Peace of the graveyard pervades the Valley

When we arrived in Srinagar, we found the city silenced and desolated by curfew, and bristling with Indian military and paramilitary presence. The curfew was total.

We travelled widely, in- side and outside Srinagar far beyond the small enclave (in the centre of Srinagar) where the Indian media operates. In that small enclave, a semblance of normalcy returns from time to time, and this has enabled the Indian media to claim that life in Kashmir is back to normal.

Except for the BJP spokesperson on Kashmir Affairs, we did not meet a single person who support- ed the Indian government’s decision to abrogate Article 370.

Anger and fear were the dominant emotions we encountered everywhere. People expressed their anger freely in informal conversation, but no one was willing to speak on camera.

Many told us that they expected massive protests to erupt sooner or later (after restrictions were relaxed, after Eid, after August 15, or even later), and anticipated violent repression even if the protests were peaceful.

REACTIONS TO THE GOVT’S TREATMENT OF J&K

When our flight land- ed, and the airlines staff announced that passengers could switch on our mobiles, the entire flight (with mostly Kashmiris in it) burst into mocking laughter. “What a joke”, we could hear people say - since mobile and landline phones and internet have all been blocked since August 5!

As soon as we set foot in Srinagar, we came across a few small children play- acting in a park. We could hear them say ‘Iblees Modi’. ‘Iblees’ means ‘Satan’.

The words we heard over and over from people about the government decisions on J&K were ‘zulm’ (oppression), ‘zyadti’ (excess/cruelty), and ‘dhokha’ (betrayal). As one man in Safakadal (down- town Srinagar) put it, “The government has treated us Kashmiris like slaves, taking decisions about our lives and our future while we are captive. It’s like forcing something down our throats while keeping us bound and gagged, with a gun to our heads.”

In every lane of Srinagar city, every town, every village, that we visited, we received an extensive schooling from ordinary people, including school kids, on the history of the Kashmir dispute. They were angry and appalled at the manner in which the Indian media was whitewashing this history. Many said: “Article 370 was the contract between Kashmir’s leadership and India’s. Had that contract not been signed, Kashmir would never have acceded to India. With Article 370 gone, India no longer has any basis for its claim over Kashmir.” One man in the Jahangir Chowk area near

Lal Chowk, described Article 370 as a ‘mangalsutra’ (sacred necklace worn by married women) symbolising a contract (analogous to the marital contract) be- tween Kashmir and India.

There is widespread anger against the Indian media. People are imprisoned in their homes, unable to communicate with each other, express themselves on social media, or make their voices heard in any way. In their homes, they watch Indian TV channels claiming that Kashmir welcomes the government’s decisions. They seethe with rage at the erasure of their voices. As one young man in Safakadal put it, “Kiski shaadi hai, aur kaun naach raha hai?! (It’s supposed to be our wedding, but it’s only others who are dancing!) If this move is supposed to be for our benefit and development, why not ask what we ourselves think about it?”

REACTIONS TO ABROGATION OF ARTICLE 370 AND 35A

A man in Guree village (Anantnag district) said: “Hamara unse rishta Article 370 aur 35A se tha. Ab unhone apne hi paer par kulhadi mar di hai. In Articles ko khatm kar diya hai. Ab to ham azad ho gaye hain.” (Our relationship with them (India) was through Article 370 and Article 35A. Now they have themselves committed the folly of dis- solving these Articles. So now we are free.” The same man raised slogans of “We want freedom” followed by slogans of “Restore Articles 370 and 35A.”

Many described Article 370 and 35A as Kashmir’s “pehchan” (identity). They felt that the abrogation of these Articles is a humiliating attack on Kashmir’s self-respect and identity.

Not all demanded restoration of Article 370. Many said that it was only the parliamentary parties who had asked people to have faith that India would honour the contract that was Arti- cle 370. The abrogation of Article 370 only discredited those “pro-India parties,” and vindicated those who argued for Kashmir’s “azaadi” (independence) from India, they felt. One man in Batamaloo said: “Jo India ke geet gate hain, apne bande hain, ve bhi bandh hain! (Those who sang praises of India, India’s own agents, they too are imprisoned!” A Kashmiri journalist observed, “Many people are happy about the treatment the mainstream parties are getting. These parties batted for the Indian State and are being humiliated now.”

“Modi has destroyed India’s own law, its own Constitution” was another common refrain. Those who said this, felt that Article 370 was more important to India (to legitimise its claim to Kashmir) than it was to Kashmir. But the Modi government had not only sought to destroy Kashmir, it had destroyed a law and Constitution that was India’s own.

A hosiery businessman in Jahangir Chowk, Srinagar said, “They strangled their own Constitution. It’s first step towards Hindu Rashtra.”

In some ways, people were more concerned about the effects of the abrogation of 35A than that of 370. It is widely recognised that Article 370 retained only nominal, symbolic autonomy and had already been diluted. With 35A gone, though, people fear that “State land will be sold cheap to investors. Ambani, Patanjali, etc, can come in easily. Kashmir’s resources and land will be grabbed. In Kashmir as it stands now, education and employment levels are better than in the main- land. But tomorrow Kashmiris will have to compete for government jobs with those from other states.

After one generation, most Kashmiris won’t have jobs or be forced to move to the mainland.”

“NORMALCY” OR “PEACE OF THE GRAVEYARD”?

Is the situation in Kashmir “normal” and “peaceful”? The answer is an em- phatic ‘NO’.

One young man in Sopore said: “This is bandook ki khamoshi (the silence at gunpoint), kabristan ki khamoshi (the peace of the graveyard).”

Between August 5-9, people had suffered for lack of food, milk, and basic needs. People had been prevented even from going to hospitals in case of sickness.

The government claim is that only Section 144 has been imposed, not “curfew”. But in reality, police vans keep patrolling Srinagar warning people to “stay safe at home and not venture out during the curfew,” and tell shops to close their shutters. They demand that people display “curfew passes” to be allowed to move about.

“It’s Army rule, not Modi rule. There are more soldiers here than people”, said a young baker at Watpura near Bandipora. His friend added, “We’re afraid, because the army camp nearby keeps imposing impossible rules. They insist we have to return within half an hour if we leave home. If my kid isn’t well, and I have to take her to the hospital, it may take more than half an hour.

Sheep traders and herders could be seen with unsold sheep and goats. Animals they had been rearing all year long, would not be sold. This meant they would incur a huge loss.

A shopkeeper from Bijnore (UP) showed us the stacks of unsold sweets and delicacies going waste, since people could not buy them. Shops and bakeries wore a deserted look on the eve of Eid, with their perishable food items lying unsold.

An asthmatic auto driver in Srinagar, showed us his last remaining dose of salbutamol and asthalin. He had been trying for the past several days to buy more - but the chemists’ shops and hospitals in his area had run out of stocks. He could go to other, bigger hospitals - but CRPF would prevent him. He showed us the empty, crushed cover of one asthalin inhaler - when he told a CRPF man he needed to go further to get the medicine, the man stamped on the cover with his boot. “Why stamp on it? He hates us, that’s why”, said the auto driver.

PROTESTS, REPRESSION AND BRUTALITY

Some 10,000 people pro- tested in Soura (Srinagar) on 9 August. The forces responded with pellet gun fire, injuring several. We attempted to go to Soura on August 10 but were stopped by a CRPF barricade. We did see young protestors on the road that day as well, blockading the road.

We met two victims of pellet gun injuries in SMHS hospital in Srinagar. The two young men (Waqar Ah- mad and Wahid) had faces, arms and torso full of pellets. Their eyes were blood- shot and blinded. Waqar had a catheter in which the urine, red with blood from internal bleeding, could be seen. Their family members, weeping with grief and rage, told us that the two men had not been pelting stones.

On August 6, a graphic designer for Rising Kashmir, Samir Ahmad, (in his early 20s) had remonstrated with a CRPF man near his home in the Manderbag area of Srinagar, asking him to allow an old man to pass. Later the same day, when Samir opened the door to his house, CRPF fired at him with a pellet gun, unprovoked. He got 172 pellets in his arm and face near the eyes, but his eyesight is safe. It is clear that the pellet guns are deliberately aimed at the face and eyes, and unarmed, peaceful civilians standing at their own front doors can be targets.

At least 600 political leaders and civil society activists are under arrest. There is no clear information on what laws are invoked to arrest them, or where they are being held.

A very large number of political leaders are under house arrest - it is impossible to ascertain how many. We tried to meet CPIM MLA Mohd Yusuf Tarigami – but were refused entry into his home in Srinagar, where he is being under house arrest.

In every village we visited, as well as in downtown Srinagar, there were very young schoolboys and teen- agers who had been arbitrarily picked up by police or army/paramilitary and held in illegal detention. We met a 11-year-old boy in Pampore who had been held in a police station between August 5 and 11. He had been beaten up, and he said there were boys even younger than him in custody, from nearby villages.

Hundreds of boys and teens are being picked up from their beds in midnight raids. The only purpose of these raids is to create fear. Women and girls told us of molestation by armed forces during these raids. Parents feared meeting us and telling us about the “arrests” (abductions) of their boys. They are afraid of Public Security Act cases being filed. The other fear is that the boys may be “dis- appeared” - i.e killed in custody and dumped in mass graves of which Kashmir has a grim history.

But the protests are not likely to stop. A young man at Sopore said: “Jitna zulm karenge, utna ham ubharenge” (The more you oppress us, the more we will rise up) A familiar refrain we heard at many places was: “Never mind if leaders are arrested. We don’t need leaders. As long as even a single Kashmiri baby is alive, we will struggle.”

THE GAG ON MEDIA

A journalist told us: “Newspapers are printing in spite of everything. Without the internet, we do not get any feed from agencies. We were reduced to reporting the J&K related developments in Parliament, from NDTV! This is undeclared censorship. If government is giving internet and phone connectivity to police but not to media houses, what does it mean? Kashmiri TV channels are completely closed and unable to function. Kashmiri newspapers that carry the barest mention of protests (such as the one on Soura) are made to feel the heat from the authorities. Foreign press reporters told us that they are facing restrictions on their movement by the authorities.

DOES KASHMIR LACK DEVELOPMENT?

It is striking how in every Kashmiri village, we found young men and women who go to college or University; speak Kashmiri, Hindi and English fluently; and are able to argue points of Constitutional and inter- national law in relation to the Kashmir conflict with factual accuracy and erudition. All four of the team members are familiar with villages in North Indian states. This high level of education is extremely rare in any village in, say, Bihar, UP, MP, or Jharkhand.

The homes in rural Kashmir are all pucca constructions. We saw no shacks like the ones that are common in rural Bihar, UP, Jharkhand.

There are poor people in Kashmir, certainly. But the levels of destitution, starvation and abject poverty seen in many North In- dian states, is simply absent in rural Kashmir.

We met migrant labourers from North India and West Bengal at many places. They told us that they feel safe and free from xenophobic violence that they face in, say, Maharashtra or Gujarat. Daily wage migrant labourers told us “Kashmir is our Dubai. We earn Rs 600 to Rs 800 per day here - that is three or four times what we earn in other states.”

We found Kashmir refreshingly free of communal tension or mob lynchings. We met Kashmiri Pandits who told us they felt safe in Kashmir, and that the Kashmiris always celebrate their festivals together. “We celebrate Eid, Holi, Diwali together. That is our Kashmiriyat. It is something different, special,” said one Kashmiri Pandit young man.