Hearing New Voices In Kashmir
By Mariana Baabar
14 October, 2004
BBC
Mariana Baabar
is the diplomatic editor of the Islamabad-based newspaper, The News.
She was one of a group of Pakistani journalists who recently visited
Indian-administered Kashmir - the first time either country has invited
journalists from the other to visit its portion of the divided territory.
"We have been
waiting for you for nearly 10 hours," said impatient Kashmiri journalists
as we entered Jammu.
"We have been
waiting for more than 50 years," the Pakistanis replied.
Strained relations
between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory continue to this
day, with both laying claim to Kashmir.
Nothing could have
prepared us for the love-hate relationship the people of Jammu and Kashmir
have for Pakistanis - from sipping saffron tea and being garlanded with
brilliant marigolds to hearing abuse and allegations that we were the
agents of the Pakistan government.
All our lives, writers
and journalists had been basing their analyses on "briefs"
handed out by the governments in Delhi and Islamabad, together with
second-hand reports coming over the Line of Control that divides the
two sides of Kashmir. Never a first-hand report.
We heard new voices
in Jammu and Kashmir - voices critical of Pakistan's Kashmir policies.
Unknown to our readers
back in Pakistan there are hundreds of Hindu Pandit migrants in Jammu
who say they had to flee for their lives from Muslim separatists in
Srinagar.
They said they had
been displaced for the past 15 years because of "Pakistan-sponsored
terrorism". Go back home, they said, and tell General Pervez Musharraf
about our plight.
"What has happened
to Kashmir is because of your gunpowder," were the accusations
we heard.
Suddenly the cold
statistics we were used to hearing from international human right groups,
Indian NGOs and the Indian media had a face.
We met mothers whose
sons had fallen prey to bullets from the Indian state security, other
sons who were missing or in prison and, saddest of all, women who had
been raped and abused.
Back home, there were threats that had our families worried.
Asiya Andrabi, chairwoman
of the Kashmir separatist women's group, the Dukhteran-e-Millat, railed
against us in a press conference the day before we arrived.
The visit was part
of a "larger conspiracy" and separatist leaders should not
meet us, she said.
Another Kashmiri
separatist, Yasin Malik, accused the Pakistanis of trying to sell out
on Kashmir. In many places we were a handy punch bag for anger directed
at the Pakistan government.
Srinagar gave us
a feel of what a conflict zone is.
There was security
at every step. Inside our bus we had the Jammu and Kashmir police and
we were escorted by two jeeps in front and two behind.
At a breakfast stop
in Jhagarkoli, an hour from Jammu, a hasty trip to a toilet sparked
a pursuit by a police escort who thought this must be the "great
escape" by a Pakistani.
The message we took
from the people of Jammu and Kashmir was that they all wanted peace
and desperately wanted the talks between India and Pakistan to succeed.
Nearly all of them
wanted to be independent from the clutches of India and Pakistan - both
had been treating this beautiful valley as if it were a piece of "real
estate".
The slogan of "freedom"
we heard in the University of Kashmir was freedom from state oppression.
Images of conflict are ever-present here. During the Soviet occupation,
Afghan refugees in Peshawar started to weave missiles, planes and bombs
into their carpets instead of the traditional designs.
On the streets of
Srinagar, I saw a youngster with a white shirt and a picture of a bullet
wound with red paint oozing out.
In bold letters
it sported the word "encounter" - the perceived summary executions
by security forces that are passed off as regular military casualties.
The leaders of the
main Kashmir separatist group, the All Party Hurriyat Conference, have
to get their act together quickly.
They blame Pakistan
and India for not including them in talks. But then who represents the
people of Kashmir?
Those that won the
2002 elections or those that boycotted them?
It seems there is
no way out but to ensure fair and free elections under the UN to determine
who would join the dialogue.
Meanwhile, a few
of us managed to sneak along, with minimum security, to see the graveyard
where freedom fighters are put to rest in Srinagar. It was a stark reminder
of the continued struggle.
"Come out quickly
please," said a Jammu and Kashmir police chief.
"If word gets
around that Pakistanis are here we would have a law and order situation
on our hands. Thousands would gather quickly to vent their feelings."