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KASHMIR IN FOCUS
The unsung
heroes
By Sudha Ramachandran
SRINAGAR - As dawn breaks over the Kashmir
Valley, shikaras (shallow boats) laden with fresh
vegetables, flowers, handicrafts and carpets glide
across the Dal Lake. Srinagar's floating market is doing
brisk business with the return of tourists to the
houseboats.
But if by day Dal Lake is a picture
of tranquility and seeming normalcy, "nightlife" is
anything but normal. For as night falls, the Dal is
transformed into a battleground of sorts as the patrol
boats of the Indian security forces, with their
searchlights on, comb the lake for militants. By day,
the security forces along Boulevard Road that runs along
the Dal seem almost bored with the lazy life on the
lake. The scene changes at night as a deadly cat and
mouse game is played out.
Throughout the 1990s,
the houseboats and the many islets on the Dal Lake were
important militant hideouts. The Dal has been cleared of
militants, a policeman says, but the security forces
nevertheless are not taking any chances.
True,
the situation in Srinagar today is a marked improvement
from that in the early 1990s when hartals
(strikes) and curfews paralyzed daily life in the city.
The tourists are trickling into the Valley again,
signaling that some form of normalcy is indeed returning
slowly. But film units from Bollywood that thronged the
Valley pre-1989 are still reluctant to return, as are
honeymooners.
Despite the apparent calm, it is
hard to escape the tension around or to forget the
conflict for even a moment, for anything can happen
anywhere. Even the sound of a tire bursting can send
people long accustomed to bombs and suicide bombings
scurrying for cover.
Almost every family in the
Valley has suffered because of the 13-year long armed
conflict. It has shaped every aspect of peoples' lives –
their economic and mental well-being, family and social
life, their work and entertainment.
And most
sadly, the armed conflict has left its violent and
hate-filled stamp on children's vocabulary. Bullet,
bunker, bomb, militant, grenade, soldier – these words
do not generally figure in the vocabulary of most
children elsewhere in India. But in Kashmir, a child,
even one who otherwise cannot speak in English, uses
these words with an easy familiarity.
The
conflict has left its mark on the games children play.
If elsewhere in India, children play hide-and-seek, in
downtown Srinagar, which has witnessed the worst of the
militancy, children play "militants and security
forces". The game has one rule, explains a seven-year
old. The "security forces" must not run faster than the
militants. "Even if they can," he adds for effect.
But for the Broadway Cinema in Srinagar’s
cantonment area, there are no cinema halls in Kashmir.
In the early 1990s, the militants banned movies and
burned down cinema halls. That, however, has not
deterred the Kashmiris. Bollywood movies and music are
hugely popular in the Valley. There are no bars in
Kashmir, for the militants have banned the consumption
of alcohol. The only shop selling liquor is near the
cantonment area.
What is striking about life in
the Valley is the way people, especially the youngsters,
have found ways to quietly challenge the diktats imposed
by the militants and to side-step the harassment that
they suffer at the hands of the security forces.
The militants' diktat to women to wear the
burqa (veil) has been largely defied. Women do
cover their heads with scarves, but have resisted
wearing the full veil. Some like 16-year-old Zooni cover
their head with a scarf, but in a way that one ear is
left uncovered. "That way," she explains, "I can show
off my earrings without displeasing the militants too
much."
For every depressing story one hears in
the Valley, there is a heartening account of a heroic
struggle. Stories of courage and grit, of people who
have dared to defy the militants and speak out against
the security forces, of women who are quietly rebuilding
lives and homes shattered by the conflict, of youngsters
who are determined to carve out a future for themselves
that is different from the past.
It makes one
wonder who the real "war heroes" are - the armed
men (whether militants or security forces) who live and
die by the gun, or the ordinary people who soldier on,
against all odds.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contactcontent@atimes.com for
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