[Reader-list] Kashmir as Living Hell by Giogiana Violante

[Aditya Raj Baul]

Perhaps she's dependent on cyber-cafes?

Stuff like this doesn't move Sonia Jabbar: "Last week a seven year old
child was beaten to death. You cannot accidentally beat a seven year
old to death. It is not like a bullet that goes astray. I cannot see
how a stone thrown by a seven year old child can do sufficient damage
to any man to warrant his being beaten to death."

You are more concerned about blaming the strikes, protests and stone-pelting.

You show your true colours again and again, Ms Jabbar. You change them
frequently but the true colours come out pretty often.


On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 1:42 PM, SJabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com> wrote:
> This may come as a churlish response to what is obviously an unfeigned cri
> de coeur, but I find it difficult to let it pass without comment.
> With her very first sentence Ms. Violante condemns herself to hyperbole. She
> writes: " This is the first time in weeks I have had access to the
> internet."
>
> Why, where does she live?  I have been in touch with friends every single
> day over the net and when I was in Kashmir in the first week of August when
> violence had peaked, there was no question of being cut off from the rest of
> the world.
>
> To suggest that people are on the street because they are "famished
> rioters," and that the shutdowns over the past 2 months have nothing to do
> with the hartaal calendars and stone pelters and everything to do with
> curfew is not even something that those on the street demanding azadi would
> declare.
>
> The Indian army whom she accuses of all kinds of excesses these past 2
> months have held aloof from the present troubles.  Not one of the 64 deaths
> have been ascribed to them, but to the J&K Police and the CRPF.  Even a
> Kashmiri child knows the difference and if a foreigner doesn't, well, at
> least she can read the newspapers before attempting a hysterical analysis of
> a situation that needs no more hysteria.
>
> And 'Muslim' hospitality? As opposed to 'Hindu' security forces?
>
>
>
> On 30/08/10 8:54 PM, "Shuddhabrata Sengupta" <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>
> Here is an account of daily life nowadays,  in Srinagar, Kashmir,
>>
> through the eyes of a woman student (a westerner) currently resident
> in
>> Kashmir University.
>
> best
>
> Shuddha
>
> -------------------------
>
> India¹s
>> brutality has turned Kashmir into a living
>> hell
>
> http://www.thecommentfactory.com/indias-brutality-has-turned-kashmir-
>>
> into-a-living-hell-3472/
>
> By Giogiana Violante
>
>
> This is the first time in
>> weeks I have had access to the internet. I
> have not been allowed to receive
>> or send text messages for three
> months. Just like all Kashmiris my telephone
>> has been barred from
> such contact. The local news channels have been banned.
>> India
> controls everything here. And then kills it. The situation is
>>
> horrific. Over these months of food rationing and persistent curfew
> whereby
>> all is closed and the streets totally deserted in utter
> silence, suddenly a
>> protest arises and then spreads throughout the
> whole city in a surge of
>> frustrated and famished rioters shouting
> ŒAZADI AZADI AZADI¹ (freedom) until
>> it dissipates suddenly into a
> cacophony of gunshots and clouds of
>> teargas.
>
> I observe all this going on at a  safe remove of only one metre by a
>>
> big thick brick wall interrupted by the Mevlana Rumi gate to Kashmir
>>
> University, where I am residing. I see through the iron bars hordes
> upon
>> hordes of protesters being shot at randomly, and I stand there
> repellently
>> incapable of doing anything. An endless cycle of silence
> and violence. The
>> Indian army own total control and freedom to shoot
> at will, to shoot to
>> kill, anyone whom they choose to.
>
> Last week a seven year old child was beaten
>> to death. You cannot
> accidentally beat a seven year old to death. It is not
>> like a bullet
> that goes astray. I cannot see how a stone thrown by a seven
>> year old
> child can do sufficient damage to any man to warrant his being
>> beaten
> to death. Children in this part of the world are tiny. A seven-year-
>>
> old is the size of a three year old westerner. So what kind of person
> beats
>> a tiny child to death when his stone throw must carry so little
> force that
>> it barely deserves a shrug? This is such a common
> occurrence here.
>
> The
>> other day I left the university grounds to visit a professor only
> one minute
>> away. True there is curfew but his house is in a private
> road attached to
>> the university so I thought I would risk it. When I
> returned a roofless sumo
>> vehicle full of ten Indian army thugs
> laughing and shouting came charging
>> through the street waving their
> batons and guns. They headed for an old man
>> and tried to hit him and
> then they knocked a 4-year-old boy off his
>> tricycle. For fun. He was
> only 50 centimetres outside his house¹s garden so
>> that hardly counts
> as disobeying the curfew and yet they charged at him on
>> purpose. They
> knocked him off the tricycle and then headed for me, which as
>> a
> western woman I did not expect.
>
> I am living here within the deserted
>> university grounds, alone with
> the security guards and a few random
>> professors and clerks. The
> university was evacuated three months ago when
>> the troubles commenced
> and the students and school children all over the
>> valley have
> experienced, as they always do, a great void in their
>> education.
>
> The Indian army gun down eleven-year-old girls banging on the
>> doors
> of pharmacists when it is clear that their disobedience of the curfew
>>
> is purely out of desperation. How can a full grown man gun down and
> kill an
>> eleven-yea- old girl banging on a pharmacy door in an empty
> street? A woman
>> kneeling on the pavement covering her face with her
> hands had her hands
>> beaten to a pulp and they had to be amputated.
> Two weeks ago, on a Friday, I
>> heard the usual impassioned pleads for
> freedom hailing from Hazratbal
>> Mosque, which is just outside the
> university. For an hour the calls of
>> ŒAzadi¹ escalated and escalated
> until suddenly I heard a spray of gunshots.
>> The shots continued
> sporadically over the next hour. I later found out that
>> the mosque
> was raided by the army and people were beaten severely. Some
>> died, of
> course.
>
> The Indian army have the right and the freedom to behave
>> like this,
> invading places of worship simply because of impassioned calls
>> for
> freedom by a people who are being totally crushed and obliterated.
>>
> This sort of thing happens every day. Total abuse of power by the
> occupying
>> forces. But the people of Kashmir have no right to
> retaliate. Nor the
>> freedom to even leave their homes. I cannot bear
> my complete and utter
>> uselessness in this situation. As a rich
> westerner even I cannot get food.
>> The other day myself and seven boys
> shared two carrots between us and a
>> handful of rice.
>
> So how can these Kashmiris be managing when they have not
>> been able
> to open their businesses for three months? How can they even have
>> the
> money to afford food, even if there WAS food to be had from
> somewhere?
>> You risk your life in order to get food. How can you get
> food without
>> leaving home? Yesterday a young boy working as a clerk
> in the university
>> showed me his mauled arms and the gash in his
> thigh. His arms were black and
>> purple with crusted blood from last
> week. His legs were obscene. Flesh made
>> hell.
>
> ŒI went to get medicine¹ he said, Œand the army caught me¹. I smiled
>>
> and said, ŒOh you people are always getting caught on the way to get
>>
> medicine. Rubbish it was medicine. You went to get biscuits.¹
>
> ŒAren¹t
>> biscuits medicine?¹ he replied, smiling the same smile as mine.
>
> Lat week as I
>> circled the admittedly beautiful university grounds, a
> forest of chinar
>> trees and endless rows of roses in full bloom,
> moghul gardens outside every
>> department (Why are these gardens
> perfectly tendered? Given the situation
>> outside how do these people
> have the strength and hope to even care to tend
>> their gardens?
> Everything here is death and hopelessness. I would have
>> expected the
> gardens to have been left to run to desolation), I saw a thin
>> little
> old man with a cotton bag full of lumps. Usually one doesn¹t see
>>
> bags. Certainly not ones with lumps in them. Not in these conditions.
> My
>> mind viciously wondered how he got the food? Who he got it from?
> Had he
>> bribed one of the army pigs at the university gates? I
> suddenly realised I
>> was frowning and in a very ugly-minded manner.
> The ugly things hunger does
>> to a person¹s mind is shocking. His bag
> was probably full of dirty
>> laundry.
>
> Sometimes someone will address me angrily as I pass by, something
>>
> along the lines of:
>
> ³Hey you, America! Why aren¹t you helping us? You do
>> something.²
>
> ³What can I do?² I reply, ³I¹m neither a politician nor a
>> journalist.
> I¹m just trapped here like you.²
>
> ³But you¹re a Westener. You
>> see how things are here. We have been
> living like this for twenty years.
>> When you go back to your country
> you tell them. You ask them why they aren¹t
>> helping us.²
>
> ³It¹s your own fault,² I reply. ³Why should we bother saving
>> your
> country when its got no natural resources worth raping? All you¹ve
>>
> got is apples, goats and saffron. You¹re doomed.²
>
> A few seconds of silence
>> will be followed by a warm invitation to
> tea. Muslim hospitality. At this
>> time when every tea leaf is precious
> these people will share even their last
>> few crumbs of powdered milk
> with you. And you sit there sipping the tea
>> wondering how and where
> they managed to procure it and how much it cost them
>> in beatings.
>
>
>
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
> Raqs Media
>> Collective
> shuddha at sarai.net
> www.sarai.net
> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>
>
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