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

[Pawan Durani]

Shivam  .... I miss your name ....

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 3:57 PM, SJabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com> wrote:
> And you, who cowers behind a false name are still free to judge me, my
> intentions and my deepest feelings, sir/madam.
>
> We are still unsure whether the 7 year-old was victim of a stampede or was
> indeed brutally beaten. There are lots of people who gleefully dance on the
> graves of 7 year olds and wait for the next victim so that they can howl
> with righteous anger. I condemn all 64 deaths of civilians whether they were
> accidental or intentional but I am not about to join a hysterical chorus to
> prove I stand on some moral high ground.
>
> On 31/08/10 1:57 PM, "Aditya Raj Baul" <adityarajbaul at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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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