Curfew in Kashmir

     Fertile are the plains of Kashmir. Fertile are the sightings of blood and massacre in the memories of its people. Almost as fertile as ‘official reports’ that attribute all the violence in the past 18 years of military occupancy by the  Indian Army and Paramilitary forces to incidental causes, while Kashmiris all around are bursting into protests against their armed ‘protectors’.  

      Tear gas, tankers and gunshots define life and culture amidst the scenic backdrop of Kashmir’s natural beauty. With curfew or Hartal raging 70 % of the time, daily activity is often ground to a halt, still as a statue in this museum of ‘democratic’ military occupancy.  If life is still significant in these parts, it must be only in the imagination of its innocents, for there is no clear record of deaths in Kashmir with official figures for the past 20 years oscillating in a loose swing between 80,000 to 2 lakh civilian population.

     Countless are the cases of mysterious disappearances among the people. Yet half a million armed forces from India occupy Kashmir.  In the eyes of the public, it is the authorities who are suspect. While in the past the people were passive onlookers as facts were suppressed from media view to shield the powers that be, in the recent times the great public outcry has resulted in a reversal of justice.  A landmark victory for the people came with the Shopian murder case where the gang-rape and torture of two young women saw the arrest of four policemen for destruction of vital evidence among other charges.
      
      Ideally, the only justification of a war is that it ends in peace. But the conflict between India and Pakistan over the issue of Kashmir has led not to white pigeons floating in the air but to a new war- that between the people and the Indian military over the grave stakes of freedom. While the authorities use sophisticated artillery, the civilians fight back with the only weapons they know of: stones from their native soil and impassioned cries for Azadi(freedom).

Text: Shivashakthi   

The following photographs were taken in Kashmir in june and july 2009.