BOOK REVIEW
A story in black and white
The Heart of Kashmir by Kash Gabriele Torsello

Reviewed by Tony Allison

HUA HIN - Relations between India and Pakistan, with peace talks scheduled for next month, could hardly get any better. Which means, skeptics would say, that things can only get worse.

Cynicism aside, there is a genuine expectation that this time round some sort of lasting measures can be agreed on to bring at least a semblance of normalcy to the fractious relations that the two nations have endured since independence in 1947.

The heart of the matter, as always, is predominately Muslim Jammu and Kashmir state, the northern region where a part is administered by Pakistan and a part is administered by India. Pakistan claims the portion ruled by Delhi. Some in India claim the portion ruled by Islamabad, while many Kashmiris themselves would simply prefer to be independent.

 It is this complex struggle that Kash Gabriele Torsello - Kash is an adopted nickname for the Italian photojournalist - has made the heart of his book. He last visited the Kashmir region - for the purposes of this book at least - in November 2001. Since then, the Indian military presence in Indian Kashmir has been significantly reduced - at one time there were close to an estimated million troops in the region - as local unrest has largely calmed down.

The Heart of Kashmir as a result reflects a particularly bleak period in Kashmir's history. Appropriately, the photographer elects to shoot only in black and white - and these are the only two colors (or shades thereof) in the whole book, layout devices included.

And let it be said, the photographs are excellent, from portraits to action, wide angle to detail.

Particularly moving is a sequence of pictures of a man's funeral. Apparently he had been apprehended by Indian soldiers outside his house in the summer capital Srinagar, 20 minutes after evening curfew. His mutilated body was found nearby the next morning.

Also of note is a picture of a woman breastfeeding her baby against a backdrop of utter ruin and desolation. With death all around, a woman still has to give her child life.

And everywhere Indian soldiers, on every street corner, standing, watching, waiting, ever suspicious. No part of the Kashmirs' life seemingly beyond their gaze. And little boys playing with toy guns, and a big boy with a real gun, his face unidentifiable behind a scarf.

All of these pictures, and many more, which made up two-thirds of the book, are shot in Indian Kashmir. The remainder of the book features Azad Pakistan - or Free Pakistan - that section of the region under Islamabad's control.

 Now, of course, the Indian soldiers disappear, to be replaced with young men with AK-47s, but equally somber pictures of misery and gloom - especially in a refugee camp - interspersed with moments of fun, as with young boys happily playing cricket in what looks like a junk yard.

The pictures are supplemented by short bursts of first-person text from Kash Gabriele Torsello as he goes about his business of taking pictures. This almost stream-of-consciousness prose provides some link to the pictures, but not enough.

Herein lies a criticism of the book. Apart from a very brief explanation on the dust cover, the reader is given no explanation of the stakes or the players involved in Kashmir. The section on Azad Pakistan, for example, is titled Azad Kashmir - which is misleading to say the least. Similarly, the word Muslim (or Hindu for that matter) does not appear throughout the book, which again, is somewhat disingenuous. Cross-border militancy does not get a mention. And there are no captions to the pictures, or page numbers.

But on reflection, perhaps this is not such a bad thing. The book is the pictures, stripped bare of commentary or comment. Never has the cliche been more appropriate: the pictures tell their own story. 

And it is a story that anyone involved in, or affected by, the latest peace initiative between India and Pakistan would surely not want repeated, of stark, pitiful death and desolation. In this sense, The Heart of Kashmir is a valuable work.

The Heart of Kashmir by Kash Gabriele Torsello, Kash GT, London, December 2002, ISBN 0954224507, US$46, 192 pages.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)