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| Sunday, May 30, 2004 |
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| Sunday, May 30, 2004 |
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Guns and losses Kashmir: The Untold Story In this atmosphere of distrust and
suspicion it is natural for the population of Kashmir to feel alienated. Much has been written and said about the Kashmir problem by knowledgeable persons but few have tried to fathom the mind of the ordinary Kashmiri who lives under constant uncertainty and fear and faces daily humiliations unheard of in a modern state. A whole generation has grown up with no sense of security. Journalist Humra Quraishi who writes for different newspapers and journals, casts a close look at Kashmir and describes events and trends as they unfold before her eyes. The description relates to Kashmir before the 2002 elections and focuses mainly on the period when Jagmohan was the Governor and militancy was at its peak. Without passing value judgements or offering solutions, she tells of the seemingly endless struggle the life of an ordinary Kashmiri has become.
The humiliation of body searches at practically every point, shells of soot-covered houses, abandoned buildings infested by looters, petty thieves, arsonists, militants in search of hideouts and Armymen in pursuit of militants have become the order of the day. The author tends to believe those who alleged that exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from the valley in the nineties was engineered by Jagmohan. She puts things in historical perspective by recalling how the state of Jammu and Kashmir was formed when Gulab Singh, the Dogra ruler of Jammu, first conquered Ladakh and then got the Kashmir Valley from the British in recognition of his neutrality in the Sikh wars after the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Then she covers the more recent events — the partition of India and the tribal invasion of Kashmir, the accession of the state to India and the Indian troops moving in defence of Kashmir.
On the authority of Satish Gujral she insists that it was an Afghan invasion engineered by the British, and all through the book she refers to the event as the “Afghan invasion.” She has quoted from several books, journals and newspapers in support of her theses. But it seems, she has not come across any account of Operation Gilmarg the code name given by the Pakistan Army to the tribal invasion which was made up of Pathan tribal lashkars and had the full involvement of the Pakistan Army from day one with logistics, weaponry and a command structure. And this could not have been possible without the full consent of the Government of Pakistan. Still she readily goes along with Satish Gujral that Pakistan could not have ordered the invasion and that it was an Afghan invasion plotted by the British. The book then goes on to describe how old harmonies have been shattered in an atmosphere of suspicion and looks at the present generation of young Kashmiris which is growing up under the shadow of a seemingly endless turmoil. She tries to fathom the trauma of families that continue to wait for the return of their men who disappeared long ago, some taken away by the militants, some picked up by the security forces. The book focuses on the unending strife that life has become for an ordinary Kashmiri. 
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KASHMIR has been a problem between India and Pakistan from the time India became independent and Pakistan was born as an independent country. The decades after the 1971 War have been marked by militancy in Kashmir sponsored and promoted by Pakistan. This has added a new dimension to the problem which has evoked armed reaction within Kashmir by the security forces of India. The Army has often found itself in the unenviable position of fighting not an enemy but shooting at citizens of its own country in the name of helping the maintenance of law and order. 
