Interview With Syed Ali Shah Geelani By Yoginder Sikand

Syed Ali Shah Geelani is a veteran Kashmiri politician. Presently, he heads the Tehrik-e Hurriyat-e Jammu Kashmir. He talks about the Kashmir conflict and its possible solution in this exclusive interview with Yoginder Sikand.

Q: In your writings, and in those of other similar Islamist ideologues, the Kashmir conflict is often described as a war between Islam and ‘disbelief’. Do you really think it is so? Is it not a political struggle or a nationalist struggle, actually?

Ali Geelani : The Kashmir dispute is a fall-out of the Partition of India. The Muslim-majority parts of British India became Pakistan, and the Hindu-majority regions became the Dominion of India. There were, at that time, some 575 princely states in India under indirect British rule. Lord Mountbatten gave them the choice of joining either India or Pakistan, and instructed that their choice must be guided by the religious composition of their populace as well as by the borders they might share with either India or Pakistan, as the case might be. 

On this basis, almost all the princely states opted for either India or Pakistan. There were, however, three exceptions to this. Hyderabad, a Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler, opted for independence, but India argued against this on the grounds that the state had a Hindu majority, and so ordered the Police Action to incorporate the state into the Indian Dominion. Junagadh, another Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler, opted for Pakistan, but India over-ruled this decision, again on account of the state’s Hindu majority, and annexed it. If India had adopted the same principle in the case of Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state with a Hindu ruler, there would have been no conflict over Kashmir. After all, more than 85% of the population of the state at that time were Muslims; the major rivers in the state flowed into Pakistan; the state shared a border of over 750 kilometres with Pakistan; the only motorable road connecting Kashmir with the outside world throughout the year passed from Srinagar to Rawalpindi; and the majority of the people of the state had cultural and historical ties with the people of Pakistan.However, over-ruling these factors, which would have made Jammu and Kashmir a natural part of Pakistan, in October 1947 the Indian Army entered the state in the guise of flushing out the Pathan tribesmen, who had crossed into Kashmir in the wake of large-scale killings of Muslims in Rajouri and Poonch. Using this incursion an excuse, Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir, engineered the intrusion of Indian forces. The British scholar Alistair Lamb says that the so-called Instrument of Accession that Haris Singh is said to have signed to join India temporarily was itself fraudulent. He claims that Hari Singh did not even sign it.

Thereafter, India itself took the issue of Kashmir to the United Nations. The UN passed some eighteen resolutions related to Kashmir, recognizing the status of the state as disputed and calling for a resolution of the conflict based on the will of the people of the state, which the first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, himself also publicly promised. Now, all that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are saying is that India should live up to this promise that it made of holding a plebiscite in accordance with the UN resolutions. So, this is the basic issue.

Q: So, aren’t you here saying that the conflict is essentially political, and not specifically religious?

Ali Geelani : For a Muslim, no action is permissible which is against Islam. How can we say that the sacrifices that the Muslims of Kashmir make, the tortures that they suffer, and the martyrdom that they meet have nothing to do with Islam, and that they won’t be rewarded by God for this? In this sense, it is a religious issue also. Islam teaches that Muslims must follow the guidance of Islam in every action of theirs—not just in prayers but also in matters such as war and peace, trade, international relations and so on, because Islam is a complete way of life. If a true Muslim participates in any struggle, it is for the sake of Islam. So, how can you say that the Kashmir conflict has nothing to do with religion?

Q: This might be true in theory, but surely many Kashmiris who are involved in the movement for separation from India might be motivated by other factors, including for economic and political reasons, or also due to a commitment to Kashmiri nationalism, as distinct from Islam?

Ali Geelani : I agree that there may be various reasons why different people may participate in the movement. Yes, there can be many who do not adopt the guidance of Islam in this regard. They might champion secular democracy and irreligiousness. Their sacrifices might be motivated by nationalism or ethnicity, rather than Islam. They might have no problem with the system of governance in India, their opposition to Indian rule being simply because of the brutalities of Indian occupation. Of course, one cannot say that all Kashmiri Muslims think alike. But I am speaking from the point of view of a practicing Muslim, who accepts Islam as a complete way of life. For such self-conscious Kashmiri Muslims, it is undoubtedly a religious issue and their sacrifices are for the sake of the faith.

Q: But do you really see Indian Hindus and Muslims as two separate ‘nations’? After all, they share so much in common.

Ali Geelani: They are totally separate nations. There is no doubt at all about this. Muslims believe in just one God, but Hindus believe in crores of gods.

Q: But the Prophet Muhammad, in his treaty with the Jews and other non-Muslims of Medina, described the denizens of Medina as members of one nation. The leader of the Jamiat ul-Ulema-i Hind and a leading Deobandi scholar, Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, even wrote a book to argue against the League’s ‘two nation’ theory, stressing a composite Indian nationalism that embraced all the people of India. So, how can the Muslims and Hindus of one country be considered separate ‘nations’, even by Islamic standards?

Ali Geelani: Islam lays down that in an Islamic system (nizam) all non-Muslims, including even atheists, will get equality, justice, security of life and property and freedom of faith. Maulana Madani’s arguments were critiqued by Maulana Maududi.

Q: In your prison memoirs, Rudad-e Qafas, you write that ‘It is as difficult for a Muslim to live in a non-Muslim society as it is for a fish to live in a desert’. But how can this be so? After all, the pioneers of Islam in India and in Kashmir itself, mainly Sufi saints, lived and preached in a society in which Muslims were a very small minority.

Ali Geelani: I meant to say this in a particular sense. Islam, as I said, is a complete way of life. No other path is acceptable to God. So, in the absence of an Islamic polity, it is difficult for Muslims to lead their lives entirely in accordance with the rules of Islam, which apply to social affairs as much as they do to personal affairs. For instance, Muslims in Kashmir under Indian rule live in a system where alcohol, interest and immorality are rife, so how can we lead our lives completely in accordance with Islam? Of course, Muslim minorities are Muslims, too, but their duty must be to work to establish an Islamic dispensation in the lands where they live so that they can lead their lives fully in accordance with Islam and its laws. Missionary work to spread Islam is as much of a duty as is praying and giving alms to the poor.

Now, as for your question about those Sufis who lived and worked in societies where Muslims were in a minority—they may have been pious people, but we take as our only model the Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H).

Q: You mentioned about preaching Islam being a principal duty of all Muslims. But, surely, for this you need a climate of peace, not of active hostility, as in Kashmir today?

Ali Geelani: Absolutely. I agree with you entirely. No one can deny this. We need to have good relations with people of other communities. Only then can we communicate the message of Islam to them. But if one side continues to oppress the other and heap injustices and says that this should be considered as ‘peace’, how can it be accepted? If, for instance, Narendra Modi says that what happened with the Muslims in Gujarat represents peace, how can anyone accept it? If India stations lakhs of troops in Kashmir and says this is for establishing peace, how can it be, because these troops themselves are disturbing the peace?

Q: In the wake of the attacks of 11 September, 2001, how do you see the impact of American pressure on Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, to change their position on Islamist movements?

Ali Geelani: The events of September 2001 have caused most Muslim states to change their policies and to toe America’s line even more closely. You can see this happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The only Muslim country that refuses to cave under American pressure is Iran.

Q: And now America is seeking an excuse to attack Iran, is it not?

Ali Geelani : Yes. America is trying to stoke Shia-Sunni rivalries in order to undermine Iran. It is trying all other such weapons, dividing the Muslims on the basis of sect, nationality, race and ethnicity against each other so as to weaken them. And the leaders of most Muslim countries are now playing the role of agents of the USA, be it in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Palestine or as is the case with the Saudi monarchs. See what’s happening in Waziristan, the Frontier Province and Baluchistan, in Pakistan. A climate is being deliberately created in those parts of Pakistan to justify American attacks and bombings in the name of flushing out militants.

Q: If Pakistan is now so pro-American, acting against its own people, and if it is not an authentic ‘Islamic state’, then why have you been advocating Kashmir’s union with it?

Ali Geelani : As I said earlier, the Muslim League claimed that Pakistan was won in the name of Islam, but it did not give its cadre the necessary training to establish an Islamic state there. Because of this, the influence of the Army and the country’s Westernised leadership, Pakistan failed to become an Islamic state. But it was meant to become such a state, which is something that we want. So, if the people of Jammu and Kashmir were given the right to decide between India and Pakistan, the majority, I think, would prefer the former.

I admit that there are weaknesses in Pakistan, but these can be addressed. India has a secular system, which we can under no condition accept. Because of the oppression that we have been suffering under Indian rule for the last sixty years, how can we opt for India? In just a few weeks, in late 1947, some five lakh Muslims were killed by Dogra forces and Hindu chauvinists in Jammu. In the last seventeen years, over one lakh Kashmiri Muslims, mainly innocent civilians, have been killed. So many localities have been burned down, women raped and men rendered missing. After such brutal experiences, only a blind person would opt in favour of India.

Q: Many Kashmiri Muslims would rather be independent than join India or Pakistan. Do you agree?

Ali Geelani: The UN resolutions provide for only two options: joining India or Pakistan, and if this rule is followed then the majority would, I think, opt for Pakistan. However, if the three parties to the dispute—Pakistan, India and the people of Jammu and Kashmir—come to a consensus on an independent Jammu and Kashmir, then, as I have repeatedly said, we will accept that formula also.

Q: In some of your writings you have argued against Kashmir being an independent state, even claiming that this is an Indian ‘ploy’. Can you elaborate?

Ali Geelani : This is true. It is an Indian ploy, because India does not want to see Pakistan strengthened, which it would be if Jammu and Kashmir joins Pakistan. The slogan of Azadi is aimed at weakening Pakistan. Independence would result in a territory that would have been a natural part of Pakistan being taken away from it. But, then, compared to staying with India, independence is a lesser evil.

Q: Many Kashmiris, seeing the current political and economic troubles in Pakistan, might say that they would prefer to be independent.

Ali Geelani: If we get independence, we will accept it.

Q: What if most people of Jammu and Kashmir wish to live in a secular or democratic set-up, and not a Taliban-style ‘Islamic’ state?

Ali Geelani: We don’t want to bring Taliban-type Islam, but the real Islam of the Quran and the Practice (Sunnah) of the Prophet(P.B.U.H) .

Q: But the Taliban argued that their state was in accordance with the Quran and the Sunnah.

Ali Geelani: To claim something is different from acting on that claim. For instance, while Islam makes it a duty for every Muslim male and female to acquire education, as soon as the Taliban came to power they banned girls’ education. What they should have done, instead, was to set up separate schools for girls. So, like this, there are many issues on which we can differ. The Islamic state that we would like to establish in Jammu and Kashmir would be one based on the understanding that all of humanity are children of the same primal parents, Adam and Eve. They will all be treated equally and justly. There shall be no discrimination based on religion. After all, the Prophet once remarked that all creatures are of the family of God and that the best is he who treats members of God’s family—which obviously includes non-Muslims, too—in the best way.

Q: You advocate Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan, but today minority nationalities in Pakistan, such as the Baluchis and the Sindhis, suffering under Punjabi domination, are struggling for independence. Might not the same thing happen to the Kashmiris if the state were to join Pakistan?

Ali Geelani: We want to join Pakistan, not be absorbed into it. We would have internal autonomy.

Q: But, surely, despite Pakistan’s claims, the part of Jammu and Kashmir under its control—‘Azad Kashmir’—lacks real autonomy?

Ali Geelani: Yes, Azad Kashmir cannot be said to be really autonomous since there, too, everything happens according to the wishes and directions of the Federal Government. But we would make sure that our autonomy be written into the Constitution.

Q: Do you see any significant changes in Pakistan’s policies vis-à-vis Kashmir in recent years, perhaps under American pressure?

Ali Geelani: Yes, considerable changes can be noticed. Earlier, Pakistan used to insist on the right to self-determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Musharraf was the first to change this, arguing for a solution outside that of the UN resolutions, an out-of-the-box solution. This constituted the first deviation in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. Then, Musharraf began talking of seven zones in Jammu and Kashmir, soft borders and his four-point formula, which is nothing but a means to preserve the status quo.

Q: How do you respond to media allegations that the Kashmiri movement for self-determination is ‘anti-Hindu’?

Ali Geelani: How can our struggle be called ‘anti-Hindu’? It is a struggle for certain principles. In Hindu mythology, when the Kauravas and the Pandavas, cousins of each other, were arrayed against each other on the battlefield, Arjun turned to Krishanji Maharaj, and told him that he could not bear to fight his own brothers. Why, he asked him, was he asking him to fight them? He wanted to refuse to fight. But, then, Krishanji Maharaj said, ‘Arjun, this is a battle for certain principles. In this, do not consider the fact that those who are opposed to you are your relatives’.

We Kashmiris, too, are engaging in such a battle 

for certain principles with the Indian Government, for occupying us against our will and for not acting on its promise to let us decide our own political future. It is not a war against Hindus or the people of India. It is not a communal conflict. In fact, there are many Indians who support our stand on the right to self-determination

Q: Then why is it that the Indian media, and large sections of the Western media, too, present the movement as ‘Islamic extremism’ or ‘terrorism’?

Ali Geelani : The Indian media is bound to support India’s military occupation. How can you expect it to support our cause? I’ve seen so many massacres by the Indian Army here, but often the media describes them as ‘encounters’ with ‘militants’. You know how the agents of the Indian Army engineered the massacre of so many innocent Sikhs in Chhatisinghpora and falsely attributed this to ‘militants’, in order to convey the misleading message to the then American President, Bill Clinton, at that time on a visit to India, that our struggle is a ‘communal’ one, and not a freedom movement. I can cite so many more such cases to prove this point.

Q: But, if that is so, why is it that you and people like you have not condemned killings by militants in the same way as you condemn similar crimes by the Indian Army?

Ali Geelani: Wherever such incidents have happened, we have condemned them, irrespective of the religion of the victims. The Quran clearly states that enmity with a people should not make one stray from the path of justice, because justice is closer to piety.

Q: If Jammu and Kashmir becomes independent, how do you envisage its relations with India and Pakistan?

Ali Geelani: It should have brotherly relations with both countries.

Q: Some radical groups active in Kashmir argue that all Hindus are ‘enemies’ of Islam. What do you feel?

Ali Geelani: No, this is erroneous. There should be no enmity or discrimination with anyone simply because of his religion, caste, race, colour or country. We are permitted to fight only those individuals who fight us or place hurdles in the path of our faith. With others we should have good relations, and that applies to our relations with ordinary Hindus as well. So, when some people argue that as a community the Hindus are ‘enemies of Islam’, it is wrong. It is not an Islamic way of thinking.

Q: Certain militant groups active in Kashmir say that they will not stop their war with India until India itself is ‘absorbed’ into Pakistan and the Pakistani flag flies atop Delhi’s Red Fort. What is your opinion?

Ali Geelani: This is emotional talk and should not be paid attention to. We don’t agree with this argument. Our fight with India is only to the extent that India has taken away our right to self-determination. Once we win that right we will have no problem with India. In fact, if by exercising this right the majority of the people of Jammu and Kashmir say that they want to be with India, we will also accept that.

Q: But don’t you feel certain radical groups active in Kashmir who preach hatred against Hindus and call for India’s ‘absorption’ into Pakistan are actually defaming the religion whose cause they claim to champion?

Ali Geelani: Islam has been given a bad name more by Muslims themselves and less by Hindus. Islam has been damaged less by open ‘disbelief’ (kufr) than by hidden hypocrisy (munafiqat), by people who claim to be Muslims but are really not so in practice. 

Q: So,  you agree that these groups who condemn all Hindus as ‘enemies’ are actually misinterpreting Islam?would

Ali Geelani: We cannot take responsibility for what others say. You can ask these people yourself.

Q: What message do you have for the people of India?

Ali Geelani: I will only say that India should honour its promise to the people of Jammu and Kashmir to let them decide their own political future. Honouring one’s promise is a major principle of the Hindu religion. Raja Dasharath, honouring the promise he made to his wife Kaikeyi, gave his throne to his son Bharat and ordered Ram Chandraji to go into the forest in exile. Simply in order to keep his promise he sent his elder son to fourteen years in the forest and gave the throne to Bharat instead. Bharat was a man of character, and so he placed Ram Chandraji’s sandals on the throne, believing that his elder brother deserved to rule. So, the Hindu religion teaches that one should live up to one’s promises, and if India were to act on the advice of the Hindu scriptures in this regard on the issue of Kashmir the conflict will easily be solved.

(C) http://www.daccatimes.com 

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"Facebook Users In Kashmir are ISI Agents" Says Paranoid Indian Police.

Srinagar: If the reports appearing in a section of the media are true, (occupied) Kashmir youth who are using their accounts on social networking group ‘Facebook’ are in serious trouble. Police, according to the report, prominently carried by some Jammu bases dailies, have declared them as “ISI agents”, who pass information to the militants’ about the latest happenings in the valley.

A “massive hunt” has been launched by the police to apprehend the otherwise tech savvies who are using their Facebook accounts for interacting with people across the globe.

“Carrying laptops, a whole lot of clean shaved and well-dressed youth use the Facebook to inform the militants about the situation in Kashmir”, the report alleged.

Quoting sources the reports said that police have launched a massive manhunt to nab these youth who "are handsomely paid by the ISI". The youth have been accused of promoting 'militancy' by providing vital information to the militants on the social networking website Facebook.

The group, sources alleged, is busy in widening its network. "At places like Shopian, Anantnag, Kulgam and Pulwama the group is approaching local youth, mostly students to cause breach of peace and public order", they said.

It may be mentioned here that police and other security agencies have been critical of the Kashmir Facebook users since last year's agitation. Even the army has resented use of the networking website.

In February the army took strong exception to the use of social networking websites by Kashmiri youth who, according to the Corps Commander of 15 Corps indulge in “anti-national activities and incite violence”.

The Corps Commander, Lt General SA Hasnain while addressing a function in South Kashmir on February 2 said that Facebook and Twitter users in particular were maligning the image of the security forces operating in very difficult conditions in (occupied) Jammu & Kashmir. The Commander said most of the users were persons who wanted Kashmir to remain on boil all time for their vested interests. "They do not want peace to return to the state", he said.

Source: The Kashmir Monitor

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Media Gag & Banning of Local News Channels in Kashmir (C) Tehelka

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The Valley’s media is being throttled. (Tehelka)

BY PRAGYA TIWARI

Freedom first Journalists take out a procession in Srinagar to protest harassment PHOTO: ABID KHAN

It was the first day of October 2010. The autumnal air was beginning to get nippy. Summer was officially over in Kashmir, but its horrors were still trailing. At the crack of dawn, copies of leading newspapers in Srinagar were seized before they could be distributed. The new Assembly session was about to start and several journalists were on their way to cover it. Among them were a father and son team from the Associated Press — Merajuddin and Umar Meraj. Meraj is one of Kashmir’s best-known photojournalists. This highly respected veteran has covered the ground for over 20 years but he was not prepared for what was to unfold that morning.

The word on the street is that the police act under orders to curb Kashmiri journalists, local and national

His car was allowed through the first checkpost, but stopped at the second. He showed the police his Assembly Pass, Press Card and Curfew Pass, but was asked to turn back and go home without any reason being provided. When he got off to talk to the sub-inspector on duty, a couple of policemen walked up to his car and slapped his son. Before he could react, the sub-inspector ordered that he be ‘removed’. He was beaten severely and a blow on his neck left him unconscious. All this while his son continued to wail and plead with the police. CNN IBN bureau chief Mufti Islah, who was passing by, tried to reason with the policemen. When his colleague took out his camera to shoot the incident, both of them were also beaten.

Ironically, while the journalists were being thrashed, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was apologising for the seizure of newspapers earlier in the day saying, “I seek an apology from the mediapersons if the action has led to any inconvenience to them.” However, what was more alarming was his statement that the government had not ordered this seizure. “I personally felt that such an action was not needed,” he said. “But I will get it ascertained why the copies were seized. I have asked Director General of Police to report to my office on the issue in next 24 hours.” This statement is hardly alarming to a Kashmiri journalist, but to the outsider it is at the heart of a perturbing question: Who is in charge in Kashmir?

Once Meraj was back home from the hospital, the CM’s aides came calling. Later, the CM himself called to apologise. All of them assured Meraj that action would be taken against the errant cops. “You will not be able to do a thing,” retorted Meraj. Seventeen days later when he was allowed to leave his house, he had to cross the same checkpoint. None of the officers connected with his case had been removed — not even the sub-inspector who had watched over the heinous act. “I fear going past that point now. They could hit out at me again for talking about it,” says Meraj. He does not see any point in filing a case against them. However, he was not always this cynical. In 2000, when he had gone to cover a mine blast near Tanmarg, he was beaten along with over 15 other journalists by a renegade leader. He registered a case against the leader. No action was taken against him. In 2006, the leader’s son came to his house to threaten him to withdraw the case. The leader goes by the name of Muma Kana. Earlier this year, he was awarded the Padma Shri despite a number of criminal cases pending against him.

Meraj has been beaten several times while reporting. He says he remembers 11 incidents vividly but has stopped counting since. Yet he insists that things were not so bad before 2008. If you were beaten there was hope that the forces in charge would face action. Threats were issued indirectly not on the ground by the personnel themselves. This time around journalists were made to feel the wrath of the forces. They would often hear things like “It is because of your reportage that the situation flares up” or “Your curfew passes won’t work with us, we follow our own orders.”

Naseem, a 24-year-old journalist with Rising Kashmir, a prominent English daily, was apprehended outside his house on his way to the office and asked to produce the day’s copy of the paper. The lead picture was of a stone-pelter’s back. The cop started yelling at him saying that they did not get his face on purpose and if they had the cops could have caught the offender. He was let of with the threat of a thrashing.

Senior journalist Riyaaz Masroor, who has trained Naseem and his colleagues at the paper and works as a correspondent with the BBC, had a similar experience. “They announced that our curfew passes stand cancelled and we need to come out and get new ones made. The next day I left home to do just that. I had heard that press vehicles were being damaged so I chose to walk instead. I was stopped at a checkpoint near my house and asked to go back. Then without any provocation, without any explanation, they started to beat me,” his voice trails off.

Paradoxically, the State does feel the need for media. The authorities often offer money and privileges

In the past months of unrest, the cops have not distinguished between editors and interns. Several journalists have been beaten or humiliated. Star News bureau chief Asif Qureshi, 35, was stopped on his way home on 4 August and made to do manual labour by the roadside despite having valid identification and curfew pass.

There is not a single journalist TEHELKA met whose curfew pass has not arbitrarily been torn or declined. A day before Eid, a couple of journalists finished with their pages late at night and were heading back home. They were let through the first checkpoint but asked to return from the next. They argued saying the first checkpoint let them off and that it was Eid so they wanted to get back home. They pleaded with their curfew passes in hand but the cops refused to let them through, asking them to get back into office. When they finally turned to walk back to the office, the cops at the first checkpoint would not let go them go back. No explanation was provided to them for either decision and they sat late into the night on the road between two checkpoints unable to go home or into office.

The harassment is not necessarily over the local media trying to cover the conflict between protestors and security forces. In the first week of October, Nazeer, 24, wrote an article questioning the J&K Assembly Speaker’s remarks on Ashok Bhatt, the deceased Speaker of the Gujarat Assembly, hailing his secular credentials. The daily that carried the piece was threatened and Nazeer was forced to apologise personally to the Speaker for his article.

Bloody coverage Cameraman Irshad Mir was injured in the line of duty during a protest rally at Nowhatta PHOTO: ABID KHAN

The feeling on the ground is that there is a method to this madness — the cops have orders to curb Kashmiri journalists, whether they are from the local press or national. And given that the local administration seems to be clueless, most people are convinced that this is being done at Delhi’s behest. So is this really a well-planned attempt to curb the will and work of the local press? Deliberate, perhaps, but organised not as much. The security forces see the local media as biased against them. Condemned to face the wrath of the people and up against a violent struggle that is constantly taking them by surprise, they don’t see why the media should not be stopped, especially when they believe that the reportage fuels more violence. The Valley does not receive any national daily until late afternoon, so the masses rely on local publications for information. Srinagar Inspector General Shiv Murari Sahai has another explanation for why his men did not always respect curfew passes, “There was illegal scanning and proliferation of curfew passes so its sanctity was completely lost.”

It is hard to refute his claim. Anyone with a little bit of resources could collect blank curfew passes and fill out details later. But even though one can sympathize with the difficulties of policing a conflict state, it does not justify venting ire in an arbitrary way on the press for several months at a stretch. The buck stops with the administration that failed to step in to create checks and balances for both the police and the media. The police, left to fill in the absence of the other arms of the state, cracked its whip blindly at will. It was in these circumstances that India’s rating in the Press Freedom Index issued by Reporter’s Without Frontiers, France, dropped 17 places in one year to a 122 (out of 178 countries) in December. The report cited the violence in Kashmir as the primary reason for this depreciation.

For an aggregate of about 30 days since July, curfew has been so stringent that no newspapers have come out. On a number of other days, newspapers would be stopped from being distributed in an area where violence had occurred. On others, entire lots of newspapers were seized from the press. On the odd days that papers did come out, their resources were strained to the hilt. There was no saying how many staffers would be allowed to get to office. On some days there were no more than two-three people to work on some of the largest dailies. “Why issue curfew passes at all then? It makes us feel compelled to step out and cover stories,” says Meraj. Political cartoonist and Srinagar Times editor Basheer Ahmed Basheer echoes the sentiment. “I wish they had openly banned newspapers like they did with local television news,” he says. “At least that way our readers would stop expecting us to deliver.”

But the cable television industry does not see itself at any advantage. Over the past few years Kashmir witnessed a proliferation of local cable channels hosting news and current affair shows. Most of the programming was amateur, even tacky, but to a population that feels under-represented by the national media, local news was a welcome window to their never-ending war.

One by one, bulk SMS providers found their names on the blacklist until all texting was banned in the Valley

During the 2008 Assembly election, these channels found favour with politicians as well. They would get innumerable calls to cover campaigns and are said to have played a major role in getting the electorate out to vote. India was smug over the large voter turnout and the voters themselves were looking forward to the tenure of their promising young CM — Omar Abdullah — for an improved quality of life. But the climate of hope didn’t last long. In 2009, as the Valley simmered over the alleged double rape and murders in Shopian, cable news operators were asked to reduce the airtime of news. They complied without complaining and found themselves back on air as soon as the crisis was over.

But the worst was yet to come. Last year, while the Valley grappled with stone-pelting, deaths and unprecedented curfews, news channels found themselves under scrutiny again. They were issued several ‘advisories’ to ‘tone down’ their coverage of funerals of the teenagers killed by security forces. Then came a missive directing all local channels to slash airtime of news and current affairs shows from 24 hours to a mere 15 minutes, at a stipulated time every day. After the violence that followed the Quran burning protests on Eid, the channels were asked to stop broadcasting news altogether. The cable operators were also asked to take Iranian channel Press TV and Al Jazeera off air.

The industry obeyed the restrictions for over a month, certain that the ban would be lifted as soon as the administration thinks fit. But one October morning, they woke up to a statement by minister Taj Mohiuddin in the papers declaring that there was “no question of lifting the ban as the situation in the Valley had not improved but worsened because of them”. He even offered to “facilitate bank loans on low interest” to those employed by the industry so they can “start some private business of their own”.

Mohiuddin was one of the MPs who had actively sought the help of local channels to cover his campaigns, reveals Syed Tajamul, political editor of Sen TV, one of Kashmir’s best-known channels. When the union finally started protesting, they were told that their operations had been illegal to begin with. Didn’t the endorsement and various communications with the administration amount to tacit consent to run the channels, they wonder now. But no answers are forthcoming anymore. “No one is answering our calls or willing to talk to us anymore,” says Tajamul signs off, fighting back tears.

“Cable TV operators find themselves under more pressure than others because they sold out to the political parties during elections by agreeing to carry out propaganda for them,” says Najab, 30, a freelance writer. There is little sympathy for the cable news industry in general. Most people see them as corrupt, incompetent and cynically believe they deserved what they got. But the plight of hundreds of videographers, reporters, producers and editors, who find themselves suddenly unemployed, begs a different question. What makes an entire industry susceptible to be used and disposed off at the political class’s will?

Sheikh Imran Bashir, from the Agency India Press (Wire Services) has a story that contextualises this question. While the protests were at their peak he got a call from the Directorate of Information asking him why they weren’t reporting that Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s effigies had been burnt downtown. Imran crosschecked this with his sources and found no such incident had occurred but the pressure from the DI’s office continued to build up. “If I had carried the story Geelani’s side would have lynched me,” he says, still outraged. Imran spent an entire day in fear and anguish before coming up with an inventive con. He wrote out the story and mailed it to the DI’s office, pretending it was being circulated to all his clients. Thereafter for days on end he kept trying to call the DI’s office to check if they had seen the story and his call was not answered. “Can you imagine what would have happened if I had really written the story and got into trouble for it? They would not even answer my phone to help me,” he yells, breathless. A week later, the officer finally answered his call and said he was very pleased with the release. Imran was indignant, outraged but also relieved that the storm had passed.

Writing the wrongs Left to right: (Top row) Shujaat Bukhari, Basheer Ahmed Basheer, Yusuf Jameel. (Bottom row) Merajuddin of Associated Press and cartoonist Malik Sajad. PHOTOS: KAVI BHANSALI

This is a regular hiccup in the day of a wire service reporter but they have as little sympathy as the cable news journalists. A large number of them are treated with scorn and suspicion because they are seen as agents of the establishment. A lot of them set shop in the state in 2008, around the same time that the cable news industry was encouraged. Print journalists give valid reasons for this scepticism. Most of the wire agencies, despite being new on the block, get the kind of access to politicians that even established newspapers miss. They release fully developed, edited copies of stories. There is just one version of the story that is released. No one seems to know who funds or owns most of the agencies and given that they do not require licences to operate the way newspapers do, there is a feeling that they go unscrutinised. Smaller newspapers are almost entirely dependant on wire services for their reportage, which makes questions about their objectivity all the more pressing.

An alternative to wire services was offered by SMS news providers. Jasim owns a company called the Valley Media Service. For a monthly subscription fee of Rs. 50, they would periodically send SMS to their subscribers with news reports, press releases, community and social service messages as well as classifieds and job opening-related advertisements. The problems started when SMS service providers started mushrooming all over the Valley. Some of them were trained mediapersons but the majority of them simply wanted to capitalise on the trend. “They would flash news without verifying its authenticity, and were usually corrupt,” says Jasim.

To address these concerns, 20 out of 150 SMS service providers formed a union called the All India News Network Association and went to meet the Director of Information to discuss how the unreliable elements could be dealt with. However, Jasim’s SMS service was stopped without any notice on 3 February. On enquiry, the telecom operator, informed him that his number was one of a list sent by the J&K Home Department to the telecom company asking them to immediately block SMS services on those numbers. He was unable to get any explanation from the Home ministry. One by one all bulk SMS providers faced this undeclared ban until three months later in June, when all SMSes were officially banned in the Valley.

Jasim’s subscriber base at the time of banning was more than 5,000 people, mostly from the Valley. Unverified estimates suggest that between all the SMS providers, they reached out to nearly 10 lakh subscribers. On 24 December, SMS services were resumed in the Valley for all post-paid customers, but Jasim still cannot send text messages. He has made a number of enquiries but failed to ascertain why his service is not back up yet.

All this while, Jasim has been collecting updates from his network on ground and posting them on social media websites to ensure stories continue to be told. Through the summer of clampdowns on mainstream media, social media became the point of convergence for the news hungry. All the prominent English dailies would routinely update their websites and post on Twitter and Facebook, but for all their efforts the local population remained circumspect about them given the kind of pressures they knew existed. This resulted in the inflated popularity of amateur news sites run anonymously. A couple of these sites were suspected of being used to coordinate the protests as well. There was no accountability for the news being put out and rumour mongering abounded. But the real character of these pages emerged as an outlet for angry dissent. The comments that piled up were inflammatory and offensive — often to such an extent that it was impossible to reconcile them with the real mood on ground, angry as it was. The government as usual, reacted with disproportionate force — picking up young boys for participating in the social media agitation and slapping the Public Security Act on them.

But in order to evaluate the anonymous, exaggerated anger on the Internet, one needs to understand how journalists in Kashmir practice self-censorship under the threat perception of the State in real life. After years of living under oppression, the Kashmiri has learnt to draw his own boundaries. He monitors himself to stay within its precincts even when the State blinks.

This was not always the case. The story of media in Kashmir starts at the beginning of militancy in the early 1990s. A small, ill-equipped industry suddenly found itself responsible for covering a bloody war. They took on the task high on enthusiasm and ideology. But in the new climate, with the power suddenly decentralised, the various factions at war realised political and muscle clout was not enough — if they wanted their side to score, they would need propaganda as well. This is when pressures started to build up on the media. Militants would phone them regularly asking for more coverage of their activities. Every time a militant outfit called taking responsibility of an attack, the armed forces would refuse to corroborate the incident. If the newspapers went ahead with the militants’ version, they would receive threats from the forces. Both sides would give them inaccurate numbers and inflated claims.

The new power centres were young and heady. All of them felt aggressive. All of them felt insecure. Many a journalist was brutally murdered in this climate. The story of Yusuf Jameel, a correspondent of the most popular medium of news in those days, the BBC Radio, is a metaphor for the times. He has survived six attacks on his life — both by the military and the militants. In the last of these, a parcel bomb was hand-delivered to his office. He lost one of his close friends and colleagues in the incident and was severely injured himself. While he was away recovering, the BBC came under severe pressure from the establishment to sack him. Jameel became a print correspondent after the BBC succumbed to the pressure and has been with several national English dailies since.

As militancy died down in the new millennium, power returned to the various arms of the State. With the change in circumstances, point-blank killings and kidnappings of journalists became rare and the State adopted a subtler carrot-and-stick policy to control the media. Advertising was the biggest weapon in their hands. Hit by civil war, the Valley has not kept up with the wave of globalisation and market growth in the rest of the country. Newspapers are almost entirely dependant on ads by the state and Centre. It is common practice for ads to be completely banned or reduced in space by centimeters when newspapers are not toeing a ‘favourable’ line.

But the monetary checks are not necessarily always direct. Conveyor, a current affairs and investigative monthly, took on the administration in radical ways within months of its publication in June 2009. The parent company of the publication finances it primarily from returns they get by selling ad space on hoardings. One of their main clients was a state-run bank whose chairman suddenly decided to withhold payments due to them from the time they started financing the magazine. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult to carry on publishing.

Means of coercion may have evolved but that is not to say oppressive intimidation is no longer a possibility. In 2004, Maqbool Sahil, reporter for Urdu weekly Chattaan, was blindfolded and arrested when he had gone to the army PRO for a routine visit. Soon, the police declared he was a Pakistani spy based on highly questionable ‘evidence’ recovered from him. For four years he was tortured and interrogated before protests from all quarters succeeded in having him released. Two years after his release he still cannot comprehend why he was arrested. His feeling is that the police wanted to make an example of him because he had run a series of anti-police stories. “It is also possible that they were paid off to target me by personal enemies,” he says.

Suhail Bukhari, 30, could have met a similar fate this year. He claims that his vigorous coverage of the agitation made NewsX the most watched national channel in Kashmir. Some of his stories did not go down well with the administration and soon enough they found an excuse to hit out at him. The channel carried a ticker in July claiming one person had died in a clash in Pulwama. Bukhari called the news desk in Delhi and told them that was an error and should be removed. Despite this he learnt that a warrant had been issued in his name. His editor from Delhi wrote a letter to the police saying the error had been made in Delhi and Bukhari had nothing to do with it. But Bukhari found out that the police had decided to charge him with attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy, waging war against the nation and inciting violence. For over a month Bukhari kept trying to procure a copy of the FIR to understand the bizarre turn of events but failed. All through he was never directly contacted by the police. In the last week of November, he learnt through a newspaper report that the police had dropped all charges due to lack of evidence. He was not informed officially about this either.

Bukhari may have gotten off easier than Sahil but the extent of State presence in the journalist’s life is worrisome. There is hardly any journalist or publication that does not get calls about the form, content and placement of stories on a regular basis. The separatists make their share of phone calls as well, even if they are less frequent and frightening. It is in this context that the aforementioned self-censorship takes on paranoiac proportions. There is hardly any culture of investigative or narrative journalism and follow-ups are few and far between. Jameel explains how he learnt to manipulate words in the early 1990s to try and make sure every side felt their version was being put out, while still attempting to put out the truth.

The question of terminology is a vexed one in Kashmir. One of the most high-profile murders of the 1990s was that of the Doordarshan director, a Kashmiri Pandit called Lassa Koul. It is said that right before his death he had ordered small changes in the terminology used by newsreaders. For instance, terrorists were now to be referred to as militants. Story goes that he was immediately asked to revert back to the ‘old’ format by higher authorities and eventually lost his life to militants.

Another example of terminology issues, reveals yet another kind of censorship. Writers reporting their own conflict for a highly sensitised mass of readers are judged harshly and branded ‘traitors’ if they fail to accommodate public sentiment in reportage. Newspapers in Urdu, the language of the masses, are more susceptible to this. Rahim, 30, an editor with one of the most dynamic new Urdu papers explains this phenomenon — “When a militant or innocent citizen dies, we are supposed to write jaanbahaq huaa (martyred) in copy but when a security person is killed we must say halaaq huaa (killed). If five people are killed in all we can’t headline the piece as ‘five killed’. We must draw the distinction between the two killings even if that means a longer headline than the design can accommodate.”

Malik Sajad, a 23-year-old political cartoonist with Greater Kashmir was still in school when he started working for the newspaper. One of his first cartoons was about a grenade attack in Lal Chowk on Independence Day despite backbreaking security measures. The very next day his office was invaded by CRPF security forces with the head of the battalion looking for Sajad. “When he was pointed to a boy in school uniform getting off his cycle, he promptly called his senior and said there must be some mistake. ‘He is too young to be doing this,’ he said. That is how I was let off the hook,” chuckles Sajad. But he didn’t let the incident pass. He has now moulded his art to ensure that he can say what he wants to without offending anyone. For instance, he never uses caricatures and tones down the critique for both the State and the separatists. He calls this “improving his art”.

But overall, the proverbial carrot has become more influential than it ever was. Clearly the need for media is as obvious as the need to keep it in check. The security officer on ground might abuse the journalist and threaten him with death but the feelers sent out by authorities are more discrete — politely offering money or privileges. It is hard to tell how many journalists succumb to these offers, especially when there does not seem to be much of an alternative. But it is worth noting that at a time when newspapers are increasingly threatened for survival in the rest of the world, new newspapers are launched in the Valley every day.

Evidently, a number of these are simply mouthpieces for small and large political factions. But for the average Kashmiri, it has become difficult to tell the grain from the chaff. There isn’t one publication out of the Valley that is not accused of corruption by somebody or another. And cynicism is more vicious and widespread than actual corruption. Jameel rues this. “I did not once think of quitting my profession when I was being attacked over and over again in the 1990s but when I see the corruption in the media today, I want to leave,” he says.

Over the past two months, the Valley has returned to a semblance of normalcy, but the situation for journalists is still grim. On 31 December, Early Times, an English daily, sent out a press release, a plea to the journalistic fraternity detailing the harassment they are undergoing in the hands of the state government. The release claims all their advertisements have been banned, their reporters are being subjected to routine humiliation, the editor’s house is under surveillance — he has been charged on false counts — and the State is hitting out against the business interests of the newspaper’s owners. They claim they have incurred this wrath for reporting misgovernance and refusing to give ‘positive coverage’ to the CM. While these claims are unverified, the desperate helplessness in the tonality of this email sent out by a prominent daily is disturbing to say the very least.

On 16 December, photojournalist Shafat Siddiqui, 35, was near Lal Chowk covering the Muharram procession. While trying to return to the Dainik Jagran office with the photographs, he was stopped at several checkpoints. When he told the stationmaster this, he was promised they would escort him to the office shortly. Suddenly one of the constables on duty started abusing him. Sensing threat, he got into his car and attempted to leave, but the constable hit his vehicle and dragged him out, proceeding to beat him severely. It was only when reporters from NewsX and Aaj Tak intervened that he was let off. In the hospital, the doctor told him he had had a close shave with his head injury.

Newspapers like Rising Kashmir and Ittelaat have been facing a ban of advertising from the state government since November and the Centre for nearly a year now. It is not surprising that more and more newspapers are exercising self-censorship. Wajid, 26, tells us how his editor asked him to change the language of a report to avoid embarrassing the interlocutors or portraying them as ‘failures’.

The only silver lining is that the media has survived yet another season of brutalities. It may not be ready to take on the establishment head on, but it is noting events as they transpire, ensuring that the first draft of a cruel history is not obliterated.

(Some names have been changed to protect identities.
Tehelka's reporting on press freedom issues is supported by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.)

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