“It doesn’t look like the same Kashmir I had read about in news reports last year,” I told a Kashmiri journalist friend in the middle of a conversation while sitting in a park on the Bund overlooking Jehlum river.
“It may not look like the same Kashmir, but believe me, nothing has changed,” he remarked.
That perhaps set my mind wandering– a plethora of questions cropped intermittently between our conversation about last year’s civil unrest, the vicissitudes of a popular revolt and what drives it. Some questions were answered while others set me on a quest to know more than what meets the eye.
Coming to Kashmir from outside and covering conflict has its disadvantages; more so when we report incidents that have happened in the past. The problem is multidimensional; the challenge of resurrecting the past, recreating the incident and building memories of those who are no more.
Personally, I believe, we need to report beyond statistics. And a thorough look at the reportage from major publications in Kashmir and India would reveal to a reader that the killings last year have no face. A number 118 deaths is all that memory can recollect. Shielded campaign was not confined to the dead only, there were stone-pelters, the Indian media’s bête-noir. The slanted coverage about them gave a sense of aberration stemming from partial information.
Naturally, there was curiosity to know more about the people who were at the forefront of the resistance. Stone-pelters were labeled ‘misguided youth’, ‘drug-addict’, ‘unemployed’, ‘miscreant’.
The faceless horde of youngsters taking on the forces of the ‘world’s largest democracy’, with their only weapon – a stone– was intriguing to me.
My Kashmiri friend was trying his best to answer my questions. And then, he spotted a young boy of about 20 passing by. “This guy will answer all your queries,” he said. I looked at my friend bit surprised, he paused and said, “He’s a stone-pelter.”
‘You wouldn’t give him a second look if he passed you on the road,’ I told myself. A meek boy with a calm gait walked up to us and shook hands with my friend. He must be joking, I thought. His thin wrists did not seem powerful enough to hurl stones at the troopers wielding guns. I was angry at my friend for turning a serious discussion into a joke.
The apparent calm in the boy’s eyes had deceived me. He started to answer a volley of questions that I asked almost in a rush.
As a seven-year-old, he had witnessed a gun-battle and subsequent crackdown. “I saw people being beaten up really bad. I could not understand what was going on but I could feel the pain,” he remarked emphatically.
These images of ‘oppression’ understandably left an indelible imprint on his young mind. Perturbed, the boy then in 3rd standard voluntarily reacted one day.
That was more than a decade ago. A strike call against the killing of a civilian in uptown Maisuma changed him, perhaps forever. Out from his school near Abi Guzar, he said, “I went to Maisuma and pelted stones.”
I wondered if he could understand the significance of his actions at that age. But I soon realised, whether old or young, witnessing despair from close quarters makes you act. The seven-year-old had grown up to become a dedicated stone-pelter.
“It was in 2006 that I committed myself to stone-pelting,” he said.
A series of events following the execution orders for Afzal Guru by the Indian Apex Court had disillusioned many Kashmiri youth like him.
A culture of impunity and rampant human rights violations ‘forced them to hurl stones.’ “No matter how small the gesture might be and even if my effort did not yield results, at least I would not have regrets of not having done anything,” he said.
For youth, here, growing up in conflict, symbols of occupation constantly reinforce a sense of victimhood, I thought. “We grew up under the shadow of guns. There were guns everywhere,” he said.
The majority of youth are disillusioned by the un-kept promises made by New Delhi. Many packages to make Kashmiri population have hardly benefited the common man. The democratic decay coupled with a well crafted strategy not to let institution building has made Kashmiris believe that they are imprisoned in their own nation by a foreign power.
On ground New Delhi’s forces have attempted to create a sense of belonging, but, “through the barrel of gun”.
“We always feel claustrophobic. The moment you move out of your house, there’s a gun pointed at you. You get to the bus, there’s a gun pointed at you. You reach school, there’s a gun pointed at you. You come out of school, and there it is,” he said.
The instrument of suppression, all-prevalent in the psyche of the Kashmiris, is frequently and without impunity used to subjugate them.
The same hated tool was used on him when he was hit by a rubber bullet in his leg during stone pelting. The injury made him bed-ridden for two weeks, while a friend of his, who got hit in the stomach, died on his way to the hospital.
The wound put him out of action for four weeks, but as soon as he got better, he was back on the roads, pelting stones.
“This is all I have, what else can we do? We don’t have guns, but we have to resist in some way. This is how we express our displeasure with the Indian government,” he said about his decision to continue with stone pelting despite the risk to his life.
The gesture of defiance seemed more important to him than safeguarding his life.
In another instance, ‘a rock thrown by a trooper’ hit him above his eye. “Thank God it was just a stone, otherwise we are always given bullets,” he said.
Talking to him, I realised he was not pelting stones to physically harm anyone. A stone is not going to harm troopers who are wearing helmets and brandishing fibre glass shields. The act is more about sending out a message of defiance to the state. And it stems from the failure of the Indian state in treating people in a dignified, civilised manner, and honouring their basic human rights.
Like in 2008, he claims, there were no incidents of stone-pelting throughout Kashmir. People were peacefully demonstrating and chanting slogans. “They were just slogans. I agree they might not be what the Indian establishment would have liked to hear, but they were slogans after all,” he said and added, “How can a slogan kill someone?” But the Indian forces fired at the protesting crowds. Harmless people, who were demanding their political rights, were met with brute force, he said.
Coming from an upper-middle class family, the young boy had completed his graduation from Kashmiri University, and was to leave for Delhi within a month to pursue further studies.
This proved he was neither uneducated nor from a poor family as claimed by the mainstream media. I asked him about the much hyped claim of stone-pelters being paid for throwing stones.
A youth watches government forces (not in picture) during a clash is old city, Srinagar, during last year’s civil unrest. (File Photo: Shome Basu)
“Do I look like I will risk my life for a few hundred bucks?” he asked with a mocking smile. My friend, who seemed particularly offended, said, “Really? Then look at it this way, we have less money so we pay only a few hundred bucks to pelt stones. India has more money so they pay their troopers in thousands to kill us.”
According to him, this resentment reached another level in 2010. Even the sight of Indian symbols evoked agitation among youth. “I saw kids from rich families throwing stones because they knew that something was wrong and something had to be done to correct it,” he said.
‘Correcting wrongs’ led to counter measures like arrests. The youth too had been arrested once.
“Twenty one other stone pelters were lodged with me in a jail cell of 10×10 with barely any room to stand or stretch my legs,” he recalled.
Boys aged seventeen to twenty-seven made up the group. They were all made to strip down to their underwear and beaten everyday with fibre glass rods. “I have forgotten how much I was beaten,” he said. “But I still remember the way a young 12-year-old kid was crying and wailing in that cell. And whenever I recollect it, like right now, my blood boils. And I want to go out and just throw stones.”
I pictured the twelve-year-old kid in my mind, wailing and crying as rods welted his small back. The boy in front of me had witnessed it, without being able to do anything about it. “Which Army, which nation, which human…. (does that?) We are not saying be humane with us. At least be human. Only when you are human will you be humane with us,” he said with helpless rage.
It is not just blind fury that brings the youth on streets. The common perception about stone pelters is that they are politically ignorant and reactionary. The young stone pelter claims, “Kashmiri youth are the most politically mature breed in the world because we have seen everything from deaths to calm to militancy and counter-insurgency. We have seen our leaders betraying us,” he said.
The term ‘leader’ has new connotations in Kashmir now. “It is us, the stone-pelters that are dictating terms and the so-called leaders are following us,” said the youth.
He told me that a militant commander had once said that boycotting elections has lost its purpose, so all Kashmiris should participate in them. His effigies were burnt by the stone-pelters. “Who burns the effigies of his role-models?” he asked.
Talking about his role model, the youth said he was inspired by 8th Century Islamic scholar, Ibn Taymiyyah. He particularly refers to one adage of his, “What can my enemies possibly do to me? My paradise is in my heart, wherever I go, it goes with me. To imprison me is to let me have a Khalwah (prayer house), to execute me is martyrdom, and to exile me from my town is but a chance to travel in Allah’s path”.
The ‘overwhelming’ sentiment is shared by many Kashmiri youth. “The Valley might be seeing a lull right now but that does not mean everything is back to normal,” he said, echoing my friend’s thoughts.
The civilian killings might have stopped but the blood that has been spilled in the over two-decade long conflict hasn’t yet dried in the collective memories of Kashmiris. “And the moment there is some grievance, people will start demanding Azadi,” he said.
“Right now, I bet you there are 10,000 Kashmiri youth who are ready to pelt stones but they just need a reason,” he said. And the reasons are provided by the Indian state, which has failed Kashmiris on so many fronts.
As Kashmiris continue to be pushed to the wall, the options left for them are few. “The day is not far when stones will be replaced, and the Indian government will have an 89-like situation on its hands.
This time, people will fight till the last drop of their blood,” he said. “We won’t surrender,” he added as a caveat just before heading into the in-distinctive crowd.
(Aalia Shaikh is a Mumbai-based journalist.)