by Anam Zakaria
About 71 kilometres from Muzaffarabad, the capital of ‘Azad’ Kashmir, I can see tall mountain peaks, signalling that we are getting closer to our destination. The road leading us to these mountains is bumpy, decorated with small khokas on the side, selling cigarettes, Lays chips and soft drinks. Pakistan celebrated its independence day yesterday but the patriotic spirit lingers in the air. Cars are adorned with Pakistani flags, with boys hanging out of car windows, still in celebratory mode. Vans with Bismillah and Mashallah stickers speed past us, alongside army trucks and UN vans. The air is cold, the road noisy.
On the way we see graffiti on the walls, some serving as marketing messages for various products, others as political sloganeering. One is a message from Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which many believe is the new face of the banned armed outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which has been accused of carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attacks. It says in Urdu, Islam is not meant to be conquered. A few miles later, we see a Sipah-e-Sahaba flag tied to a pole. It reads, Main Naukar Sahaba da (I am a servant of the companions of the Prophet). Sipah-e-Sahaba is another banned militant outfit, which re-emerged under the name of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ).1 (ASWJ too was banned in 2012, after being ‘suspected to have been involved in terrorism-related activities of Sipah-e-Sahaba’.)2 The organization is infamous for carrying out extremist attacks against the Muslim Shia community. On the same pole, a Jamaat-e-Islami flag flies high in the air. Jamaate-Islami is a mainstream political party, which was in power in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alongside Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) between 2013 and 2018.
At the entrance to Muzaffarabad, I notice more signs and flags. One of the signs reads: Muslim Army Zindabad (Long Live the Muslim Army). Up ahead, I can see the flags of Pakistan, ‘Azad’ Jammu & Kashmir and JuD hoisted next to one another. They are embraced in a tight knot, tied to a pole. On the right, I can see the letters YFK painted on the walls. Underneath, it says: Youth Forum for Kashmir: Desire for Freedom. It seems as if everyone is trying to claim political space in this contested territory.
As we drive forward, we come to a chowk with road signs. One sign reads Islamabad, the other Srinagar. The sign is not only meant to give geographical direction but to also serve as a political reminder that what the Pakistani state claims to be hers is within reach. Throughout Pakistan, one comes across roads, bridges and highways named after Kashmir. The Kashmir Highway in Islamabad, the Kashmir Point in Murree, the various khokas and roadside restaurants named Kashmir View, Hotel Kashmir, Kashmir Resort, etc. At every step, there is an effort to reclaim Kashmir. Road signs such as the one we see now are also a reminder to Kashmiris, especially those from divided families, of how close they are to what they perceive as home. It keeps alive the desire to cross over, to fight for Indian-administered Kashmir—or ‘makbooza’ Kashmir, as it is more popularly known in Pakistan. One of my Kashmiri friends had recently remarked: ‘Islamabad and Srinagar are almost at the same distance from my house in Muzaffarabad, I want to be able to visit Srinagar just as I can visit Islamabad. Why can’t we make this LoC irrelevant? The frustration among Kashmiris to be able to do so is increasing.’
It is the same friend I call today as we reach Muzaffarabad. He has promised to help me with my research. He shares his address over the phone and asks me to arrive at his office at 3 pm to meet him and his colleague. ‘My friend is an encyclopaedia on Azad Kashmir, he will tell you everything you need to know.’ Haroon and I dump our bags at a rest house we had booked over the phone and head straight to his office. Waqar (the name has been changed to protect his identity) walks out at 3 pm sharp, with another man beside him. His friend seems older, probably in his forties; he has a beard and is wearing a checked shirt with black pants. Waqar introduces him to us as Sharjeel Nazir (the name has been changed to protect his identity), one of the very first journalists from Neelum Valley. ‘You can ask him anything you want. He knows everything there is to know about this area,’ says Waqar.
I am excited to meet a local journalist. Waqar tells us that he has work and that we should go ahead with Sharjeel. We get back into the car with Sharjeel and drive to a restaurant. It is crowded with young men, presumably from the Muzaffarabad Press Club located next door. Sharjeel exchanges greetings with some of the journalists inside and then guides us upstairs. ‘It will be quieter up there,’ he says in Urdu. He is right. There is no one else seated on this floor.
We start off the conversation over tea, with me asking Sharjeel to tell us about himself.
‘I was born in 1975 in Neelum Valley. I’m from a village (the name of the village has been omitted to protect his identity) which is located in the middle of the valley. It’s quite a remote area. At one time, newspapers would only reach there once a week,’ he says in Urdu.
‘And when did you get involved in journalism?’
‘In the early nineties. It actually started off with a small story I did on the floods in Neelum Valley in 1992. I was living in Muzaffarabad at that time and wanted to visit home. I had to walk 80 kilometres to my village and back because the roads, the bridges, were all destroyed. I came back and wrote about the difficulties people were facing because of the roads. It would take two days of walking for people to reach a market from where they could get some food, some ration. I wrote about the need to reopen that road, the need to supply basic necessities to these people. The story was printed in a local newspaper. From then on, I kept writing stories off and on, on different issues. But then, around 1995-1996, I stopped writing about minor things and became a professional journalist. I started to write about the war.’ He pauses for a moment, looks me straight in the eye, and then says, ‘A war that we lived through for fifteen years, with people in Islamabad, which is barely 100 kilometres away, oblivious to what was happening.’
I shift uncomfortably, for he knows I’m from Islamabad and I assume he feels resentful towards people like me, people who sat comfortably in our homes in big cities during the nineties, closing our eyes to what was happening just a few kilometres away. Luckily, he does not wait for any justification, for any explanation—for I wouldn’t have known what to say even if he did—and continues speaking.
‘Our roads were blocked for around fourteen years. Close to 3,000 people died in Neelum Valley alone.3 Property was destroyed, livelihood was destroyed, walnut and apple gardens flattened. Only half of the population of Neelum Valley was left in the area.4 Though other parts of (‘Azad’) Kashmir were also affected, Neelum Valley was the worst hit. People ran away to Muzaffarabad if they could afford it, or to the jungles, to hide from firing from across the LoC. I became a journalist so I could tell people what was happening. For the longest time, I would carry newspapers myself to different areas to spread the word, as there was no other way of communication. Since 2003, though there is a ceasefire, violations continue to happen. There hasn’t been any civilian death or injury in Neelum Valley since 20035 but in other parts of the LoC, in the districts of Haveli, Poonch, Bhimber and Kotli, the firing is ongoing. Two women and two men died just in the past month.’ (Ceasefire violations across these parts of the LoC as well as the working boundary [referred to as the international border by India] were common in 2015.6 The scale and intensity of these violations rapidly escalated during 2016-2017.) I ask him why the firing continues despite the ceasefire and he shrugs. ‘Some say the firing is happening because the mujahid (a common way in “Azad” Kashmir to refer to militants) are crossing over into makbooza Kashmir from this side, but there is no evidence. And in either case, it’s civilians who are dying, not the mujahid.’
His phone rings and our conversation comes to an abrupt halt just when he seems to be getting into it. He gets up and goes to the balcony to speak. He returns a minute later, to grab the second mobile that he had left on the table. ‘There has been firing in the Nakyal sector7 (in Jammu, ‘Azad’ Kashmir). Someone has been shot. I have to report it to my channel. I’ll be right back.’ With that he rushes out.
It takes me a
moment to absorb what he said, about someone dying. I’m still trying to grasp it when Haroon taps me on my shoulder and says, ‘He’s on TV. Look.’ I turn, and to my surprise, find Sharjeel speaking on a Pakistani TV channel he works for. We grab the remote to increase the volume and find him reporting the incident over the phone. ‘The firing has just been reported by the locals. A man who belonged to Dabsi village has been killed,’ I can hear him say in Urdu. I look around and sure enough, Sharjeel is on his phone, standing outside on the balcony.
Like others in India and Pakistan, I have seen increasing number of reports of firing across the LoC. All too frequently, the Pakistani media blame the Indian forces for starting the firing and killing innocent people, and the Indian media point fingers at Pakistan and claim that militants are entering Indian-administered Kashmir, to which they must respond. For the most part, I know that it is unlikely that any of the channels would provide an unbiased report, be it in India or Pakistan. To be sitting in Kashmir when the ceasefire violation takes place and to hear first-hand of someone losing his life, however, becomes a harsh reminder that regardless of who is at fault, India or Pakistan, the conflict I want to write about is ongoing, with people being affected, with people losing loved ones, not knowing when their turn would come, on an everyday basis.
When Sharjeel comes back, he seems distressed but not as shaken up as Haroon and I are. ‘This has become an ongoing thing. People are reported dead every other day. I don’t know when it will stop.’
‘How come this is not happening in Neelum Valley, though?’ I ask. ‘After all, it was Neelum Valley which was the most affected during the cross-firing in the nineties. Why is the valley spared now, amidst these ceasefire violations?’ Everyone I had met with had told me that there had been no firing on civilians in Neelum Valley since 2003. (The situation changed in 2016, after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen’s commander, Burhan Wani, by the Indian forces. But the firing in Neelum would not resume until almost a year after this interview with Sharjeel.)
‘I don’t honestly know. I can’t make sense of what is happening. Some people say it is because it is too difficult for the mujahid to cross over from Neelum Valley because the Indian defence is very strong here. They have put up electric fences, which are 12-foot high, and there are two rows of these fences; if anyone even comes close to them, alarms are set off immediately. And in the middle of the fences, there are rows and rows of barbed wire. How can anyone cross through that? It is simply impossible to infiltrate from here. And if there is no infiltration, there is no need for firing. I personally think it’s because the stakes are too high. China is working in Neelum Valley. It’s building roads, it’s working on the Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project. And then there are so many tourists coming here. If there is firing on this side, it will become a very big deal. It’ll become an international issue immediately. Maybe neither side can afford that.’
‘During the nineties though, before the ceasefire, was there a lot of infiltration from Neelum Valley? Do you know anything about it?’ I ask hesitatingly, nervous about his reaction. I’m worried that it may be too early in our conversation to bring up the issue. Pakistan has been accused by India at international forums of supporting militants. The state continues to claim that it has come down hard on militancy and that there is no such activity in the region. Any firing from the Indian side is thus deemed as unprovoked. Indian media reports, however, continue to insist that infiltration still takes place, even today.8 Sharjeel may be unwilling to broach this sensitive topic altogether.
‘Everyone knew about the mujahideen in the nineties. A lot of local people turned towards it too. Even I wanted to be a mujahid at one point.’ There is no hesitation in his voice. He responds instantly, in a matter-of-fact way. ‘It was just the environment of that time. It was very easy to become a mujahid then, you just needed to have the right kind of passion, which everyone had because of what they had seen, the way they had suffered. People had lost everything due to the Indian forces’ shelling; their homes were destroyed, roads were closed, there was no livelihood, a packet of salt cost Rs 100. Children couldn’t go to school; once twenty-eight children were killed in a school from one mortar shell alone.’ (Though I could not find any official record of this incident, locals say it took place in the early 1990s. It was confirmed independently by a number of people I interviewed in Neelum Valley, including the women in Chapter 5.) Can you imagine what the families went through? We had seen all of this so we all thought, India humara dushman hai (India is our enemy). Many people joined the jihadis. All you had to do was visit the people who ran organizations like Hizbul Mujahideen (a militant outfit operating in Kashmir) and get trained. And you didn’t need much training. The main training was how to climb mountains, which Kashmiris can do anyway. Holding a gun and firing is no big deal. So you would go to these camps where you would live and eat and get some training and then you’d become a mujahid and go across the LoC. It’s not like today when you can’t find people from jihadi organizations even if you try!’
‘What stopped you from becoming a mujahid then?’
‘I guess I didn’t get the chance,’ he lets out a chuckle but then becomes serious. ‘I got busy, I was writing, I got engaged in welfare work in the area, I joined different organizations to provide people with basic necessities. You don’t get into such things if you don’t have too much time, I suppose. Many other men didn’t have the same opportunities. They didn’t finish school, they knew they couldn’t get good jobs and perhaps this was the best service they could get involved in. We all wanted revenge, we all wanted justice. We had lost too much to turn a blind eye. We have lived in conflict ever since 1947. Everyone has his or her limits. We had reached ours too.’
***
For most of the ‘Azad’ Kashmiris I met with during the course of my research, the beginning of the Kashmir conflict preceded their birth by several decades. In 1947, when a new nation was born, the British forces gave the princely states the option of choosing whether they would want to join their domains with India or Pakistan. Many people had assumed that the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir would indeed side with Pakistan. Though Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of Jammu & Kashmir, was Hindu, the majority of the population was Muslim.
General Akbar Khan, who played an active role as a brigadier in the 1948 Indo-Pak war, writes in his book Raiders in Kashmir:
We had assumed that Kashmir would naturally join Pakistan. In fact, the very concept of Pakistan had included it as an integral part, the letter K in the name of Pakistan standing for Kashmir… Kashmir had to be in Pakistan because three-fourths of its four million inhabitants were Muslims, and its territory of 84,500 square miles had no effective road, river or rail links, nor direct economic ties, with India.9
Christopher Snedden, an Australian politico-strategic analyst and an expert on Jammu and Kashmir, reiterates this line of thought in his book, Kashmir: The Unwritten History. He writes:
All of J&K’s major geographical communication and economic links were with areas of western Punjab and North-West Frontier Province that were to become part of the new Muslim-majority state of Pakistan… Economically speaking, accession to Pakistan was (also) feasible as J&K’s links with areas that were to become part of this new dominion were highly important. Indeed, the J&K economy was heavily integrated with, and dependent on, these areas.10
However, Maharaja Hari Singh had other pertinent factors to consider. He was a Hindu ruler of a Muslim-majority state. Joining hands with Pakistan, a nation founded on the premise of Islam, could put him in a vulnerable position. An internal uprising from Poonch had already begun against his rule, while inter-religious violence was becoming rampant in Jammu.11 If his Muslim subjects joined hands with the Pakistani state, his government could be weakened and perhaps even overthrown, thereby bringing an end to over a hundred years of Dogra rule.
While the Maharaja pondered his situation, refusing to take any immediate decision regarding accession, it wa
s announced that three of the four tehsils in Gurdaspur district (which held a Muslim majority) would be given to India. This decision was significant as it gave India direct access to Kashmir via land and reduced J&K’s reliance on Pakistan.12 In several of the interviews I conducted in Pakistan with people who witnessed Partition, Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, who is popularly believed in Pakistan to have interfered with the earlier suggestion to allot the districts to Pakistan,13 is held accountable for the beginnings of the Kashmir conflict. One elderly woman, sitting in Lahore, haughtily remarked, ‘Nehru was allegedly having an affair with Lord Mountbatten’s wife. It was through her that he convinced the viceroy to provide India direct access to Kashmir. That was the first step in our losing Kashmir in its entirety.’ Another woman mentioned, ‘You see, this Mountbatten played a filthy game. It’s quite obvious what he was up to. He was anti-Pakistan. I’m not one of those who get all worked up and excited about these things, but there’s so much evidence. The way that he gave the Indians Gurdaspur, so that they had a land route in Kashmir… But I believe the Maharaja was still thinking pretty seriously of joining Pakistan despite this, because he had been promised that he would be left in his role as the Maharaja and that no one would interfere with him. But then we jumped the gun without him. I was in Srinagar when the raiders came. And the Indians intervened. Nehru wasn’t going to let Kashmir go. And, of course, dear old Mountbatten was entirely in his pocket along with Lady Mountbatten.’
