[Reader-list] Kasmiri Encounter -Abstract

[syed bismillah]

The Kashmiri Encounter.

In the last few months that I have been doing research into the lives of Kashmiris in Delhi I am struck with the way that fear and suspicion have got inextricably linked with people's perception of Kashmiris.There has not been a single time when I have not encountered this deep fear when talking to Kashmiris or about Kashmiris.It would seem that the threat perception of the entire city is based on the Bollywood flicks such as Roja,Mission Kashmir,The Hero or Maa Tujhe Salaam. And now the Zee channel has a new serial in which Osama bin Laden has just reached Srinagar.



If the T.V channels were to broadcast Jab Jab Phool Khile, a bollywood film made almost three decades ago,I wonder what wouuld be the reaction of the Delhi public? In that movie a Mumbai girl falls in love with a simple Shikarawala and brings him to the city.That encounter leads the Kashmiri to very quickly return back to his home.In fact the image of a Kashmiri being rather simple minded and foolish lasted till the Dogra Raj.And then after 1947 to 1970s there was the image of the Kashmiri as a peace-loving person but not worthy of trust.All these images did not enter into the public domain, except marginally. But the so-called war against terror has ensured that even the memory of the simple-minded Kashmiri peasant is wiped out and replaced by the image of Kashmiri,the terrorist.

When i decided to study the Kashmiri encounter i had not anticipated the extent to which the Kashmiris themselves have become victims of this image .i had naively thought i would be able to interview Kashmiris living in Delhi,at least the Kashmiri Muslims would be happy to share their experiences with a fellow Kashmiri.But wherever i went i encountered an intense fear and suspicion . For the Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri alike i was the brother of a terrorist.The fact that my brother had been acquitted made no difference at all to their threat perception.

Going through the media reports on the arrest of my brother and later on the attack on him I can see clearly a politics of fear.The fear is constructed to reinforce the divisions in society and used for controlling the population . On the one hand the fear of the Kashmiri terrorist is promoted by the media forcing Kashmiris into ghettos in the city while on the other hand the very real fear of the Kashmiris of state violence is never a part of the public discourse on political violence.

I have had to abandon my idea of ding an objective reasearch into the lives of Kashmiris living in delhi.However, I will use the interviews and discussions i have had with some of the kashmiris to relate it to my own experience of living in delhi from 1996. First as a student , then as brother of a terrorist .

After there was an attempt to assassinate my brother on February 8 ,2005, I thought things may take a different turn but I discovered we became the objects of suspicion and fear.

Those who critique the Kashmiri movement for self-determination because of their critique of identity politics need to understand the reality of the Kashmiri and how both the state and civil society nforces him into the mould of ethnic-religious indentity.My account of the Kashmiri encounter in delhi has exposed how the conflict in Kashmir impacts on the everyday lives of Kashmiris living in Delhi and the role of media of creating images which construct the image of the Kashmiri as a terrorist.And both the Kashmiri and the Delhiwalas are entrapped by this construct. This,I believe, has long term implications for the future of Indian democracy .


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