Understanding Kashmiris

Since India unilaterally revoked Kashmir’s autonomy and divide the state into two parts on August 5, 2019, Kashmir has been in the news almost in all major newspapers and news channels. While many have talked about the history of Kashmir and how it acceded to India in 1947, very few people know who Kashmiris really are.

As a Kashmiri born and raised in Kashmir till the age of 17, I feel that someone like me needs to tell the world who Kashmiris are, what they want, how they manage to live under occupation and how they deal with the stress and daily humiliation of check points at every street corner.

To understand Kashmiris, one has to understand some basic facts. The majority of Kashmiris follow Islam and we know how much religion plays a major role in every aspect of Muslim lives. There has also historically been a sufi tradition in Kashmir, one of pacifism and non-violence. Kashmiris are a proud people, proud of their culture, their language, their food, their art and above all their homeland.

This is important to understand: Kashmiris love Kashmir and they see Kashmir as their identity. If you try to occupy Kashmir by force you will never win their hearts and minds, but If you come to Kashmir in peace with love and respect they will in return give you the utmost respect and accept you as their own. Kashmiris hospitality is know all over the world.

With this background, let us try to understand the current situation in Kashmir from the persepective of the Kashmiri people. On Aug 5, 2019 Prime Minister Narandera Modi of India unilaterally stripped Kashmir of its autonomy and split the state into two parts directly under Delhi’s control. First Indian authorities took all Indians out of Kashmir within a week's time on the pretext that they had intelligence that Pakistan was planning a major terrorist attack. They even had the police display weapons to the press which they claimed they had recovered from some hideouts; this was all lies.

This was done after Modi deployed additional 100,000 troops on top of the 700,000 already there, clamping a curfew on the night of August 4 and cutting off all communication lines including internet and phones from seven million Kashmiris. This was a shock and an ultimate humiliation for Kashmiris. As one of my Kashmiri friends put it, “I feel like I was raped by Modi and Amit Shah, the home minister of India, and then they put a gun on my head and said if you tell anyone about this rape we will kill you”.

The message on August 5 sent to every Kashmiri was that India doesn’t care what you think; they will steal your land, change your country and will do it at gun point without your consent. For the last 72 year,s India had made some friends in Kashmir and ruled Kashmir by proxy through these friends. They included families like the Abdullahs, the Muftis and the likes who benefited from their relationship with India and had become a conduit for India to reach out to the people of Kashmiri. On August 5, the Modi government took all these friends of India and detained them along with 4000 of their political workers. They also arrested over 10,000 young boys, taking them from their homes usually in the middle of the night and put them in prisons all over India. There were no cases filed and they were never presented in front of a judge.

As of April 2020, Kashmiris have been locked up in their homes and Indian prisons for the last nine months. It must be difficult but Kashmiris have developed a lot of patience. In the past, Kashmiris have been through six months of curfews and survived.

One more fact that is important to know is that Kashmiris are people of limited means. Yes it is true there is no one who is homeless in Kashmir but people are generally poor, relying on daily wages from the tourism industry, fruit market and handicrafts that they produce generally from their homes. Because of the clampdown, the tourism industry is dead, fruit can’t be sold so it perishes and handicrafts can’t be produced or sold making these people helpless and vulnerable. Another message Modi sent to these people was that Indians don’t care if you die of hunger or sickness; they will take your land even if they have to kill you for it.

So the question is: why did Modi do what he did on Aug 5? Obviously he doesn’t understand Kashmiris. Had he understood the people of Kashmir, he would not have done it the way he did it. Because at the end of the day this action will not bring the results that Modi wants: a complete merger of Kashmir with India. If Modi truly wants to break the backs of occupied Kashmiris and push them out of Kashmir as refugees into Pakistan, he will fail.

As a Kashmiri, I can say this with confidence that Kashmiris will never leave their land; they will die of starvation and torture but won’t migrate out because they see their identity married to their land. Kashmiris will fight till death and I am afraid this action by Modi will give birth to a new armed struggle against the Indian establishment because the people of Kashmir see this as an attack on their home, their children and their land and while doing this they will get closer to their faith Islam, which calls on every Muslim to wage Jihad against the oppressor – which in this case is India.

Kashmiris will not accept any Indian as their leader, be it Modi or a progressive Indian PM in the future until they get to exercise their right to choose their destiny through a referendum which has been promised to them by the UN and to which India is a signatory.

The writer is a California-based architect by profession and an advocate of Kashmiri rights.

Twitter: @tonyashai