A first-person account of a Kashmiri family’s flight from Srinagar

Rumours have been circulating all summer that Modi’s government was cooking up some way to abrogate Articles 35A and 370. But it was only after the Amarnath Yatra was suspended on Friday that these rumours began to gain currency and traction.

People began gathering gas, food, meat, money. Most people were bankrupting themselves to do so. Those who were self-employed or with low-income were worried about how they would feed their families. Panic was rife in the air and there was no relief.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 2019

It was on Sunday (when a photo began circulating on WhatsApp of the local hospital’s request to issue curfew passes for all their employees) that everyone's fears finally seemed to have been confirmed.

Most of my family members are outside of Kashmir right now but we focused on getting my grandmother, and my pregnant cousin and her son out as soon as possible. My dad booked us the ticket for the next day, Monday, but even then all of us barely slept, worried sick and in pain.

Around 10 pm, a message flashed across our phones announcing that as per the request of the central government, all domestic networks were to be shut down indefinitely. All mosques, any place equipped with a loudspeaker, began announcing total curfew from 5 am on Monday.

I cannot explain the anger and disgust I felt that night: not only was India going to decide our fate for us, but humiliatingly on top of that they were going to keep us blind, silent, deaf and hidden. This was their “democracy.”

MONDAY MORNING, AUGUST 5

Then it was morning and time to leave. My family and I live near the downtown core, which is notoriously the most tightly locked and where the military are most ruthless with civilians due to a history of protests there.

Even though our flight was at 2 pm, we left at 8 am because we were worried that the curfew would make it extremely difficult even to get to the airport. We were not wrong. Upon driving for five minutes, we approached the first military blockade, right in front of the main intersection, a pharmacy and a hospital.

People were lined up, begging to get past. My dad got out of the car with the tickets on his phone (a risk) and was waved away initially, accused of showing invalid, fabricated air tickets. He finally managed to talk to a military guard and convinced him that we really were going to the airport.

Next to us, a man was holding his brother's X-rays, was begging to be let through to take his brother to surgery scheduled for Monday. Another woman, desperately needing to refill her child's medicine. None of them were allowed to get through.

The closer we got to Eidgah and Safakadal (the heart of the city), the more military appeared, the more men with guns and barbed wires. Also, more boys and young men, sitting in a line outside their homes, on the sidewalk or a wall. Waiting. (Even now I worry for them.)

At one point, we were asked to turn around. We tried to a different route. There, we were harassed by an officer: cursing at us, yelling at us to turn around and go back home, banging on the side of our car. The other officer was calmer and so we got through to the main highway.

Over and over again, we were stopped and asked to explain why we were outside, why we were moving. I lost count after the sixth or seventh time. It all depended on each officer. If even one decided he was done for the day or in a bad mood, there was no telling what he could do.

Complete power and discretion were his. The power to maim or kill. It has always been theirs', the CRPF's, in Kashmir and we were breaking curfew. People have been killed for much less.

AT THE AIRPORT

We reached the airport safely but we were worried about our driver; so we stopped at the police station, at airport security, wherever we could to try and get him a curfew pass. The most we were given eventually was a printout of our own ticket and boarding passes, proof he had been to the airport which was why he was breaking curfew. We still have not been able to contact him to make sure he got home safely.

There was chaos at the airport. Several thousand people had flooded that tiny airport and the entire place was in a mess. Intermittently, announcements were being made that certain flights would be delayed because of their proximity to the border and the tension and skirmishes resulting in no-fly zones.

Tension was mounting even at the airport. Sudden shushes would stop all conversation and whispers would break out. Two of my father’s friends work at the airport and both appeared, pulled him aside, telling him the news of Article 370 being repealed and then again about 35A and bifurcation.

It was safer not to be caught talking about this (regardless of political leanings), the military and police ran the airport after all. At one point, someone (probably a BJP/Modi supporter) yelled, “Bharat Mata ki Jay!” (Victory of the Mother Land), trying to incite trouble.

More yelling followed, with some Kashmiri groups reacting by chanting the slogan, “Hum kya chahte hain? Azadi! Chein key laingay! Azadi!” (What do we want? Freedom! Even if we have to snatch it, Freedom!).

Then the military rushed in and the police took away the original inciter, warning everyone to stay quiet or face similar consequences. Some people even ran to the other side of the airport in fear.

My dad said he never imagined he would see protests and unrest even inside the airport.

THE FLIGHT

But it turned out that even inside the airplane, we were not free and at peace. As we were landing in Amritsar, we were forced to listen to the loud clapping and celebration of most of the Indian passengers around us, on having managed to escape from Kashmir. Meanwhile, we felt sick with guilt and with longing to return. Longing to not have to leave in the first place. A loudmouth two rows back laughed about how Kashmiris knew nothing and how this was best for them.

Now I am safe and away and I feel lucky and grateful for it. But I have been able to think of nothing else. My home, my people, our suffering. The cruelty in all of this, the entrapment and the shutdown and the uncertainty we are forced to face time and time again.

This is a scene right of a dystopian novel and most of the world isn’t even reading. The tenuous and fragile autonomy that Articles 35A/370 provided (because they were a band-aid solutions to an unsustainable, unfair accession) is now broken.

India is replacing the laws with outright occupation.

India’s gloves are off so let me do the same: your democracy is dead. You are colonisers. You have proved yet again that you are willing to go to any vicious length to secure your own power, which is all you care about.