It is no news anymore that the bodies, homes, streets, waters, and skies in Kashmir are increasingly militarised and heavily policed. Indian laws brand the length and breadth of the territory with impunity. Breaths are counted, and steps are measured. Every inch is surveilled by new technological and traditional intelligence-gathering methods. Everything is recorded; digital platforms to CCTVs are capturing even a sigh made aloud. Nothing that does not please the Indian state is allowed.
Kashmiris have historically been censored, and now it is less discreet and getting worse. Censorship is fully institutionalised by law. Journalists and writers of critical worth, if not jailed, are refraining from public critique. Human rights activists and civil society leaders are curtailed, and many are incarcerated. Archives are disappearing; self-censorship and retractions are rampant.
Freedom of expression is just that, an expression. Silence in Kashmir is deafening. It is a new era of good old silencing.
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Resistance is another name for Kashmir. Amidst such silencing, where does it live?
Mostly alive in all hearts. Dissent is not dead but kept well-guarded. Often heard, bloody in jungles and ravines. Over centuries of subjugation, Kashmiris have grown ghost chambers in their hearts. The regular ones have the physical function of pumping blood to the body, while the phantom ones safeguard the spirit of resistance against hegemonic powers.
The question of dissent is also a question of the lifeblood of true democracy. Isn’t dissent the juice of any state that claims to be remotely democratic? Should it not be suffusing every cell? And what must be the level of desiccation in the political body for the voice of people to dry up? And which are the voices that are allowed to be heard, what is their message, and whose patronage allows them to enjoy a voice? Are they dissenting or acquiescing? ‘If you want to know who rules over you, just look for who you are not allowed to criticise.’
Many Kashmiris who speak for the deep-rooted political demand for self-determination and freedom and mitigating human rights abuses have been jailed. And if still out, they are nominally free. Who can be free in a place called one of the most beautiful open-air prisons in the world? Kashmiri opinion leaders, old and new, are always fair game for constantly being subject to the duress of being moulded to suit the Indian agenda. The Indian moulding enterprise has thrived on an industrial scale in Kashmir even before 1947.
Almost every Kashmiri must be put to the test of being contorted to fit Indian machinations; to be potentially used as a tool. And in the eyes of Kashmiris, suffer a fall from grace. Kashmiri history is littered with such figures that succumbed to India. As they say, no tall icon, living or dead, will be allowed to stay in Kashmir, but this is not to say Kashmiris have not had their fair share of loyal leaders.
And those who cannot be moulded must be labelled terrorists. And, as many will have you believe, this is not a post-2019 phenomenon. For Kashmiris, all Indian dispensations have been equally hegemonic; they only vary in the level of discretion and spectacularity. Yes, from Nehru to Modi, the line is quite straight.
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Kashmiris are the most political people on the planet. A Kashmiri barbershop could be an equivalent of the Roman Forum. Under centuries of occupation and post-1947, Kashmiris have had to resort to a politics of survival. If someone considers the quiet streets as a sign of normalcy, do they even know Kashmir?
The phantom of fear in Kashmir stands taller than the Ghanta Ghar. Rampantly changing laws that govern every facet of life, politics, demography, media, etc. are an assault on what Kashmiris have stood for.
Contrary to the analysis of the moment, Kashmiris aren’t dramatically ‘peaceful’ staging their political demise. Rather, this is tonic immobility like the possum’s—a strategic response to the extremeness of oppression. The resistance of Kashmiris runs in phases. Nothing is new in Kashmir. The quietness of the streets is not a measure of peace but a silencing. A population so quietened cannot be right for anyone.
In every era post-1947, Kashmir puts all Indian governments to the test. Foremost, it involves proving a government’s efficacy in returning Kashmir to normal or normalcy, which often means silence. The creation of ‘normal’ in Kashmir is a big enterprise for India. It is measured from minute to minute. Anything that can stand as an embodiment of the normal is also to be presented as immediate evidence to the Indian masses. As the vital signs of a patient in the ICU stand for the efficacy of the treatment, for Kashmir, the signs are to capture change from resistance to acquiescence and compliance with ‘integration’ into India.
And in spirit of the theatre of the absurd exhibits are gleaned from everywhere. Are the flowers blooming, rivers flowing, the moon rising? It means normalcy has returned to Kashmir. Are people laughing? It means they are happy with India. Are they crying? It must be the neighbours. Are the mountains standing tall and trees swaying to the wind? Well, it is all nature’s way of endorsing Indian rule.
Then there is the trope of Naya Kashmir. Post-2019, the current “right-wing” Indian dispensation lays claim to the Naya Kashmir brand of politics. This also used to be the bastion of “secular” parties that are the other side of the same coin for Kashmiris. It is a category of Kashmir-making that has been tried by anyone and everyone who has sought to rule Kashmir.
From Nehru and his coterie and collaborators in Kashmir— everyone has practised this brand of politics. Everything about the Naya Kashmir brand is old. It reeks of militarisation, political opportunism, the negation of the right to self-determination beyond colonial limitations, and driving them further into isolation.
A lot of “record number” boasts are made.
The governments change the milestones and shift the yardsticks that help to prove desired outcomes. A “record number” of tourists (that also double up as pilgrims), just as last week’s “record number” of voters. Almost all the numbers are deployed to denote Kashmir’s satisfaction with India. As if it’s the measure of normalcy that India brings into Kashmir. The efficacy of the treatment of the patient in the ICU.
Yet, there is another record-breaking thing happening in Kashmir: the sheer level of silence. Its heaviness. It’s an all-permeating presence. The noise of silence bubbles up in the obedient reportage of local newspapers that are full of praise for the Indian government. The happier the paper, the deeper it is in the death roll of the government.
Many front pages gush with the glorification of New Delhi’s unilateral ministrations. New policies and plans are curated to present that all is “normal” in Kashmir. How is it that a democratic system exists without a modicum of critique, question, or opposition? The abnormal is made normal.
How is it that any kind of opposition is stifled so effectively? In the theatre of pro-India politics, local politicians are cut to size every day. They are deployed as proxies and pawns to be pitted against each other. Their worth is measured in how far they will kowtow to the dispensation in New Delhi. Goalposts shift at whim; the rules belong to New Delhi only. Democracy is just a colonial game perfected in Westphalian quarters that is coming undone in new forms in South Asia.
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Elections in Kashmir are like selling a mirror to the blind. It is not about the mandate and democracy but the politics of democracy, its weaponisation. The noise of elections these past months has filled the daily silence. Much hyped by the Indian quarters that hail these elections as being held as a spectacular achievement and a triumph of democracy.
The elections are ironically being held for Parliament only. The one for the local assembly has been stalled again—due to the lack of adequate security cover—a justification that runs contrary to the era of peace and normalcy that has supposedly returned to Kashmir.
Even pro-India politicians are critical of the “selective space” given to a “set election drill.” It is a mere performance. The deferment of local assembly elections means that direct rule by a nominated BJP party member continues. The last local election for the assembly was held nine years ago in 2014, when an alliance with the BJP, despite mounting criticism, came to power.
After the BJP pulled support, the government was dismissed in the fall of 2018. Soon after, direct rule from Delhi began paving the way for Article 370 to be removed. A presidential decree under a military siege and communication blackout that lasted beyond the COVID shutdown ensured protests were curtailed. This was not the first time that local Kashmiri politicians who collaborated with India were weaponised.
People are increasingly scared of the BJP’s handling of Kashmir under openly anti-Muslim and anti-Islam policies. The old and still hopeful Kashmiris walking to polling stations are not endorsing Indian rule or upholding Indian democracy, but they are trying to vote for the lesser evil, which, in the long run, might not be enough.
“No one protests anymore” is a refrain both the Indian ruling dispensation and the opposition use to signal the level of the surrender of Kashmiris. This sense of conquest followed the abrogation drama as well. Indian triumphalism over Kashmir casts a long shadow in Kashmir. The removal of autonomy has left Kashmir open to brazen neoliberal plunder that goes hand in hand with native dispossession and humiliation. The phantom of fear in Kashmir stands taller than the Ghanta Ghar in the middle of the city. Rampantly changing laws that govern every facet of life, politics, demography, media, education, etc. are an assault on what Kashmiris have stood for.
For 91 years, Kashmiris have commemorated Martyrs Day on July 13. In 1931, around 24 Kashmiris were executed by the Hindu Dogra monarch Hari Singh who was viewed as a despot against whom Kashmiris were fighting as the South Asian subcontinent was fighting the British. His birthday on September 21 is now to be celebrated across the Kashmir region while Martyrs Day has been abolished from the calendar. Memoricide has always been a state policy and now it is bolder. Dignity and dissent are under constant attack as Kashmiris wake up each day to learn new ways in which their memory and resistance do not matter. Silence in face of such brutal power is louder than any form of dissent and should not be read as surrender.
(Views expressed are personal)
(This appeared in the print as 'Memoricide')
