The Locked-up Kashmir !

By Manuwant Choudhary

The Indian government need not have arrested the former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and lady Mehbooba Mufti and Farooq Abdullah - when they have already locked up the people of an entire state after demoting it to a union territory.

But this morning at least one positive news on NDTV that relatives have been allowed to meet the former chief ministers.

Omar Abdullah has grown a beard but is allowed his walks in the garden. We still do not know the condition of Mehbooba.

But first lets see how the Indian media report on Kashmir.

And actually not surprisingly the Times of India does not carry a single report on Kashmir.

The Wire has a first person account of Murtaza Fazily, a Ladakhi who says Ladakh had never even asked for a Union Territory status and even now a majority don't support it. Its a personalised account of how he managed to speak to his father after 20 days and that too through a government land line.

It also carries a report on Nazir Ahmed Ronga, a former President of the Kashmir Bar Association, he was arrested on August 4 itself, a day before article 370 was abrogated, under the Public Safety Act. His crime: "His ability to get voters out to vote."

His colleague says, "Its a crime to be democratic in Kashmir."

The Hindu has a report on Kashmir's `Revolving Door Arrests'. So far under this 1500 young people have been arrested and let off after a week..but the arrests are a continous process, it says...anyone can be arrested under this on charges of being a prospective stone thrower !

It also reports that on any single day there are at least 40 stone throwing protests in Kashmir, the least being 8 incidents on just two days.

But whats worse is there are no official centralised numbers on the arrests made so far...

Most Indian newspapers say Kashmir is in a lock-down...but the fact is Kashmir has been locked up.

Medical needs are suffering and even doctors who voice the issue are placed under detention.

Violation of such human rights can never be an internal matter of any country.

The Hindu has another interesting story on how India secretly armed the Afghanistan Northern Alliance and its fighter-in-chief  Ahmed Shah Masaud against the Taliban...(So is that not getting involved in the internal affairs of another country?)

Ambassador Bharath Raj Mutthu Kumar was called by the `Commander' and in a meeting Massoud dramatically threw his trademark cap on the table and said, "This is all the space I need to fight for my country."

Indian Express has a detailed report on the Indian officials who are in charge of locking down Kashmir and their credentials.

Still no report on how ordinary Kashmiris are surviving in all this...

The Foreigner !

By Manuwant Choudhary

I am not sure why but I have these photos of Kashmir lying on my bedside table for years from a road trip 20 years ago. I also keep this  laminated photo of my late editor Behram Contractor.

So sometimes I browse through them and wonder how much India has changed. The other day I was chatting with a 28 year old girl from Dehradun who said she is a journalist, a field researcher and an investigative reporter.

But when I told her there are very few journalists in India these days she insisted there are many and the numbers keep growing.

Its only later that she got it, "Oh you mean unbiased reporting. Nobody buys that anymore. Also you must make enough dough to survive. Today we work for corporates and political parties to help them disguise information as the truth."

Amazing.

But I think 20 years ago journalists had some respect I think. The only time someone called it a business was one activist from the Narmada Bachao Andolan who asked me, "Aapka business kaisa chal raha hai?"

I looked at him startled, "Like what business? I am a reporter." (In fact, my newspaper lost some big advertisers because of my reporting)

But I have always been a student of Kashmir so this journey remains among my favourite.

It was a solo trip on a day Kashmir was oberving a Black Day and I took the only Ambassador going from Jammu to Srinagar.

All along the journey I worried about what might happen in the next 5 minutes but the anxiety grew as we reached Srinagar.

I had never been there before and knew no one.

As I got down from the car a man looking like an Afghan receives me and tells me, "You are a journalist. You will be going to Ahdu hotel. But I own a houseboat and if you don't mind I'd like you to stay there. If you don't like it then I will drop you to Ahdu."

I stayed in the houseboat. The next morning I took a bus from Srinagar to Leh.

The houseboat owner booked the bus ticket and a window seat for me.

But when we got onto the bus I saw a foreigner sitting on my seat.

The Kashmiri fought with her for me..no one has ever fought on my behalf as much.

Its only when I told him to let her have the seat that he cooled off. 

I took another seat.

On way there were many checkpoints and Indian soldiers would get on an off checking the bus. One checkpost even had a photograph of Iran's Spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini !

Midway from Srinagar to Kargil some Gurkhas got onto the bus and they asked for IDs from every person on the bus.

And I mean every person.

Until he came to the Swiss girl.

She showed him her Swiss passport.

The Gurkha guard turned his gun towards a gentleman sitting beside her. He shouted, "Passport?"

He replied, No passport."

The Gurkha getting angrier, "Passport..please show.."

Its only when other passengers intervened that the Gurkha laughed out loud, "Oh, sorry you Kashmiri. I think you foreigner. "

I must be the only passenger on the bus who was not asked for an identity card or passport.

I still wonder why.

Wanted Chanakya & Chandragupta to Save India