Professional Muslim Women in India Face Growing Threats

By Amit Sengupta and Majid Maqbool 

Right wing groups in India are stirring nationwide outrage and international condemnation over the online harassment of Muslim women including prominent journalists, actors, politicians, and industry and civil society figures. The women have been targeted by extremist Hindu groups using two apps to secretly “auction” them online, collecting their photos from social media accounts and displaying them on the sites to humiliate them with lewd comments. 

 

The affair has attracted widespread worldwide criticism from journalistic and human rights organizations. It goes beyond that, however, to a widespread harassment that women say is becoming not only humiliating but dangerous. Mumbai-based Washington Post columnist and freelance journalist Rana Ayyub, on January 27 said she has received more than 26,000 tweets in response to her criticism of the Saudi Arabian government’s role in the ongoing Yemen crisis. Ayyub held a press conference to say she has long been a victim of online trolling and threats including many rape and death social media users who posted in support of the Saudi government and India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which she has criticized in recent columns in The Washington Post. 

 “No journalist should have to suffer the intense online harassment and threats repeatedly directed against Rana Ayyub,” said Steven Butler, the Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists in Washington, D.C. “Indian authorities must take action against anyone who has threatened violence against Ayyub and ensure her safety.” 

Separately, the “auction” development, using the apps Bulli Bai and Sulli Deals, began in mid-2021 although authorities took no action, women say. It resumed in November, however, with police ultimately arresting five persons. Niraj Bishnoi, the 21-year-old creator of the Bulli Bai app, was arrested on January 6 by New Delhi police, who said the investigation is at a "very nascent stage."

“Bulli Bai” is a derogatory term used for Muslim women by India's right wing, the critics say. Police said Bishnoi disclosed during questioning that the app was developed in November 2021, and later updated in December. He had also created another Twitter account to talk about the app, according to the police. What is more ominous is that the practice is far more widespread and it reflects spreading concern over possible violence against Muslims. In December, hundreds of right-wing Hindu activists and monks at a conference outside Delhi were widely reported as taking an oath to turn India into a Hindu nation by killing as many Muslims as possible. The conference reportedly included influential members of Narendra Modi’s ultranationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. More than 200 million Muslims remain in India after millions fled at partition in a bloodbath that took hundreds of thousands of lives.

The educated and technologically astute youngsters, including a woman, who were subsequently caught by the police, are from various flourishing but small towns. According to researchers, they call themselves Trads – Traditionalists. Those who have studied the situation say their divine text is the ‘Manusmriti’ –an anti-woman, feudal, upper-caste text which is male-centric, violent and patriarchal. Their extremist viewpoint is often in contradiction even with the mainstream right-wing nationalist groups in India currently ruling in New Delhi. They are said to even hate the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, as they consider it hypocritical. 

Critics say the groups deploy hate as ‘humor,’ a tacit incitement to mass rapes and genocide. One of the youngsters behind both the apps had created fake and multiple twitter handles to pass lewd remarks on Muslim women, the police found during investigations. Three other youngsters from distant towns were said to be using Sikh community names as twitter handles with the aim of creating a rift between the Sikh and Muslim communities, according to the police. 

 A young Mumbai-based Muslim woman journalist who declined to be named said she has unknowingly been auctioned multiple times, adding that she was repulsed with what she called the “extremely vicious and humiliating online character assassination.” 

“I wasn't able to speak to everyone about this at home but I tried to speak about it through my writing because it was important,” said Quratulain Rehbar, an independent journalist based in Kashmir who was similarly shocked to find her picture was also being auctioned online. She said that it made her feel that she is now more vulnerable as her journalistic work in Kashmir already makes her vulnerable. The subsequent media focus also made her uncomfortable. She said she felt “unsafe and had concurrent negative thoughts.” 

 Another young woman whose photo was used by Bulli Bai is Ismat Ara, a New Delhi based journalist. Her tweet calling attention to the practice and objecting to it went viral. “Having written stories critical of the government for the last two years—dealing with attacks on members of the Dalit caste, crimes against women, COVID-19 mismanagement, and hate crimes against Muslims—I was no stranger to trolling,” she wrote. “In fact, I am one of the 20 most abused women journalists in India. But being auctioned?” 

“That an app auctioning women came up a second time after it was done last year clearly indicates that these men know that they have protection,” said Saimi Sattar, editor with the New Delhi-based magazine of The Pioneer. With the perpetrators of last year going unpunished, she said, it was bound to happen. “Then there is the radio silence from the government – the implication being that this has not been tacit but an action-replay of complete support,” she added. “And not just them, a lot of people around me refuse to speak or take a stand. Subconsciously they believe that their privilege as upper caste Hindu men/women keeps them safe.” 

Sattar says such perversion, reflected by these coordinated online actions to silence and shame Muslim women, won’t stop in the current communal atmosphere prevailing in India. “So should we step back and stop speaking? It was not us who committed a crime. So why should we not speak up and fight back?” 

“What has happened is a vicious mix of objectification of women combined with the desire to silence Muslim voices,” said Saba Naqvi, a journalist and television commentator based in New Delhi. Hana Khan, a commercial pilot from Uttar Pradesh, also a victim, told the BBC that her photo was taken from Twitter and it had her username. “This app was running for 20 days and we didn't even know about it. It sent chills down my spine,” she said. “People were bidding five rupees (67 cents; 48 pence) and 10 rupees, assessing women and their body parts, describing sexual acts and threatening rape.” 

Hasiba Amin, a social media spokesperson for the Congress party, said several such accounts routinely attacked Muslim women in an attempt to degrade and humiliate them. On May 13 last year, as Muslims celebrated the festival of Eid, she said a YouTube channel ran an "Eid Special" – a live "auction" of Muslim women from India and Pakistan. 

Sanjay Kapoor, General Secretary of the Editors Guild of India said the idea of auctioning of articulate Muslim women on the internet is reprehensible and distressing, suggesting a collapse of the rule of law in the society. “The first time the issue came up, the police and judiciary didn’t take immediate action against the criminals, encouraging other round of symbolic internet auction of high-achieving and successful Muslim women,” said Kapoor. “Quite evidently, they got support from the ideology that has built this ecosystem that sustains and legitimizes violence against the minorities.” 

Sayema Rehman, a New Delhi based popular radio presenter for more than a decade, was also targeted. She is one of the vocal, liberal, progressive voices on social media, especially on Twitter. “I was one of the targets of Bulli Deals, the second version of the Sulli Deals,” said Sayema. “When the Bulli Deals happened, all of us raised our voices and made a lot of noise, so the Delhi Police were forced to register an FIR.” 

 But in the first instance they never reacted or acted, she said. But “when the Bulli Deals happened (again), there was no choice left for us and there was no point in keeping quiet anymore. With the kind of communal frenzy all around, with genocidal conferences happening, and people coming out and brazenly talking about the economic boycott of Muslims, silence was no longer the option,” she emphasizes. 

“We will continue to speak out. We wanted to explore all legal ways of dealing with this – from lodging police complaints, to raising our voice on social media, letting the world know what is happening to us,” she says. “The intention was to scare us. We have decided to respond in just the opposite way. Mumbai Police has set a very good precedent by nabbing the culprits and making arrests. There is a message that is going out and hopefully it is being received by the youth of the country,” she adds.

“This is outright communal bigotry and misogynistic. There is no choice but to fight back. And we will.” 

(First published in Asia Sentinel: https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/professional-muslim-women-india-face-threats)

Memoriam In Cricket

Memoriam In Cricket

By Majid Maqbool

As a young boy Fayaz Ahmad Gashoo was passionate about sports, particularly cricket. An all-round cricketer all through his high school and college years, he could bowl as fast as the West Indian fast bowler Malcolm Marshal, earning him a nickname “Fayaz Marshal” in Baramulla and “Fayaz Fire” in Srinagar.

Fayaz was selected twice to play in Ranji trophy. On a Saturday afternoon of May 19, 1990 he was waiting near a court complex in Sopore to board a bus to reach his home in Baramulla. A CRPF convoy that was passing by swooped on him and picked him up. Fayaz has never been seen since.

His family is unable to reconcile with the loss. Fayaz has disappeared but his family believes he has been killed.

At their residence in Khawaja Bagh, Baramulla, Fayaz’s elder brother opens a grey briefcase - a briefcase full of memories, containing certificates, photographs and documents related to his disappearance. In one envelope - “yadien” written on its cover – pictures of Fayaz holding trophies he won in different cricket tournaments before he disappeared in CRPF custody in 1990.

In some pictures, he is smiling in the company of his college friends and teammates. Other pictures show Fayaz in a skiing gear on a snowy slope with his friends in Gulmarg. In other pictures he is receiving the man of the match trophy and shaking hands with dignitaries. Surrounded by his teammates, he is jubilantly holding up the trophy. One envelope from the briefcase reveals a newspaper cutting of Fayaz, mentioning his achievement in the caption:

“Fayaz Ahmad, B.A part 1 - All round best player of the year, 1987.”

Fayaz’s mother has been in a state of shock since the day he disappeared. She cannot stand the sight of cricket matches shown on television. She cannot bring herself to talk about her son, her elder sons say. Fayaz’s elder brothers have to conceal all his photos, clothes and other belongings from her. They can not talk of Fayaz in front of her. She never passes from the college cricket ground where Fayaz used to practice. She avoids places Fayaz would frequent.

On a cold day in December, 1989, Fayaz Ahmad left home. He told his brothers that he was going for skiing in Gulmarg. He was 19 then, a teenager. That year armed rebellion had broken out in Kashmir against the Indian rule, and many of Fayaz’s friends had crossed the LoC. Fayaz, too, crossed the border without informing his family. He returned after three months. “We didn’t know that he had crossed the border as he never told us,” says his elder brother. “Those who had gone with him sent some of his belongings home and that is how we came to know about it.”

After he returned in March 1990, his brother says, Fayaz came home only three times. “He would stay at home for a brief time and wouldn’t talk about what he did during those three months.”

A second year commerce student in Baramulla Degree College, Fayaz resumed studies in college after his return.

On May 19, 1990, Fayaz was waiting for a vehicle near a college in Sopore. Notebook in hand, he was headed home. Eyewitnesses later told the family that a CRPF convoy that was passing by made a brief halt, some troopers came down, and he was taken away. His notebook dropped on the street.

Fayaz’s family came to know about his arrest four days after his disappearance. Another young man, who was detained along with Fayaz in a CRPF camp, had somehow escaped. He later sent a message to the family that Fayaz was held by the 50 battalion of CRPF in their camp in Sopore.

“The officer in charge of that camp Kripal Singh denied having arrested Fayaz,” says his brother. Months later, another friend of Fayaz, who was also held in the same camp had more bad news for the family. He was later sent to Tihar and after his release from there a few months later, he told the family that Fayaz was tortured inside the CRPF camp in Sopore.

“He had heard cries of Fayaz in the camp,” Fayaz’s brothers recalled. “He told us later that Fayaz was abused by a CRPF officer who was interrogating Fayaz inside the camp.” After an altercation, he heard a few gunshots. And then there was silence, his friend had told Fayaz’s family.

“If they have killed our brother, we don’t know where they kept his dead body,” says his brother, his eyes brimming with tears. “If he is dead, they should at least have handed over his dead body to us.”

After the custodial disappearance of Fayaz, his brothers approached CRPF and army camps all across the valley. They searched in every jail in the valley. They also went searching to jails in Rajasthan. But there was no trace of Fayaz.

“If someone spoke of having seen him in some jail, we would immediately rush there,” says his elder brother. For three months in 1990, the brother hired a taxi and went to every CRPF camp and approached every CRPF officer stationed in the valley.

Fayaz’s family says the CRPF and Army kept harassing the family in the years after his disappearance. They would ask for the gun of Fayaz. Every time the family told them that they don’t know anything about the gun. They had never seen Fayaz carrying any weapon.

One evening in 1994, a group of soldiers raided their house. “They asked all the men to come out. But we told them that the women will also come out and then they can search the house,” says Gul Mohammad, the elder brother of Fayaz. The army men got angry on this. “They beat all of us, including children, old men and women,” the brothers recall.

On the same day one of their younger brother, Bashir Ahmad Gashoo, was taken away by the army. “He was released after 10 days in half-dead condition,” says his elder brother Gul Mohammad Gashoo. “He was severely tortured in the nearby army camp. He could not even stand after his release and he was unable to talk for months.”

Gul Mohammad has kept pictures showing torture marks on his brother’s body. “He had to be hospitalized and was brought home after 3 months of treatment in SKIMS.”

As a teenager Fayaz was fearless. He wouldn’t tolerate any curbs on his freedom. During his high school student days, he was walking on a curfewed road in Baramulla. His brothers say a police officer, who was driving by in a police gypsy, stopped Fayaz in his tracks and rebuked him. He asked Fayaz to get lost and stay at home. “Fayaz got so angry on this that he slapped the police officer,” recalls his elder brother. “He told the police officer that he cannot stop him from walking on the road.” Fayaz had to be kept in hiding for a month to prevent his arrest.

Fayaz’s brothers remember him as a brave young boy who loved playing cricket. Endowed with the physique of an athlete, he was the tallest among all his three brothers. At 17, Fayaz was selected twice to represent J&K state in Ranji trophy in 1987 and 1989.

One day Fayaz had gone to Srinagar to play in a tournament. “He had no money to return home,” recalls his elder brother. “He slept beneath a Chinar tree in the same ground where he played during the day. Next morning, he got up and played in another match in the same ground,” his brother recalls his enthusiasm for cricket with a smile.

Most of the matches he played Fayaz would win the man of the match award. “He is the only player in Baramulla who once hit a ball so hard that it landed on the street outside the Baramulla degree college,” recalls his brother. He says when people would come to know that Fayaz is batting or bowling, they would assemble in huge numbers inside the college ground just to watch him play. “People would even come from far off villages in buses to cheer him on.”

After Fayaz’s custodial disappearance, his brothers kept his memory alive. They started an annual cricket tournament “Fayaz Memorial” cricket cup in 1997. It was a tribute to a promising young cricketer. Every year some of the best cricket teams in Baramula compete in the memorial tournament. Fayaz’s elder brothers give out trophies to the best teams and the most promising players. Had he been allowed to live, his brothers say, he would have brought more laurels and made his homeland proud.

“Whenever I see a dream, I see Fayaz playing cricket in his college ground,” says Gul Muhammad. His room is adorned with all the trophies of Fayaz. He has even preserved one of the worn out cricket balls Fayaz played with.

“Whatever respect we have earned among people here, it is because of Fayaz,” his brothers say in unison. “We’re known more as Fayaz’s brothers.”

“And we will never forget what was done to our brother.”

The Right Thing to Do

The Right Thing to Do

Even during Kashmir’s worst years of insurgency, says Ghulam Mohammad Malik, a retired Muslim teacher who has been protecting a temple in Srinagar for over a decade now, no one ever raised an eyebrow at his presence there


I have lived in this locality all my life. A lot of Kashmiri Pandits used to live here earlier. I remember, during my childhood, there used to be an annual festival, Kande-vurus, in which both Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims would take part. Sweets would be distributed among the people. Thousands of Kashmiri Pandits from across the Valley would come here to take part in the festive gathering. Those were happy times...

THE POWER OF AN IDEA

THE POWER OF AN IDEA

They are driven by curiosity and armed with creativity. From harnessing everything from the sun to the ground below, Majid Maqbool reports on Kashmiris who are inspired by the belief that one bright idea can change their world.

Creative Twins:

Refaz Ahmad Wani and Ishfaq Ahmad Wani, 17-year-old twin brothers, are unlike other youngsters in their neighborhood. They look alike, think differently, and work together as a team. Fascinated by innovative ideas since childhood, the inquisitive brothers always wanted to make new things. Hailing from the remote Wandewalgam village in Kokernag town of south Kashmir, some 80 kms away from Srinagar, the twins have more than fifteen innovations to their credit.

Refaz and Ishfaq were awarded for their innovations by the National Innovations Foundation (NIF) recently, at an event held at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. While giving away the award to the twins, former president APJ Abdul Kalam called them “creative twins.” The brothers study in 11th in a government high school.

Out of the total 4104 entries received from across India, NIF shortlisted 32 entries, and finally 23 innovations were awarded. NIF had received 160 entries from J&K, and only the twin innovations of Refaz and Ishfaq won the award from the state. They stood second at the all-India level in the high school category.

When the twin brothers arrived at IIM to receive the award, they were delighted to see one of their innovations—the two-in-one spade and hoe—manufactured by an Ahmadabad-based company. Their innovation was presented to them at the event. The two-in-one spade and hoe, they have been told, is ready to make a debut in the market. The brothers say this concept came to them when they went shopping for a spade and a hoe that they needed in their field. “We had to buy a spade and a hoe from the market and it cost us Rs 1000,” says Ishfaq. “And when we were working in the field, we thought of making a two-in-one spade and hoe which is easy to carry around and also saves the cost of buying two items,” says Ishfaq.

Another award winning innovation made by the brothers is a foldable water bottle. Its size can be reduced by folding it in, based on how much water is left in the bottle. Additionally, the brothers have come up with several other innovations in the past which have been accepted and registered at the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), Ahmadabad.

As young children, Ishfaq and Refaz would make mud sculptures of animals and birds. One day, when they were in 5th standard, they saw a JCB vehicle on the road outside their home. Fascinated, they wanted to make a similar model at home.

“We thought of making one at home but since we didn’t have the required material, we made a mini model out of clay,” says Ishfaq. “Then we made it using wood as it was readily available and inserted some springs in the model,” recollects Refaz. It took them twelve days to make a wooden road roller.

With maturity came creativity, and their experiments continued.

Ishfaq and Refaz say their parents have been incredibly supportive. Their father, a vegetable seller in Jammu, is a diabetic. The news of his sons being awarded brought him some relief. “Whatever he earns is spent on his treatment there,” says the mother of twin brothers. “We have to depend on our relatives to run our home,” she says. The brothers, aware of their financial limitations, are worried about their father. Their innovations have not yet yielded monetary gains. They want to come up with more innovations, with the hopes that it will support their family financially.

Some of their innovations that have already been registered by NIF include an injection breaker, apple catcher and clipper, easy meat cutter, a geometrical pen, bread thrower, egg breaker, and a lighting pen. The brothers say they created these and other innovations based on the need for them, and they believe their creations are beneficial for all people. “The injection breaker idea came when I went to a medical shop for an injection. I saw that when they would break the injection, the glass would fall on the floor and it could even injure people,” says Refaz. “When I came back, I shared the idea with my bother and we started working on the injection breaker,” he says. “It can be a useful device for doctors and nurses,” says Ishfaq.

Similarly, the idea of an apple catcher and clipper struck them when they had gone to a nearby apple orchard in their village. They saw people struggling to bring down apples from distant branches. At their home, they brainstormed about the idea of making an apple catcher and clipper to solve this problem. “Our apple catcher and clipper has a long stick and a clipper which can pluck apples from even distant branches, which cannot be otherwise reached by hand,” explains Ishfaq. “When the apple is clipped, instead of falling down, it falls in a pouch which is attached to the apple catcher,” he says.

The enthusiasm for doing something different has also rubbed off on their sister Runcy Jan, also studying in 11th. Last year, when Runcy was washing dishes one day in the kitchen, an idea of making a plate washing machine came to her. She shared it with her brothers. “She told us that she wants to make a machine which can wash dishes, and then we helped her to make a model which has been accepted by NIF as well,” says Ishfaq. “But it needs money to make the machine,” Refaz points out.

The brothers have converted a store in the second storey of their modest home into a small science lab. It’s filled with used electrical devices and other locally acquired equipment. All their certificates, clay and wooden models made over the years, and their paintings are on display in this room. They have named it “Science Innovation Club.” On the door hangs a simple white paper, with these words written on it: “Welcome to my life!” Whenever a new idea strikes them, they start working on it in their humble science club.

The brothers say they’re upset that they’re studying arts subjects, when all they really want to study is science. They hope they will be allowed to study science in 12th next year. “We didn’t get any support from our state government,” says Refaz. “Even our school is unaware of the award we recently received. Some teachers even discourage us from asking questions,” says Ishfaq.

The brothers are hoping to develop their Science Innovation Club into a learning center for other children who are interested in making innovations. “If this club is registered and the government helps us with funds, we could encourage many other students to come up with innovations,” says Refaz. “We want to help students who are interested in practical science and innovative ideas,” adds Ishfaq.

The brothers say they have many innovative ideas which they want to work on in future. “We have 71 innovative ideas in our files, and out of them, we have sent 37 ideas to NIF for reference and registration,” says Refaz. “The scientists at NIF often tell us that the ideas that come from us are excellent,” quips Ishfaq.

Despite their poverty, the inquisitive brothers are rich in ideas. They’re driven by a passion to do something different. New ideas come to them all the time; sometimes, in the middle of the night. “When a new idea comes, we work hard on its execution in our science club,” says Refaz. “We look at the market viability of the innovation and how it can be beneficial to people,” he says with maturity. “As we grow up, more ideas will come to us,” says Ishfaq.

Methane-Collecting Dairy Farm:

A few years ago, Zulfqarul Haq—who is presently pursuing his Masters’ in veterinary from the college of veterinary science, MHOW in Indore—came up with an innovative idea of a “methane collecting dairy farm” to reduce the greenhouse effect. His proposed dairy farm can collect methane burped by cattle. Each cattle burps about 250 - 500 liters of methane per day, which is 25 percent more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping atmospheric heat, a cause of worry as far as global warming is concerned.

“This hypothesis is given on a scientific basis, using chemical properties of methane,” says Haq. “I attempted to establish new ideas to reduce methane, which has caused an alarming concern.”

The heat-trapping gas could dramatically accelerate global warming. The dairy farm has two phases, closed phases and open phases. “It is closed when methane production reaches peak level (2-3 hours after feeding). Animals respire through specially designed Tobin tubes open at their manger. The rest of the dairy farm is kept open as usual,” says Haq.

As methane is lighter than air, he explains, methane will rise up and will be sucked by a pump and deposited in the methane collecting chamber which is surrounded by liquid nitrogen, to provide critical temperature for methane and critical pressures is applied. “Air will not liquefy as its critical temperature and pressure are not attained. Thus the collected methane will be used as fuel to meet the energy crisis and also reduce green house effect,” he says.

Zulfiqar presented the methane collecting dairy farm hypothesis at the Annual Conference and National Symposium of IAAVR (Indian Association for Advancement of Veterinary Research) early this year in Jaipur, where he awarded a certificate of merit for the best innovative idea.

Recently, Zulfiqar also stood first in his university and third at an all-India level competition of Vetoquinol Vijeta champ, which was organized by Vetoquinol India across 20 renowned veterinary colleges of India.

Unsung Innovator:

When Abid Hussain Nagoo was 12, he would work as a mechanic after school and repair tippers in Athwajan. His father was a daily wager and Abid needed to financially support his family. Fiddling with things came naturally to him. After dropping out of school in 11th, Abid started experimenting with electrical devices and other spare parts at his home in Rainawari. And before he knew it, Abid, now 26, was on his way to becoming an innovator.

As a kid, Abid was fascinated by how solar-powered calculators would work. “I became interested in things that work on solar energy,” he says. Soon after dropping out of school, he made a small solar lantern, which he later sold to a roadside hawker. “I pulled out the base of kerosene lantern and instead placed a battery and a nine volt bulb,” he says. Soon, he started making solar lanterns.

Abid wanted to explore the market for his handmade solar lanterns. He went to Khayam and placed his handmade solar lantern inside a store. “The store owner started asking about how I made this lantern and if he can buy one,” says Abid. But Abid sold it to a roadside hawker for Rs. 500. “I gave it to him since he sold things on the roadside, and the lantern would be seen by many people,” says Abid. Some days later, the same hawker approached Abid, asking him to make more lanterns. The hawker now wanted to sell his handmade solar lanterns. “I asked a friend for some money to buy some kerosene lanterns,” says Abid. Then I converted them into solar lanterns at home,” he says. “I made ten lanterns in two nights, and all of them were sold by that hawker in one day.”

Abid has come up with around 15 innovations since then, including a high intensity solar light, a mini solar inverter which can give a six hour backup. “I have also made a high pressure air blower, which can be used on roads to clear heavy stones,” says Abid. He is also working on a solar water purifier, which will convert dirty water into drinkable water.

Abid does not have a regular job. He earns his living by repairing streets lights for the tourism department and installing solar lighting systems at homes. “I approached the bank for a loan to set up my own workshop and I also applied for many government schemes but no one helped me,” laments Abid.

Abid claims that he is the only person who can repair the solar power plant in Kashmir. “In government departments here, there are employees who take huge salaries, but they don’t even know the difference between a diode and resistance,” he says. The government departments often approach him whenever there is any technical fault in big electrical and solar devices which their employees are unable to repair.

Abid is bitter about the fact that one of his innovative ideas was stolen from him by an engineer he knew. He says he had come up with the idea of an electric jacket three years ago, which he had subsequently submitted in the USIC department of Kashmir University in 2009. “But that engineer stole the idea from me,” says Abid. “He approached me once and told me that in winters one can’t travel on a bike, and I told him that I have made an electric jacket that can keep the biker warm,” says Abid.

“Then he told me to develop it and I made the jacket in three days and showed it to him, but later I read in newspapers that he is claiming to have made the electric jacket which is not true,” says Abid who holds the university responsible for the theft of his idea. “My jacket was lying in the university for two years and they didn’t bring it in the market,” he says. “That man is now bringing the jacket to the market in his name, but he knows that it was my idea which he stole,” adds Abid.

Although disappointed by the theft of his innovation, Abid has not stopped working on other innovations. He is presently at work on a solar shikara, which will run on solar batteries. The idea came to him when he was sent by the tourism department to install solar lights at Char Chinar in Dal Lake. “An old man was rowing the shikara I was in. I saw him struggling for one and a half hour from the Nehru Park area to reach the Char Chinar,” says Abid. “Then I thought, why can’t we have a solar shikara that will be powered by solar batteries? It will save both energy and time,” he says.

In the backyard of his Rainawari residence, Abid started working on the concept. He had to buy equipment from Delhi, spending money from his own pocket. “I also hired a shikara on rent for a couple of days to test drive it on solar light,” he says. Once the solar shikara is functional, Abid says it will take only 15 minutes to reach Char Chinar from Nehru Park. “But I needs money to buy motors and others equipment,” he says. “I wish I had a lot of money to buy all these equipment.”

Abid has received recognition from USIC department of Kashmir University, and he has been sent several letters from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in New Delhi. However, Abid says no financial help came his way. He was not provided any employment, either. “The government science departments from Delhi would write in their letters that they will financially support my innovations only if I send them documents like a work plan and test certificates,” he says. “But who will give me a test certificate here?” He says the paperwork should have been done by the university itself, as he had registered his innovations with them. “Most of my innovations are gathering dust in the university,” he says. “But nothing is done to bring them to the market.”

Abid remembers calling the director of a scientific research institute in Delhi once last year. Since some of his innovations were registered with them, he wanted to know about their progress. “Abid, aap pehlay wahan pathrav khatam karo, phir dekhengay,” the director told him, and hung up.

“At times I feel had we been with China, we would have progressed,” says Abid. “They would surely valu skilled people like us,” he says. “India only wants to exploit grassroot innovators of Kashmir and exploit our innovations in their market without giving any benefit to the Kashmiri innovators,” he says.

No Support:

Prof. G. Mohiuddin Bhat, the Director of University Science Instrumentation Centre (USIC) in Kashmir University, says the state government is not yet sensitized about our grassroots innovators who are in need of financial support for their innovations. “Several times, I have met ministers and even the Chief Minister in this regard, but nothing happened on the ground, despite their promises,” he says.

Prof. Bhat says 80 percent of innovators that come to their centre are from rural areas. “I see innovators who are mostly poor people, and they come up with their innovations to solve problems they face in rural areas,” he says. Bhat says in USIC, since 2008, they have patented more than 20 innovations coming from grassroots innovators, and four of them were awarded.

He says the state government should come forward with a detailed program to financially support Kashmiri innovators. “The central agencies take time to release funds and there is a lot of delay and paper work involved,” he says.

Researchers say local innovators require state government support as only one institute at the university is not enough to cater to the increasing number of grassroots innovators emerging from the valley. “Unemployment is rising. These innovators are coming up with new ideas. The government should recognize them. They should help them in reaching out to the market as these innovators cannot do it on their own,” says S. Fayaz Ahmad, a researcher and author of the book “Unsung Innovators of Kashmir” that was published this year. The book profiles grassroots innovators from across the valley.

Fayaz says the patent system is not proving to be beneficial for Kashmir’s grassroots innovators. “The patent concept works for bigger corporations and will not benefit our grassroots innovators,” he says. “Also when you get a patent, you have to maintain the patent and for that they have to pay a regular fee which these innovators can’t afford.” He says instead of patent system, there should be a reward system for local innovators. “The state government should recognize these innovators and take their innovation to the market,” says Fayaz.

Innovators, he says, should be allowed to explore their local market first, as their innovations are essentially created keeping in mind their local needs and concerns. “They didn’t come up with innovations so that they will be taken outside the state and exploited in other markets,” says Fayaz. “And even if their innovation is exploited in markets outside the state, the actual benefit should come to the local innovator, but that is not happening at present,” he points out.

(Originally published as cover story in Kashmir Life news magazine)

Winter

Winter


A cold wave spreads over frozen lakes
foggy streets heave
with disappeared people
Unrecognized soldiers struggle to resist
biting cold, that enters, unchecked
between gaps of sandbag bunkers.
The promise of summer
Arrested in a long, harsh winter
Occupied by colder nights
Brief days; imprisoned sunshine
longing to breakaway, and pierce
the dark vigil that looms over a city
struggling to breathe freely.
In the winters of captivity
People wait…awake
In labored, visible breaths
for the end of curfewed nights.
“…till the soldiers return the keys
and disappear.


By Majid Maqbool

A call from home

A call from home


“Card chukha seath thavaan?”
(Do you carry the ID card with you?)

Mother worries over frequent phone calls
Away from home, home enters questions
‘Identity’ printed on a piece of paper
cuts through her voice; a discomforting lullaby:
“Card gase hamashe seath thavun”
(always carry the ID card with you)

Home leaves a permanent imprint…
On scattered notes, stamped on memories

At home, mother would tiptoe after me
At the door, before endless blessings, she always asked -
That question mothers have for their sons -
“Card tultha seath?”
(are you carrying your ID card?)

From Delhi now, your question settles on my unrest
Identity – detached from the card – hangs heavy

This is not Kashmir, mother
“Toete gase card seath thavun…. “
(Still you must carry the card with you...)
The line dropped on this insistence

I kept redialing, to rest her concerns,
her unfinished questions, unanswered
Hello..heloo… mother
Can you hear me?

I left the card at home, mother
In the back pocket of my worn-out jeans
Find: a fading photograph, scrutinized edges
And no trace of those unrecognized questions
forever inked on my memory

For troops to question my absence
The proof I left behind is not enough
That frisked ID card remains
like a festering wound, pocketed pain
I carry everywhere


By Majid Maqbool

Tortured in custody

Ten days of torture


For Altaf Hussain the year 1994 is a painful memory of 10 days of torture. Sixteen years ago Altaf was subjected to torture for 10 days in a BSF camp in Handwara. Now a father of a two-year old son, Altaf is in his mid 30s and spots a medium sized beard. The unforgettable memories of those torturous 10 days haunt him to this day: the humiliation of everyday stripping, frequent beating, of being hung upside down, electric shocks to private parts, and that unbearable pain every time his finger nail was pulled out.

Altaf was a 16-year old vivacious teenager in 1994. After successfully passing his 10th standard board exams, that year he had dreams of a better future. He had made plans to move to the Srinagar city to pursue further education. However, one day would change the rest of his life.

One morning in the summer of 1994 he found himself dragged out of his home by BSF troopers from a nearby camp in Handwara. Along with a few more boys from his locality, Altaf was taken to a BSF camp located in his village. Then the torture began in custody.

“They wanted to know about the whereabouts of the militants in our area,” he says. “But I knew nothing about it”. Altaf kept telling them that he’s innocent and knows nothing about the whereabouts of the militants they had spotted in the village. The BSF troopers began torturing him to extract some information. But Altaf repeated the same thing. “From day one I told them that they can’t get any information from me as I know nothing,” he says.

The pain in Altaf’s voice comes through as he recalls those 10 days of torture. He points at different spots on his body where wires would be attached for giving electric shocks. The few minutes before the electric shocks were applied were the most frightening. Beyond a point, when the torture became unbearable, Altaf says he at times felt no pain, only a numbing sensation.

Like a testimony of his painful past, the torture marks are still visible on his body. “Besides beating, they would pull out the skin from sensitive spots of body,” he says while showing torture marks on his fingers. Small patch of pale skin has come to replace the skin pulled out during torture. All over his body the torture marks have not disappeared completely, only aged with years. The memories of those 10 days, he says, are as fresh as yesterday. He can never forget those 10 days.

Altaf remembers the minute details, the small talk, the jokes his captors would make about his miserable condition while he writhed in pain on the floor at the end of a torturous day in custody. Altaf particularly recalls a day when he was separated from other boys, and taken to another room, where some food had been specially kept for him on a table. After he had food that day, the reason for this special treatment became evident. A BSF trooper went up to him, and asked, “Tell me how many girl friends you have?”. When Altaf said he had none, the trooper didn’t believe him, and said he was lying. One of the BSF troopers, who was particularly friendly towards him that day, then asked Altaf to arrange some ‘girl friends’ for him. In return, Altaf was promised a quick release from the camp.

Altaf says he lost his cool at that moment and flew into a rage. For declining the offer he received a severe beating for many hours that day. “Kash bea easehe paez peath militant, beae lagvehae temes goel,” he says angrily. (I wish I had a gun that time, I wish I was a militant, I would have shot him there only)

Altaf says during those 10 days of interrogation inside the BSF camp, he kept repeating the same thing to the BSF troopers who were torturing him — that he was innocent and knew nothing about the whereabouts of the militants. After they failed to get any information from him despite days of torture, Altaf recalls some of the BSF troopers grudgingly acknowledging his truth, and calling him, “yae jo sach bolta hai, is ladko ko idhar laeo (get this boys here who speaks the truth.)

When the BSF troopers failed to extract any information from Altaf, he was dropped in a half conscious state on the roadside after ten days in custody. The family couldn’t believe that he was still alive. “Some of the boys who were arrested with me were found near a stream,” he recalls.

Altaf says some 74 boys from his native village in Handwara have been killed in fake encounters, enforced disappearances and targeted killings over the years by the troopers. Four of them, he says, crossed the border and were killed in encounters after they returned.

Altaf was bed ridden for over a month after his release. He says he is yet to reconcile with those torturous memories that keep haunting him. He eventually went on to become a forest range officer. The physical and mental scars of torture, however, are yet to heal.

Altaf says he had difficulty at the time of his marriage as the electric applied to his private organs during those 10 days of torture had an adverse impact on his health. Doctors had told him to take some time and delay marriage for some years as the torture had taken a toll on his sexual health. “I had to delay my marriage for a few years to recover fully,” he says. “It was a very painful phase for me as I couldn’t share my pain with family and friends.”

Altaf doesn’t want to hide his past from his children. “When my son will be a teenager, I will tell him what the Indian soldiers did to me when I was a teenager,” he says. He doesn’t want to forget his past. Forgetfulness is more painful for him.

Every today when Altaf encounters an Indian soldier on the street, he shudders and immediately takes a detour. This fear is compounded by the memories of his torture. The sight of an Indian trooper, or even a police man, he says sends shivers down his spine. “Even when I see a Kashmiri policeman on the road, I get to see frightening nightmares,” he says. “And all those memories of 10 days of torture rush back as flashes in front of my eyes.”

Kashmir Protests

Kashmir Protests

By Majid Maqbool


Over fifty people have been killed in the streets of Kashmir since June 11, this year. Strictly imposed indefinite curfews with “shoot at sight” orders have failed to prevent people braving bullets, teargas shells, and batons on the streets. Protests have become a way of life. The military might of the state, strengthened by additional forces, kills with impunity. But the unarmed people of Kashmir, armed with slogans and stones in their hands, continue to protest day and night. Bullets no longer scare people now. The more bullets CRPF troops and police fire on the protesters, the more courage and strength people summon to resist.

People momentarily disperse after being fired at on the streets, only to reappear again, and protest more forcefully. The imposed silence of curfewed days and nights is broken by the constant cries of the protesters: “Awazan do, hum ek hain ….aye .. aye ..azadi..cheen kay laygain, azaadi!…Roe rahe hai yae zameen, ro raha hai asamaan..…ae shaheedo asalaam…jis Kashmir ko khoon say sincha, woe Kashmir hamara hai….” If the protest collapses from one quarter, others pick up the thread. All these slogans and protests have seeped into the dreams of children. They don’t have school on their minds. Even the kindergarten kids know how to lisp the rhyme: “Hum kya chatay?” Ajaadi!

From the loudspeakers of Kashmir’s mosques, the nights are lit up with slogans of freedom from all sides. Nights have become new days in Kashmir. People protest late into the nights, sleepless. On the streets, in every mosque, in the lanes and by-lanes of every locality, only one cry reverberates in the air -- Azadi!.

Despite being at the receiving end of bullets and batons, people got together to help each other in distress. In numerous localities, people collected food and funds for the poor and needy in their respective curfew areas. For those injured in the protests, blood donations camps were organized. Hundreds of people, despite curfew, turned up to donate blood. This is how the spirit of resistance is kept alive. Agha Shahid Ali’s poetic line aptly sums up this renewed wave of freedom sweeping Kashmir: “Freedom’s terrible thirst is flooding Kashmir...”

Meanwhile, for a long time on the news bulletins telecast from the New Delhi studios of Indian news channels, the news from Kashmir was headlined differently, aided with carefully picked visuals: ‘riots in Kashmir’, the “unrest and violence in Kashmir”, “valley on the edge”… The naive, ill-informed news anchors, unaware of the reality unfolding on the ground, keep putting the same question to the same chosen set of Kashmiri politicians and New Delhi-based ‘Kashmir experts’: “So what is it that people want? Why are they burning government buildings? Police stations..? Why are people resorting to violence? What exactly do they want?”

The truth is there on the streets of Kashmir for everyone to see. Seventy people, mostly teenagers, have been killed by state forces since Jan this year. If the Indian state refuses to accept the truth even after all these killings, and instead use more force to quell protests, what can people do? Protest more.

The wrong questions put to the wrong people can never find the right answers. ‘So, why are they burning public property?’ the anchors kept asking their Kashmir experts in news bulletins replete with visuals showing a government vehicle, a government office set on fire by the protesters. Interestingly, these questions were asked to everyone, except the people protesting on the streets!

On the ground people speak about the brutality unleashed by the ‘security forces’ in their respective areas. All these memories have become a festering wound, which is refusing to heal. “The CRPF men got hold of this boy near our home and he was beaten ruthlessly,” said one caller who watched the whole scene from the window of his room. “Then they took his pictures and left him there after beating him to pulp,” he said. ‘He was only a little kid’. Another friend, a doctor, was told by his colleague: “Yesterday an ambulance with paramedics and doctors was stopped by the CRPF troops on one street. They were asked to come out and used as a human shield by CRPF troops to protect themselves from the protesters,” he said. Another friend called to inform us that CRPF troops smashed to smithereens the windowpanes of her home.

A relative of mine kept as a grim memento a teargas shell fired into their home by CRPF troopers. The smoke filled their eyes, their rooms, for the whole day. “I preserved it after it cooled down. You can come over to have a look some day,” he said. Everyone has his own story of being witness to the blood of innocent people spilled on the streets. At a time when killings have become a routine affair, the injuries inflicted on thousands of people in the past few months have gone unnoticed.

Bullets can only kill people though. The sentiment and aspirations of freedom can never be killed. People can be shot at, but the sentiment is too deeply entrenched in the hearts and minds of people -- and it’s beyond the reach of bullets. The sentiment for freedom has a habit of passing on from one generation to another. Force can not suppress it. Look at the streets.

A Stone Pelter’s Song by Feroz Rather

A Stone Pelter’s Song

BY FEROZ RATHER



Out of the last cries

Of my fellows, those boys

Killed on street yesterday,

Out of the sky and the summer rains

In my own eyes,

In my own voice,

I compose a song of freedom


Out of these stones,

Forged in the brooks of Jhelum,

These gifts from the Mountain,

Tearing the air apart

In fury, with jubilation,

Ah! Here I hit their backs,

I exist in these stones,

I don’t need to tell them,

I compose a song of freedom


Out of my own blood and brain,

Smearing my dead face,

Out of a vow of

A mother’s love for her son,

Against the dagger of Abraham

When God ceases to be an assassin,

Out of the triumph of truth

Rises a song of celebration,

I live a song of freedom


Out of the rebels’ chants,

Against their bullets,

Against the shells and the smoke of death,

Out of these slogans

Sung in unison,

These songs of defiance and anger,

I’m my own poet, a majnoon

Of this country, an unfailing lover,

I’m a stone pelter

I sing a song of freedom.

Building blocks of sadness

Building blocks of sadness

By Majid Maqbool


Kashmir is a sad place. There is sadness in the stories of people. There’s sadness in their personal histories. There is sadness in the lives that people live. And in the regret for lives that they should have lived, but couldn’t. There is sadness, for a future that might not be different from the present. There is sadness, for being witness to a bloodied past replete with pain, injustices, death. There is sadness, for promises not kept. There’s sadness, for having lived, while all around the loved ones died. It is this collective sadness that lends a sorrowful aura to Kashmir. Memories come in the way of happiness here. And sorrow, like that ubiquitous bunker on the street, has found a permanent home in Kashmir.

The wounded architecture of the city is saddening. Burnt buildings, reduced to abandoned remnants of encounter sites, evoke sadness. Blackened, burnt wood in place of windows; damaged walls, sprinkled with bullets; exposed bricks, punctured with bullet holes. All these destroyed buildings – once peoples’ homes, public offices, shops – are devoid of life now. They are the building blocks of sadness. They evoke a sad memory. They stand testimony to a blood soaked past. New buildings are erected in place of the destroyed ones. But the sadness remains, forever locked in these sites. And the memories of the wounds remain, intact. Kashmir’s past—every Kashmiri’s past for that matter—is a landmine of unresolved memories. Even an act of remembrance can explode them.

There is sadness on the faces of Indian soldiers present after every other kilometer on the streets. Guns slung across their shoulder, few meters away from each other, their presence adds to the sadness of the city. They remind us of what we have lost. They remind us of what they have taken away from us. They, we are told, are here to ‘protect’ us. Keep us safe! Innumerable barricades, inked in capital red letters on a white background, are kept on the streets: ‘Your cooperation is solicited’. Your safety is our concern. Peace keepers of the nation....’ Courtesy: CRPF, BSF…

What can one say? Quote Agha Shahid Ali: “They make a desolation and call it peace.”

‘People there are helpful but they don’t smile,’ a writer wrote after travelling to Kashmir. This sadness stems from a bruised history. It is a result of unforgettable memories - of years of occupation, against the wishes of people, by the outsiders. It’s difficult to reconcile with a troubled past, look ahead, and live a content life. It is difficult to foresee a future which has no place for the memories of the past. You can forgive (or can you?) but you can not forget.

The sentiment of freedom, simmering inside for years, came out bubbling into the streets last year. It swept everyone who came along. But somewhere behind those joyous shouts for freedom, there was sadness. Sadness, for example, in the life of that man I met in the TRC ground. He lost his brother and his son in the nineties. He still manages to smile. He knows what sadness means. Travelling all the way from his hometown, he joined a sea of people that poured into the TRC ground in the summer of 2008. Only one cry rang into the sky – azadi! He too put his arms up. He shouted for Azadi. For every collective shout of hum kya chatay that reverberated in the air, he seconded – azadi! And he waited for his leaders.

Although doubt was palpable in the fractured voice of leaders that addressed people assembled in the ground, there was no doubt in his mind. He remembers his son; he remembers his brother. That’s why he came. He didn’t come for any compensation. He came to mark his presence. He came in the memory of his brother and son. They are both dead. He lives with their memory. They were killed, he told me, his words drowning in the din of slogans. But they live in his memory. For him, they are not dead. Sitting besides me in the middle of the ground, surrounded by thousands of people of all age groups, he seemed momentarily lost in his thoughts. Turning towards me, his gaze fixed on me, he said: “My son was young like you when he was killed.” I said nothing, and looked down. “Enough of young people have died in Kashmir,” he said after a brief pause. Then he looked away into the distance. The ground kept swelling with people. His spirits rose.

He’s sad. He’s angry. He is living. He knows the meaning of life. He has lost his loved ones. He knows what freedom means.

Memories of an Election Past

NOTES FROM THE GROUND

Memories of an Election Past


Majid Maqbool


It’s a cold, fogy November morning. The view from the windscreen of the Tata sumo vehicle we are traveling in is hazy, dreamlike. A thick, smoky fog surrounds the outside view, making the houses around – and the road ahead – disappear. Some kilometers into the drive, suddenly an approaching sound becomes more pronounced. There’s commotion in the air. A closer look reveals the first signs of a polling booth: excited people assembled on the roadside, security vehicles, a small middle school thronged by men and women, and tense, watchful CRPF personnel, standing guard.

We are covering elections today, but all of us—a photographer, some journalists, and the driver—are talking about election boycott. As our vehicle stops, the fog clears out, and a polling booth comes in sight. Pheran clad people holding on to their Kangri, and CRPF men shivering in the cold emerge from a thick morning fog hanging heavy in the air. The sight of the crowd comprising of young men, women, girls, old men and women, assembled outside a two-room middle school turned into a polling booth in vadipora, Handwara, lends a festive look to this place. We see long voter queues outside the polling booth. Far from Srinagar, here, people are in no mood to boycott polls. People have willingly come out to vote, they tell us clearly. And everyone comes up with standard answers: the voting is for bijli, sadak, pani, naukri. Men and women jostle for space in their respective queues, waiting for their turn to cast their votes.

There is a lot of noise in and outside the polling booth. Inside, a group of polling agents, sitting like school children on the rugged mats of the small classroom of this government run middle school, are sifting through the pages of electoral lists. Like school children turn the pages of their textbooks in a classroom, the pheran clad and noisy polling agents sift through the pages of the white electoral lists in their hands. The polling booth officer, sitting comfortably on a chair, is like the headmaster here: he’s in command, the authority. Everyone listens to him, except the CRPF men, who keep coming in and out of the polling booth at will. They question everyone—including visiting journalists—but they can not be questioned. Much to the dislike of nervous CRPF men standing outside the booth, some people hang around the booth after casting their vote—smoking, talking in small groups, making noise. And those who are yet to vote try to remain in the queues, anxiously waiting for their turn. And whenever some people break out from the discipline of the long queues, angry arguments break out. The sight of the approaching trooper, with a long baton in one hand and a gun in other, however, ends all the arguments among the voters in the queues. Silence prevails. Voters come in the line, quietly.

Just outside this middle school, an old man – the white bearded tea-shop owner who shows no interest in voting today – is making tea in his shanty, wooden tea-stall. People, who are yet to vote, and those done with the voting, are having their cups of tea here. And in between sips, they talk. Vapors from their tea-cups mix with human breath visible on a cold morning, which then comes out like smoke from the old wooden door of this small tea-stall. Hugging onto their rifles, the tense looking CRPF personnel reluctantly stand guard outside the booth, as if under compulsion. They push around people, and ensure people maintain a disciplined line—though most of them still don’t.

Just behind this busy pooling booth is a young man’s grave. He was killed years back (in 1996). And today, only one person is standing near his grave: his father. And he is not voting today, he says pensively standing near the solitary grave of his son. Resting on a raised slope and protected by iron bars, the grave is everything for this man standing near it. None from my family will vote today, he says after a brief pause, coming out of his thoughts. My son was 18, he adds, when he was martyred by the army. “He gave his life for independence, for azadi, and not for elections,” the man says with eyes transfixed on the grave.

Seeing us engaged in conversation with this man near the grave, the old man suddenly comes out of his tea stall. The two men know each other. There is one thing common to them: they both lost their sons. The old man comes up to us, greets the other man, and tells us why he too is not interested in voting today: his son’s grave lies few meters away from his tea-stall. Pointing at his son’s grave protected by wooden logs, the old man wants me to listen to the story of his son too. He looks expectedly at my notebook, wanting me to pen down his story. But we are getting late. We have to rush towards another polling booth. We will come again to listen to your story, I tell the white bearded old man as I run towards the vehicle blowing repeated horns for me across the street. And as the vehicle drove away from this polling booth, I could see the old man from the rear windowpane of the vehicle: he stood pensively outside the polling booth, near his tea stall, and kept watching people around him vote, and the rest, wait in queues for their turn. As the vehicle accelerated and fog took over the scene completely, the old man’s frail frame faded out of my sight. And I knew I won’t come again to listen to his story.

Weeks pass.

Srinagar goes to polls today. We are making rounds on the empty streets of the Srinagar city littered with troopers and armored security vehicles. Around 3pm, we reach Tangpora area of Batamaloo. Here “poll boycott” is the writing on the walls, quiet literally. “No elections. Election boycott. Azadi”—is chalked on the walls of the alleys of this neighborhood in capital, bold, hand written letters. And small, fading paper posters of affected family members made out of old newspaper clipping adorn the outer walls of the households in the small alleys of this locality. Some distance from a desolate polling booth, around 3:30pm, the agitated people of the locality we stop by have come out of their homes. They have assembled outside the street near the local mosque. Suddenly, one bearded middle aged man emerges from crowd to stand on the stairs of the mosque. And from the stairs of the mosque entrance, he suddenly addresses the rest of the people in front of him. The address, without a mike and outside the mosque, is not a sermon. It’s political. It’s about elections. He reminds them – in loud, defiant voice – of why they boycotted elections today. He reminds them of the three families of the locality they paid homage today—by not voting. Three sons from the locality are still missing in custody, he says. Who is accountable for their disappearance, he asks the crowd. “How can we vote then?” he questions the people in front of him. Only 17 people have voted today, the man says out aloud. And we know who they are, he says, they came from outside. Some women in the crowd, holding each others hand, are listening attentively to his address.

And then, all of a sudden, the man makes an announcement:

“Let me tell you now that yesterday I was told by someone from the authority that our young men have been killed. There is no point in waiting for them now. And their families should perform their last rites….”

A sudden hush descends on the crowd. There is a brief silence. No one speaks. Shocked and surprised faces look at each other, and then at the man who is addressing them. Hearing this news, some elderly women, who were listening to this man silently, start mourning now. And weep inconsolably. Their mourning becomes more pronounced now; their feeble cries lapse into loud shouts of grief. Rolling the edges of their white scarves, the old women around them wipe their tears, and each others. And the younger women, who are part of this small crowd outside the mosque, have tears in their eyes, too. But they try to console the elder women first, extending a comfortable shoulder for them to grieve on.

Hesitantly, I negotiate my way through the crowd to approach one of the old women. She is particularly inconsolable, repeatedly calling out loud, one name in particular: Mushtaq Ahmad, her son. And when I ask her about her son, she weeps some more. She is not able to talk. Other women accompanying her, speak for her. They ask me to come to her home situated at some distance from the mosque. And I walk slowly to keep pace with this group of grieving, elderly women to one of the small one storey house nearby. And as soon as we step into a small room, the old women, Rahte, grabs a framed picture of her son kept on the upper windowsill of the room. And before I can clearly see her son’s picture, she hugs it tightly, holding it close to her chest, not letting it go, as if it was her son who had come back home today. Then she wept, all the while gently swinging her head back and forth, in mourning. And, in between, she would frequently shout her disappeared son’s name, addressing his photo as if he was in front of her. The constant surge of tears from her sad, sunken eyes seemed to acquire a material form palpable in the room: for a brief moment, I felt as if I could touch her grief.

By now many women from the neighborhood had assembled in this small room. And I was struggling to take notes. Amidst tears and mourning from each family member present in the room, many narrations of their disappeared family member competed on my notebook. Narrated by many grieving women surrounding me, I was finding it hard to listen to all the women speaking at the same time about one man’s disappearance years back. Unable to pen down much, I closed my notebook. And as I was preparing to leave, one of the grieving women said that many people like me have visited their house before, heard the story of disappearance of Mushtaq, and then left, never to return again. And our Mushtaq also never returned, said another woman with moist eyes sitting in one corner of the room. I had no answers for their questions. I just scribed them on my notebook, and left the house along with their story – like many journalists, human rights activists had left before me—leaving behind grieving family members, in tears.

Latter in the day, as the voting in the Srinagar city was coming to an end, and light was fading on the empty streets of Lalchowk, near Ghanta Ghar something unusual was happening. It grabbed my attention: A mock exercise in which a group of CRPF women around Ghanta Ghar, in turn surrounded by tangled meshes of concencreta wires and armoured vehicles, were getting filmed by their female colleague. She had a handy-cam in her hand, like you take out on a family holiday. She was trying to focus, trying to bring all her colleagues in frame. She was repeatedly asking her subjects to smile, raise their batons in the air, and pay attention. She wanted to capture a perfect shot. But her subjects looked tired, and unwilling for this exercise after a tough day on duty. Unsatisfied, she would line up her wary subjects again, and do a retake. And as our vehicle drove past them, the CRPF woman, undisturbed, kept filming her colleagues who were doing their moves once more for the camera. Finally they managed to put on fake smiles for the camera. And this time the CRPF women soldier seemed satisfied with the shot. Happy, she walked up to her subjects, and showed them how they looked like in the video. All of them surrounded her, and saw themselves in playback mode: captured, happy, smiling.

This final image from the last phase of elections in the last, fading hour of voting kept playing on my mind like an unforgettable movie scene. Each one of them, I thought, would take the videos home miles away in some state of India, and show it to their children, mother, father, husband, fiancée, lover. They would take our home to their homes. These videos would become part of their family videos perhaps, I thought as the scene faded out of my sight to play on my mind latter. And the videos would show a different Kashmir—different from those shots in that if-there- is-paradise-on-earth Kashmir paraded on those ‘Incredible India’ ads on TV.

That Kashmir is of innumerable troopers, of desolate streets, of armoured military vehicles, and innumerable checkpoints; of sandbag bunkers with guns pointing out, and troopers, inside, outside. And one can imagine the sub-titles of those videos shot in Kashmir: We came to Kashmir, in armored vehicles. We came with guns. We made bunkers. We stopped them on the streets, searched their bodies, and asked for their identity cards. And we filmed it all, kept a record, for you. Of course we did all this for their security. You must be wondering: what else we did in—and to—Kashmir? Simple: We captured it for you.

A long, long drive to hospital, in curfew

My phone rings, around 3pm, on August 26th. “Your uncle had a heart attack. Come to SKIMS, Soura. He is in the emergency intensive cardiac care unit”, a voice hurriedly informs in a worrying tone. My first thought: I have to reach SKIMS, Soura as early as possible, somehow. And I have to tell this news to my parents in a calm, matured manner—and tell them that he is out of danger now although I know he isn’t. It’s a lie, I know that. But sometimes a lie is needed to convey a painful truth, especially when it is about your loved ones.
There is a problem: We can’t move out of our home. It is the third consecutive day of curfew. A strict curfew has been imposed in the entire valley to prevent people from coming out of their homes. Following many successful freedom marches wherein lakhs of people participated, the pro-freedom leaders had given a Lal Chwok chalo call. On 24th August people from all across the valley were expected to march to Lal Chowk. But the government came up with an antidote: A strict, indefinite curfew was imposed in the entire valley on 24th August to prevent people from marching towards Lal Chowk. From the morning, shoot at sight orders were in place in Srinagar. We come to know about it from Delhi based Indian news channels (the anchor said it so briefly, in a cold, casual manner). All local channels had been banned in the valley. And the local papers couldn’t be published.
A curfew is different from a hartal. Moving out this time means: the soldier on the street will shout at first, then threaten with his bamboo stick, and finally—if you still keep moving, unheeded to his repeated shouts—bullets will come your way. But then, we had to move out anyhow, and try to reach the hospital. When a loved one is struggling for his life in the hospital, you can’t stay at home. Even when there is curfew outside.

I leaf out a white page from an old, abandoned drawing book. EMERGENCY, I write in capital letters with a black sketch pen, and paste it on the front window of the car. This should help us with the soldiers outside, I tell myself. Outside, as we slowly, hesitantly drive our vehicle out on the road, an unmistakable curfew-silence rules the air. It’s palpable. One can hear the faintest of the noises in the air. A curfew silences the noise of everyday life on the streets, and instead, amplifies the silence, manifold. Except occasional army vehicles swiftly driving past us, the noise of our vehicle is the only thing breaking the enforced-silence of the curfew outside. My parents, accompanying me, are worried—about things ahead, and for the uncle in the hospital. And there is another cause of worry playing on our minds. We don’t have a curfew pass. And we know that can be fatal when you are moving out in a curfew. We know we will be asked for it by the gun wielding, bamboo stick holding soldiers patrolling everywhere on the streets. And that means, on our way to hospital, we will invite trouble in many forms: angry soldiers, shouts, threatening whistles, pointed guns, and, finally, bullets. A curfew-pass, my father tells me while we slowly drive on the deserted road, functions like an identity card during curfew. In fact a curfew pass is the identity card in curfew. If you don’t have it, you simply can’t move out; you better stay at home. But then we knew this, too: we had to move out this time even without a curfew pass- for my uncle who is in the hospital.
After driving a kilometer, near Sanat Nagar, some tense soldiers suddenly come in the middle of the road from the pavement where they were sitting till now. They come up to stop us, raising their bamboo sticks in the air, tightly holding on to their guns.
“Hay….kahan jana hai… curfew pass dikhav” (where are you going. Show us the curfew pass), shouts one of the soldier.
Hospital, I say, thinking on hearing this word they will let us go.
“Koan hai hospital main, patient kahan hai..”(Who’s in the hospital, where is the patient). The soldier searches for the patient in the car. But the patient is in the hospital.
“Patient hospital main hai.” The patient is in the hospital, I say
“Curfew pass kahan hai”. Where is your curfew pass, he again asks the question we dread the most.
Nahi hai..,(we don’t have it) I say the truth, emergency hai.
“Police station say lain gay. Wahan tak janay deejyay”. We will get it form the police station down the road. Allow us to reach there, I say.
Despite all my explanations, and despite answering all of their questions, the soldiers are unrelenting, unmoved.
Yeh kis nay izazat diya (who allowed you to paste this), says one of the soldier, pointing to the EMERGENCY paper pasted on the front window of the car.
“Emergency hai, I explained, wahe likha hai (that’s what is written on it)
Kud kaisay lagaya, kis nay ijazaat diya…han …(why did you write it yourself. Who gave you the permission…) His tone is increasingly becoming threatening. Seeing his anger rise, I keep quiet. Though, at that moment—for not allowing us to moving ahead despite all our explanations—I also felt anger rise inside me. But then, my anger was pointless: I couldn’t afford to show it. And unlike me, the soldier, besides his anger, had the gun. And I didn’t even have the curfew pass!
Without saying anything, the soldier turns his back towards our vehicle—the barricade intact, the soldiers unmoved to our repeated pleas.
“Wapas jav--go back, he orders from a distance. And then he looks the other way as if we are not there. But we stay there. We are silent. We can’t go back. We have to reach the hospital.
My mother pleads now, then my father—in front of the soldiers who are refusing to listen. I don’t want them to plead before these soldiers. Raham karo, hospital mae beemaar hai…( have mercy, our patient is serious in the hospital), my mother pleads. After repeated pleas of my parents, one of the soldiers, finally, tells his colleagues to let us go.
Janay do…let then go, he tells his fellow soldiers. lakin yahan say wapas nahi ana. But don’t come back from this side, he tells us.
We move on, thankful to this momentary sympathy of an occasionally sympathetic soldier on a curfewed day.
After covering some two kilometers, again, we are stopped. The same questions from the soldiers; the same answers from our side. And the same unconcerned, unmoved soldiers. And then, in the middle of all this uncertainty, a bearded Kashmir policeman appears from nowhere on the scene, and listens to us.
He lets us move ahead, somehow prevailing on the soldiers around. The soldiers don’t like his intervention. We like it very much.
The policeman tells us in Kashmiri that he is not sure if they will allow us to go beyond Rambagh. But you can try, he says. We drive on; we have no other choice.
We stop near Barzullah, to see if we can get a curfew pass from the police station. Inside, three police officers, sitting in a dimly lit room of the police station, are attending tense calls from the policemen out on the streets. They also answer frequent calls of their higher officers. We wait for them to take notice of us. They are not authorized to give us a curfew pass, a police officer informs us on asking. Only DC’s office can issue it, he says. That is a long distance away from here, we think, and on the way there are far too many soldiers, far too many barricades to stop us from reaching the hospital. To be on the safer side, we request them to give us some authority slip with a police station stamp. They write something on a piece of paper, put a police station stamp, and hand it over to us. But they are not sure if it will help us with the soldiers outside; neither are we.
You can take it but it doesn’t work with the soldiers down the road, a policeman frankly says. One police officer rues the fact that CRPF on the roads outside is not even listening to them, although they should, he says. They are supposed to follow and work under our rules but you see in Kashmir things are different, he says in helplessness. “I had an argument with the CRPF officer on the use of force by his men yesterday in Rambagh,” he further informs. “The area comes under our jurisdiction but they are terrorizing and beating up people at will,” he adds as we come out of the police station on the deserted road.
‘Don’t worry, we have something now, this should help us’, my father tells me while we drive away from the police station, towards Rambagh. And as we near the Rambagh bridge, again—as one policeman had earlier said—we are stopped. The same questions follow by a different set of soldiers. And as we feared, they dismiss the police station slip we were carrying. Nearby, an CRPF officer looks on disdainfully. One of the soldiers takes away the police station slip from us, and walks up to this CRPF officer to show him the slip. To our surprise, without moving from his position and after closely scrutinizing it, the CRPF officer tells his men to let us go. And then the same expected warning follows: don’t come back from this side, the officer shouts from a distance. Yes sir, I say and we drive on, relieved.
Finally, we reach the DC’s office to get that life saving piece of paper: a curfew pass. After waiting anxiously for a while in a long queue, we get it—a white paper; an official curfew pass. VALID FOR CURFEW PERIOD” is printed on it in black capital letters. The possession of curfew pass felt as if a life saving drug was handled over to us.
We drive on from the DCs office, towards SKIMS, Soura. We are stopped at many places, asked for the curfew pass, and we confidently show it to them from the window of the car. They would let us move ahead after closely scrutinizing it for a while.

Near Eidgah, we had to stop our vehicle. Something has happened down the road. There is tension in the air. Some noises come out from the houses nearby. The soldiers, carrying bamboo sticks in their hands, are all angry, all worked up, shouting. Some distance away, we can see a load carrier driver and a boy surrounded by the soldiers. They are shouting at him; he is showing them some paper. With a paper in one hand, the man is pleading before them to let him go. The soldiers ask him to come out of the load carrier. And then, without listening to any of his explanations, they start beating him with their long bamboo sticks. We are watching this from a distance, from inside our car. Alternately, every soldier hits one blow, on his legs, without respite. And every time a blow comes down on his legs, he bends a little, and tries to receive the blows on his hands. But the blows still come down on his legs. He winces in pain. He pleads. I could hear the sound of every blow—that sound when the wood strikes the human flesh and bone—as it came down on the legs of this middle aged man. He kept pleading before the soldiers, and showing them that piece of paper. But the blows kept coming.
The young boy accompanying him—probably his son—stood still and kept watching this spectacle from near the load carrier. He was silent, shocked, terrified. But he did not cry. Tears formed in his eyes but did not fall. He kept staring at the soldiers who were beating his father. How does it feel like seeing your father getting beaten in front of you? And how does it feel like when you can’t do anything about it, I asked myself. Safe, and from a distance, perhaps I could only imagine how it feels like. But the boy knows it. He saw it. It happened before his eyes. The boy kept looking at his humiliated, bruised father with disbelief. Suddenly a woman raised her voice a bit; she was watching this beating from the window of her house nearby. The soldiers got angry on this, and hurled some unmentionable abuses in the direction of that house. I will come to your home and break your bones if you don’t keep quiet, threatened one of the soldier, raising his bamboo stick towards that window.
After the beating, and after some abuses when the load carrier driver was finally let off by the soldiers, he ran to his vehicle, limping. He was struggling to start his load carrier. The terrified boy came out of the driver’s seat to enable his father to kick start it. The soldiers got angry on this and shouted at the boy, pushing him around, asking him to run away. The boy shouted back this time, “don’t you see he can’t start the vehicle”. And when his father was finally able to start the load carrier, I could see the boy, shocked out of his innocence, kept looking at his father. His father was silent though. He did not look at his son. They just drove away.
Now it was our turn.
The same soldiers came up to our vehicle and asked for the curfew pass. I had kept it ready in my hand, unfolded. I hand it over to them all the while fearing that they will ask us to come out of the vehicle now. But they closely looked at the curfew pass, one by one, searched our vehicle suspiciously, and then we were allowed to move ahead. I thought the load carrier driver who was beaten up, instead of a compulsory curfew pass, was showing the soldiers some other paper or a police slip. But that doesn’t work in curfew. But does that explain the beating?
Finally, after a long drive—It seemed a long, long drive—we reached SKIMS. Ahead of my parents, I rushed to the intensive cardiac care unit where my uncle—amidst a mesh of wires and life saving machines attached to his body—lay pale and weak on the bed, breathing with an oxygen mask. Some young doctors were constantly monitoring his condition. My mother placed a hand on his forehead; my father stood nearby. I took a young doctor aside, and asked him: how is his condition now? Is he out of danger? He smiled, and said: “you should thank god, your uncle is lucky to have reached hospital in time. Many such patients died on the way to hospital. Because of curfew, they couldn’t reach the hospital on time.”
I thanked the doctors, sat near my uncle, and looking at the even crests and troughs signifying normal heartbeat on the ECG monitor, I said a silent prayer.

Death of a young man

By Majid Maqbool

Twenty five year old Imtiyaz Ahmad, resident of Bemina Srinagar, left home at eight on that Saturday morning of July, and joined people outside protesting against the transfer of 800 Kanals of land by the government to the SASB. It was the third day of the 9 day long protests in the valley against the land transfer deal. On Friday, Imtiyaz had returned home, late. That day he was part of the defiant crowd that hoisted the green flag at the top of Gantaghar in Lal Chowk. At home, on that Friday evening, Imtiyaz was advised by his worried family: stay quiet now, and be at home from tomorrow. Don’t worry, I will be at home now, Imtiyaz had promised that to his family. But, on Saturday morning, he broke his overnight promise. Quietly, Imtiyaz left home, without informing any of his family members. At 11:30am Imtiyaz is shot at while protesting some kilometers away from his home. He receives two bullets in his lower abdomen, two kilometrers away from his home—in Chaene Muhalla area near Bemina crossing. At 12 am, the family is told: Imtiyaz has received bullets. And before Imtiyaz was taken to the hospital, he had bled profusely on the spot, left unattended for almost twenty minutes. Latter, after struggling for 6 hours in the operation theater, Imtiyaz breathed his last.
10 days after the 9 day uprising that shook the entire valley, I visit Imtiyaz’s home situated in Boatman colony near Bemina bye-pass. As I enquire about Imtiyaz’s home in the colony, people come up to me, and ask: “are you looking for that shaheed Imtiyaz’s home?” yes, I say. And then I am guided, by a chain of helpful people, to the turn of an alley where Imtiyaz’s one storey house lies first in a row of small houses. The home is at one corner, on one nondescript turn of the inner, dusty lanes of this bustling colony. It’s a small, one story house. It does not stand out from the rest of the similar looking houses crowing for space in this small lane. But, for the neighbors, Imtiyaz’s home is a different house now. It has acquired a different meaning: Imtiyaz no longer lives there.
I knock at their freshly-painted black gate, and wait for the response from the other side. It seems two young girls (Imtiyaz’s two sisters) are washing the pathway from the other side of the gate. I can hear the sweep of the brooms in their hands, the sister’s constant chatter, and water swashing and reaching to my feet outside the gate.
Is this Imtiyaz’s home? I ask, as if Imtiyaz will himself come out to meet me. I should have put shaheed before Imtiyaz, I tell myself. Suddenly, the sweeping and cleaning commotion comes to a halt on the other side of the gate. Imtiyaz’s sisters immediately readjust their scarves as they prepare to see who has come knocking on their door. One of the young girl—Imtiyaz’s younger sister—walks up to open the gate. Hesitantly, I tell her if I can come in. I am journalist and want to know more about Imtiyaz, I explain politely. She looks at her elder sister for approval. She nods. And then I am let in, and directed towards a small guest-room just kept open for me. It’s a humid summer morning of July, and it feels more humid inside this small room. The room has only two windows kept open, completely. It is lit with bright morning light directly coming in from the two opened windows. At one corner of the old wooden ceiling, a sparrow nest lies uninterrupted. May be they have kept the windows open to allow free passage of sparrows, I tell myself. Freedom is everything for the birds. And just then, a sparrow swiftly comes in from the window and disappears in the nest above, in one corner of the wooden ceiling.
As I sit in the room, Imtiyaz’z elder sister politely informs me that their father is not at home; and I will only be able to talk to their mother. After a while, Imtiyaz’s mother quietly steps in the room, looking distraught. She wears a look of perpetual grief. Her moist, grief stricken eyes constantly hover around as if searching for something very important she has just lost. She sits in one corner of the room, as if not wanting to talk to me; only to mourn, to herself. Unable to think of a question, I wait for her to speak. But she keeps quiet, only mumbling some incoherent lamentations in Kashmiri, mostly to herself, mostly about her son. Raising her tone of grief a bit, she curses the policeman and CRPF personnel who opened fire at her son that day. Sudden flashes of anger mix with her grief when she laments, raising both her hands, “May he die of bullets too, for killing my Imtiyaz. May he meet the same fate…” Here, her daughters interrupt, and bring her hands down, forcefully. “Don’t say this muaji; don’t curse them. Allah will ask them; they will be answerable for killing our Imtiyaz,” the sisters tell her, tears rushing into their eyes.
Unable to start a conversation, I ask for a glass of water to feel comfortable. Imtiyaz’s elder sister brings a glass of juice instead. But I would have still liked water. I take a sip from a glass-full of juice while Imtiyaz’s mother mourns some more to herself. She is inconsolable now; her mourning again lapses into incoherence mumbles as I take some more sips from the glass. The juice tastes like water.
I think of one question at last, hoping that this will make them to narrate the whole story:
How did it all happen? I finally ask.
Again, Imtiyaz’s mother doesn’t talk. But Imtiyaz’s elder sister, who is sitting close to her mother by now, begins talking. Her voice rings with fresh, youthful pain as she talks about her brother. It’s the pain of a young sister who knows what it means to lose an elder brother—the only breadwinner of their family. Their only source of income, she laments, was snatched from their family. (Imtiyaz was a driver)
Then, she puts before me some questions, whose answers, she says, they haven’t received yet. Without pausing, she asks:
“What was our fault? What was imtiyaz’s fault? Was he a terrorist who merited killing like this—on the roadside? Why was he shot at twice? Didn’t they think what they are doing before shooting him? What will we do now? How will we survive? And who will marry us off…who will bring back our brother…?”
For all their questions, I don’t have any answers. So I keep quiet. I listen.
The family has received some financial assistance, they inform me on asking. JKLF honored all the martyrs of the 9 day uprising by awarding the family a cash award of Rs 50,000. However money, for the family, is of no significance. Money, Imtiyaz’s sisters tell me, can’t replace a mother’s son, and their brother. We will return all the money and give more, the sisters say, breaking down, “if only they can bring back our Imtiyaz.” Money can bring some bread for the family, the sisters say, but can not bring back their only breadwinner —their brother, their Imtiyaz. “We don’t want any relief. We don’t want any money,” the sisters say in anger. “We only want to know why was our Imtiyaz killed.”
While Imtiyaz’s elder sister recalls her brother from her fresh memory, Imtiyaz’s younger sister also narrates some incidents of that day. She sits close to her elder sister, and begins talking just when her elder sister pauses. She connects the events of that day for me, occasionally contradicting her elder sister- to get the facts right. And in between, while she recounts her brother, tears fall from her eyes, too. And she also tells her mother—who continues to mourn silently in the corner of the room—not to weep. And Imtiyaz’s elder sister consoles both of them. Days of weeping has abnormally swollen their eyes.
Imtiyaz’s younger sister can’t stop thinking about her brother—and the way he was killed, on the roadside. “First he was fired at twice in Chenemuhalla area, and then thrown to the shoae (stinging nettle ) on the roadside”, she recounts. “For almost twenty minutes he was losing blood there, and no one came to his rescue. It was only when he raised his hands continuously that a nearby person saw him from the window of his home. And then he was taken to the hospital where he died 6 hours latter”
My brother was not a terrorist, Imtiyaz’s elder sister says, wiping her tears with one end of her scarf. “He had no gun in his hand. When he did not fire at the police and CRPF, why was he shot at?” She again asks after a brief pause, “We want to know—we want to know why was our Imtiyaz shot at. Why?”
Imtiyaz’s sisters also question the role of police that day: “When police had clear orders not to fire at the protesters that day, why did they fire at our brother?” He was the only one among the protesters who was fired at that day, the sisters further add. “And there has been no investigation into the murder of our brother till now.”
Their questions—and their grief—is unbearable and disturbing at times. I don’t want them to recount more of that day for me. It’s enough, I tell myself as I prepare to leave. I have no answers for all their unanswered questions. My being there—and asking more about Imtiyaz—only brings out more tears from their eyes as they remember him in grief. While I come out of the room, Imtiyaz’s mother and his two sisters stay there in the room. They are all weeping now. And as I leave them behind, I feel guilty of making them weep. I hear their sobs fading out as I step out of the gate.
My next destination: the place where Imtiyaz was shot at- chanemuhalla. After a brief, ten minute humid bus ride, I reach chanemuhalla area near Bemina crossing. From the nearby people I enquire about the exact place where Imtiyaz fell to bullets that day. A passerby points at a nearby shop. That shopkeeper was witness to the whole incident, he says. He will tell you everything about that day, he says before moving on.
The shopkeeper - a young man in his early twenties - wears a cheerful demeanor and has a ready smile on his lips. On enquiring about Imtiyaz and the spot where he lay in blood after being shot at that day, his smile disappears as he points his finger to a green spot some distance away from his shop, adjacent to a playing field. I ask him if he can accompany me to that spot. He agrees, and we slowly walk towards that direction. As we near it, he points to a specific area on one edge of the sports field, on the other side of a narrow drain, close to the barbed wire separating the field from the roadside. Here, he says, Imtiyaz was shot at, and lay in a pool of blood for almost twenty minutes that day. “It was only when he raised his hand repeatedly that someone saw him”, the shopkeeper says. “And then he was taken to the hospital, but it was too late by then.”
I ask the young shopkeeper: Who fired at Imtiyaz? They fired at him, he pauses before replying, “The CRPF and the Police. They fired two shots and Imtiyaz fell down…”
Meanwhile, a customer has come to his shop. He has to rush back to his shop, he says. He takes my leave. I thank him for accompanying me. And I stay there for a while, gazing that spot where Imtiyaz bled that day, and latter died. The small grassless patch—where Imtiyaz lay unattended for twenty minutes, in blood—stands out from the rest of the greener backdrop. This small patch evokes a strange feeling of human presence—and absence—in me. It is palpable. And I can feel it. As if it is saying—‘something happened here that day. Someone bled here; someone was killed here’
Beyond this patch, at the far end of the adjacent sports field, some kids are playing cricket. Suddenly, their noise grows louder and catches my attention for a while. A wicket has fallen. They are all celebrating, hugging each other. And as I leave the place, their happy noises fade out as Imtiyaz’s death comes back to haunt me.

Memories—of a football match

It is a hot Sunday afternoon of June 2. I am in Lal Chowk, sifting sports pages of Sunday newspapers for the IPL news. Latter today is the final match—between Rajasthan royals and Chennai super kings. A friend comes along, says there is an exciting football match going on in the polo ground. Let’s go see it, he says. Not that interested in football, I bring myself, reluctantly—to watch this pre-quarterfinal football match in progress between Delhi and J&K, in polo ground. For the first time, I will watch a live match, and be part of the home crowd. We are slowly walking towards the ground. And as we near it, a wave of noise, coming out from the ground, hits us. Thousands of people are inside the ground; thousands wanting to get in. Young and old, finding the entrance blocked, jump into the ground from all sides. Unable to control the crowd flow, the police give up, and look on as the crowd pours into the ground from all sides.
The game has already begun some twenty minutes before. Although J&K is leading 2-0, no one has left the ground. I have never seen such a huge crowd, never before been part of one, that too for a football match, that too in Kashmir. It seemed as if the entire city had come to watch this particular match. The stands are all packed, every inch occupied. People are sitting, standing—some on ground, some trying to sit, some barely able to stand, but all watching the action, and all eyes focused on the players. It is a hot afternoon, people are sweating but nobody is complaining. All eyes are set on the drama unfolding in the field.
Making our way through hundreds of people, I along with my friend spot an unlikely empty space. Surprised, we grab it before someone else does. It can accommodate one person but two of us somehow fit in. After a bit of shoving and pushing, we adjust ourselves, and get a view of the game in progress. We only manage to stand though, feeling the pressure of people behind us. People behind us sitting on the stands ask us to sit down or bend as we are blocking their view. But there is no space to sit. So we bend and come on our knees. It feels uncomfortable, but soon, as the match gathers momentum, we forget our discomfort. Delhi team is in red jersey; J&K in white, the younger next to me, without looking at me, informs me in a hurried tone.

Scanning the players of J&K team, I spot a player running in the field who looks familiar to me: handsome, well built, muscular with long, free flowing hair. When he runs close to our side of the stand, I immediately recognize him. Yes, he is that handsome sporty boy of my childhood days, I tell myself. He was not good at studies, I remember, but very good at sports. He was famous in our locality for his sporting skills. But the entire neighborhood thought he is wasting his time in sports. But he had other ideas in mind, and continued playing. I remember the advice of the elderly of my neighborhood: “Don’t be like him”, they would tell me. “He only plays whole day.” You study, they would often advise me. But today that boy has become a professional footballer. Today that boy is part of J&K football team playing in front of me. Today I am proud of him. Today he represents me in the field. Today I want to clap for him. Today—I want to be like him.

Out of the many noises and many names I could make out of the crowd, one stands out—Ishfaq! Ishfaq! A child sitting next to his father knows this player plays well, and claps for him. “Ishfaq! shabash Isfaq!”, he is urging him to score another goal. This kid has found his own sporting hero today. He is not Sachin. He is not Afridi. He is not on TV. He is in front of him. He is Ishfaq, the local boy. He has already scored one goal, in the third minute of the first half. I look out for him, and from the many players in white, I spot him busy, running, engrossed in his game. For me, from the stands—he is that number at the back of his white jersey.
The crowd is restless. The crowd noise grows from applause, to hoots and boos—and to occasional local banter, especially reserved for the Delhi players. A group of people from the stands have different nicknames for the Delhi players. They sound funny in Kashmiri. Some of us laugh on this. Someone from the stands comes up with a funny name for one of the tall Delhi player who is playing well, much to his displeasure—chota khali! Hey, chota khali!, come he shouts from the stand, repeatedly, for that player to hear. Everyone laughs on this except the players. And whenever any Delhi player comes close to the edge of the field, close to the crowd—first, boos come from the crowd, then those nicknames in Kashmiri, and then—the crowd breaks into laughter. The Delhi players seem to ignore all the noises meant for them from the crowd. Instead, they put on a serious look, and try concentrating on the game. The crowd cracks jokes in Kashmiri for the Delhi players. The crowd knows that they won’t understand any of them. The Delhi players don’t understand that the joke is on them. And this evokes more laughter from the crowd.
In contrast, every move of J&K players triggers waves of applause from the crowd. Every successful pass is clapped, every player cheered on. Whenever Delhi players bring the ball near the J&K goalpost, a sudden hush descends on the stands. But as soon as the J&K goalkeeper saves the goal, the silence is broken, the home crowd stands up, and claps, in unison. The whole atmosphere comes alive. Also, every fault from any of the home player only evokes angry shouts, at times even abuse from the home crowd, for the home players. If a J&K player falls down during the play, someone shouts in Kashmiri, “aeam ha loganay daamb…” And as soon as he gets up quickly, the crowd cheers him again. “Aaj delhi ko harana hai,” one man shouts from the stands behind me. The crowd is very particular about winning against Delhi. It is a question of prestige for the home crowd. It’s palpable. I can feel it: we must win; they must lose, at any cost. George Orwell wrote in his 1945 essay, The Sporting Spirit, wrote, “It is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this.”
In the middle of second half, Ishfaq, by now very popular in the crowd, is forwarded a brilliant pass by his teammate. He catches Delhi defense by surprise, and gracefully kicks the ball straight into the goalpost. Its goal! The crowd erupts. Arms up, Ishfaq runs to hug his teammates. People shout, clap and make all sorts of noises from the stands. The lead is now 3-0. I look behind and see a jubilant crowd drowned in celebration. But he crowd wants more goals. They want an emphatic victory for their home team; and an emphatic defeat for the rival team. So they make more noise. More applause for home players; more boos for the rival team. And after some time, the home crowd is obliged. Another goal is scored by the home team. This time the crowd goes mad, and happy loud noise crescendos as the game nears the end. J&K leads by 4-0. Delhi defeat is just moments away. After some minutes, the referee blows his final whistle. Home team wins, in front of jubilant home crowd. J&K creates history, qualifies for the quarterfinal of the Santosh Trophy after 22 years. The team does a victory lap, acknowledging the tremendous support of the home crowd. In return, the crowd gives a standing ovation. And for me Ishfaq, from now on, is more than just that number on his back. He is my hero, too.

Firecrackers burst at the far end of the ground. The resulting smoke hangs in the air. The ground presents some sort of a battle scene. Outside the ground some security personnel and a few Delhi supporters are engaged in conversation. We know what it is about. Disappointed, they are talking about what went wrong, why they lost. We observe this for a while but move on, feeling victorious. We have won, they have lost. The feeling sinks in. Walking out from the ground, thinking about the crowd, I felt it was more than just a game between two teams. And suddenly my friend, overwhelmed by the sight of this huge crowd, instinctively remarks, “We are a sports loving nation”. Nation—I repeat this word to myself, and keep walking. Today, Kashmir won against Delhi. That does not happen everyday. But that happened today, in polo ground.