People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” The epigraph of Basharat Peer’s Curfewed Night (2008), from James Baldwin, leads us onto the story of Kashmir, chronicled by one of its own. Growing up in the southern district of Anantnag, he was 12 years old when in December 1989 an armed group led by activist Yasin Malik kidnapped the daughter of the Union home minister.
The group wanted their jailed comrades released; the Indian government gave in after negotiations. By January 1990, the situation was spiralling out of control. Malik and his Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front found “immense popular support”. Pro-independence supporters were fired on and the Indian Army took control of the streets.
Empty chairs
Even in his “rather sleepy” village, Peer had a sense of the “alienation” most Kashmiri Muslims felt. They didn’t relate to the “symbols of Indian nationalism,” including the cricket team. The loud cheers at Javed Miandad’s last ball six against a hapless Chetan Sharma in the Sharjah Cup final in 1986 resonated all over the valley.
He recalls the night of January 19, 1990, when paramilitary forces slammed doors and pulled out young men. Curfew was imposed even during the day. Peer’s father, a government official in Srinagar, found it difficult to come home. A ride through “an enchanting landscape” became a risky, life-threatening affair. Then in class, one day, he found some chairs were empty and was told, “They have left”. The five missing students were Kashmiri Pandits who were among thousands forced out of the State after militants targeted them. His political education of a complex issue had begun in earnest.
Thin red line
Peer noticed changes in his small world: a militant was spotted with a Kalashnikov under his pheran; a teacher told them about the Indian freedom struggle and how students paid a high price; amid the death, fear and anger all around, young boys, including Peer, wanted to join militant groups. At home his grandfather confronted him with watery green eyes: “How do you think this old man can deal with your death?”
As the situation worsened, families began to move children out of Kashmir. In 1993, Peer was sent to Aligarh for further studies. Later, he went back home to write about Kashmir after stumbling into a bookshop in Delhi and seeing books from every conflict zone. Ringing in our ears is a father’s lament: “My son has crossed the border without even telling me”.
Peer weaves Kashmir’s history — the accession of this predominantly Muslim princely state ruled by a Hindu maharaja after Independence; the role of the popular leader, Sheikh Abdullah; his arrest after a falling out with Jawaharlal Nehru; what the UN endorsed (plebiscite); why Kashmir got greater autonomy, how it unravelled — in the story of a war that continues in a place where the “line of control” runs through everything.
The writer looks back at one classic each fortnight.
