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HomePageTurnerBook Excerpts'No azadi without dialogue': How people living along India-Pakistan border feel

‘No azadi without dialogue’: How people living along India-Pakistan border feel

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Using interviews with women and children living near the India-Pakistan Line of Control, Anam Zakaria’s book Between the Great Divide unearths the diverse narratives from the region. It brings forward voices that are usually lost in politics and militarism to explore the human dimension of the Kashmir conflict.

During my initial few visits to the region, I had been hesitant to bring up the subject of mujahideen with the locals. But eventually, when I began to broach the topic, I realized that just as firing across the LoC was an everyday reality for so many of the ‘Azad’ Kashmiris I spoke with so was the training, arrival and departure of the mujahideen to and from Indian-administered Kashmir. Tea-sellers and ordinary people on the street knew where the training camps had been in the 1990s, how people had been trained, what routes they had used to cross over. What I found particularly intriguing during these conversations was that there was absolutely no judgement in their voice as they related these details to me. There was an explicit understanding that it had to be done. Militant outfit names like Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were not alien to them. When I began to dig deeper, I started to understand that the people of ‘Azad’ Kashmir had felt this tacit and overt acceptance of militancy as a reaction to the bloodshed they had seen. At tender ages, they told me, they had witnessed dead bodies floating in the Jhelum, they had seen children being killed while sitting securely in their school chairs, they had seen their homes demolished by mortar shells. And these were all narratives and eyewitness accounts from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which is often perceived to have suffered far less as compared to people in Indian-administered Kashmir. Yet, there was so much anger in them. They were not so pre-occupied with who had started the violence, Pakistan or India, but with how it was affecting ordinary civilians who had nothing to do with the militancy.

They did not see Indian firing as justified retaliation to infiltration, for their earliest memories of that time were formed not of militants crossing over but of bloodshed caused by the Indian Army. It was this bloodshed that slowly helped raise support for militancy, not in terms of active involvement of people but in terms of ideology. (However, this support would begin to wane towards the turn of the century, as I shall explain later in the book.)

I turn to Nusrat Jan (the name has been changed to protect her identity), whose husband, Anwar says, was a mujahid. Half of Nusrat’s face is covered by her light orange dupatta. She bites on it with her teeth and I can tell she is very shy. Gently, I ask her about her husband. ‘Yes, he was a mujahid. They killed his brother and sister in front of him, so he joined the mujahideen. He had been a mujahid for ten years before the army caught him. One day, as they were transporting him from one jail to another, the mujahideen attacked the bus and he managed to get away,’ she utters quietly, her voice quivering.

‘Did he come back to you?’ ‘No, he couldn’t come home even then,’ she pauses and wipes her nose with the corner of her dupatta before continuing. ‘He had to hide for days or else they would’ve found him. One night though, he sneaked in. I saw him after a long time that night. They had peeled off the flesh from his arms and legs and had rubbed spices over the raw skin. He came home in a terrible condition but I couldn’t look after him. He had to leave again so that they wouldn’t catch him. You see, they used to come to our house a lot and interrogate me. They would harass me, humiliate me. Eventually, I had to run away too with my son, who was six months old. But as I was running through the jungle, my son got hurt. I couldn’t carry him any further like that. So I had to ask one of the families in the jungle to keep him. I left him there with them and ran further up. I had to spend one whole year in the jungle. I cannot even tell you what that was like.’ As we talk more, I notice that her voice becomes firmer. The quiver has given way to a detached tone. As she recalls some of the most difficult years of her life, she speaks in a matter-of-fact way, almost as if it isn’t even her story. Perhaps she needs to feel numb, she needs to be desensitized, for there is too much to feel. That is the only way to go on, to not be crushed under the weight of those traumatic memories.

‘What happened then? How did you make it to “Azad” Kashmir?’ I ask.

‘We eventually came to Azad Kashmir in 1994 to save our lives. But in 1999 my husband died due to shelling in Athmuqam by the Indian forces. He became a martyr. My son had already lost his eyesight due to injuries in the jungle. After his father’s death, he lost his mental sanity too. He likes to be left alone now, he lives in his own world. I seem to have not only lost my husband but my son too. I now have three daughters, whom I gave birth to after coming here. I’m a widow trying to put them through school. My son is not functional enough to help us.’ She allows herself to sigh heavily. That is the only relief she is willing to give herself. She does not dwell any further in her miseries; there is no space for self-pity. She has a family to raise.

I turn to a boy, Mumtaz (the name has been changed to protect his identity), who has been listening to us all this while in the room. ‘Tell me a little about yourself. You’re a young Kashmiri, what are your aspirations?’ I ask him. I’m interested in knowing more about the experiences of the youth in the refugee camps. What are their politics like? Are they really all walking, talking suicide bombs ready to explode, like my friend Waqar had described?

‘I study in Boys’ High School, in Class 10. After I complete my studies, I just want to help my mohajir (refugee) brothers. I want to open a clinic, give free medical aid. It costs so much to go to the clinic outside the camp… Our tuition fees are Rs 1,500-2,000. How can we afford everything in our 1,500 stipend from the government? Before, they had a 6 per cent quota for us (for government jobs) but even that is no longer implemented.32 And then there is no road here ever since the 2005 earthquake. Twenty people died in our camp during that earthquake, 150 people died in another camp. There is also no sewerage system, no dispensary, no proper water supply. At the end of the day this is a ghair ilaaka (foreign land). It can never be home. I want to go back to my house, to my village, even though I have never seen it.’

Though the AJK government has allocated a 6 per cent quota for government jobs to the refugees, many of them claim that such policies are not properly executed, nor do they suffice. In 2014, The Express Tribune published an article in which the refugees accused the AJK government of ‘accommodating political workers on the 6 per cent quota reserved for Kashmiri refugees, in violation of merit and the constitution’. They further complained, ‘For the last eight years, the AJK government has not increased the allowance of refugees. How can a person survive on Rs 1,500 a month?’

The freedom and good fortune that ‘Azad’ Kashmir had once symbolized for people like Anwar has given way to the sombre realization that even basic rights are being denied to them, let alone azadi. Today, it is seen as a place one has to make do with, for there is no other choice. Frustration amongst the people is growing. They are tired of waiting, of hoping. The grass doesn’t seem all that green any longer.

‘And how do you think the Kashmir issue can be resolved?’ I ask Mumtaz.

‘Well, there can be no azadi without dialogue. War will hurt both sides. In fact, this side will suffer more because our villages are closer to the LoC. People will die, children will die. Wars have not helped. Look at 1965, 1971, Kargil. Nothing came out of those.’

Excerpted with permission from Harper Collins India

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