Getting to Know India

(Until Pakistan’s leader- General Musharraf - abandoned the Kashmiris, the policy of the Indian Government was to hide the excesses of the military occupation. Now they advertise them to underline that Pakistan stands defeated – more unwilling than unable to do anything to help the Kashmiris in their struggle for freedom). Editor.

Rape of women, disappearance, illegal detention, threatening at gun point, molestation, loot and terrorising raids by security forces and by unknown gunmen have been day to day phenomena in Kashmir valley and in the border districts of Jammu.

Seventeen years of turmoil has not only ruined the Jammu Kashmir economically but, has turned the valley in to a land of widows and orphans. By conservative estimates there are more than twenty-five thousand orphans (25,000) and approximately six thousand (6000) widows in state but the Central as well as State government take little notice of their plight as if those victims did not exist. Until recently the people were never told of these amazing and horrifying fact; they have been told only of arms and ammunition recovered or militants gunned down by the security forces during search operations. Under pressure from some Human Rights groups and other NGOs, it has since come to light that the so called Pakistani militants killed in encounters were local people – labourers and traders – who had been killed only to receive bounties. India must be the only country in the world where soldiers are rewarded for ho many they kill.

The most affected and neglected areas are border districts, like Kupwara, Anantnag, Pulwama and Baramulla in the valley and Rajouri, Poonch and Udhampur in Jammu region. The women have not lost only their husbands but also the source of livelihood with them. These desperately poor women have nothing to feed their children. Moreover, they are unable to protect themselves should a soldier fancy one of them. These women are not only harassed and raped by unknown gunmen but even by the personnel of the Indian army. The insecurity and the anger felt by these widows are hard to describe. Their tears have long since dried; they wait for a miracle; they wait for a messiah.

In 199, soldiers of the Indian army raped 30 women in Kunan- Poshpura in Kupwara aged between 18 to 85 years. This incident received a lot of international publicity and was condemned as a case of ‘rape’ being used as a weapon of war in Kashmir. But till to date no one has been punished and these women have neither received compensation nor justice from the Government. Young men having been killed or forced to flee, every where one sees young girls unmarried and waiting that some day some one will come to marry them. Until then they are condemned to living in cow sheds waiting for grooms or freedom.

If one visited Deevar, Sogam, Dardpora and other villages on the border in District Kupwara, one would find hundred of widows and thousand of orphans at the mercy of god. One of the widows from village Dardpora named Shakeela said “I have three children. My husband was taken for interrogation in 1994 and after few days his body was found in the jungle. He was killed with bullets pumped into his body. After his death I have no other option other than to beg or to go for illicit activities.

It is matter of concern that most of the married women face the problem of miscarriages, which is one of the fastest growing problem in the rural and border areas of state yet to be noticed by the health department of state. The young widows and teenaged orphan girls are facing more problems due to their youth as they are always at danger of molestation and getting raped.

One of the widow Reehana aged 22 from Deever said “being young I am always being harassed and molested both by security forces and renegades; that has become the day to day routine. Even though I am educated still I cannot go out to work because of all this”.

Even the NGOs, which are trying to help them, are not able to perform well because of government hurdles. Ghulam Nabi a tailor at J&K Yateem Trust Craft Centre, in the village Deevar said, “Even though these girls get free training in tailoring , they are not able to earn their livelihood as the village has limited resources and government has done nothing to facilitate their skill .

Safe means of livelihood for these widows and orphans is very important otherwise, when the young boys and girls grow up in such deprived conditions, they will definitely follow the gun culture or fall victim to pimps.

To Pakistan the Kashmiris freedom movement constitutes ‘Validation of its Two Nation Theory’. It is! But Kashmir, first and foremost, belongs to Kashmiris. Many generations of Kashmiris have lived and died in the hope of being able to decide their destiny in a free vote. They have yet to experience the absence of fear and coercion or the ecstasy of freedom. To them ‘freedom’ is a matter of honour and dignity denied to the Muslims of Kashmir for many generations. Every generation evolved a different strategy to struggle in the circumstances in which it found itself. Each generation produced leaders appropriate to that strategy. At this time, the symbol and the leader of that struggle is Syed Ali Geelani.