It is a moving, hard hitting and brutally frank report of the present- day crisis faced by the common man in the valley. No signs of normal life, no signs of and, per: haps, no reason for laughter and cheer. The hospitals lie stuffed with the wounded, depressed. homes have an ceric silence, roads have tension prevailing – hotels/ parks/halls/streets have military all around, Each mohalla has its own graveyard, not to mention the hundreds of mourners – People, if at all, Move about with solemn sad faces, children look at you with anxiety.
And to witness and to write about all this, and more, are four women who decided to visit the valley last month to see for themselves how the common man is living in the present crisis, After touring Srinagar and its outlying villages for a fortnight, May 2 to 24 these women – Ritu Dewan (Professor, Economics, University, of Bombay), Manimala (senior reporter, Nay Bharat Times), Gouri, Choudhury (activist) and Sheba Chhachhi (artist/photographer) have brought out their hard-hit-ting report (“women’s testimonies from Kashmir”) which clearly projects the plight of the common. man in Kashmir, how he lies crushed, humiliated and forgotten, in the politics of today.
And when I asked them whether they had any problem in going about freely, meeting people, travelling from village to village, Sheba Chhachhi says: “No, no problem at all, faced no problem with the people of the valley. In fact wherever we went we felt at home, no cause to fear us. The people, But, yes, we had problems with the BSF”.
In fact this report openly lashes out at the forces. I quote from the report. All hospitals are regularly raided and searched by the forces. In Lal Ded (Srinagar s matemity hospital) the forces had entered Labour moms when deliveries were actually taking place and even marched into operation theaters while operations are being con- ducted…”
They further write about actual instances they witnessed; “On our way to and from Baramullah and Kupwara districts, we were stopped several times, our car was searched and only on presenting our national press credentials, al- lowed to move on without much delay, until the night of May 4.
We entered Srinagar a little after dark, our car having had a break-down; we were stopped at a bun- kerat Mangarmal. Our driver was pulled out and asked where he was from. On hearing “Batmaloo”, the Jawan exclaimed that every man in Batmaloo was a militant and ‘Started beating up the driver with the bull of his gun, showering choicest abuses. In the meantime another soldier with a gun searched the car inside out; ordering us In and out of the Car, making us open each piece of the luggage another jawan came up with a Mash light, looked us over, leered and touched us. The terror was felt at that movement was so intense – We wondered how women in Kashmir have coped with this kind of fear for five years.
A mixture of argument, cajoling and threats of press exposure finally made them stop beating the driver. “We do not know what his fare would have been if we had not been able to intervene as outsiders.”
“The whole incident taught us that with unlimited powers given to the security forces (TADA, DATA) no questions are asked, no cause is required, no reasons given.”
These women further stress that fear of violence has completely destroyed the day-to-day life of the Kashmir people, “The young men walk in fear. Fear of being named a suspect, or militant, picked up, interrogated, tortured and killed, The women live in fear of humiliation, harassment, molestation, rape families in fear of crack downs, raids, searches. The looking of household goods, damage.
The forces can enter homes, shops, schools, hospitals at any time, without warming or restriction, The invasion of privacy is almost total, Women have their burqas removed and Dupattas snatched, In Tregam, girls cannot got the forest to collect fire wood din more, for fear of drunken BSF men….“. In fact the report goes on and on how this stress is not only affecting every section of society, particularly young children, and women. It gives detailed accounts how young boys (as young as 13 year olds are picked for interrogation and then never return home….). Particularly depressing is to read the section of the report on the people of Kunan Poshpora (Kupwara) that village where mass rape of 30 women by the armed forces took place in 1991.
“Kunan Poshpora was the only village where we encountered hostility. Why have you come? So many have come earlier, what have they done? What can you do, and what will you do? We had no answer except that we had come to show our concern, to say that we cared.
No marriage had taken place in the village in the past three years. All girls, raped and not raped, are Single, All married raped women have been designed, After Inter venation by militants and elders, two husbands did take their wives back, one on the condition that there would be no conjugal relations, the other that he live in the city away from his wife.
Sharifa mother of six children committed suicide along with another raped woman. Seven sisters who were gang raped have been left to fend for themselves nine month pregnant woman delivered a child three days after she was gang raped by eight jawans.
The child had both arms fractured, Bano delivered a 5 1/2 month-old foetus two weeks after she was raped luckily for her, the dismembered child was dead.
This group’s hospitals” report is distressing. “The staff of the government Psychiaine Hospital the formed us that the number of OPD cases had gone up from 20 to 125 a day since 1989″. In fact the number of sick IS rising at an alarming rate especially psychiatric problems Specific details are mentioned but because of space problems I cannot go into details Their in-depth report even goes into the causes why the education in the valley has been in total disarray from 1990 onwards. “A large number of school buildings were requisitioned by the military and paramilitary forces. Educational institutions, including the University of Kashmir, have been regularly raided. That is teachers, students and employees have been paraded before informers, beaten up, tortured, interrogated, arrested.
This group has gone into reasons why boys are taking to militancy. Reasons ranges right from Pakistan’s role to here are a number of instances of educated youth taking to the gun in frustration against discrimination and unemployment. As some Kashmiris say if the Government of India used the Rs 1 crore a day it spends on maintaining its military operations in Kashmir on developing Industries and providing jobs, we would not have militancy.
As Thad mentioned earlier, it is a sad depressing report, perhaps the only ray of hope is that there could be a Solution. It concludes with “every person we met talked of a political solution, However, it does not seem to be in the interest of those who had Power to actually find a solution and bring about peace. India and Pakistan continue their proxy war with Kashmir as a battleground”, says the report, released here, at a crowded press conference.
And Sheba Chhachhi adds that their task is not limited to bringing: about this report but to badge the Bap between that has come about between Kashmiri Pundits and Muslims and also to bring about an awareness among the common man in the country as to what is happening in the valley,
Courtesy : The Tribune
Article extracted from this publication >> July 29, 1994
