It was not my intention to go to Kashmir within days after Hamas perpetrated its barbaric attack in Israel. It just happened that way. I planned months ago to travel to Srinagar to witness firsthand what the abrogation of Article 370 had done to the Valley but could not, due to a sudden flu. I managed to cancel my air ticket, but not my hotel room.
A refund was not possible, they said, but I could keep my booking in suspension till my next visit. This was easier said than done. This summer, Kashmir has enjoyed such a booming tourist season that hotels have been full. It was months before my hotel room became available.
So, I arrived in Srinagar almost exactly a week after Hamas sent its jihadis into Israel to massacre unarmed civilians and take hostage old people, women and babies. I went expecting to see the fraught atmosphere that I had seen once on a long ago visit, during the first intifada in Gaza. I remember that it inspired Kashmir’s secessionist groups to believe that it was time to intensify what they called their “freedom movement”. On the walls of the old city, slogans in big black letters appeared that said, “Indian Dogs Go Home”. And in darkened rooms in this part of Srinagar, I interviewed masked militants armed with automatic weapons.
It surprised me this time to find that not only were there no signs of protest anywhere, but I was able to drive through the old city after dark without fearing encounters with masked terrorists. Narrow streets once patrolled by armed men were filled with shoppers wandering into brightly lit shops.
Everyone I talked to in Srinagar agreed that the “security situation” has improved hugely in the past couple of years. This is not to say that the massive paramilitary presence in the city has lessened, but when I asked my young taxi driver, Muzaffar, what he felt about this, he said, “They are here to keep us safe.” This is something I never heard in the old days before Article 370, and the special privileges it guaranteed, was rescinded by Parliament on August 5, 2019.
On my wanderings in Srinagar, I asked everyone I met if they were angry about the revocation of Article 370 and did not meet anyone who said that it mattered to them. The politicians I talked to said the special privileges that it allowed had been whittled away long before it was abrogated, so nobody mourns its loss. What people do mourn, though, is the suspension of their political rights and the reduction of the state of Jammu & Kashmir to a union territory governed by Delhi. Whatever reason there was for this to happen, it is imperative that statehood be restored as soon as possible.
What is also important is for elections to happen so that ordinary Kashmiris do not once more feel that they will forever be denied basic democratic rights. The longer democracy remains in suspension, the more difficult it will become to control our only Muslim-majority state. What I picked up on this brief trip was that there is a semblance of peace and prosperity in the Valley, but beneath the calm surface there are tensions. I have little doubt that what is happening in Gaza will cause these tensions to bubble over and little doubt that only elected political leaders will be able to control the situation. Most Indian Muslims are already speaking out loudly and clearly against Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and if Kashmiris are not, it must be because they dare not.
The media is totally unfree and cannot reflect the vox populi, but how long before there is an explosion? The first political story I did in Kashmir was the ‘coronation’ of Farooq Abdullah in August 1981, when at a massive rally in Srinagar’s Iqbal Park, Sheikh Abdullah told his son that he was placing on his head a “crown of thorns”. Ten years later, I had witnessed political developments in Kashmir so closely that I wrote a book on the subject. So, when I say that the calm that I detected on this visit is fragile, I know what I am talking about.
It has long been my view that most of the political turmoil in the Kashmir Valley has been caused, not by Pakistan, but by mistakes made by myopic political leaders in Delhi. I very much fear that the current belief that Kashmiris can continue to be denied their democratic rights is not just shortsighted, but dangerous. With democracy in suspension, the meddling by bureaucrats who believe profoundly in their own infallibility has continued and it is on their advice that the Modi government seems to be making policy. This is not just worrying, but against our national interest.
During my visit to Srinagar this time, I heard rumours that Imams had been warned not to talk about the Middle East in their Friday sermons. They do not need to. As we have seen among Muslim communities in the rest of India, there is already huge sympathy for the Palestinian cause and for the people of Gaza. Most Indian Muslims seem to see Israel as a ‘colonial power’ which is planning ‘genocide’ in the Gaza strip. The brutalities of Hamas they dismiss as Israeli propaganda. It is hard to believe that Kashmiri Muslims will remain unaffected for long.
It is hard to believe Kashmiri Muslims will remain unaffected by Gaza for long
11
1
05.11.2023
It was not my intention to go to Kashmir within days after Hamas perpetrated its barbaric attack in Israel. It just happened that way. I planned months ago to travel to Srinagar to witness firsthand what the abrogation of Article 370 had done to the Valley but could not, due to a sudden flu. I managed to cancel my air ticket, but not my hotel room.
A refund was not possible, they said, but I could keep my booking in suspension till my next visit. This was easier said than done. This summer, Kashmir has enjoyed such a booming tourist season that hotels have been full. It was months before my hotel room became available.
So, I arrived in Srinagar almost exactly a week after Hamas sent its jihadis into Israel to massacre unarmed civilians and take hostage old people, women and babies. I went expecting to see the fraught atmosphere that I had seen once on a long ago visit, during the first intifada in Gaza. I remember that it inspired Kashmir’s secessionist groups to believe that it was time to intensify what they called their “freedom movement”. On the walls of the old city, slogans in big black letters appeared that said, “Indian Dogs Go Home”. And in darkened rooms in this part of Srinagar, I interviewed masked militants armed with........
© Indian Express
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
