Don’t Pray For Palestine

Every stranger sounds like a cop to Mudasir Gul, 32, an artist detained recently for graffiti showing solidarity to Palestine. While painting the words “We are Palestine” with the weeping face of a woman, her head draped by a Palestine flag, on the gates of a flood spill channel on the Jhelum in Srinagar, Gul had not imagined he was inviting police action. Demonstrating solidarity with Palestinian people has long been a popular political tradition in the Valley, and graffiti one of the common means. On May 14, when Israel was hitting Gaza with missiles that killed civilians, Gul thought that telling Palestinians are not alone in their pain through graffiti is the least expected from an artist like him. Now he says his first graffiti, which caused his detention, was also his last. “I won’t do graffiti again. Isn’t it illegal?” he asks and then answers himself, “Yes, it is illegal. That’s why people say it is safe to do graffiti only in the darkness of night.” He says it has become difficult to talk.

Graffiti is everywhere in Kashmir—on bridges, walls, riverbanks—always in support of ‘azadi’ (freedom), and sometimes in support of militants and Pakistan. And most have black or white paint over  them, reminders of the relentless efforts of government forces to wipe them out. Sometimes graffiti can be seen below the coats of paint.

After Gul had finished writing the words “We are Palestine” in bold white, some young people from the neighbourhood shouted pro-Palestine ­slogans until police came and dispersed them. An hour later, Gul got a call and was told a senior police officer was looking for him. “The police made me erase the graffiti using a brush and white paint,” he says. He was then taken to a police ­station. “They said the situation is different from what it was earlier, when local elders would intervene on behalf of children and police would ­listen to them,” Gul recalls. At 1 am, he was put in a jeep and asked to show everyone who were there when slogans were shouted. “Police had a video of the protest in which the boys were ­visible. They would have arrested them anyway,” he says. Seven more were picked up and kept with Gul in lockup for three days without being taken to a magistrate. On the fourth day, police handed them to their parents with a warning.

On May 15, police arrested popular religious preacher Sarjan Barkati in Shopian. In his Eid sermon, Barkati had called Palestinians “victims” and asked for an end to the killings of civilians, including children, in Gaza. He was arrested for asking people to pray for Palestine, say his kin. Until last October, Barkati had been held in prison for over four years since he was booked in 2016 under the Public Safety Act for organising anti-government rallies.

“Police is keeping a close watch on ­elements attempting to leverage the unfortunate situation in Palestine to ­disturb public peace and order in ­Kashmir,” J&K Police said in a statement justifying the arrests of over 20 people for ­protesting in support of Palestine. “All irresponsible social media comments that result in actual viole­nce and breaking of law, including Covid protocol, will attract legal action.”

By Naseer Ganai in Srinagar