Stop screaming about Kashmir, talk instead: Gurmehar Kaur

A file photo of Indian Army soldiers on a patrol near Dal Lake in Jammu & Kashmir | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Let’s talk about Kashmir. I say this because it is becoming increasingly difficult to talk about Kashmir. Either with your friends, or on WhatsApp groups, or on social media, or even in living rooms. There is a fear that you may be immediately silenced or shouted down. Everyone makes a monopolistic claim on truth, and nuance is lost. But Kashmir is all about nuances. More so after the special status of Jammu and Kashmir was scrapped.

This guardedness over Kashmir was brought alive recently when I was doing a writing programme in Iowa.

In the last weekend of the summer school, a bunch of us young writers from India, Pakistan and the United States did what most young people from across the world do — sit around a circular table in a Chinese restaurant playing a game of ‘never have I ever’. If one was to look over to our group, they would’ve found nothing out of the ordinary, just young people laughing and passing around their bottles of colourful, sugary Japanese soda. But within us were stories of personal tragedies that formed our political opinions.

“Never have I ever pelted a stone at the forces,” a young, bright man from Kashmir said.

My eyes, which were now focused on pouring a slippery tofu curry onto my rice, looked up at him across the table, taken aback. An American on my left asked: “What does that mean? I don’t get it. Do you guys do that? Is that normal?”

Our eyes stayed locked and we passed each other a look of empathy at the word ‘normal’. It was not normal for me to imagine that when our fathers went to do their job in the forces that they would be pelted with stones, and it wasn’t normal for my Kashmiri friend to step out of his house only to have rifles in his face every 10 steps and live with a constant worry that someone might “pick-up” his father on any given day.

He looked up at the American and shrugged: “It is, in some parts of Kashmir, mostly north, and when things happen.” He flailed his hands a bit and then added: “All of Kashmir. It’s a war zone.” There was no lie to what he was saying. I found myself nodding. “But you have never done it?” I asked. “No,” he said simply, and we moved on to the next person’s turn.

I passed him my bottle of Japanese soda and he smiled at me politely, although a bit awkward.

A heavy price

Today, it is impossible to have an honest, nuanced conversation on Kashmir without getting labelled. Everyone is censoring themselves – perhaps opinionating on Instagram to a closed group, but restricting themselves to a ‘like’ on Twitter; rabidly commenting on Facebook, but nodding along during intimidating conversations in the workplace. I blame the internet.

Kashmir is a war zone and the rules of the normal world had stopped applying to it a long time ago. That patch of land has been drenched with the blood of civilians and personnel in uniform alike. One person’s idea of justice is the other person’s idea of a threat. The conversation around Kashmir had never been simple. But now, in the hashtag era, it has become toxic and hazardous.

The online conversations around Kashmir have been hijacked by many people who have no relationship to or understanding of the state (now union territory) and its nuanced history. They don’t know the history of Kashmir’s Sikh, Hindu and Muslim rulers. They don’t know how Kashmiris feel now and what is a conflict state. But they have the undeniable power of hashtag and social media.

The number of likes and retweets on someone’s post almost gives authority and legitimacy to their opinions and can drown out honest conversations about justice, constitutionalism, human rights and history. The Kashmir conversations on the internet work much like our politicians’ election rallies – dangerous one-liners get the biggest applause. The conversations don’t aim for justice or solution, they only seek clout and rhetorical applause.

Jammu’s political leaders were finally freed from house arrest Wednesday ahead of block polls, but their Kashmiri counterparts got no respite. We have not heard from them for weeks now. A young Kashmiri activist-politician was slapped with a sedition complaint for speaking up against the Army. While anger in Kashmir threatens to boil over, Home Minister Amit Shah denied the very existence of any blockade or restriction in Kashmir. He added that restrictions were only in the mind. In this whole conundrum, the only voice we heard was either of the Narendra Modi government’s, which has made a proper show out of the move, or of people bringing up the issue of martyrdom of Indian soldiers every time anyone questions the clampdown.

They say the soldiers’ deaths will stop with the government’s new measure — a claim that we will all conveniently forget the next time something tragic happens. Our nationalism has taken over our questioning ability and with Kashmir, we have come back to where we started – a place of no solution.

On Twitter, senior journalists were seen engaging in whataboutery and shutting down people for putting out their opinion.

Except a small fringe, majority in Kashmir have maintained peace in last 50 days. Govt must restore mobiles immediately.
Argument below is however a straw man. Equating a war zone with normal interpersonal relationship between a mother & daughter is illogical! Her mom is wiser. https://t.co/NueoFjzsCI

— Aarti Tikoo Singh (@AartiTikoo) September 25, 2019

Some journalists were also silenced.

Who cares what you think you Pakistani mole, and boyfriend to all the Jihadis especially Hafiz Saeed. Your bed mate. Enough Intel has been passed on to the Pakistanis by you. You are a enemy within our India.

— Abhi Athavale???? (@athavale_abhi) September 11, 2019

Noted Kashmiri author Mirza Waheed was asked to show his writings on the Pandit exodus when he spoke about the torture Kashmiris face.

Please show us your writings in protest of the exodus of #KashmiriPandits. I’m asking because you had rapped someone questioning you on that claiming that you did that long back.

— Ruchika Talwar (@RuchikaTalwar) September 30, 2019

This tit-for-tat whataboutery and tests of patriotism don’t work to expand public conversations about Kashmir. They serve to silence people, shrink the potential for an honest, nuanced debate and reduce the complexity of Kashmir into a simplistic morality play.

What began as an online space that gave a platform and voice for everyone, the internet today has turned into a dangerous race to the bottom, especially given the majoritarian political climate. But the repercussions aren’t really faced by the privileged like us. The price of online toxicity is sometimes paid by minorities on the streets. And sometimes, by those who no longer have the internet, like the Kashmiris.

The author is a writer and student activist. Views are personal.