We are going thirty years back in time, over to Kashmir as it was then, into the fateful and irreversible days…
You can rightfully blame me and give vent to your full disdain, or even curse me, for the poverty of my expression, but I hope—or I harbor the illusion—the content hereof will not waste your time, and, on the contrary, satisfy, stimulate and benefit you.
However, should you feel it opposed to my hope or illusion, please feel free to stop troubling your eyes as and when you desire so.
If anybody accuses me of poverty of content, analysis or thought, I’ll definitely protest that—provided I understand that the accuser has not lost his or her head [unfortunately, uncountable people have actually reduced themselves into mentally bankrupt or pernicious dead-stock; and I don’t expect any reason or any other civilized endowment from such elements].
I am aware that it will be very difficult to find the few individuals in Kashmir and South Asia or even in the entire world [who I am looking for] that can agree with me regarding the crux of the matter revealed in the following pages, but I have to say certain things which nobody has spoken about so far, as far my studies go, though, I confess, I’m not a great reader. And in the comprehension, consideration, and action regarding those unspoken things abide the solutions to many unresolved socio-political problems of humankind.
A little personal explanation: I never aspired or imagined to become a writer—and that verily is the only reason for my poverty in conjuring up the past or present observations and feelings, and expressing them in an artistic manner. The job of writing, I trusted, would be done very well by my senior friends that were already soldiers of that battlefield. My disposition was inclined towards Physics, so I can’t contrive any fiction. The following account is true to the best of my memory.
Besides Physics, I loved to become a proletariat and a proletarian revolutionary—and I harbor the audacity to flatter myself of being a consistent Bolshevik.
A note before we start: there were no mobile phones and internet, etc., those days; cameras too were the instruments of luxury. To acclimatize your mental faculties back with that time, place, and circumstances, I repeat: There were no mobile phones and internet those days. The social world of today is altogether different from the one we are about to peep into.
….
The socio-politically surcharged, volcanic, ominous, murky, mysterious, uncertain, apprehensive, confounding, dry, dusty, and chilling days of January 1990 were about to attain to the travails of delivering the collective result of the efforts of various forces, groups, classes, communities, “leaders”, etc., that Kashmir had been nurturing in its womb through the past gestations, preparations, meditations, concerns, theories, practices, organizations, actions, and events.
It was the last week of December 1989.
Thirty years’ Usha Ji, two years’ Amul and thirty years’ I were on our way to our home in Anantnag, Kashmir—my parents and siblings were residing there “permanently”; and Usha Ji was a teacher there; I too had worked in Kashmir up to June 7, 1989—but our direct journey to our home was impeded because Usha Ji fell sick while traveling in a train from Assam to New Delhi, and we alighted at Shakarpur, across the “river” Jamuna in Delhi, at Ashfaq Hussain’s desolate-looking one-room lodging.
“Is he a Muslim?” Usha Ji asked with the general scorn and the threatening revolt against the prospect of having to partake of the food cooked by a Muslim.
“No, he is a Sikh.” I responded jokingly with all the ease of a high class diplomat.
She felt spiritually satisfied.
….
“Prem Nath Bhat has been shot dead!” Ajay Kaul, the neighbor of Ashfaq, living in an adjacent house across the street, broke the news to me soon after listening to the 19:45 Hours’ News Broadcast of Radio Kashmir Srinagar.
Prem Nath Bhat was a well-known Kashmiri Pandit (KP hereafter). He was an advocate by profession but his fame was propelled by his active and leading role in the religious ceremonies, gatherings, discussions, and ideas about the community issues at the KPs’ Headquarters, Nagabal, in Anantnag. He was intelligent, well-mannered, and kind. He could possibly not have harmed anybody; nor was any KP, since 1947, capable of causing any potential harm in civil or social affairs to any group at the time. No known Kashmiri political organization—viz. Muslim United Front, Jamat-e Islami, People’s Conference, National Conference or Congress—could carry out his murder. None of them would gain anything by doing so. This comprehension had been bestowed to me by the dint of my racking of mind in political affairs through the decade 1979–1989.
Despite all this, it was a fact that Prem Nath Bhat had been murdered.
My immediate thoughts rushed to my father’s feelings, Ashok Raina’s welfare and agitation, and my cousin, Ram Krishan Pandita’s suffering, dejection, and fury.
Ashok Raina was a relative of mine, who I had known since 1975. He was among the three most prominent KPs in Anantnag. The third fellow among the Nagabal Trio, besides Prem Nath Bhat and Ashok Raina, was Harji Lal Jad.
There were two other preeminent KPs in Anantnag, but they had no connection with Nagabal. They were Pyaray Lal Handoo, the National Conference Minister, and Makhan Lal Fotedar, the trusted member of the Kitchen Committee (as it was commonly called) of Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Mr. Rajiv Gandhi.
Community issues, community culture, community welfare, etc., had been the prime concern of the Nagabal Trio; even though the community suffered from no dearth of prejudices and crotchets, and even though it abounded in disharmony, disunity, absence of political understanding or relevance, and nonexistence of disposition to feel concerned, study or organize for anything efficacious or meaningful. It had no desire to stand for or against anything worthwhile. Despite this, and despite their incapability to cause any harm to any group of people, their spite against one another—particularly their neighbors and colleagues—was capable of doing tremendous damage.
Thanks to R. P. Saraf, Abdul Rashid Laway and Chaman Lal Kantroo in particular, I had become an internationalist and communist in 1979 itself, and advanced on that path and transformed myself with a strenuous effort on my part; so I had been able to spare myself from receiving any ideological, cultural or “spiritual” favors or acumen that the community’s stalwarts had on offer. The burning problems of Kashmir or India or Pakistan or the entire world could not be addressed from any sectarian forum. I had acquired this conviction.
I had not known Prem Nath Bhat in person nor had I had any occasion to converse with him but he had been my father’s advocate in a court case that lingered on for several years; so my father had a high respect for him. It was certain therefore that my father would be in tremendous grief due to the manner in which he had been made to exit from the world.
And Ram Krishan Pandita of Khayar—who was senior to me by twenty or more years, and who the individuals, i.e. his relatives, of my generation feared terribly for his serious actions and sharp remarks delivered in solemn mien; and who we loved nonetheless for so many of his merits—was certain to be in an indescribable state of mind, heart and spirit. He had been very close to the departed man.
Ram Krishan Pandita was a headmaster. And no teacher or headmaster or professor of his time could side with anything unjust, unnecessary or roguish. Disregard to any murder of any individually acquainted person of any community was simply out of question. By the very nature of education in any educational institution, a teacher can only be successful, and fulfill his vocation to the best of his capability and satisfaction, iff there is discipline in the class, school and society. And that had practically been true up to that time in Kashmir.
These thoughts disturbed me tremendously in the inner recesses of my being—but outwardly, I stood as calm as one has to be beside the burning pyre at a crematorium.
….
Usha Ji recovered fully within a few days and we reached Jammu Railway Station at about 20:00 Hours on January 3, 1990 probably [hereon, the dates given may be about two days earlier or two days later than the specified date. The first day, December 27, and the last date in the narration are certain.]
I began my search, just outside the Railway Station, for a taxi that could be returning to Kashmir through the night. Usha Ji objected.
“Let us stay here for a few days!” she demanded, “I want to see Jammu.”
“Don’t worry! You will be back here very soon—and for a very long time.” I tried to assure her.
She did not understand it. And she repeated her obstinate desire of sightseeing at Jammu—while I found a taxi and fixed the fare.
The taxi started spinning its wheels. I felt relaxed.
Amul began enjoying the soothing balm—the gracious company of the enchanting, mysterious and beloved Fairy, that is globally known as Sleep.
Usha Ji was terribly upset. Her cherished desire of staying at some hotel in Late Jamu Lochan’s empire and visiting famous temples in the city had been brutally dashed to the ground by my overbearing decision and action.
“What a sad thing that we passed twice through Jammu but didn’t see any place here!” she expressed once again.
“Don’t worry. You will be here during the horrid heat of summer. Shah Ji (meaning Ashok Raina) and his family might already be here.” I responded.
“Oh really! Are they at Jammu? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?…” she protested.
“No, I don’t know whether they are at Anantnag or some other place.” I tried to clarify.
“No, you know it; and you concealed this information from me!”
….
In the meantime, the taxi driver had arranged the nebulous turbulence of his information, impressions, feelings and thoughts in his head: a fountain thereof was set to gush forth.
“After how much time are you returning to Kashmir, Sir?” he asked.
“After six months—but we were here for a couple of weeks in October as well. So it is after just two and a half months that we are returning now.” I replied.
The driver gave me a vivid account of the events that had taken place over the previous six months: the March Past on August 14 to celebrate the “Independence” Day of Pakistan; the Black Out on August 15 to protest against the Indian “Independence” Day celebrations; the murders of Mohammad Yousuf Halwai and Tika Lal Taploo; the Protest March of KPs against Tika Lal Taploo’s murder; abduction of Rubiya Sayeed, the daughter of Indian Home Minister and her release in exchange for militants’ freedom from detention; the disappearance of the militants to their hideouts within a few minutes after they were set free; the hope and anxieties of the Kashmiri people; and so forth.
We reached Khanabal, the Western entry point to the Anantnag town, at about 5:00 AM on January 4, but we had to stop there for an hour because vehicles were not allowed to enter or leave the town up to 6:00 AM in the morning.
We safely reached home at about 6:05 AM, when all people in the area were still in their respective beds.
After a few hours’ sleep, I went to our neighbor, Mohammad Hussain’s home.
He and his wife, and his three children greeted me heartily.
When the Colony—in which we were to dwell—was in its construction phase in 1981, Mohammad Hussain was among the first settlers therein. When we began constructing our house, and he came to know that I was a communist (which inferred being merely an atheist with a nasty viewpoint), he abhorred me as much as he could because he had had some affinity with the Jamat-e Islami. We came to know each other gradually, and not only did the mutual respect develop but friendship and fraternity took a strong hold over us.
He was good looking, stoutly built, broad-shouldered, with a crop of straight hair and well trimmed beard. He was the most efficient electrician in the Electricity Department of the district. One and all in the department respected him for his intelligence, lively disposition and skill. Senior engineers and all others would cherish to have him in their team for any outdoor departmental projects.
He was, besides, an excellent neighbor. All problems of electric wiring, installations, etc., in any home of the colony were looked after by him, free of any charges. To supplement his meager income, he had poultry in one room of his house. Two Eids of each year saw him kill a chicken on each occasion, dress it, and deliver it to us to partake of his celebration of the Eid. We reciprocated by delivering cheese on Shiv Ratri every year.
During October and November 1987, many chickens in his stock died before reaching to the day of sale. At the end of the troublesome work of two months, the net profit and loss was zero. He uttered musingly, “As if we were taken for Begar (coverie/forced unpaid work) for two months, and we have come out of it safely now.”
….
Evening of January 6 saw our usual reception at Dantar, the entry point to Anantnag town from the South West. Usha Ji’s mother, brother, two uncles, two adult cousins, and their families lived there in their mutual huge house, with sufficient accommodation for all of them.
The youngest uncle had two teenage daughters and a son. All of them were studying for one or the other academic course. During the early hours of the night, a dozen individuals, including me, were sitting in the same big ground-floor room, talking about the happenings and the social situation. Usha Ji’s aunty could no longer retain a secret of paramount importance that had been dominant in her mind. Two gun-wielding classmates and friends of her teenage son were also their guests for that night. She had been strictly admonished by her son and his friends not to speak about it to anybody in the house or anywhere else, they had entered in stealthily, nobody had seen them there or outside; however, it was far too far from any inkling of delight or satisfaction to have two JKLF boys with loaded AK47 rifles in their possession in any KP’s home. In fact any Kashmiri would shiver even at the thought of such a thing just six months earlier. She and her husband had put up a brave face for quite some time but the anxiety inside their minds had been too tormenting. She, at least, had to confide this secret to somebody. And she found me worthy of it.
I won’t attempt to describe the feeling it generated in the individuals present in that room.
The aunty and uncle needed some comforting and reassuring words. They were hungry and thirsty for some suggestions about how to deal with their solitary son (besides their two daughters) and how to extricate him from his militant friends. They hoped that I could tell them something useful; and I didn’t let them down.
“It is a very simple and common thing” I found myself saying, “under the circumstances. There is nothing to worry about in this. The gunmen are ruling the society at present. The Home Minister of India, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the Hindu Party Chief, L. K. Advani, the Central Minister, I. K. Gujral, the Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah, and many other top officials have, during the previous month itself, either enjoyed the liaison or the hospitality of the JKLF boys. Rubiya Sayeed, the Home Minister’s daughter, has also been reported to have been beside herself with joy in becoming the South Asian celebrity within a week under the aegis of the similar boys that are at your home today. So don’t worry! It is a normal thing. Militants will not harm you. You are safe at their hands. The policemen and CID (intelligence police) have also an understanding of their own with the militants. They cannot come to question you if they come to know that two friends of your son have been in your home for a day or two on one or more occasions.”
They were pleased and satisfied—but the problem was far from being over.
Usha Ji’s brother, eldest uncle and his two sons, and their families were respected KPs, with devotion not only towards L. K. Advani and Vajpayee but also towards RSS, etc., that they fully trusted were working for Hindus’ welfare. They had all along been in the good books of Nagabal, the KP Headquarter. They had been frontrunners in its activities. They had known Prem Nath Bhat, the man killed during just the previous week, very well and respected him truly. Prem Nath Bhat’s home and Usha Ji’s mother’s paternal home were very close to each other. The two persons were of almost the same age. They might have played together in childhood. They were sure to have participated together in different activities like attending marriages of their mutual relatives or neighbors, or celebrations of yearly festivals, etc. They might have studied in the same primary school [girls born before 1947 were generally discouraged from going beyond the primary school] and even in the same class. Her younger brother too might have had much association with Prem Nath Bhat in his childhood and youth. Besides this, Harji Lal Jad, one of the Nagabal Chiefs, was closely related to them by blood or by association. He was a master of intelligent humor which endeared him to his listeners. Usha Ji’s mother or her brother might have studied together with him, played together with him, and so forth. And Harji Lal Jad was obviously on the hit-list of some group of militants. It had been declared publicly during the funeral of Prem Nath Bhat.
And far more than Prem Nath Bhat’s murder and the announced uprooting of Harji Lal Jad was the fact that the journalist—that had earned many enemies by his reporting about the 1986 rampage which was manufactured cunningly through false propaganda by a large group of people, appointed to the purpose, and sent via buses from Jammu to Anantnag, to arouse the people there by proclaiming “Kashmiri Muslims have been massacred in Jammu”—Ashok Raina, the third prominent person of the Nagabal Trio, was the son-in-law of this Dantar family. He was the husband of Usha Ji’s elder sister.
Anyone among this Trio could have been killed first. Prem Nath Bhat became the initial target possibly because of the ease it entailed in shooting him. The shortest path to his home from the Anantnag Court was through a street that forked into many lanes and alleys at one particular spot. Trigger could be pulled without being noticed there. Escape-routes were many. The place for the murder had been chosen very cunningly and skillfully. You could fire and disappear from the public view within thirty seconds. The maze of narrow alleys on every side facilitated the objective tremendously.
Who killed Prem Nath Bhat? Was there any forewarning given to him by any militant outfit (as they had the custom of doing)? Why did various events take place so quickly after V. P. Singh became the prime minister of India on December 2, 1989? Hizb-ul-Mujahideen issued a press release on January 4, 1990 for KPs to leave the valley; did Hizb-ul-Mujahideen murder him? Or was it designed by some political party in Delhi to take advantage of the prevalent situation, promote its own future prospects, and send V. P. Singh and Company to the dustbin of history? Were KPs sacrificed for the possible greater political “gain” in the rest of India? L. K. Advani, the stalwart planner of BJP, and Jagmohan, the chief executioner of Kashmir, know (knew) the answers.
The militants at Dantar that night, sitting one storey up from the room we were talking in, belonged to JKLF, not to Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. I didn’t try to see them or meet them to explore their views because their guesthood there was supposed to be strictly confidential.
And then came January 7, 1990. And Anantnag town was under curfew again. I had to return to my home at Sheri Kashmir Colony, Anchidora, the village in the North East of the town. The people at Dantar tried their best to stop me from taking any risk under such conditions but I assured them about my safe route to amble through. So leaving the Anantnag town to the care of its inhabitants and curfew-operators, I circumvent it in a curve, going from South West to further West, Khannabal, and from there through the bank of a stream—flowing from the spring of Martand—steeped with nude willows of various sizes that had shed all their foilage a few months earlier, to my home in the North East.
My mother rebuked me heavily for having returned under the prevalent curfew.
Some neighbors came to meet me. They had been greatly alarmed by the sound of a vehicle that had reached to their doorsteps early in the morning on January 4. It was the taxi we had come by from Jammu. They were comforted by my revelation thereof.
I had not been able to bid farewell to my close friend, Shams ul Din Shikari, who was living about two kilometers from our house, in a curfew-free area, Chie, when I had left Kashmir in June 1989, so I went to meet him on January 8.
When a few “intelligent” KPs that wanted to go to their offices, despite the order given to them by furious mobs in the roads and streets to return to their homes, were slapped in their faces and hurled some foul words upon, and a house at a vulnerable place was looted, i.e. during February 1986, when Anantnag town was under communal threat, and, my younger brother, my younger sister and I were the only three persons at our home, Shams ul Din Shikari stayed in our house through that whole period of four days to safeguard us.
Shams ul Din Shikari was not at his place on that day. Another friend, Bilal Khan, who was returning from Shams ul Din’s home, informed me while I was on my way to Chie. I had to return to our colony without ever being able to meet him again. He was killed by some unknown gunmen in 1990s. Bilal Khan also died in a traffic accident in the same decade.
….
Anantnag had the history of being politically the most vibrant and active district. All political currents, undercurrents and shades were thought to exist there. Srinagar did not portray a broad political spectrum. Just a few groups, within the range of fashion, showed their interests and affiliations there.
I had now breathed in the Anantnag atmosphere for five days. Despite the chill in the atmosphere, the entire district seemed smoldering internally everywhere like a gigantic heap of the dry leaves of chinar (Platanus orientalis), walnut and other trees, collected for being converted to cinders.
I decided to visit Srinagar, the heart of Kashmir, the Summer Capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
I reached Srinagar at about 2:30 PM of January 10. The observations and impressions during the journey of about two hours have since long been buried somewhere in the vast cemetery of my memory. No traces thereof can I exhume.
A general picture of Srinagar those days will be helpful in understanding the death of the Old Kashmir. As you approached Srinagar from Anantnag, a vast tableland of a few square kilometers, with saffron plants, and a solitary and elegant chinar, three hundred meters away from the road between Awantipura and Pampore produced a striking linguistic and cultural distinction. The accent of Kashmiri language changed; the levels of mass outlooks, demeanors and general traits changed as well. The common perceptions and inclinations altered noticeably. The air and water too showed some subtle variations of odor—occasionally some stench as well. This all could be due to the long past history of the two sub-regions but it had long lasting effects. The lower middle class of Srinagar thought they were much cultured and much superior people; people of other parts of Kashmir were considered uncivilized. Anybody from Anantnag or other districts that worked in Srinagar and adopted the Srinagar tone of Kashmiri language was jeered at by his peers and all acquaintances for having Srinagarized himself.
Pampore used to be the threshold of Srinagar, and it verily gave the glimpse of what Srinagar was like.
Srinagar—excluding its outskirts like Bemina, Channapura, Sanat Nagar, Mughal Gardens’ area, Saura, Dal Lake. etc., at the time—was an area of ten of more square kilometers. It could be categorized into two subspecies of people, viz. the Official Mortals and the Unofficial Mortals, with intricate interrelations between the two. It consisted of three areas physically, the Srinagar A, Srinagar B and Srinagar C.
Srinagar A consisted of Sonawar, Gupkar Road, Hari Singh High Street, Jawahar Nagar, Karan Nagar, Indira Nagar, Batamalu, etc., where the houses were not hurdled one against the other, and many houses had spacious or somewhat spacious courtyards, backyards, etc., as well. The roads and streets were comparatively broad and not obviously dilapidated. Flocks of crows in countless numbers did not perch on the electric or telephone wires; and there was not profuse litter and dirt staring ominously at each passerby. There were some parks and some trees too in these places, which added to the psychological comfort and health of the fortunate inhabitants there. Lal Chowk used to be crowded but the road passing through it was suitably wide. This area housed around 20% of the Srinagar population, and it was spread over around five square kilometres.
Srinagar B comprised of another four square kilometres or so which housed around 72% of the population. It started from Lal Chowk and spread in the North direction towards Gav Kadal, Habba Kadal, Kani Kadal, Sathu Barbarshah, Fateh Kadal, Safa Kadal, Bohri Kadal, Zaina Kadal, Jamia Masjid, Rainawari, Zojilankar to Dal Gate, and so forth. I don’t remember having seen any park or mutely communicative, meditative or noticeable trees there; but I very well recall having seen some temples, shrines and vast graveyards in these places. A maze of narrow and dirty roads, streets, lanes and alleys made the approach to all the houses possible. The generally old, cramp, worn out, and senile-looking houses, made generally of unbaked clay bricks and occasionally of baked ones, were not just throttled one upon the other’s neck in a vast mess but they were virtually joined together into a large column in the North-South or East-West or some other suitable direction, without any gap between one house and another in a linear line. If any house got bedbugs in March, hundreds of other houses as well would become their hosts within a few months. If any earthquake of magnitude 7.0 or more on the Richter Scale would occur at midnight, with epicenter anywhere between 10 to 20 kilometres deep, and the same distance away from Srinagar, 90% people of the Srinagar B and 10% people of the Srinagar A would be buried alive under the rubble of the decrepit houses. Srinagar C would survive unscathed. Almost all the houses on the main roads had their ground-floor-rooms, facing the roads, dedicated to shops. So it was a long line of shops spread over several kilometres. Huge traffic, peddlers, vehicles, bicycles… all trudged over those ten to twelve feet wide roads encroached upon by the shops’ porches. Electric poles and wires, in an entwined chaos, were dangerously frail and ready to snap and fall at various places. Crows in countless numbers perched on those wires. This area was always in the acute shortage of water supply. Women had to spend their nights to collect water in their cramp enclosures. If corona virus had come to Kashmir in 1989, entire Srinagar would be infected within a week or so.
Srinagar C, the home of around 8% population, comprised of people living in the houseboats in the Jehlum river and other water channels. Houseboats present a very beautiful picture in concocted movies’ spectacular presentations; they seem to portray elegance in the Dal Lake; but in practical reality they are the signature of misfortune and misery upon the lives of their inhabitants. By its natural endowments, water is not any solid ground upon which your structure and stature can stand upright. It is no place upon which you can learn to crawl, rise up, fall, reach to various things, tough them, taste them, walk, jump…with confidence. A houseboat is an ever shaky home to live in. The water outside the windows, near the prows, on the sides and everywhere outside the little rooms is a death-trap. If you step onto it, if you slip into it, you are no more in a couple of minutes unless you can swim very well. Babies, toddlers, small children, women and old people are the most vulnerable ones. Anybody born and brought up in any houseboat is destined not to experience the comfort and assurance that the solidity of ground provides you both inside your house or hovel or outside, upon the broader earth. The domicile inside a houseboat does convey some fishy characteristics to its inhabitants.
Most of those dwellers of houseboats were uneducated, or little educated, ignorant, helpless, unemployed, desperate… So were the people of Srinagar B. The intensity, however, was three or more times graver in Srinagar C than in Srinagar B.
All individuals in Srinagar C in particular and Srinagar B in general, were exposed to rough and obscene language from birth itself. Girls mainly and boys occasionally were also subject to sexual abuse, rape, violence, wretchedness, etc., from a very early age. These things were so regular there that no complaint about rape of any child would be lodged. The mother of any raped child would merely give vent to her shock, anger, helplessness, frustration… by cursing the rapist of her little girl or boy. The police was male-chauvinistic and totally depraved in almost all affairs. Murder, etc., would not be reported either as far as possible, but murder would occur in the rarest of the rare cases, once over a decade or so. Suicide too would occur very rarely, once in a dozen odd years.
In short, Srinagar B was probably the biggest slum in the world. And Srinagar C couldn’t be categorized even among the slums.
Good relations and trust between brothers, cousins or next door neighbors was a rarity than any common prevalence. General ill-will abided in entire Kashmir, not merely in Srinagar.
All the sewerage, all the excreta of the residents of Srinagar drained into the Holy Jehlum, which once upon a time was thought to be the personification of Lord Shiva’s wife, Parvati. Jehlum was not spared from such abuse in any upper or lower areas as well. The more it flowed down from its source, the more it turned into a big, filthy sewage canal.
That was the physical division of Srinagar.
We won’t talk about division of people on other crucial parameters but one. That one was the unbridged chasm between Official Mortals and Unofficial Mortals of Srinagar. The Official was composed of the people working from peons to chief executives or ministers in administration or any other government offices, banks, hotels, cinema halls, educational institutions, businesses of petty vendors to large exporters or importers, etc. A large portion of it was educated, self-satisfied, pensively calculative, joyously cowardly, sullenly panic-ridden, etc. Almost all people of this category were married, and their adult sons and daughters too entered into settled matrimonial relations after attaining a suitable age to the purpose.
Most of them lived in the Srinagar A, and many lived in the Srinagar B. Very few of them, i.e. the rich houseboat owners in Dal Lake, lived in Srinagar C as well.
Percentage of such dwellers according to different areas is impossible to guess.
The Unofficial Mortals consisted of the large portion of other people, generally uneducated or undereducated, without any viable means of subsistence, engulfed in helplessness and frustration, humble as well as aggressive, uncultured, desolately surviving somehow, desperately engaged in petty but bone-breaking professions like carpet-weaving, shawl-weaving and embroidery, paper-mashie, etc. The lumpen elements in this group could also be seen gambling and doing other petty things at different places like graveyards and other open sites… Urchins of different brands came from this class and they passed their unpleasant remarks against whosoever they could manage to tease and amuse themselves thereby. They were not more than five percent of the population. Upon seeing any girl or any meek looking individual or any KP, something in the street urchins propelled them to utter some or the other thing derisively or sarcastically, incuding, “Pandit Ji, Pandit Ji, Daal Chaiyitha?”, “Raza Baie, Raza Bhai, Tcha Kachah Jan Chak!”,… “Aes Banvav Yati Pakistan, Batv Bager, Batnaov San” [“O’ KP, did you drink lentils’ soup today?”, “O KP Queen, how beautiful you are!”, “We shall make Pakistan here, with the KP womenfolk and without their males”]; … and a wide range of other epithets in fashion from time to time. If they could, they would rape all Muslim girls and young women too within a few days. There was nothing particularly communal in their attitude. All women were merely flesh to them. They would pass remarks at the passing by Muslim girls too and occasionally molest them as well. Muslim boys and meek looking men could be no exception either. They could drive any woman mad. A woman in a neighboring village to ours had been raped by somebody in a field of mung beans. For some reason, she became the target of the few urchins in the neighboring villages [urchins were very few in number in the villages], who screamed “mung”, “mung” ad infinitum, whenever and wherever they saw her. Gradually many other people, including women, joined in the chorus of uttering “mung”, “mung”… to hurt and provoke the poor woman. She suffered so much cruelty that she actually turned mad.
Battering and brawling at one another was common not only among the urchins but a vast majority of people. I never saw any educated person from Srinagar C, though some of them could speak English or French or German to communicate with the Western tourists.
A large number of individuals in this category were unmarried or divorcees or widows or widowers. Every second or third family had one or more overage daughters, desperately in need of marriage and unwed for want the minimum amount of expenditure required for the purpose. The majority of girls among the Unofficial Mortals in Srinagar B and Srinagar C were, for all practical purposes, like convicted criminals held in the settings of an enormous prison, which they called their respective homes. They had nowhere to go. They were confined to the sullen rooms shared with other people in the family, without the luxury of any privacy. Sometimes they would not attend the marriage ceremony of even their closest friends and relatives because their clothes were worn out or abraded, and they had no seemly vestments to put on. Most of these girls preserved one or two sets of dresses for wearing on special occasions, which occurred as two Eids, once in a year outing to embrace the arrival of Spring and go for watching the Spring bloom in some garden, and the marriage of some close relative. They were vulnerable in every sense of the world. Sexual abuse, rape with or without consent and ill-treatment were common features of their lot.
I had helplessly observed all these things through the previous five years of my stay in Srinagar. And I had borne my wounded soul somehow. I must admit, I have had this grave deficiency throughout my life. I could never become a worldly man. Nor could I anytime bring myself up to thinking of doing so. I feel injured, insulted and humiliated by every injustice, every atrocity, every act of savagery, and every prevalent outrage on humankind. I feel disgusted with all people whose only concern is personal benefit, aggrandizement or welfare. I don’t like the people that refuse to accept the need of changing the inhuman world.
There was nobody in my social acquaintances or relatives or colleagues, except Chaman Lal Kantroo—who I valued as my Beloved Guide, and who rated me for his intimate friend—even to speak about these things to in the Official Mortals—among who I was always a misfit. Official Mortals were stark blind, deaf, dumb and numb; they could not see, hear, feel or understand anything about the Unofficial Mortals. The latter were the subject of jokes, ridicules, amusement, etc., for the former, just as Sikhs had systematically been rendered into the objects of jokes, etc., for centuries all over India.
The conditions in the villages and towns were comparatively much better. Every house had a courtyard and/or a backyard. Cottages stood up more freely and uprightly. The villages offered spaciousness and even wilderness to all. Girls and women had enough outdoor activities to perform. Kitchen gardens of various sizes and some land for agriculture were blessed to almost all families in the villages. Villagers had cows and bulls as well. Bulls ploughed the land and cows supplied milk discreetly—taking long breaks in-between in “serving” their masters thus.
Besides these activities, young, uneducated and poor girls from our village, for example, would undertake the hard task of going to a jungle, 10 or more kilometers away, and carry back a heavy pile of firewood on their heads. They would do such activity during fifteen or more days in a year. They used to start at 5:00 hours in the morning with a pack-lunch—of rice and some vegetable curry—held in a bowl and covered with a lid thereof and tied inside a piece of cloth about one square meter in size; and they would return home by 7:00 O’ Clock in the evening. I had initially felt much pity for them. But after seeing the girls under lifelong house-arrest in Srinagar, I had only wished that such Srinagar girls too could enjoy the fortune of going to any jungle, and the stamina of carrying back a pile of firewood there-from.
So January 10, 1990 saw me at Srinagar. I got off the vehicle near Amira Kadal. A close friend and his brothers lived at Naya Sadak. I began to walk towards that place via Gav Kadal, which had no specialty those days and nothing worth putting on paper. It was always a charmless activity to walk on foot in any part of Srinagar except trekking to Shankaracharya Hill from Durganag or walking from Gupkar Road in front of Dr. Farooq Abdullah’s residence and CIB offices to the Boulevard Road and from there to the Centaur Hotel, especially during winters, when there would not be any ferry roving about in the Dal Lake nor any vehicle or even human being in sight on the Boulevard Road.
My friend of the time was not at his lodging.
The miserable road to Naya Sadak and Habba Kadal was cold, and murky. The pedestrians were virtually wobbling themselves along with no jubilation or vigor but a sea of fretfulness. Mistrust and anxiety had been infused into the souls of almost all Kashmiris by the history they had had to suffer through centuries.
Habba Kadal, named after a great poetess and the last queen of Kashmir, was never in any healthy condition. It had in fact been perilous during the previous winter. Big holes, through which any motorcycle or scooter driver could fall into the filthy and freezing water, had cropped up. It was a busy bridge bearing the buffets of a heavy traffic almost round the clock. Electricity was a scarce thing during the winters in Kashmir. The river fog during the night made it a bridge for ghosts to tread on, particularly from dusk to dawn. However, people of Habba Kadal had sufficient skill and talent to do one better than the ghosts and poltergeists. Despite the ominous holes in the bridge, nobody lodged any complaint to the authorities, and nobody protested. Thankfully, no accident occurred there during that winter.
My siblings were putting up at a place called Shala Kadal, 150 meters away from Habba Kadal through a narrow and dirty alley. As I ambled along and reached the end of the alley and crossed the street on which vehicles could move, I heard the sound of a procession coming from Kanya Kadal and heading towards the North. They were chanting slogans of Azadi [freedom] and singing some compositions made to the purpose. I stopped still at the entrance to another alley that would take me to my siblings’ lodging in Shala Kadal.
About two thousand souls: male children, youths, adults, and even a few old men ranging in age from ten years to sixty-five years or so passed by in front of my eyes in about five minutes. The elderly were very few, however. Children too were few in number. They walked in an orderly way, in discipline, and perfect control. The traffic on the street was not stopped. Very few among the participants were in good clothes suitable for the temperature of 5 degrees Centigrade, which it might have been that time. The air was stagnant and sickly cold. The street was gloomy. The vendors had pulled down their shutters and begun watching the march of the personification of three generations of poor people. These people in the procession had borne the buffets of official and civil depravity in every department of the government. They had stood in long queues, day after day, and year after year, for purchasing rationed Kerosene oil, their main fuel for cooking victuals for their families and keeping the life in them thereby. They had purchased firewood, soaked in water or snow for weeks to increase the weight thereof and add to the profit of the sellers in-charge, from depots working directly under the ministry of supplies. They had also been tormented every winter for charcoal, the main substance of survival through the merciless sub-zero temperatures during nights, mornings and evenings, and even during days. The charcoal was such a vital commodity those days that almost all life in Kashmir depended on it. A baked pottery bowl, about eight inches in diameter at the rim and about six inches deep, placed in a basket of wickerwork weaved around it, called kangri, was used to keep charcoal inside. Then some embers were placed at the top of the charcoal. The embers would enkindle the charcoal below. And a slow combustion, through about twenty-four hours after each fill, would generate a heat sufficient unto keeping body warm, after the Kangri was held in position by one hand under the Kashmiri outer garment called Feiran. The kangri was also essential for warming the quilt when one went to bed. This arrangement served only when the charcoal would be available and dry, which, however, was seldom the case. People would have to stand day after day in long queues to get access to this rationed, precious commodity. And the worst thing was the charcoal was never dry. The salesmen at the depot would find clandestine ways to sprinkle water over it to increase its weight, because charcoal was sold by weight. The profits made thus were probably shared by the relevant authorities among the Official Mortals. The masses would first dry up their purchased charcoal on a pan over the Kerosene-fueled stove for a few days from the day of purchase; only then could it be used. The rest of the charcoal would gradually dry up in air or sunshine after being spread on the floor in a thin layer. Even with such pathetic forbearance, many a poor, old family-head—with one, two or more unmarried daughters in his home, all engaged since morning to evening everyday in shawl-weaving or some other occupation—would return empty handed day after day from the depots of charcoal, firewood or kerosene oil. And according to a radio-program, Rai Trai, in January 1986, when the temperature plummeted to around 15 degrees below the freezing point during night and 8 degrees below the freezing point during the day, some households had neither charcoal nor firewood nor kerosene oil to keep themselves warm or cook their food with. A most-gentle sufferer of such ordeal stated in the Rai Trai program in a heartrending, humble manner, and his voice still resonates in my ears, “Ba Khuda Haz Shoung Aes Fakay.” [By God, we slept hungry that night.]
Barring a few exceptions, the houses on the roadside at Shala Kadal were old, made of clay bricks and mud-mortar, with small windows. The window panes were dark and dirty in color. They used to be generally closed from November to February.
In front of the shops, in the broad view of the dozens of spectators that had collected at the entrances to the side alleys, on the somber street passed the procession of boys, youths and adults. They came from the Unofficial Mortals. The Official Mortals had not yet returned from their workplaces. These people belonged to the Srinagar B; Srinagar A was not disposed to coming onto the streets, and Srinagar C had not probably been amalgamated into the movement. In its psychological warp and weft, Srinagar B did not paint Srinagar C in any vital or charming colors.
About ninety percent of these unhappy and volatile boys and men seemed uneducated or school dropouts. None of them could be working in any office. They and their ancestors had suffered poverty, illiteracy, humiliation, and ruthless exploitation from the primordial times, but they had also defeated the forces of Muhammad Gaznavi and many others. Despite his extreme economic poverty, the man in rags, Gani Kashmiri—the most honorable representative of the Kashmiri mass spirit of the time—had shattered the pride of the Mughal King, Aurengzeb, as Diogenes had done with Alexander. But the Afghan Robbers’ rule had crushed them and reduced them to skin and bone. They had suffered tremendous famines and fatalities. In the normal times too, uncountable of them had died in the prime of youth due to malnourishment, diseases, forced labor and other causes during the previous centuries of mass suppression, oppression and plunder. They had been sold as cattle to Gulab Singh. They had been treated for cattle all along. Even Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, the great leader of Kashmiri masses, would hit them indiscriminately with his staff, when they would throng to where he would conduct any rally, and people would surround him in a great mess in reverence.
They had borne all the atrocities, all the outrages, all the humiliation and all wretchedness very submissively, taking that all for natural, as their destiny, as the will of Allah, as the curse of some Saint or as the punishment for their sins. They had never been organized. They had had many historical betrayals to disbelieve that anything could change their lot.
And now these “cattle” had come together, and they, who would be coy just a few months ago, were marching openly and boldly on public thoroughfares. The length and breadth of people, each of who would individually shiver with fright in front of any policeman, were shouting slogans and singing hymns of Azadi [freedom], in presence of any police personnel.
How did this miracle take place in such short a time?
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, [and probably Makhan Lal Fotedar as well] and others infatuated Mrs. Indira Gandhi to sign the death warrant of Congress in 1984. She did that readily. And Congress died that very year with much fret and foam. However, the death rites due to its corpse remained unperformed.
Srinagar Downtown in Srinagar B became volatile since the fatal day when Dr. Farooq Abdullah was ousted from power in a vicious way. Curfew was often imposed over that area. The rest of Kashmir did not follow that road for some time.
After the events of 1986 and Rajiv Farooq Accord, the solid glacier, which had conglomerated through the previous centuries, began to melt.
Youths—not connected to any established political outfit—began to group together. I had seen them on several occasions. During any Summer, every Sunday generally used to be a day for me to visit gardens, parks, hills or other places of delight in Anantnag. And at the time of leaving a garden or other place, I would invariably see some youths that I always found some sort of serious mien in them. It was not the demeanor of any person that had won or lost any sum of money in gambling. They would be in the groups of six to twelve individuals. Obviously, they had not been there to play cards, and, without playing cards, it was almost impossible to hold more than three people together if it would not be for any special and far-reaching objective. I had conversed with almost all political groups and shades of Kashmir in Anantnag, but this one was altogether unknown. What was more apprehensive and tantalizing in it was that they knew me, but I didn’t know them. They knew me because I was a good singer at college, and I was a Mullah Cursed Communist. I had not seen them in any political activity of any party. The encounters between me and them were plentiful—but they always behaved as if they didn’t notice me; and I had found no option but to reciprocate in the same vein.
During the last six months of 1989, things grew very quickly and they attained a formidable status. These youths were named Mujahids [Muslim warriors], though most of them at the time associated themselves with JKLF, a “secular” forum.
I have already said about the plight of many daughters of Kashmir in Srinagar B and Srinagar C. I have spoken about the pains of their poor parents. Mujahids served to their fancy like a promise of a Warm Spring after the bone-chilling outrages of the Winter. Mujahids betook themselves for the sons-in-law of the Srinagar B households, without having any obligation to marry the girls they deflowered. The desperate parents of those daughters accepted them wholeheartedly. The vicious wheel began to spin like that of a well-powered machine whose production sold like hotcakes.
The procession I witnessed that day was not of these Mujahids but a few representatives of Mujahids were undoubtedly been present in it and guiding it. The web had been created very well and it stood operating robustly.
A feverish shiver ran through my spine as I beheld the faces, body hygiene and get up of the participants. I felt pained and dejected. I had all the sympathy in the world for these human beings that had now risen up against their long treatment as cattle but I was very much aware about what had been done to such people in Bengal, Bihar and UP in the wake of Naxalbari movement. I had heard of the massacres in Telangana in nineteen fifties, and I knew about the fake encounters in Andhra Pradesh against the Peoples’ War Group. These reflections vexed me and tormented me heavily. I desperately wanted to share my feeling and thoughts with these boys and youths—but I had been born into a historically damned community. My parents were KPs. My voice, my soul, my spirit, my learning, my experience, and my thoughts were worthless in the circumstances. Muslim masses in general had not been enculturated to accept anybody of my lineage as their well-wisher. Besides that, nobody in the world during that time, not even the most honorable Kashmiri Muslim—except the ISI Chief or Army Chief of Pakistan or President of Pakistan—would find his words having any impact on the Unofficial Mortals of Kashmir. Nobody could dissuade them from following the path of disaster they had committed themselves to.
The procession passed peacefully.
I stood there for a while like a soldier, who without having fired a single bullet, is mortally wounded and left to die on the fringe of a battlefield. I had craved to be among the ranks of these masses’ rebellion, but this was not the rebellion I could anyway be in. It was without the foundation of a well-knit and conscious organization. The masses had not been educated politically or in any other sense to delve on the objectives or the path to achieve those objectives. They had not been empowered to think for themselves and the whole society of theirs. They knew nothing as to what further rights and what less miseries they were going to have after attaining what they called Azadi. The aims of the movement were not defined in any way except getting rid of the Indian Lords and their adored Monsters in Kashmir. Azadi was merely a slogan in which the Unofficial Mortals of Kashmir felt the nebulous hope that their days would improve.
I don’t remember how I carried myself to the lodging of my siblings and what we talked about there.
Kashmir needed half a million productive jobs for uneducated, undereducated and educated people. 150,000 such jobs were required for Unofficial Mortals of Srinagar itself. Had the entire administration not been thoroughly depraved and headless, this could be done by employing the unemployed boys and girls in forestry, horticulture, animal husbandry, charcoal and firewood production, water resources, and other industries that could be set up there. Kashmir needed a viable State Capitalism that could create social wealth fruitfully. Kashmir needed houses. Srinagar B in particular needed extensive housing programs. Srinagar C deserved freedom from birth, living and death in houseboats. Kashmir was dying because of the official depravity. Kashmir was in the inevitable want for good quality supplies of fuel, firewood, charcoal, etc. Kashmir required freedom from heartrending misery, misfortune and little-remunerative but torturous jobs. Kashmir stood starving for the means of negotiating the murderous cold and chill of freezing winter and undernourishment, both physically and mentally. Kashmir needed the warmth of humanity. Had this been done, had just five hundred thousand unemployed girls and boys—whose life conditions I have given you a picture of—been fruitfully employed, what a happiness it would have brought to the whole subcontinent! The creation of wealth and abundance brings security and joy to all its beneficiaries. It is exceptionally easy to please a poor man; and he is always sincere and grateful about that. On the contrary, you can never please a filthy rich man or rogue. He is never sincere in his dealings. If you think he is happy with you, you have failed to understand his affectation; you have failed to know the fake nature of his joys and sorrows. Even if you sacrifice your life for him, he will only take that for his right, and still blame you for one or the other thing that didn’t please him. He thinks he has some divine quality in him, which he himself is unable to comprehend, that drives you to slave for him by your heart and soul. Just check it practically once in your life at least. Do something for any poor man or woman. You already have seen much more than sufficient of how Ambani, Adani, Modi, Amit, etc., are repaying the honors to those Dalits, Backward Classes, poor Hindus, and Muslims that voted for BJP. You have also seen how the earlier regimes treated the poor people that revered them. A filthy rich idiot thinks he is doing you a great favor even while robbing you of your life or family-life or social life or when he is murdering you or deceiving you or treating you for any animal or while he is insulting your intelligence and all other faculties that are still “yours”. He thinks he is entitled to brutally demolish your soul and spirit itself for his rabid personal gains. He treats you for a readily available creature that he can dispense with in whatever way he likes. He takes it for his natural right to visit various places of the world, stay in extraordinarily luxurious hotels, and waste extraordinary amounts on a large number of things, all at your expenses.
Instead of just five hundred thousand jobs for their unemployed ones, Kashmiris got much more numerically. They were furnished with seven hundred thousand young soldiers from outside, with guns ready to shoot them at every step in the roads and streets. They got mass-rape, murder, torture, beating, disappearances, humiliations, and a hell lot of other things. Kashmiris needed cultural, educational and intellectual development to overcome the gruesome catastrophe they had been engulfed in. They were supplied with sermons and fatvas (dictums) in the mosques.
Kashmir fell and rolled down an inclined plane due to an incessant and profuse frostbite ushered in by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Gulam Mohammad Shah, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh, LK Advani, Jagmohan, and others, both from inside and outside.
I returned to our home in Anantnag, the next day.
The impression I carried back was telling on my nerves. I stood brooding over the situation and its prospective outcome. A couple of days passed thus. The whole atmosphere for me was unbearably suffocating. I didn’t know whether or not I too could be registered on the hit-list of any outfit, should any such group have come to know of my presence in Kashmir again, after having gone away for months. Prospects thereof were real. I had never concealed my ideas. I had conversed with hundreds of co-passengers in the buses, during 1982–1989, in my frequent travels between Srinagar and Anantnag. I had been critical of one and all prevalent political parties. I had been a ruthless critique of all religions and communities. And I had pretended not the notice the presence of seriousness-manifesting youths in groups in gardens, etc., as they had done vis-à-vis me. I could easily be labeled as an informer.
Even without the formality of being categorized as an informer, it was nowise rich in prospect to linger on in Kashmir till the day would eventually arrive when some wretch could utter it to my face, “We have done you a great favor by not murdering you. And we promise, we shall continue to spare your life!”
I would naturally retort, “No. I don’t want to survive on your or anybody’s favor. You can kill me if it pleases you to do so!”
I decided to leave Kashmir as urgently as could.
For a few hours I stood pondering over how to convince my father and mother about my decision. It was a very difficult and painful thing to communicate to my parents—who were at the threshold of old age—that we should leave our native place and take shelter two hundred kilometers away. It was too appalling to covey to my father—who all people that knew him respected sincerely—that we should leave the house he had constructed through his entire life’s savings in addition to the sale of land, and look forward to living in a couple of rented rooms in Udhampur. It was harsh to tell my uneducated mother that she will have to forget about the two kitchen-gardens that she had lovingly cultivated vegetables and flowers in through the past thirty-seven years….
There was no choice nonetheless.
I broke out this decision to my father and mother after we had taken dinner in the kitchen, a portion of which had been separated to serve us for the dinning-room.
It didn’t prove as complicated and grievous as I had imagined. Prem Nath Bhat’s murder had shaken my father’s inner being. He as well as my mother consented to it readily. It was decided that I go alone to Udhampur—where my friend, Ashok Watal, was working. Hire a couple of rooms there. And they would follow me two days after my departure. They also suggested me to visit my sister’s father-in-law’s home, and Dantar people’s home, and some other relatives, and inform them about our decision.
I visited all the aforementioned places. All of them refused outright to move out from their homes. They even laughed at my proposal to them that, if they would entrust the job to me, I could hire houses or rooms for them as well in Udhampur.
With a few quilts, etc., in two holders, and a tin-box (which my mother had filled with whatever she thought necessary) and a bulky suitcase of my own things, I departed from Kashmir in the early morning of January 19, 1990. At the bus station, I heard about Jagmohan’s return to take charge as the commander-in-chief of the Indian forces in Kashmir. The bus left at 8:30 hours. It crossed the Jawahar tunnel at 10:00 hours and reached Udhampur in the afternoon at 15:30 hours or so. That night was ill-fated to become horrible in the memory of all of my fellow Kashmiris.
My parents could not join me just after two days at Udhampur. Curfew was imposed over Kashmir for many days. Gav Kadal massacre took place on January 21, 1990, just two days after Jahmohan’s return. And Kashmir was pushed powerfully into an abyss. My parents could join me at our new abode only after several days.
As already said, some of my friends in Kashmir were killed by unidentified gunmen. I pledge to them and their families that I shall cherish and honor their friendship and memory as long as I survive.
I have never been able to visit Kashmir ever since. I have a lot of sincere friends in Nepal. All of them crave for visiting Kashmir with me. I don’t know whether or not I can ever fulfill their wish.
All political parties and leaders betrayed Kashmiri masses. National Conference, the Political Party which once upon a time had brought light into Kashmir, ended up disgustingly in the marsh of corruption and helplessness. Shiekh Mohammad Abdullah could do nothing about it. Dr. Farooq Abdullah was humiliated badly, time and again. He didn’t deserve such treatment but he never stood strong. Kashmir was wrenched out of his feeble control by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Jagmohan. It was wise of him to leave Kashmir and stay in England. Had I been in his place, I would also do the same thing. However, he returned and took charge of a thoroughly depraved political party again, without doing any purges in it. Additionally, he sought his salvation in Priests of Ram Bakhti [devotion to Rama], just as others sought theirs in the Mullah Bakhti. Ram Bakhti too proved to be in vain for him. At the age of eighty-three years now, he is under house-arrest, despite being a current MP in the Indian Parliament, and despite having been three times’ Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Congress paraded Kashmir to the pinnacle of perversion. Jamat-e Islami kept on driving people to pray to Mullahs in the mosques. They also destroyed the setup of secular education in the institutions operated by the government to replace the same by their own religiously devised curricula and institutions. Other parties followed their own group agendas. CPI and CPM kept on adoring the petit-bourgeoisie muddleheadedness in the then USSR. The outfit of R.P. Saraf, which I had been associated with, kept on chattering about various bombastic and theoretical things like “There is no solution without a revolution”, “Socialism in one country is not possible”, “Trotsky was a traitor”, “’Proletarian viewpoint”, “International Democratic Viewpoint”, “Global experts and technocrats will lead the humanity forward”, “Marxism is outdated”….and so forth. There was nothing Bolshevik in that outfit from beginning to end. It kept on dreaming about some theoretical World Revolution, without having any touch with the practical reality. One and all were irrelevant to the circumstances. Marxism was meant for industrial working class but there were no industries in Kashmir. We kept on cursing state capitalism or hurling abuses at it without ever understanding the imperative objective necessity thereof in the backward and poor places like Kashmir, India, Pakistan, China, Cuba, etc. Need was to pay attention to Srinagar B and Srinagar C in particular—it was a time-bomb that had to explode sooner or later, and it had its corollaries in all parts of Kashmir. We didn’t have even a single comrade from these groups of people in Srinagar, neither did we have any acquaintance among them nor any other means of contact with them. I had tried in my own individual capacity to find some way of establishing rapport with some individuals—but with the only thought of an international movement and global revolution, and without any solution to the murderous problems on that local, non-industrial level, my efforts produced nothing but a disaster for one youth. An illiterate youth of Pandranthan (the great Kashmiri poetess, Laleshwori’s birthplace), named Gulam Qadir Sheikh, became my friend. He was of moderate height, well built, round-faced, ever-smiling and broad foreheaded young man. He was from a family of sweepers and toilet cleaners. I promptly decided to teach him reading and writing. He had a bicycle at his disposal, which he used to come to my lodging in the evenings for a couple of months. I taught him Urdu and English alphabet. For his association with me, he was driven out from his home by his father, who had been threatened by Qadir’s own elder sister’s husband, who in turn was acting because he had been bullied by a KP that had been my sworn enemy for my fearlessness and secular demeanor, and for my having renounced the Hindu faith. Gulam Qadir came to me for refuge. I took him to Manzgam, Shopian, where our group leader, Abdul Rashid Laway, resided. Abdul Rashid Laway took him to Comrade Mahan Lal Bhat’s home in Nagam, Budgam, who had an orchard of almond trees, which had a barn at its entrance. Qadir lived in that barn. The bedding, utensils, etc., were provided by Comrade Makhan Lal Bhat. Qadir knew tailoring. He stitched clothes for the peasants living in the vicinity of that orchard but he could not manage his living by that profession. I visited Qadir on a few occasions in the evenings during the harsh winter of 1986, and there, in the company of Comrade Makhan Lal Bhat, participated in many fruitful conversations, through the nights, with half a dozen peasants of that area. Makhan Lal Bhat was a stalwart in hitting the nail on its head. He was perfectly aware of the problems of those peasants. Qadir, however, could not live there for long because he missed his family. He went back to his parents after a year or so. When in 1998, at Jammu, I met a lady from Pandrethan and inquired from her about the welfare of Qadir, I was shocked to know that Qadir had lost the balance of his mind. I deliberated upon this information for a long time over a few days. And I understood that had I lived in Kashmir or among the KPs in Jammu or other places, I too would surely have suffered from the same fate that Qadir did.
Our Political Group’s strength throughout Kashmir was just of about two or three dozen, generally half-hearted, individuals—almost all of who were cursed, abused and hurled insults against in their respective families and localities. Committed ones were less than half a dozen. We didn’t have even the ability to take care of the meager needs of our solitary whole-timer in Kashmir, Abdul Rashid Laway, who came from a poor family in Manzgam, studied under hardships, and got a lucrative government job, which he gave up to serve the cause of the emancipation of poor people. Just the committed four or five people would happily pay their monetary-contribution to him in order to help the Political Group in its hard survival under looming doom. Others would wriggle out from such obligation on one pretext or another. If, at any time, they would feel obliged to spend some amount for organizational activity, they would behave as if they were doing a great favor to Abdul Rashid Laway and the organization, and as if they were doing a great moral-cum-economic crime to themselves and their families. All of them, except Maharaj Santoshi, were good smokers because Kashmiris were culturally programmed to smoke, and they spent a considerable amount of money in purchasing cigarettes—but they were not willing to contribute even one-fourth of what they spent on smoking for any program of social or political welfare. Comrade Chaman Lal Kantroo and his wife, Santosh Bhabi, heartily welcomed them at their lodging, and served them tea and snacks, whenever they thought of conducting any meeting; but most of them would absent themselves from the meetings by offering any excuse. The Unofficial Mortals of Srinagar B and C and their analogous elements in the rest of Kashmir could not be organized on any scientific basis for any scientific march forward—because the necessity of advocating for building state capitalism in such conditions didn’t come in the agenda of any political group or party. Each group or party, including R. P. Saraf group, talked merely about global and national conditions as well as about the lords in Delhi or Islamabad or Washington or Moscow—because they wanted to enjoy the grace or disgrace of these lords’ or their butlers’ company—without ever caring a hoot about knowing what the people were practically suffering and how the bone-chilling circumstances could be addressed.
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Kashmir, my Kashmir, my parents’ Kashmir, my ancestors’ Kashmir! I love you! Rest assured, I do not harbor any sorrow or grievance for any personal failures, shortcomings, losses or wounds that I have suffered, except for the loss of my friends and for what happened to my friend, Gulam Qadir Shiekh, but I admit, what you have suffered and what you are suffering has often grieved me and pained me severely. It has tortured me when I was in Kashmir, and it has tormented me ever since I left Kashmir.
Kashmir, my Kashmir, I have carried you in my heart and soul and mind. The carpet-weaving, malnourished and hunchbacked child of nine years or so, which you presented to my sight when I was a youth, created my lifelong abhorrence to the world of filthy rich people, kings, queens, princes, lords, robbers, movie-heroes, cinema heroines, filthy rich sports-personnel, capitalist or feudal celebrities, etc., of the past and present that flourished or that flourish at the expense of the working people. The tears of a poor man’s daughter in my village for want of a suitable garment on a festival have made me despise all dandies throughout my life.
Kashmir, my Kashmir, I did mind-racking studies just in order to serve you in the cause of liberation from the gruesome conditions you have been in and you are in, and I have borne my personal atrocities, tragedies and hardships with the equanimity of a very sensitive but brave man. I have written this account too with this objective only: Please think about and devise the way, and organize for your own socio-cultural and eco-political freedom from the prevalent impasse, gruesome helplessness and brutal humiliation! There is always a way out from every labyrinth in which you find yourselves; there is always a passage for rising up and out from any abyss! For it is the law of nature: Dark and cold nights must fleet away headlong with the breaking dawn and the following sunshine. The season must change. But the dawn will not break, and the season will not change by any stagnation or impasse: it needs the movement of earth on its axis, it needs the rotation and revolution of earth to do so. The social dawn and season need movement similarly. Live, work and organize for breaking the Dawn and changing the season!
