Kashmir–My Memoirs

Having been born just nearly eight days before the death of Sheikh Mohamed Abdullah I was born in Kashmir at a time when peace & prosperity was a common sight. Though I don’t remember much of the initial years from 1983-1988 but I have a faint recollection of seeing tourist throng the Boulevard, shop at the handicraft outlets along the Boulevard or Polo view; in my school there where students from all religions; everyone was happy & content—satisfied to be living in the heaven on earth

 

But in 1989 something changed. It started with whisperings of how some Kashmiri had displayed a gun in a protest march. Soon the term “Tehreek” became a word I used to hear frequently. At the tender age of 7 when kids are engrossed with Barbie dolls or video games I started to hear terms like bullet, gun, killed, shot, army, protest, grenade , bomb. We had many neighbours from the Hindu as well as from the Pandit/ Dogra community living with us in the hostel. Just at the start of the “Tehreek” they disappeared in the dark of the night. We never knew where they had gone but the news of non-muslim’s being killed on the suspicioun of being Indian agents had caused panic in their hearts & they where forced to leave. We where too caught up in the current happening to give it a serious thought. The idea of AZADI intoxicated our hearts & minds.

At the age of 8 years I saw the first procession walk past our house. Thousands of Kashmiri men chanting anti-India/ anti-Jagmohan slogans & burning the effigies of the latter alongwith shouting pro azadi slogans where marching towards the Police station. All of us kids had been playing in the common garden but after seeing the protest marching upto the police station we immediately ran indoors . That is when I first encountered the fera of death. How paradoxical it is indeed to be afraid of death when one hasn’t even begun to see life.

Then on 30th March 1990 at the age of 8 years I came to know what Shaheed( martyr) meant. Actually some Mujahids (freedom fighters/militants:) attacked a BSF camp near Hawal in the old city. A 25 year old fighter Ashfaq Majeed who leading the attack was hit by two bullets when he was about to hurl a powerful grenade on that camp. As he fell down the grenade exploded blowing off his right  arm. I remember on hearing about his tragic death i cried myself to sleep. How could someone just die at such a ripe age?

Slowly people began displaying flags of militant outfits on all major landmarks. People, even women began stopping vehicles & asking for contributions for the flag while chanting slogans of Azadi. Everyone seemed to believe that Azadi was just round the corner. Though Kashmiris where crossing the border to get trained in POK but it would amuse me to see  Pakistan stating at International levels that it was only povoding “moral support” to the Kashmri movement. Paradox if not paradoxical enough.

Slowly whispers began to circulate amongst the local Kashmiris of how foreign mercenaries had infiltrated the border & how efficient they where in fighting the army. People who had seen the Kabali raids of 1947 equated this situation to post 1947 imagining that this time it would be a success( cause Pakistan must have learnt a lesson from its past mistakes). Slowly the idea of Azadi seemed like just a step away. People would join processions, indulge in sloganeering & what not. The walls would be covered with graffiti all symbolising the desire to be free. The desire to be independant seemed to be in the air. The protests would continue till late night & the spirit of brotherhood was clearly visible.

That was when the “dein” phenomena surfaced. Those where surely the scariest days of my life

What would happen was that s very scary face would show up on the window of your room either with a knock or just staring at you. Its shoes where supposed to have springs in them so that it could jump or run fast. Many people I knew suffered shock /minor heart attacks on looking up towards the window at night & seeing a scary face starting at them. I rember the whole experience was so scary that I would avoid looking at the window even during the day for the fear of seing the DEIN.

The Kashmiris found a way to deal with this menace too. They would scream & start striking plates in their houses to inform the neighbours that the DEIN was in the area & all the people would rush to the house to catch & beat the Dein. Many times the DEIN was caught but just when the people where about to unmask it, the lights would go off & after a few minutes when the lights would be switched on again the Dein would have disaapeared; but not without the villagers seeing a army jeep silently move out of the area

Then began the time when militants would start knocking on our doors for party donations. The rates where fixed & they would come without fail at the end of every month; give us a receipt & leave. The people where locals & they would come with their pistols . At times people from another group would come & ask for donations, we would tell them that we are already paying one group & after giving us many threats they would leave with no money.

One day I rember I must have been in 3rd grade when two loacal boys came to meet my father. I was playing with in the garden & I heard them demand money. They where so shameless that instead of accepting whatever we would give them, the would ask for 500 Rs point blank. I rember mom refusing to give them anything to which on of the guys threatned to blow up our house. This we had heard many times now so it dint really scare us . What scared my parents was that the other guy started asking me my name & telling me I was a sweet kid. They where apprehensive that he would kidnap me & then ask for ransom. I was eyeing his grey coloured pistol which he had kept in his belt. It was a very tense situation but somehow he left without much trouble

Now when I think about it, had everyone been honest in their money dealings & organised the armed struggle could have survived for a long time indeed. The first memory I have post 1989 is carrying a picture of my parents with me to school. Many of my friends would do the same. I till now haven’t really understood why we did that. Maybe we wanted to feel protected, maybe we wanted them close if anything happened to us or maybe we where just trying to grab on to hope. .

In the 90’s there wasn’t much of school . we mostly studied at home & as kids we were not complaining. But as we started growing up we found the changed situations very eccentric. Slowly we heard stories of how militants where asking for shelter at nights, how some of them would misbehave with the owner of the house or the women, how when the army would at times raid & kill the militants plus burn the house, how after the raid the army would mistreat the family et al. Horrific stories of fear & terror. I remember  how after 6 pm no one would move out of their house, everyone would cuddle up in their homes & listen to the daily news ;which would be actually death count of the day.

We did not want to attract the attention of the militants so we would place opaque black sheets on the windows & then draw the curtains. By this the light from the room would not be seen from the outside. But it wasn’t so easy. At times they would climb the wall, hear us talking & then knock on the windows & doors.

I remember we where so scared of hearing the knock that even if a cat would be walking on the garden we would imagine it to be human footsteps. We would talk in whispers & TV was just obsolete. We had a car but the local commanders had asked us to hand it over to them “ for the tehreek”. So we had just disconnected the battery & whenever they tried to start it, it wouldn’t work.

Hearing cross firing between army & militants was a common occurance.  I had come to feel the difference between the bullets fired by the army & by the militants. Once, when I was in 6th grade the firing seemed very near & we where quite apprehensive as mom had not yet returned home form office. I was praying to Allah for her safety & thankfully she returned an hour after the firing stopped. We where just sitting around that evening reading the newspaper when a loud knock on the window broke the silence. We all turned pale. It meant that militants had somehow managed to find out the room in which we where sitting, they would most probably be the ones involved in the encounter  & they obviously would be having the army after them in hot pursuit. We kept quite & behaved as if we were not there. They started talking in Pashtoun to each other & by the voices we could make out atleast 10 people. We where wearing them out.We switched off all our cell phones & disconnected the land line.We had also started removing the battery of the door bell every evening so they couldn’t possibly irritate us any way. Then after 2 hours of pin drop silence from us we heard them leaving.

The next day we got a call from a neighbour asking us “If you have any guest tell them to leave ASAP. Army is about to raid your house”. The kashmiris had developed a code to talk about the militants(aka guests) on phone without being caught( ie if the phones where being tapped). We quickly washed our faces & within minutes two army men climbed our wall & started banging the door. My father opened & within minutes armymen surrounded our 4 kanal land , enetered each room & started the search. In 20 minutes the search was over. The informer was a Kashmiri who to salvage his pride even told us to open the underground fireplace but unfortunate for him , found nothing & left

After introducing himself the head of the search operation told us very categorically, pointing to the informant “ we kill these bastards after they reveal all that they know”.

As a female the army symbolised not only oppression & India’s forced subjugation of my land & people but also countless rapes starting from the  Kunanposhpora mass rape incident of February 1991 to the Shopian Rape case of 2009. Whenever I would see an army man, or a  bunker, or army patrolling on foot I would always be terrorized. These are from the illetrate , under privileged, poorer sections of India who especially in Kashmir are always drunk at night. The comments they have for any woman that crosses their path in Kashmir cant be reproduced. The men haven’t been left far behind. Identification parades of the locals by illetrate Bihari jawans is an irony of sorts. Shouldn’t we as owners of the land be asking their identity rather than the other way round—but in a land where POTA is prevelant we cant ask any questions to MAHABALI army!!

Kashmir in Pictures