It lies torpid and in a state of suspended consciousness. People go out and even vote in between the dormant years but it never really goes away. That is the take-home twenty years later.

The strike is now supplemented by a curfew. There are fetters around the garden. Imagine a life where you are kept within bounds, your phones are jammed and your expression is severely gagged. People still find ways and means to sneak out and forgather near their homes. They exchange back-fence talk and speak in exaggerated tones. Someone says that the cops are coming. Some places the crowd simply melts into the alleys. Other places the mob sticks like glue. A confrontation ensues. There is sound of tear-gas shells exploding. The shells come down like handfuls of nails flung hard by a seriously riled sky. Then there is wailing.

The cycle repeats.

© Sameer

Azadi from Litter

The biggest cock and bull story doing rounds in New Delhi is that the recently held elections in Kashmir are a tacit endorsement of Indian dominion in the valley. There is no truth to it because it is an utterly mistaken belief and diametrically opposed to reality. Looks like the spin doctors are back to work, doing what they always do: Confuse. Given that public memory is short-term, it doesn’t help to fuddle things. I jotted about this phenomenon in one of my preceding posts. A transcription follows.

The election verdict is majorly about three things. One: Kashmiri people want a basic decent life -- good roads, good education, better jobs and they know an elected, political government is best equipped to do that. No governor speaks Kashmiri and Kashmiri's have trouble explaining themselves in Hindi. Two: People in the countryside were always less likely to take the separatist call for a complete boycott seriously. [2008 is not 1990’s. Dissent, we know, has its shelf life].
The boycott call was summarily ignored, at least in rural Kashmir. And lastly: The Azadi sentiment lives on, and is not expected to die anytime soon.

In reality Kashmir is too bruised to be soothed by a winter election, held under the heels of half a million troopers – the highest civilian-military ratio anywhere in the world. You lock up the entire separatist bandwagon, brook no dissent and stamp out any protesting voices. And then have the gall to call it a democratic exercise. That is unabridged nonsense.

While the mainstream camp has been mostly inept, the separatists continue to live in relative comfort. The top chaps belong to a class – the like of us included – whom Marx would have easily called bourgeoisie. The chief protagonists -- Mirwaiz Farooq is loaded and happily married to an American [He occasionally slips away to the US for holidays minus the Kara Kul]. Syed Ali Geelani’s son safely practices medicine far from the madding crowds and the Lone brothers drive around in luxury SUV’s. Sajjad went to a prestigious college in UK and is married to Asma, daughter of JKLF founder Amanuallah Khan]. The list is long and rich.

In hindsight the boycott call was perhaps pushing the envelope a little too far. I’m pro-choice. The separatists may not be. Buoyed by the million-strong marches in the August of 2008, they issued blacklists. At a much fundamental level the people who formed part of those long marches perhaps understood well enough that Freedom being freedom, no one is going to come to their rescue. There are bills to be paid, children to be sent to school, roads to be repaired, garbage to be cleaned. You also need Azadi from the stench emanating from litter outside your home.

There are real issues that an average Kashmiri has to deal with. With the first snow, the electricity lines snap. The roads continue to be antiquated, pre-1947. Traffic is plain crazy. Clean water is a priority. Healthcare is a sham. Employment stays stalled. Kashmiri politicians, owing their allegiance to India, positioned themselves on exactly these issues and managed to garner votes. Ergo this is a vote for development. Period.

The vote must not be mistaken for an embrace. Kashmir has multiple wounds dark and deep. They can rip open at the shortest notice. And let’s not fool ourselves. The UN position is clear on Kashmir. Elections in the state of J&K – previous as well as present – and all subsequent decisions of the elected government are going to have NO bearing on the final status of Kashmir.

Where is the ambiguity?

Let’s hope Omar and his team luck. He has got some shady guys on board but that is the nature of coalition politics in this part of the world. Barring his stint with the rightwing BJP – which he has since atoned for -- he has a clean slate to write a new chapter for Kashmir.

Sameer