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Penguin Books Ltd - Humra Quraishi

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97 pages

English

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Dispatches from a valley under siege Since 1989, Kashmir has rarely been out of the headlines, as local militants, foreign terrorists and Indian security forces battle it out in a region once known as `paradise on earth'. In all the propaganda, and news and statistics about terrorist strikes, counter insurgency operations and the foreign hand, the human stories, however, are often lost. In this book, journalist Humra Quraishi draws upon her extensive travels in the Valley and interactions with ordinary Kashmiris over two decades to try and understand what the long strife has done to them. She brings us heartrending stories of mothers waiting for their young sons who disappeared years ago, picked up by the army or by militants; minds undone by the constant uncertainty and fear and almost daily humiliation; old harmonies tragically undermined by the atmosphere of suspicion; an entire generation of young Kashmiris who have grown up with no concept of security; and individual families and a whole society falling apart under the strain of the seemingly endless turmoil

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Histoire

History of Asia

India

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Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	27 avril 2004
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184758894
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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HUMRA QURAISHI
Kashmir
The Untold Story
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR S NOTE
THE VALLEY OF FEAR
A TROUBLED HISTORY
COMMUNITIES: OLD HARMONIES, NEW DIVISIONS
DECAY
THE LOST ROMANCE
THE LOST GENERATION
SCENES FROM AN ELECTION
THE ELECTIONS AND AFTER
COPYRIGHT PAGE
PENGUIN BOOKS
KASHMIR: THE UNTOLD STORY
Humra Quraishi is a freelance reporter and columnist based in Delhi. Her features and interviews appear in the Times of India , the Hindustan Times , the Indian Express , the Statesman , Pioneer and Tribune . Since 1990 she has been visiting Jammu and Kashmir regularly to report on the turmoil there and the effect it has had on the lives of the Kashmiri people.
If you want to know how Kashmiris feel about India and the presence of the Indian Army in the Valley, you cannot do better than to read Humra Quraishi s [book] Through her pen the Kashmiris talk to us. She has done as thorough a work of honest, unbiased reporting as I have ever read on the subject.
-Khushwant Singh, Free Press Journal
Humra Quraishi s book is driven by emotion, but is never over-emotional; it is honest, more than almost any other book on the movement; it is, indeed, one of the best books on Kashmir, ever.
- Hindustan Times
Quraishi s book is at its best when it details the many humiliations and privations Kashmiris have grown to accept as their lot This is an affecting, informative book a must read.
- Today
a heartfelt narrative of the flip side of 13 years of turmoil in Kashmir Too often the stories of everyday people get hijacked by jargon-driven analyses and political rhetoric. Kashmir: The Untold Story is a valuable contribution in dragging the focus back to them.
- The Indian Express
Quraishi has assembled a spectrum of interesting opinions from her extensive travels in the Valley there are significant and sensitive insights into what has tragically befallen a peace-loving, tolerant, god-fearing society.
- Outlook
The Valley of Fear
It was a pleasant late September morning in Srinagar, in the year 2002. But the ease of the weather and the famed beauty of the landscape did not mean much any more; they hadn t for over a decade. I was returning to New Delhi with a sense of relief: the dreaded Special Task Force (STF) men had not barged into my hotel room at night, and no Kashmiri had accused me of being an agent of RAW or CIA or ISI-at least not to my face. I had been lucky.
In the coach taking us to the airport from the Tourist Reception Centre, my co-passengers were all grim-faced, a little nervous; before we could board the plane, we would be subjected to intense but often clumsy security checks at several points. Most of us knew the routine. We would be ordered to open every suitcase, and every piece of our clothing, including faded undergarments, would be patted and shoved around. As a general rule, all hand baggage is emptied out at three different places. And at each of these checkpoints there is a body search.
Till recently, it was routine in Kashmir for male cops and army men to frisk women. Mercifully that has changed, but only the previous evening the turf manager at the Royal Springs Golf Course, Nuzhat Gul Turay, was almost hysterical when she told me about the woman cop who frisked her at Srinagar s Centaur Hotel: She touched and probed like a lesbian! It was so unnerving! Didn t she think of complaining, I asked, given her important position-she was, after all, the turf manager of Farooq Abdullah s favourite golf course. Besides, her father was a prominent National Conference (NC) man from Shopian. I ve complained so many times, about so many things! But nothing happens here The least that can be done is to install metal detectors and spare us this constant humiliation.
So I didn t quite know what to expect at the first checkpoint to the airport. But the policewoman there went about her business in a brisk, businesslike, absolutely professional manner. And then just as I was about to walk on, she leaned towards me and said, What s this? This long thing here something s sticking out. In the last hijack
I m having my menstrual period, I whispered back.
Madam, chhotawala -the smaller one
Terribly heavy flow I began, but she pulled away, exclaiming, Ayyo! and let me go through hastily, as though I was about to bloody her well-creased khakis.
The elderly Kashmiri woman behind me clearly posed no such threat. The second policewoman in the enclosure did a thorough check on her. She was made to take off her spectacles, chappals and socks. Her thin grey plait was untied (she might have been smuggling out saffron bulbs in her hair, perhaps?), she was asked to pull off her long dupatta, turn around, lift her kurta At the end of it all, she looked visibly shaken-obviously a first-time traveller.
The routine was repeated a short distance ahead. By the time we reached the third and final checkpoint, right at the terminal, the old lady was completely rattled. We both walked into the makeshift enclosure together, she looking bewildered, and before either of the two security women had said anything, she undid the drawstring of her shalwar and pushed it down, then stood still, her trembling arms held away from her body. There was pin-drop silence for a few seconds, before the security women recovered and nervously lifted the shalwar back to where it ought to be. This was the only place left to be searched the old lady muttered absently in Kashmiri as she tied the string of her shalwar, so I thought
Still muttering, looking lost and a little dishevelled, she boarded the plane ahead of me.
The city itself looks lost and dishevelled. Wherever you are in Srinagar, at whatever time, just stand awhile and look around to understand what the years of militancy and security operations have done to Kashmir. During one short walk down Maulana Azad Road in 2002, I saw a whole row of men standing hunched, waiting for their turn to be body-searched before they could proceed across the road; I noticed the unfinished building of the Human Rights Commission, under construction for four years, already looking like an abandoned shell; and at the decaying MLA Hostel building, I turned around.
To get a sense of how the atmosphere of suspicion, cynicism, fear and neglect affects the residents of the city, consider how it can affect even the visitor. The well-known television personality Karan Thapar wrote as recently as November 2003 about the shock of seeing Srinagar overrun by army tanks and the very special breed of commandos we have nurtured in India specifically to put the fear of God in ordinary citizens. As you step out of the airport, Thapar wrote in his column in the Hindustan Times , you could be forgiven for thinking you ve entered a city under occupation. Tanks and armoured cars surround the perimeter. Soldiers, with their guns held threateningly, stare at you. Wild-looking commandos drive menacingly past. Ashok Upadhyay, Thapar s producer who hadn t been to Kashmir before, was stunned by the sight. The Kashmiri people must hate this, he said softly, staring all the while at the check posts with their evil-looking panels of metal spikes. I can t believe there aren t better ways of doing this
The Indian Express of 16 March 2003 carried a report about a Japanese tourist, Koichiro Takata, who tried to kill himself shortly after he landed in Srinagar. He had arrived lured by the images of paradise sold in travelogues and tourist brochures about the Valley. What he saw instead was a bunkered city with helmeted and gun-toting security personnel far outnumbering the happy people he hoped to see depressed, the 22-year-old ophthalmology student tried to commit suicide yesterday . Takata confessed that he went crazy and anxious thinking of the security surrounding him and stabbed himself several times with a pair of scissors.
I have my own small story of coming undone. I was walking along the Bund, close to the Government Arts Emporium one afternoon when I heard sudden cries, followed by gunfire. Two boys had been shot dead the previous night by the BSF in the Maisuma locality (a JKLF stronghold) and I d been told to be careful since there could be trouble during their funeral procession. I rushed into the gates leading to the emporium, along with several others. It was as if I d entered a jail. The gates were shut, people were herded together like thieves, and a large, foul-mouthed security forces officer yelled repeatedly in a Bihari accent that nobody should move out without his permission and that there d be hell to pay if any of us tried. Long after the cries outside had died down he refused to let anyone move. I tried talking to him and each time I was ordered back in the most obnoxious manner. By the third or fourth time this happened I d had enough and screamed back that I had to be out, I was a reporter. The gates were finally thrown open by one of his men; someone grabbed me by the arm and pushed me out.
Even journalists, with their press cards and official permissions, have been through much worse in Kashmir, but that day it all seemed too much to handle and I sat down by the Bund and wept. I think I was there for close to half an hour. Passers-by glanced at me and walked on, no one stopped to ask what was wrong. In Kashmir today it is best to mind your own business.
Srinagar is a city under siege. It has been under siege, every single day, for nearly a decade and a half. People outside Kashmir read or hear reports of spectacular sorrows-half a village gunned down, bus passengers blown up, young men disappearing from home and often being found as disfigured corpses days or months later-and soon reach the inevitable stage where the news barely registers before they move on to the next page, a different channel. Horror fatigue has prevented any real understanding of what ordinary Kashmiris go through on a daily basis: fear, uncertainty, humiliation.
On the roads, scooter