Our sorrows will never be sad enough
Our lives will never be important enough
~Arundhati Roy
Kashmir is a beautiful cage this morning. The inhabitants behind the grilles are strung out and edgy. Their luxury of innocence has been taken away. A peek through a crack in the windowpane can invite a ‘stray’ bullet. There is no venturing out of the home-cages. The bylanes are fitted with death-traps that resemble mousetraps. And they have been put in place in Srinagar and Sopore and Anantnag and elsewhere. We have become the townmouse and the countrymouse, like the Aesop fable.
There are curfewed dawns and curfewed noontides and curfewed evenings. Hazarding a guess – whether it is full moon or moonless tonight – is impossible. Our gaze has been curfewed over. Ill tempered spectres prowl about in the backyards. And there is no sound except jackboots mashing something, someone on the curfewed road. The sick can’t cry. A girl, from north Kashmir, withering with stomach ache, died in the wagon while her aged father tried to convince the mechanical creatures ‘imposing’ the curfew to let them pass. In utter vain.
Is the dead girl a martyr? A martyr as in bullet and blood martyr, we know not. The supremely disconnected TV anchors, sitting in plush studios in New Delhi, perhaps know better. There is a bespectacled host, son of an ex-army officer, who in particular knows all the answers. He is the Bill O'Reilly of the silly Indian TV circus. His mouth turns in such a disgusting manner that every phrase he manages to mutter comes out phoney. It is lame and dumb. And it comes from the ‘free’ media of the world’s most orotund democracy.
There are no newspapers on newsstands in Kashmir today. The local press has been curfewed over. Their pens rendered unsuitable. Dissent and debate is part of a democracy. While India's self-righteous leaders never fail to highlight its democratic credentials, they remain ignorantly indifferent to the misery of more than six million people, who have been cooped inside one of the world's biggest prisons. The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime, Max Stirner the German philosopher once averred.
One wonders what is next: What after the curfew outlasts its utility? What after the last flag march has been conducted? What after the doors of the cage are re-opened? What after the last guard goes away? What after the last body is fished out? What after the inferno burns out? What after your scream solders onto my scream?
A long wordless hug. Zero-tolerance. Probe. Mid-terms. What?
© Sameer
Showing posts with label Curfew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Curfew. Show all posts
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
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
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
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Shame
After days of dithering over how to go about Kashmir and apparently not finding a way out, New Delhi finally found the talisman. Some smart ass in the South Block probably suggested a punitive crackdown to deal with the situation. So three days ago, India flexed its military muscle in Kashmir. Everthing since has been gasping for some air.
I met Arundhati Roy today. She agrees it is the cruelest curfew ever in the chequered history of the valley. Ms Roy retains a beautiful sense of satire. She said, “You know, I was in Kashmir recently and I witnessed the million strong marches. The most striking thing about them was that they were all very peaceful”. This curfew is the government’s way of telling the people that we would tolerate no non-violence, she said with a chuckle. I couldn’t agree more.
The curfew has been a total clamp-down. The security agencies were perhaps given a clear brief. Not a soul should exit their homes. Not a single silly slogan must echo. It matters not that someone could be sick and would want immediate medical attention or someone may need to travel urgently. There are no concessions. It was like the big brother finally coming down heavily on its small pestering cousins. And the para-military forces acted exactly as was expected of them, like mechanical creatures, completely insensitive to human plight.
I cringe with dejection to think of this hobgoblin. One of my friends was supposed to fly to the middle-east where he works as a surgeon. He had a connecting flight to catch from Delhi. Stuck in curfew in Kashmir, he tried arguing with the troopers manning the curfew-colored roads. All in vain. He missed the flight and his schedule went haywire. This is nothing. I read in news-papers today that even emergency services were disallowed. As a result ambulances couldn’t ply. A girl, from south Kashmir, withering with stomach ache, died in the ambulance while her aged father trying to convince the mechanical creatures. Again in vain.
The curfew is so cruel that it looks like a revenge exercise. A collective punishment is being meted out to people for daring to look at the state in the eye. I see no other reason why local media must be gagged. Why national/international media should be barred from reporting. Why doctors who show their curfew passes are asked to back-off and return home. On the humanitarian side, bodies of people who have died in hospitals over the past three days -- due to natural causes -- are lying in morgues for the want of transportation. No ambulance driver wants to risk his life. There are reports that water tankers couldn’t reach orphanages. This is a dire and deliberate agony.
There are times in history when states act nasty. A very few states treat people -- they never tire to call their own -- in such high-handed fashion. I asked Arundhati -- one of the best living writers of English -- about her article, espousing Azadi for Kashmir. She was candid in her response. “India is giving the same arguments that the British once gave us -- That the natives are not yet ready. We shall send the Simon commission.” New Delhi, Ms Roy added, continues to live behind glass walls. I throw these stones at the wall so that it develops some cracks and they wake up to realize that there is a problem in Kashmir.
One can immediately draw parallels between Arundhati and that great Frenchman Jean Paul Sartre --who once famously refused the Nobel prize. Sartre would exactly poke the administration of the legendary French President Charles de Gaulle over French atrocities in Colonial Algeria. Intellectuals and writers, wherever they are, always speak up the gospel truth.
Dissent and debate is part of any democracy. While India's self-righteous leaders never fail to highlight our democratic credentials, they remain ignorantly indifferent to the misery of more than six million people, who have been cooped inside one of the world's biggest and the most beautiful prisons. The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime, Max Stirner the German philosopher once averred.
The Kashmir problem shall remain.
I met Arundhati Roy today. She agrees it is the cruelest curfew ever in the chequered history of the valley. Ms Roy retains a beautiful sense of satire. She said, “You know, I was in Kashmir recently and I witnessed the million strong marches. The most striking thing about them was that they were all very peaceful”. This curfew is the government’s way of telling the people that we would tolerate no non-violence, she said with a chuckle. I couldn’t agree more.
The curfew has been a total clamp-down. The security agencies were perhaps given a clear brief. Not a soul should exit their homes. Not a single silly slogan must echo. It matters not that someone could be sick and would want immediate medical attention or someone may need to travel urgently. There are no concessions. It was like the big brother finally coming down heavily on its small pestering cousins. And the para-military forces acted exactly as was expected of them, like mechanical creatures, completely insensitive to human plight.
I cringe with dejection to think of this hobgoblin. One of my friends was supposed to fly to the middle-east where he works as a surgeon. He had a connecting flight to catch from Delhi. Stuck in curfew in Kashmir, he tried arguing with the troopers manning the curfew-colored roads. All in vain. He missed the flight and his schedule went haywire. This is nothing. I read in news-papers today that even emergency services were disallowed. As a result ambulances couldn’t ply. A girl, from south Kashmir, withering with stomach ache, died in the ambulance while her aged father trying to convince the mechanical creatures. Again in vain.
The curfew is so cruel that it looks like a revenge exercise. A collective punishment is being meted out to people for daring to look at the state in the eye. I see no other reason why local media must be gagged. Why national/international media should be barred from reporting. Why doctors who show their curfew passes are asked to back-off and return home. On the humanitarian side, bodies of people who have died in hospitals over the past three days -- due to natural causes -- are lying in morgues for the want of transportation. No ambulance driver wants to risk his life. There are reports that water tankers couldn’t reach orphanages. This is a dire and deliberate agony.
There are times in history when states act nasty. A very few states treat people -- they never tire to call their own -- in such high-handed fashion. I asked Arundhati -- one of the best living writers of English -- about her article, espousing Azadi for Kashmir. She was candid in her response. “India is giving the same arguments that the British once gave us -- That the natives are not yet ready. We shall send the Simon commission.” New Delhi, Ms Roy added, continues to live behind glass walls. I throw these stones at the wall so that it develops some cracks and they wake up to realize that there is a problem in Kashmir.
One can immediately draw parallels between Arundhati and that great Frenchman Jean Paul Sartre --who once famously refused the Nobel prize. Sartre would exactly poke the administration of the legendary French President Charles de Gaulle over French atrocities in Colonial Algeria. Intellectuals and writers, wherever they are, always speak up the gospel truth.
Dissent and debate is part of any democracy. While India's self-righteous leaders never fail to highlight our democratic credentials, they remain ignorantly indifferent to the misery of more than six million people, who have been cooped inside one of the world's biggest and the most beautiful prisons. The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime, Max Stirner the German philosopher once averred.
The Kashmir problem shall remain.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Cooings on a Curfew morning
Day Three
Third consecutive day of curfew in Kashmir. Movement was mostly trammeled as people remained confined to their homes. There is news though that curfew was defied in a couple of spots. The cops fired upon protestors in several places. Many were beaten up mercilessly in full media glare. The death toll in three days has now gone past 25. The toll of the injured is countless. Hospitals are inundated with the wounded. In Sopore the gun fire just does not abate. It is a perpetual reminder that all is not well and despite the apparent calm, a storm is brewing in the distance.
The local news papers are full of obituaries and tributes to Sheikh Abdul Aziz, a top rung Hurriyet leader who was gunned down Monday as he led a two hundred thousand strong procession during the march to Muzzafarabad. The general strike against the incident is expected to continue till the weekend. Prez Musharraf praised Mr Aziz today. Pakistan has suddenly gotten active after a sinister silence and has passed a resolution condemning the excessive police action in Kashmir. It is preparing to report the matter to UN. India is clearly peeved.
One of my friends managed to click some amazing pictures of the Monday march to Muzzafarabad. In this rare picture, the Hurriyet leader Mr Aziz is seen sitting atop a tractor -- on the right hand side in white Pathani dress -- leading a peaceful demonstration.
This may well be one of the last images of the slain leader because moments later the police shot him dead from point blank. People accompanying him say that the leader was deliberately targeted. The government, of course, refutes the charges.
On a much social level, the changed political climate has altered established norms. With all educational establishments closed for the past one week, children are making merry. No school means the kids are home to pester their parents 24 x 7. There is also an acute shortage of food stuff here. Vegetables are in short supply. Villages have however risen to the occasion. Cartfuls laden with fresh veggies are being brought into townships and city peripheries from the countryside to help the urban populace tide over the hard times.
Staying in Kashmir in these times is riveting and draggy at the same time. These are extraordinary circumstances and each passing day is dramatic. I don’t know how people manage to survive in such settings -- amidst strikes, strife and the suffering. Still they live on! Call it the indomitable human spirit.
Sameer.
Third consecutive day of curfew in Kashmir. Movement was mostly trammeled as people remained confined to their homes. There is news though that curfew was defied in a couple of spots. The cops fired upon protestors in several places. Many were beaten up mercilessly in full media glare. The death toll in three days has now gone past 25. The toll of the injured is countless. Hospitals are inundated with the wounded. In Sopore the gun fire just does not abate. It is a perpetual reminder that all is not well and despite the apparent calm, a storm is brewing in the distance.
The local news papers are full of obituaries and tributes to Sheikh Abdul Aziz, a top rung Hurriyet leader who was gunned down Monday as he led a two hundred thousand strong procession during the march to Muzzafarabad. The general strike against the incident is expected to continue till the weekend. Prez Musharraf praised Mr Aziz today. Pakistan has suddenly gotten active after a sinister silence and has passed a resolution condemning the excessive police action in Kashmir. It is preparing to report the matter to UN. India is clearly peeved.
One of my friends managed to click some amazing pictures of the Monday march to Muzzafarabad. In this rare picture, the Hurriyet leader Mr Aziz is seen sitting atop a tractor -- on the right hand side in white Pathani dress -- leading a peaceful demonstration.
This may well be one of the last images of the slain leader because moments later the police shot him dead from point blank. People accompanying him say that the leader was deliberately targeted. The government, of course, refutes the charges.
On a much social level, the changed political climate has altered established norms. With all educational establishments closed for the past one week, children are making merry. No school means the kids are home to pester their parents 24 x 7. There is also an acute shortage of food stuff here. Vegetables are in short supply. Villages have however risen to the occasion. Cartfuls laden with fresh veggies are being brought into townships and city peripheries from the countryside to help the urban populace tide over the hard times.
Staying in Kashmir in these times is riveting and draggy at the same time. These are extraordinary circumstances and each passing day is dramatic. I don’t know how people manage to survive in such settings -- amidst strikes, strife and the suffering. Still they live on! Call it the indomitable human spirit.
Sameer.
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