Why are mass graves in Kashmir so passé?

By SA Aiyar 

The Jammu & Kashmir State Human Rights Commission says 2,730 bodies have been found in unmarked graves in Kashmir. This officially confirms earlier accusations by human rights groups. Security forces once claimed any such graves were those of unidentified militants killed in military encounters. But the commission says 574 bodies have already been identified as those of local villagers, and DNA tests will expose many more. This was mass murder. 

Most countries would have treated this as major news, but our media barely noticed. Bored with unending tales of human rights violations in Kashmir, our media saw Anna Hazare’s fast and even Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s pregnancy as more newsworthy. 

Two decades of insurrection in Kashmir have eroded our ability to feel horror, to be nauseated by mass murder. Yes it’s terrible, most people say with a shrug, but it’s all Pakistan’s fault and we can’t surrender to jihadis.

As a libertarian, i dislike ruling people by force, and am dismayed by the parallels between India’s independence struggle and the Kashmiri azaadi struggle. Basharat Peer’s “Curfewed Nights” and a new collection of writings from Kashmir “Until My Freedom Has Come”, highlight Kashmiri humiliation and anger against what they call Indian colonial oppression.Actually, India has not colonized Kashmir. Rather, it has tried to integrate Kashmir with itself. Nation building is a difficult task that, across the world, has required a mixture of persuasion and firmness. Using this mixture, India succeeded in integrating some regions with secessionist movements — Tamil Nadu, Mizoram, Punjab. But 64 years of this approach have manifestly failed in Kashmir. Using ever more force begins to look like colonial oppression more than attempted integration.Kashmiri alienation flows from Muslim revolts against the erstwhile Dogra ruler, rigged elections after 1947, and security forces guilty of torture, killing and rape in the name of national security. The Kashmiri insurrection has taken 70,000 lives of civilians, armed forces and militants. Some are due to terrorism, some to genuine defence against jihadis and armed infiltrators. But the mass graves bear testimony to horrors against innocent Kashmiris too.Secular Indians feel outraged by 900 Muslim deaths in Gujarat’s 2002 riots. They are outraged by the killing of 3,000 people by Chilean dictator Pinochet. But they are mostly bored by 2,730 Kashmiri bodies in unmarked graves. It’s all the fault of Pakistan and jihadi terrorists, say some. True, Pakistan trained many jihadis. But many of these were Kashmiri youngsters angered by Indian outrages. They were killed in droves by Indian security forces, and their flow to Pakistan greatly diminished. There was no Pakistani training or inspiration behind the thousands of youngsters who took to the streets during the Srinagar intifada last year. They did not seek union with Pakistan. They simply wanted Indian “killers” off their soil.Many analysts emphasize the legalisms of Kashmiri accession to India. But hundreds of Indian princes had legal treaties with the British Raj, which our independence movement declared irrelevant after the rise of Indian nationalism. Liberal values cannot be based on legalisms alone.Let us forget legalisms and hold a plebiscite, which we promised anyway in 1947. Probably the valley will vote for azaadi, with Jammu and Ladakh opting for India. We should see this not as a loss of territory but a gain of moral stature, and return to the liberal values that drove our independence movement. Most Indians say a plebiscite will wreck Indian secularism and let loose another round of partition killings. Really? If India was so wedded to secularism, it should never have accepted partition along communal lines in 1947. Having agreed to communal partition, it was hypocritical to violate this norm in Kashmir.In Junagadh in 1947, a Muslim Nawab ruling over a Hindu majority, acceded to Pakistan. India refused to accept this, ousted the Nawab forcibly, and justified this by holding a plebiscite that went overwhelmingly in India’s way. If this was a secular tactic, why call a similar plebiscite in Kashmir a danger to secularism? Critics of a plebiscite claim that a vote for azaadi will trigger fresh partition riots, targeting Muslims throughout India. Really? Is supposedly secular India actually so communal that Hindus will slaughter Muslim innocents galore, with the state a helpless bystander? I have a better opinion of India than that. Forget what Kashmiris demand. Let us allow self-determination in Kashmir to cleanse our own hands and hearts. This will not mean surrender to militants or Pakistan. It will mean returning to the liberal values of our independence movement, which are getting tainted beyond recognition by the mass graves in Kashmir. We need to regain our capacity to feel horror. 

(C) The Times Of India

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The courage of a stolen childhood

By Showkat Nanda

Showkat Nanda took this picture of a young Kashmiri boy throwing stones at an armoured vehicle in the summer of 2009 just moments after another young boy, shot by Indian security forces, had died in his arms [Showkat Nanda]

When I shot this picture in the summer of 2009, I remembered the image of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, Faris Odeh, standing in front of an Israeli tank, alone, with just a stone in his hand.

Ten days after Odeh's picture was taken, he was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in another stone throwing incident. He became a hero and his iconic image a symbol of Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation. Then, I had not imagined that a Faris Odeh was being raised in every second home in Kashmir.My job as a news photographer has taken me to different places and diverse situations - safe, peaceful, violent and dangerous. But after the 2008 uprising, now known as Kashmir's second Intifada, my job led me to a place where death comes easily - the frontlines of a new form of resistance in Kashmir, the 'war of stones'.

This appallingly disproportionate war entered its bloodiest phase during the summer of 2010, when it consumed more than 100 young lives. Kashmir's streets had become the battleground for this war in which young men and children carrying stones in their hands stood in front of armoured vehicles and heavily armed soldiers; eyeball to eyeball. A single hit in the head or chest could leave you on the ground, dead.

Last summer's images of Kashmir often take me back a year to when, in the wake of the Shopian twin rape and murder, the valley was plunged into yet another period of unrest.

The bridge of battleCement Bridge in northern Kashmir's Baramulla town has become one of the symbols of resistance against Indian rule. The local people call it 'the bridge of battle' and some say the angel of death lives there for it has consumed so many young lives - mostly during violent clashes between protesters and paramilitary soldiers.

One day I witnessed this for myself as a child of barely 12 years old lay in my arms, his life slipping away, breath by breath.

It was a rainy afternoon and mild clashes were taking place between protesters and paramilitary forces. I was sat some 100 metres away from the bridge looking through photographs on my camera's LCD. Suddenly I heard a rumble of gunfire followed by loud shouts. I saw three or four youth coming towards me carrying an injured boy, his blood leaving a trail on the ground behind them. I ran towards them and took the blood-drenched, half dead child in my lap, pleading with the people around us to call an ambulance.

Nearly a dozen desperate young boys formed a ring around us, each suggesting ways of saving his life. But I knew he was not going to make it. The bullet that had pierced the left side of his chest had left a gaping wound.

He lay in my arms, blood oozing from his mouth. I felt choked but tried to smile as I told him he was going to be alright. He smiled back, perhaps in disappointment, for he knew I was lying. Tears welled up in my eyes but I looked up at the sky as I tried to stop them from falling. I did not want my eyes to convey that his death was near, very near.

The second time I looked up at the sky to hold back my tears, I felt a freezing numbness in his body. His smile had turned into a ghastly stare. He was dead. Hundreds had already gathered, shouting 'Shaheed ki jo mout hai, Woh qaum ki hayat hai' - meaning 'the death of a martyr is life for a nation'.

I did not know him or his name. But before he was taken away, he was able to rest in peace in my arms for a moment. This must be the peace India keeps talking about, I thought.

Death of innocence, birth of defianceI wanted to scream. I wanted to throw stones. Not one, not two, but millions of them. But, apart from clenching my teeth, I could do nothing. With the burden of journalism hanging around my neck, I felt powerless. It was dangerous for a journalist to take sides, I had been told.

By now the battleground had been deserted; no one dared face the soldiers in case they should open fire again. But just a few minutes later a small child appeared as if from nowhere. He ran towards the paramilitaries throwing stones at their armoured vehicle, seemingly without worry about being chased, beaten, arrested or shot. I overheard somebody say that the stone-throwing boy had been a schoolmate of the one who had just died in my arms.

In those few moments I had simultaneously witnessed the death of innocence and the birth of defiance. Here was a child challenging a mighty state with just a stone in his hand. That is when I shot this image and left the spot with the dead boy's blood on my clothes.

Every night I would dream of the boy who died in my arms and think of revenge. I felt restless whenever the image of his lifeless face appeared before my eyes. And I would stare at the picture of his stone-throwing schoolmate for hours; the boy's defiance seemed to represent my emotions. The more I looked at it, the more it seemed to convey.

In his act, I could feel a blatant rejection of the lies imposed upon these children. Through every pebble he tossed at the bulletproof vehicle, he seemed to be saying: "Look, I am in front of your gun barrel for a purpose, and by choice. I am not an accidental revolutionary getting paid for every stone I throw, neither am I a misguided puppet as the world is made to believe. I am not a suicidal maniac either, obsessed with coming out of this dreadful game of death as a martyr. I am here demanding a different life - a life where the land I belong to exists as a nation on the map of the world; where I do not live and die with an uncertain identity. A life where there are no bunkers, no checkpoints and no barriers of coiled razor wire; where I am not greeted by gun-wielding soldiers on my way to school; where my parents are not humiliated every day; where my tiffin box and school bag are not searched for weapons; where I am not killed in a playground with a cricket ball still in my hand; and where I am not thrown into the shadows of despair and frustration."

Ultimately, thus, he became my hero, my Faris Odeh.

A bullet for a stone For youngsters like him, throwing stones expresses the anger they have long been harbouring against those they see as usurpers of their land. It is their way of knowing and identifying with the problems of their homeland. It becomes an antidote to the horrors they have suffered ever since they were born; horrors which nurture an early political awareness, making them more rebellious than my own generation born during the 1980s.

I remember how, during the early 1990s when I was I child, my parents never allowed me to take part in anti-India demonstrations for fear that would mean not returning home alive. In those days, government forces would often fire indiscriminately upon demonstrators. 

After the deaths of my brother and teenage cousin, my parents would warn me that the family could not afford another martyr. But I would ignore their warnings, wearing slippers on my hands to escape quietly via back windows, to go and join the demonstrations. But I never pelted stones. In the presence of the gun it seemed such a futile and dangerous pastime.

Two decades on, what I have found is an immense transformation or rather an intensification of almost everything - of the anger felt and the methods of resistance employed. Back then it was a bullet for a bullet; now it is a bullet for a stone. Then parents would prevent their children from joining the protests, now they encourage them. They have no other choice; they cannot see their children cocooned into a political breathlessness. This political suffocation has turned everyone into a rebel. And I am no exception.

In August 2010, I was covering a demonstration in Baramulla organised to protest against recent killings. The procession, which included hundreds of elderly men and children, was so large that its head and tail were almost half a kilometre apart. The boys were advised by their elders to be peaceful and disciplined and they obeyed.

When the procession reached the Cement Bridge, the protesters found that a bevy of policemen and paramilitary soldiers sitting strategically in packed rows, shoulder to shoulder, had blocked their way.

Behind them stood a couple of armoured vehicles with menacing multi-barrel teargas launchers on top. The protesters stopped nearly 30 feet away from the airtight barrier of uniformed men and sat down peacefully for they knew they would not be allowed to proceed further. On the other side, the soldiers looked intently through their translucent shields at the slogan-raising protesters.

Suddenly, I heard a deafening bang, then two, then three until there was complete confusion. I could see a barrage of stun grenades and teargas canisters flying over my head. Then I heard the sound of gunfire.

Everyone ran, coughing. I also ran with my eyes closed and my hands covering the back of my head to prevent it from being hit by a teargas shell. Crying children, shouting people and thousands of pounding feet created chaos. With my throat stinging from the smoke and my eyes still closed, I thought of a news anchor who, on an Indian news channel the night before, had said: "The security forces only fire in self-defence. If they don't, they could be lynched by the frenzied mob." 

I felt a rage building up inside me against not only the soldiers but the TV news anchor as well. With my eyes half shut, I could faintly see a dense fog of teargas smoke and anger. Some of the elderly protesters and a few children had collapsed on the ground and the whole situation had developed into a confrontation with hundreds of protesters, young and old, throwing stones at the paramilitaries.Haunted by the hellish images of Kashmir

The moment I opened my eyes fully, I found myself at the exact spot where, a year before, the wounded boy had died in my arms. I felt breathless as I thought of him. I remembered his smile and his frail, blood-drenched body.

I remembered all the pictures, thousands of them, I had taken of dead children, wailing mothers, humiliated fathers and destroyed homes - the pictures which had been haunting me for years. Kashmir's hellish images seemed to follow me - like the macabre image of a father being showered with kicks and blows as he tried to protect his dead son's body from being desecrated.

I also remembered the last kiss my brother gave me just days before he was killed and my teenage cousin who was shot dead at the same place during a protest 20 years earlier. I remembered the pain and bloodshed of my people. Each image flashed before my eyes and I felt angry, really angry. I did not want to live with this anger forever.

The journalist in me tried to calm my emotions down. Words like unbiased, neutrality and objectivity passed through my mind. But the rage I felt overwhelmed them. By being merely a witness to the events around me, I felt I was being the most subjective person on earth. It seemed the worst degree of partiality, almost a crime. The most valuable lesson of being neutral that I had been taught as a journalism student seemed so ridiculous here. I remembered the journalist in the Oscar-winning Bosnian film No Man's Land, saying: "Neutrality does not exist in the face of murder. Doing nothing to stop it is, in fact, choosing, [it] is not being neutral."

I looked around and took the most edgy stone I could find in my hand. It felt firm and satisfying. I held it in my hand - a piece of solid joy, not a dream. Proceeding to throw it at what Kashmiris see as the symbols of occupation, I stood at the same spot where the boy is seen in my picture. I confess I felt completely transformed - from an emasculated snap-shooter into a man of stone.

I deliberately aimed my stone at a bulletproof armoured vehicle. I did not want to harm a soldier. I just wanted to give an expression to my rage and to keep alive in me, what the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, called the "disease of hope".

Then I picked up more stones and threw them. It was not a futile pastime anymore. Here I was amidst my own people and emotions; away from the platitude of false rhetoric, the impotence of political handshakes and the sterility of dialogue tables, which I had once believed could lead us out of the shackles of 60 years of political uncertainty.

That day I felt like a hero. Then I thought of the real heroes - hundreds of little Kashmiri children just like the boy in my picture.

Whenever I look at this picture, one thing always comes to my mind - the courage of a stolen childhood and, of course, the pain of a stolen land.

What became of this faceless boy is still a mystery to me. A few hours after I took this picture, someone told me that two more young boys were shot dead later that day, not far from the place where this boy was standing. Since then I have tried hard to trace him but without success. Whether I would be able to find him again or if he too met the fate of Faris Odeh, I do not know.

Showkat Nanda is an award-winning Kashmiri freelance photojournalist.

(C)Kashmir: The forgotten conflict (Aljazeera)

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Kashmir in the collective imagination

Non-Kashmiris have a complex conception of the valley, seen as a crystallisation of ideologies that led to partition.

By Asad Hashim

While all say Kashmiris need peace, the specific nature of that peace is hotly contested [GALLO/GETTY]

For Indians and Pakistanis, Kashmir is much more than a strategically important valley: it is the crystallisation of a conflict defined by the division of a nation. In the non-Kashmiri imagination, the valley is a battleground not just for the two countries themselves, but for the very ideologies that led to the partition of the subcontinent over 60 years ago.

Al Jazeera spoke with citizens on both sides of the border, and abroad, to try and understand just what place Kashmir has in their collective imaginations.

We asked them four questions:

Q1. What does Kashmir mean to you as an Indian/Pakistani?Q2. What images does the word 'Kashmir' evoke for you?Q3. Do you think that Pakistan or India have a 'right' to Kashmir?

Q4. Where does the Kashmiris' will figure in your conception of a solution to the dispute?

Their responses are below.

INDIA

Ram Narayan GuptaAge: 42Occupation: Shopkeeper Hometown: Bihar

1. Kashmir is the crown of India. It is like heaven on earth.

2. Two decades ago, the word 'Kashmir' itself was pleasing to the ears. It would evoke images of beauty and tranquility. But things have changed since - the word can now only conjure images of violence and destruction.  

3. In my opinion, Kashmir is the head, the crown of India, so it cannot just be cut and removed and given away.                   

4. In my opinion, 10 per cent of Kashmiris have mixed feelings. But an overwhelming majority, 90 per cent of Kashmiris, want to be a part of India. They desire the end of the terrorism that has been inflicted on them, and do not want their land to be a playground for violence anymore.

Om PrakashAge: 26Occupation: Secretary

Hometown: Varanasi

"Some Kashmiris think that it will be better to go with Pakistan, but they should realise the reality of the people from India who settled in Pakistan after independence" Om Prakash

1. Kashmir is an inseparable part of India. All Kashmiris are our brothers and sisters. Kashmir is also important from a strategic point of view for India.

2. It is synonymous with heaven on earth, one of the world's most remarkable natural beauties.

3.  Yes, I believe only India has a right over Kashmir.

4. Some Kashmiris think that it will be better to go with Pakistan, but they should realise the reality of the people from India who settled in Pakistan after independence [in 1947]. They are called muhajirs and are not treated well. Internally, Pakistan is a mess and they don't have a very good attitude towards Kashmir. It will be better to be part of India.

Mili Bhagat SharmaAge: 28Occupation: Hotel service

Hometown: Aligarh

1. Kashmir is India's and the world's most beautiful place.

2.  On the one hand, one thinks of Kashmir's unique handicrafts and garments, from paper mache to pashmina, but on the other hand, it evokes images of guns, bullets and bloodshed.

3. Kashmir is an integral part of India, and that is where it belongs.

4. Kashmiris have been suffering and are trapped in the politics of the two sides. They want to find a solution of their own, but I am not sure if this is a feasible option.

ShikhaAge: 19Occupation: Salesperson

Hometown: Dehradun

1. Kashmir is the Indian equivalent of heaven.

2.  I've never been to Kashmir, but the word evokes images of rivers, lakes, mountains, snow and pristine beauty. If I ever went there, though, I am sure the sight of the militants would erase all such images from my mind.

3. In my opinion, I don't think we can make or dictate a decision for Kashmir. It's best if the people there decide for themselves.

4. I don't think Kashmiris want to be split on the lines of religion, and not in the violent way India and Pakistan were divided. I think the Kashmiris want to, and are entitled to, find a peaceful solution of their own.

PAKISTAN

Zahid Hussain Age: 31 Occupation: Butcher

Hometown: Lahore

1. The importance of Kashmir is something that our army or the government would know better. They would know what Kashmir means for us, or if its border is the same as Pakistan, then what benefit it would bring to us Pakistanis. And in which particular way will Pakistan develop if Kashmir is with us? Only if we knew all this, then we'll be able to understand what it is for us Pakistanis.

"If we look closely, our government and mujahideen have not really done anything for Kashmiris, either. The [Pakistani] army uses them for their own benefit and then leaves them" Zahid Hussain

2. I think firstly Kashmir makes me think of the helplessness and the plight of the people and what the Indians are doing to them.

3. Well, it is Pakistan's right to have Kashmir as its own. But now even people of Azad Kashmir [Pakistani-administered Kashmir] want to get separated. They call themselves Kashmiris and not Pakistanis. I remember an incident, I went with my friends to Azad Kashmir last year, I parked my motorcycle outside a shop and was worried about it getting stolen. But the shopkeeper said: "Don't worry it is not Pakistan, but Kashmir, and the crime rate is low here."4. I don't care even if Kashmiris want independence. It is a region of Muslims, it should just be free from India. People of Kashmir are very nice, I have met the ones from Jammu: they are good people. If they say they want to be independent, then it is fine. There is nothing wrong with it. Sobia Iftikhar Age: 35Occupation: Receptionist and telephone operator

Hometown: Faisalabad

1. Well, Kashmir is a part of Pakistan in a way. There are Muslims there and they are facing hardships. And Indians are killing innocent Muslims there and that is why we want Kashmir, I guess.

2. It is beautiful, and Kashmir to me is a beautiful place of beautiful people. Their women and culture are amazing. And every time I think of Kashmir, an image of a crowd of people, gathered and protesting, comes to my mind as well. Also, a white flag with the [Muslim] kalma written on it with a sword comes to my mind.*

3. I think Pakistan has a right to Kashmir, India doesn't. Because at the time of partition India kept a part of Kashmir with it forcibly. And also because Pakistan and Kashmir are both areas of Muslims.

4. I think Kashmiris would want to go with Pakistan. But then it looks like that they probably want independence for themselves. Sometimes I think if they merge with Pakistan then their thoughts of independence might go and they will be more accepting of Pakistan than of India. But I also think if independence is what they really want, both people of Azad Kashmir and Jammu, then that is okay too. In fact that is better, if they get to have a small independent state of their own. Everyone has a right to freedom, right?

*The flag Iftikhar has described belongs to the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an Islamic charity that is active in the valley and which has been accused of being a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Zulfiqar Masih Age: 50Occupation: Security guard and a retired military corporal

Hometown: Narowaal

"[Kashmiris] want religious freedom also, because they are Muslims. If they want to live independently it is fine as well, but [it is] better if [they are] with Pakistan" Zulfiqar Masih

1. Kashmir is a problem for both countries: forces of both countries are at the border. And the expenditure of keeping the forces there is too much. That is not good for Pakistan. The problem of Kashmir should be resolved.

2. Nothing comes to my mind straight away. But Kashmir generally reminds me of the bloodbath there, the stuff we see in the news ... bullets and torture.

3. India has been ruling Kashmir forcibly, whereas the people of Kashmir want to be with Pakistan. Our history says that Kashmir should be with Pakistan. That is why the Kashmiris struggle, they want religious freedom also, because they are Muslims. If they want to live independently it is fine as well, but [it is] better if [they are] with Pakistan.

4. The decision of the people of Kashmir should be the most important. Whatever they want should be their fate.

Gulshan AraAge: 42Occupation: Government secondary school teacher

Hometown: Lahore

1. It is part of Pakistan. It should be given to Pakistan.

2. [I think of] a place which is occupied by India. Also a beautiful place, green and great for tourism.

3. Kashmir is Pakistan's right. If the Kashmir problem is resolved, Kashmir should come to Pakistan. Our rivers are dependent on Kashmir. [For more on the water politics of Kashmir, click here]

4. Different people have different views, [regarding] elections etc. People should get a right to vote, and of course they would want to come to Pakistan. If it comes with Pakistan, there will be religious freedom. But our politicians are not doing anything for Kashmir.

Muhammad ShafiqueAge: 24Occupation: Rickshaw driver

Hometown: Arifwala

1. Kashmir is our land. It is our country.

2. My heart says that it is our land, it is a pure, beautiful land.

3. Pakistan should get it because it is a land of Muslims. I am not educated, but I have heard from my elders that it is a land like no other.

4. I think that Kashmiris are our brothers and they want to be a part of Pakistan. But I think that they should not be a part of Pakistan, because we are too busy being selfish. There is corruption here, everyone is busy making money. Our politicians ignore us and they will ignore Kashmir as well. 

EXPATRIATES

Abhijit DuttaAge: 28Occupation: WriterHometown: Calcutta, India

Currently resides in: Singapore

1. [It means] many things. Personally, it's a place of refuge. It's a place where I have many friends. Professionally, I have written about Kashmir as a travel writer and am now researching it for a book project. As an Indian, I do not have a point of view on Kashmir's independence. And I do not think I should. It's for Kashmiris to have a point of view on this. But, at a larger level, Kashmir is a realisation that I was deceived growing up.

"At a larger level, Kashmir is a realisation that I was deceived growing up" Abhijit Dutta

2. Butt's Clermont houseboats in Naseem Bagh, the Zabarvan hills [and] my friends Umar and Nasrun.

3. No, [they do] not [have] a "right".

4. Where [does their will] figure? I don't understand. It's only Kashmiris who figure - who should figure - in any solution. This is not about Indians or Pakistanis. This is about Kashmiris.

Name: Nabeela ZahirAge: 29Occupation: Journalist and researcher Hometown: Sialkot, Pakistan

Currently resides in: London, United Kingdom

1. For me, Kashmir means several things: conflict, a struggle for independence, but also a land of immense beauty. It is the contentious issue of whether Kashmir belongs to Pakistan or India that has created this conflict. In terms of beauty, growing up as a British Pakistani, Kashmir has always been described to me as the 'Venice of the East' and I have always wanted to travel to the region. The beauty of Kashmir is profound, but whilst the conflict continues, the region has never had his chance to really open its doors to tourism, something that could really help the socio-economic standards of Kashmir. 

2. The term 'Kashmir' evokes several images: countless widowed Muslim women and fatherless children desperately pleading for help from the international community, pictures of missing loved ones seized by the Indian army never to be seen again, protests and anger on the streets and of course Pakistani militants. But the images of conflict and destruction are not all there is to Kashmir. The term Kashmir also conjures up images of lush landscapes; endless mountain ranges, clear blue lakes, beautiful regional art and clothing, and a unique culture and people.

3. It is not a decision for either India or Pakistan to make. Kashmiris need to be given a voice, and their voice must be listened to. If they wish to be an independent state and believe that is the way to achieving peace in the region, than it is only democratic to grant them this. Instead of this, Kashmir is used as a point of conflict between the two nations and the people continue to live under violent oppression. Prior to the divide of India and Pakistan, Kashmir was an independent state, therefore it should have the right to be fully independent and free from both Indian and Pakistani rule.

4. Ninety-five per cent of Kashmir is Muslim, yet they are ruled by people who do not represent them, and who can be described as 'outsiders', i.e. an Indian army who has been sent to control them. Watching footage from the region at times reminds me of the occupation of Palestine. Yet this is not to say that it is only India that is to blame. Pakistanis militants too often perpetuate this cycle of violence, and it is innocent Kashmiris who get caught up in the crossfire.

If India wishes to continue to call itself a democratic nation, and if Pakistan wishes to be recognised as one they must empower Kashmiris, by giving them control over their own lives. In my understanding, Kashmiris simply want peace, the right to live freely without fear of violence or oppression, so in order to achieve this it is Kashmiris alone who must decide their future.

Azar ZaidiAge: 28Occupation: JournalistHometown: New Delhi, India

Currently resides in: London, United Kingdom

"[Media depictions of Kashmir] vary from 'heaven on earth' to 'hell on earth' depending on whether [you] are watching a Bollywood movie or the evening news, respectively" Azar Zaidi

1. Kashmir is an issue that should have been settled long ago. On a theoretical plane, for me as an Indian, it is perhaps another suggestion that the "India Nation" is fragile at best, having to constantly negotiate with competing nationalisms and democracies. India is at a state of low-intensity civil war, in Kashmir, in the North East, with the Maoists in Central India, and other secessionist tensions in South India. At a very real level, it is an issue that is used to overshadow other, more pressing issues, as and when required.

2. Non-Kashmiri Indians have a complex way of dealing with Kashmir. It's a "tourist destination", in the sense that almost everybody has heard of it, has sampled it in some form - its cuisine, handicrafts and depictions in the media (that vary from "heaven on earth" to "hell on earth" depending on whether they are watching a Bollywood movie or the evening news, respectively).

3. I personally think autonomy would be best for Kashmir, indeed for India and Pakistan as well. But if you ask an Indian about Kashmir - whether it should secede to Pakistan, be granted autonomy or whether India should go to war over it, most people will insist Kashmir is an integral part of India. Apart from such nationalistic posturing there is very little interest in what's actually happening in Kashmir.

4. While the Kashmiri people's aspirations should be central to any solution, they have not been given such a voice. And I think the militancy they have resorted to in the past few decades, underlines their willingness to participate and decide the issue more than anything else - their exclusion will only lead to more conflict and violence.

I haven't kept up with the politics but the impression I get is that every time the Kashmiris' plight is highlighted, the case of the Kashmiri Pandits being driven out of the valley is presented as a counter-point. So there's a lot of posturing but no real solutions are ever sought.

Rabia Mehmood and Diva Dhar contributed reporting for this feature.

You can follow Asad Hashim on Twitter: @AsadHashim

(C) http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/kashmirtheforgottenconflict/ 

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Villager Number Nine

From Kashmir: The forgotten conflict Aljazeera

By Majid Maqbool

Military checkpoints dot the Kashmiri landscape [Credit: Showkat Shafi]

In one of the remotest villages in Bandipora, about 72kms from Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, an old two-storey wooden house sits on a picturesque hilltop. It is surrounded by coils of barbed wire interspersed with empty alcohol bottles. It is no longer a home; the Indian military have turned it into a military camp. But before the military paint, troops and barbed wire arrived, it was the most beautiful house in the village. Not anymore. Now an Indian soldier sits in the garden, close to the road and beside a neglected flower bed. On the table next to him is a worn-out register where he notes the number of every vehicle entering the village. Any person going into or leaving the village must register at the camp. Vehicles are checked, the purpose of the visit enquired and multiple entries made in the soldier's book. The military camp is the gateway into and out of the village. At any point in the day, the soldiers know exactly who is at home and who is away. Just as it has been for decades. To reach the village you must navigate a difficult mountainous track. The road is in bad shape and remains cut off from the rest of the valley as a result of heavy snowfall during winter. It is a journey that would take hours on foot. On the road we encounter an old man carrying a hen he purchased in a nearby town. He has already walked for hours and still faces an arduous climb to reach his home. We stop to give him a lift and the old man, who says he knows everybody in his village, including the soldiers, offers us any help we may need while there in return. Stammering as he talks, he explains that there is a boed-doh (holy day) coming up at one of the shrines in Bandipora. The hen, he says, is to be fed well until the boed-doh when she will be sacrificed. He caresses her from time to time to keep her calm. Suspicion As we approach the military camp, the soldier rises from his chair - clearly surprised to see an unknown car. The old man climbs out first. Turning to the soldier, he raises his hands, expecting to be recognised. But the soldier is more interested in the unfamiliar faces inside the car. Suspicious looks are exchanged. The soldier enquires about the purpose of our visit, checks our vehicle, our identity cards, quizzes the driver and then goes on to make multiple entries in his register. But the old man is uneasy. The soldier has not recognised him and this worries him. Hen still in hand he approaches the soldier again, repeatedly saying: "Number nine, number nine ...."

"Number nine?" the soldier asks, looking up from his register.

He stresses the 'nine' because that is what the old man is to the soldier - 'number nine'. That is how he has known him over the years - reduced to a lifeless number entered into a register. "Han, jinaab (Yes, sir)," the old man quickly replies in Urdu, without stammering. "Kahan gaya tha (Where had you been)?" the soldier asks. "Koeker lanay jinaab (To buy the hen, sir)," the old man says in the best combination of Urdu and Kashmiri words he can muster. Then, much to the discomfort of the hen, the old man raises her as evidence for the soldier who smiles at the gesture. The hen flaps her wings in a futile effort to break free but her legs are tightly tied together. The soldier recognises the old man's number from the register and crosses out the entry he had made earlier in the day when 'number nine' left the village. The old man smiles with relief. His number has been identified. He has been recognised. Once back in the car, the old man explains how that exercise is repeated every time somebody enters or leaves the village. The soldiers have assigned numbers to the villagers. If their number is on the register of the military camp, the villager exists. Numbers matter to the soldiers, names do not. The register is heavy with page upon page of numbers. Sometimes, the old man says, the soldiers confiscate the villagers' identity cards. They are returned only when the villager returns to the village. And sometimes they are not returned at all. The villagers cannot ask for them to be returned because they are only supposed to address the soldiers when answering their questions. Some hours later when leaving the village, the same soldier stops us, checks the vehicle and makes another entry in his register. We are leaving behind the people of this beautiful village; people who have been reduced to numbers. As we drive along a road in Bandipora, we notice another army checkpoint with a by now familiar message for the people of Kashmir: 'Prove your identity.' And on the door of yet another checkpoint, the words: 'All suspect. All respect.'

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Kashmir: South Asia's Palestine

From Kashmir: The forgotten conflict by aljazeera
By Imran Khan

Is Kashmir the Palestine of south Asia? [GALLO/GETTY]

It was a cold, wet day in October 2008 when I ended a transmission for Al Jazeera with the words: "I'm Imran Khan and I'll be reporting live from the Line of Control."

It was one of the highlights of my career so far. Myself and Time magazine writer Omar Waraich had travelled up to Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the only two international journalsts to do so on that historic day.

What we witnessed was an optimism not seen in a long time. Just six years earlier close to a million troops had been eyeball to eyeball along this de facto border between India and Pakistan.

But now, on this October day in 2008, white pick-up trucks crossed the border after two uniformed men shook hands and declared the rickety bridge that divides the region open. History was made.

It was an amazing sight watching people, some of whom had never seen their relatives who lived on the other side, drive over the line.

I remember wondering out loud what to call the place I was reporting from when Waraich shouted: "You're on the Line of Control!"

I looked around and he was right. I was smack bang in the middle of the place India and Pakistan have fought wars over. I was in the heart of a place that is in the hearts of millions of Pakistanis

.

But why does Kashmir hold such a place in the hearts of Pakistanis?

To answer that question I have to delve deep into my own background. I am a British Pakistani. One Friday at a mosque in Manchester, some time in the early 1980s, I remember the imam ending his sermon with a prayer for both Palestine and Kashmir.

I had never heard of either place before, but those names would come up again and again throughout my life.

Writer Musharraf Zaidi has similar memories. He grew up in Toronto, Canada and Kashmir was ever present. 

For immigrant communities and for Pakistanis at home, Kashmir has always been part of the conversation. I asked Zaidi why.

"The 'k' in Pakistan stands for Kashmir, the name of Pakistan is not organic, it was engineered .... Pakistan has shed a lot of blood for its commitment to Kashmir," he told me. 

That so much blood has been shed goes right to the heart of why Pakistan cares about the fate of Kashmir. According to some reports, 68,000 lives have been lost to the war in this region.

On the surface Pakistan has a policy of encouraging Kashmir to choose its own future - even the name of Pakistan-administered Kashmir is Azad Kashmir, meaning Free Kashmir.

Pakistan does not officially see it as a province of Pakistan and it has autonomy, with its own legislature, president and prime minister.

But delve a little deeper and it is clear that Kashmir has been used by both India and Pakistan for their own ends.

Zaidi says: "Kashmir occupies [a] place in Pakistan like Palestine does in the Muslim psyche. There was, and is, a huge amount of state resources put in to construct a narrative that suits Pakistani interest."

That narrative has been honed over decades. Pakistan has long blamed India for not being serious in its attempts to solve the tragic and bloody conflict.

Put simply Kashmir is Indian territory and no other options are on the table - that is how the story goes. Almost any discussion you have with officialdom in Islamabad on the subject is framed in similar rhetoric: Pakistan has tried all of the options available to it, yet India refuses to budge.

The Pakistani story of Kashmir has been heavily influenced by that of Palestine. You only have to go back to the writings of Muhammad Iqbal, more commonly known as Alama Iqbal, the nation's poet and the man who articulated the dream of Pakistan at the outset of the independence movement.

Iqbal was of Kashmiri stock and took up the cause of Palestine early on. He saw parallels between how Muslims were treated in India and how Zionism was working in Palestine. In 1937, when both Israel and Pakistan were mere ideas, he wrote:

"The injustice meted out to Arabs has touched me intensively as it could touch any person who is conversant with the conditions prevailing in the Near East. This problem provides an opportunity to the world Muslims to declare with all the force at their command that the problem ... is not only the occupation of Palestine but is a problem which will lead to the creation of intense influence on the whole Islamic world."

That same basic story was refined over the years and applied to Kashmir. Replace Palestine with Kashmir, Israel with India and you get the idea. Iqbal and other prominent Indian Muslims took up the cause of Kashmir, which at the time was ruled by a Hindu leader controlling a predominantly Muslim region.

It would be too simplistic to argue that Pakistan cares about Kashmir simply because it encapsulates many of the woes Muslims face today. It is one facet of why Kashmir is so important to Pakistan.

The other reasons are clear. Politics is one. Both India and Pakistan use Kashmir as a stick to beat the other with. Pakistan needs the issue of Kashmir to justify its huge defence spending. The Pakistani army's whole ethos for fighting is directed against India, and the same applies to India. For over 60 years now Pakistan has used the Kashmir issue to rally people around the army domestically.

That has had a huge effect on how Pakistanis see the conflict and on why the army holds such sway over the country.

In recent years, however, Pakistan's influence in Kashmir seems to have been waning. The army has fought a bloody battle on its eastern border with Afghanistan with groups like the Pakistani Taliban, which has drained resources and Pakistan's alleged support for militant groups in Kashmir is, according to one security professional based in Pakistan, also fading. But that is not an assessment many in India would agree with. 

So what hope for the future? 

Mirza Waheed is a critically acclaimed Kashmiri novelist whose book, The Collaborator, has Kashmir as its backdrop. I asked him that very question.

"For me it's the rise of more and more young people articulating their own narrative and their own politics, their own experience," he says, adding: "That has come about because they didn't see the national media doing the right job. There has been brutal murder on the streets of Srinagar and that has not been reported well in India, so they turned to new media, things like Twitter and Facebook, opened up websites like Kashmirwalla and I'm heartened by that."

But he sounds a note of caution for those that see too much optimism in the future for the place that has been described as the land of poems: "Without real dialogue from both Pakistan and India, including Kashmiris as the principal party, and both sides leaving behind their old entrenched positions change cannot come."

But leaving behind entrenched positions is going to be difficult for both sides. Pakistan has its story on Kashmir - one it wants the world to hear - and India has quite another. So perhaps it is only fitting that we end with the voice of a young Kashmiri, so often forgotten within this forgotten conflict.

His name is Jasim Hamid and he writes on the website Kashmir dispatch. This work is entitled As I Die.

"I am incarcerated, in these dark walls
I see nothing, coerced to smell
Filthy, dirty, plagued floors
You caught me by my collar
Dragged me to these walls
Which I won't call a "place"
Some days ago
Just the sore words I whispered
"We Want Freedom!"
You will whip me, torture me
For your religion is 'shoot to kill'"

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