Saif Ali: Untold stories in Kashmir, behind mainstream media
Written by: Saif Ali Budgami
Previously we looked at Kashmir, behind mainstream media, up until August 21. You previously read that everything was closed since August 5. We will now look at the economic loss and the lives of the people especially the unemployed people who are dependent on the daily labor wages like masons, carpenters, stock labors and other workers. Who used to come from for flung and distant villages to Srinagar the capital city of Kashmir to work, were all wandering hither and thither.
They could manage few days or weeks on the earned amount but the sudden state lockdown didn’t allow them to collect the earned amount as well. On August 27, I went on to see my paddy fields in the outskirts of my village, where I saw a few people sitting under a walnut tree. As all the trio I knew used to work in Srinagar. I interrupted while asking them the reason they sat there. The mason of the group replied with a disheartened sigh.
“Strikes have destroyed us in every sphere of life, we were joyfully earning our livelihood in Srinagar but we have been sitting idle since last twenty days. And while sitting at homes before our wives is more dangerous torture than Narendra Modi’s”
They started narrating the stories before August 5 of their workplaces. Each would stop the other with his own sufferings. The one who works with the mason as labor added.
“Listen brother you know my condition very well, I married last year and we separated from my parents, and they gave me not even small utensils for cooking food or making tea. I had to buy everything new. Which lead me to huge debts. Thus I don’t stay at home in fear of creditors, who would demand the debt.”
This is not end of the story. Such episodes could have been recorded in thousands of places but the valley had already been digitally, geographically and constitutionally cut. The stories that were to be jotted down, were discarded due to unavailability of internet and telecommunication. Which ultimately agitated the Kashmiri people living outside state and country. Many protests took place outside country like in UK, USA, Germany, Iran and Pakistan. That could neither affect the seating authorities in Delhi or the people of Kashmir under siege. Yet, the continuous demonstrations didn’t go unanswered.
As the sudden strand was internationally criticized, a group of foreign diplomats were brought to India from fifteen nations on an official visit to Kashmir. They included diplomats from the US, South Korea, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Maldives, Norway and other countries. The diplomats of the European Union did not wish to visit at India's request. They instead stressed on meeting the detained political leaders on another date.
That lately feared the threat to national policy of India. When the same news was aired to the ears of the people. Many would run their statement and happily burst on long discussions that senior international diplomats from many countries sent by United Nations are coming to resolve the Kashmir issue. They would do this by holding a plebiscite in the valley as promised by the former Prime Minister of India PT Jawahir Lal Nehru. The people who have nothing to deal with TVs and radio would melt in joy and happiness to listen such discussions favoring their side.
As the valley being under total shutdown, the diplomat body stepped in the valley. The reports from Indian mainstream media showed them being prestigiously welcomed by the people. But people of the valley still are unaware about the visit of the international diplomats, whom they met and who welcomed them.
Although the episode of scraping of Article 35A from the Indian constitution was the most tragic part for the Kashmir history. Yet such expected reaction couldn’t be seen as of some preliminary reasons and realities. As BJP (Bhartiya Janta Party) the present ruling party in India had already cleared their manifesto on the article that was called the backbone of Kashmir before fifty years. They had decades before pledged to scrap the this 35A article from the Indian constitution. The party did deeply know that at the time of the harm of the article, all mainstream political leaders, separatist leaders and all prolific figures will be standing together against this article. Thus, all of them were already detained. Which deeply was the concern for all. This left the people leaderless and unheard.
BJP received harsh backlash from other parties, some writers, journalists and public figures for arresting and detaining the new political face of the valley. They targeted Dr Shah Faesal, who had topped the toughest civil services examination IAS (Indian Administrative Services) all over India in 2010, and had resigned from the post to protest with the sufferers and unheard voices of the people of Kashmir in the perspective of Indian constitution for which he had created his own political party with the name People's Movement before August 5.
There is no doubt that people’s concern was for the first heard outside the state, but this reason adds to its first cause after they saw other mainstream political leaders arrested by the ruling party. That with political icon who used to be role model for every aspirant in India.
Since all these episodes were new to the outsiders, they don’t seem to affect the common class of the people, it made a change for outsiders and foreigners. At the every juncture common people had be shoulder all the pains and sufferings. Most of the common people did enjoy the detention of the mainstream political leaders, for calling it as the punishment for the dynasty rules as of the state power was limited to the two families like the Abdullah family and Mufti family.
Moving forward to the ground, I had to visit district hospital Budgam a central district of Kashmir valley to consult a doctor on 24 October 2019 accompanied by my mother. The hospital is five kilometers distant from my village. We had to walk all the five kilometers on foot. And near the hospital we met a boy having his very old aged mother with. Who both seemed very hectic and anxious. My mother started to enquire the women and she started her story with the tears rolling down her cheeks. I angrily asked my mother the cause. On the opposite the old women started her narration.
“listen my dear son, my husband had died four years after our marriage. I had given birth to two boys, one is this and another my beloved is studying outside. And I haven’t talked to him since last two months. And I heard yesterday that, we can talk at DC Office Budgam, thus I couldn’t to talk my son”
Are such stories entirely expressing the happenings behind the curtains. Obviously, the old lady didn’t know her story could be jotted down. She would know there were thousands of such mothers who had to walk miles to listen to the voices of their beloved ones made to make outside the state.
Hence such stories continued, from old to young, from students to scholars businessmen to laborers, from wanders to drivers, these stories have been unable to be heard. If the internet worked all such stories would have adorned world libraries, from social media to blogs and from newspapers to portals. The moment you are reading this, is the moment that completes the nine months ban on high speed internet data in the Kashmir valley. Hope to see you in the next part.
More Articles