NOVANEWS
When I started this blog, I started it because I felt an emotional link with my brothers and sisters in Kashmir. My heritage ties me to their struggle and the land which my father grew up in has seen over 60 years of conflict and suffering since the division of India.
Before India was divided Kashmir was the biggest princely state in Britains empire in India. Kashmir was a cultural centre, a historic and beautiful valley where people from all over the world would visit just to get a taste of the pure breath taking beauty and rich culture. The tourists didn’t stop coming after the separation Kashmir’s long history of hospitality and generosity meant that people would visit the valley in huge numbers each year and spend time with local residents who happily homed the foreigners and give them a raw piece of Kashmir to return home with.
Once the separatist movement, the movement to create and independent Kashmiri state or to join Kashmir with Pakistan, began in the late 80’s and early 90’s for the residents of Kashmir life would never be the same. The war and violence they had seen during the separation of Pakistan and India and the wars over their land became a daily display of violence against them. Nobody came to Kashmir. Nobody wanted to know. The stories of checkpoints, crackdowns and curfews they had been hearing over their radios about other nations soon became a reality and they were hearing of none other than their own neighbours and friends.
The line of control which separates Indian and Pakistani Kashmir otherwise known as Jammu and Azad Kashmir has claimed the blood and lives of many Kashmiri youth over the decades it has existed. It has separated mothers from daughters and fathers from their sons. Families have been torn apart and travelling from Azad to Jammu or Jammu to Azad Kashmir is a very difficult and humiliating task. There are many parallels which can be drawn between the occupation of Palestine and the occupation of Kashmir.
Since 1989 the Indian occupation of Kashmir has not only become a reality for the outside world the brutality of the occupation has increased. Young men disappear from their homes and are later returned dead or are never heard of again. Mass unmarked graves are being found. Land mine explosions are the norm. Curfews, crackdowns and torture at the hands of the Indian army are anything but rare. Rape, raids and road attacks on civilian vehicles are more than a daily occurrence. This is life in Kashmir.
Kashmir today is a vision of hell. The valleys which once enticed visitors with their beauty now cry out to their residents in pain. The people who once taught their culture to others are afraid to say “I am Kashmiri” as this could result in an early death. Those who live in Kashmir leave their homes in fear that they may not return or if they do, there will be nothing left in the place of their family home.
Kashmir is the resistance of the youth with a stone as he faces a tank and the courage of the women who search for their children in the rubble of their destroyed homes. Kashmir is the strength of reporters who risk their lives to tell us the story of the valley. Kashmir is the silence which brings me nothing but pain.
I begun this project because I wished to give a voice to the struggle of my people because I believe that injustice an inhumanity must be targeted with resistance everywhere it shows its ugly head. I could have easily forgotten the land where my parents were born and where my father grew up. Though my family is from Azad Kashmir I identify myself with the struggle of the people from both sides of the line of control, because this artificial border and barrier has caused decades of pain to people on both sides and though there is a huge difference in situation on the two sides my brothers and sisters in Kashmir are just as human as I.
Someone told me as I set up this blog that I could not represent my parents homeland and the place my blood ties me to the way that Dahlia represents Iraq because my bond was purely emotional and I did not have a political understanding of the conflict. Today I say that I will represent the struggle of my people in Kashmir, because I have more than a responsibility to my homeland and to the oppressed, I have an obligation to ensure that their stories are heard.
A political and historical understanding of the conflict will be built from my reading materials and from what my father’s experience tells me. Knowledge comes to those who seek it and that I will in order to adequately give a voice to the forgotten struggle and bring Kashmir back to the front line of the struggle of those who stand for justice and peace.
