Days 'till the year 2004.

Welcome to my virtual home:). My beautiful and serene home is far far away in the renowned and fabled valley of Kashmir, India. Kashmir lies high in the forbidding, snow capped Himalayas, flashing silver lakes and foam flecked waterways. Its exhilarating beauty and heart warming bounties, draw a gasp and a sigh from the most seasoned traveler and makes me feel nostalgic whenever i make an attempt to tread those paths in my reverie.

Kashmiris, proud of their verdant land and rich cultural heritage relate with relish how a great Sufi Saint Nur-ud-din, thousands of years back, refused to enter a royal garden, saying,'' If i visit this place now, I shall not be allowed to visit paradise hereafter''.

Coveted by a succession of invaders and rulers since the times of Alexander the Great in 326 B.C, Kashmir, with 50 lakes at altitudes ranging from 5000 feet to 15000 feet above sea level, offers a blissful, romance soaked way of life, never experienced elsewhere in the world.

Lotus and wild ducks float on the waters of enchanting Dal lake, imprinted with rippled reflections of majestic mountains and scudding clouds. Poplars, willows and stately Chinars, planted by the Mughal emperor Akbar over half a millennium ago, provide a tall, shady screen for a wonderful new style of living in gently rocking houseboats, manned by Hanjis, (boat people).

Come autumn and the riot of color is witnessed everywhere as the maple (locally called Chinar), trees turn flaming red. A mere whiff of wind sends these Chinar leaves of all hues, from russet brown to yellow to green to red swirling across the vale. Soon these crisp leaves along with the leaves of poplar and fruit trees carpet the ground and announce the arrival of a long and an enchanted winter for winter sports enthusiasts and those who seek a challenge and excitement among the snows.

However, Kashmir Valley, famous as the Paradise on Earth, has for the last over one decade been turned into a playground for terrorists. The original inhabitants of the valley, KASHMIRI PANDITS (HINDUS), were forcibly driven out from their sacred land, leaving behind all their riches, homes, hearth, and above all their cherished memories, surroundings and their roots, to the plains where they stand alone, forgotten by their successive federal governments, at the verge of near extinction. Their hearts crave for a mere glimpse of their lost home, where they did not only lose their worldly possessions, inherited or earned by themselves, but also their innocent childhood. They yearn for the mere smell of the soil and the environs. They may earn better living or even high educational standards outside valley but can never get their childhood back, they can never tread those lanes and bylanes or enjoy an evening at the Dal Lake. Only a Kashmiri, born and brought up amidst these environs can feel the real pain and the loss. And, off course all those people around the world can relate to their pain who have lost their homes, their dreams and their yesterday, sometime in their lifetime.

Although it all started a decade back, but still looks like only yesterday. It was the summer of 1989, I finished my masters in Journalism and started working for the prestigious local English daily as the only female Reporter then. With every passing day the turmoil in the valley was increasing and things were getting out of hand, but no one realized it can take such a gory turn as to turn and change the sociopolitical and cultural situation of Kashmir. During my assignments I encountered all kinds of people from various militant organizations. Those days, these organizations were not like mushrooms as is the scene now, nor was there any direct interference from foreign mercenaries, so the upper hand was of JKLF (Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front), People's league, JKSLF (Jammu Kashmir student liberation front), Allah Tigers, Hizb-ul-mujahideen, Hizbullah, Muslim Jaanbaaz Force, and a few small splinter groups. All this activity was real exciting for me initially as a newbie in the field. In October 1989, there was a major bomb blast just outside my workplace, which I missed by mere 5 minutes, as I had just passed that lane for coming to my office. That incident left many people handicapped for life and few even died instantly. When I went to cover that incident, it was the most gruesome sight, with blood and parts of the human bodies, left helter skelter. This and many such incidents left a unique mark in my life and I started feeling that life for sure is uncertain, you can be living and planning one moment and the other you are gone.

This day also passed and slowly these events became a routine, and people started getting used to living with this fear. Still no one realized that this was the beginning of an unending proxy war and a long trail of miseries. No one imagined that each one of them will loose their near and dear ones in the spine chilling game plan of terrorists and no one ever dreamt that they will have to give up everything they ever acquired in their lifetime, overnight, just to save their lives.

Things were happening real fast, every day was unique. Somebody would be killed and branded as a Mukhbir (informer) and the other as an Indian agent. Threats were sent to particular people for being loyal to government or the country. Everyday a ban would be imposed on one or the other business establishment. It first started with wine shops, then video parlors, followed by beauty parlors, Indian magazines and Cinema houses. Deadlines for closing these establishments was DEC 31 1989, after which people were asked to face dire consequences. Wine shop owners were threatened by bombing their shops, Beauty parlors were sealed along with video parlors and cinema houses. Even government owned Television and Radio stations were sent a diktat that movies and other entertainment shows should not be aired.

Last but not the least, women of Kashmir, who are educated, liberal minded, and career oriented, compared to most of their counterparts in rest of the country, were asked to wear burkha (headgear) to cover their face. None of them were ready to listen to any of the militant organization at this point. However, to enforce this diktat on them, militants sought help of the women's wing, "dukhtaran-e-milat" (Daughters of the nation) who would go to women and force them to cover themselves. In spite of various warnings, it didn't work so well, but women indeed felt threatened and those who could afford moved to other parts of the country. While others just took it casually.

At this very point, they started something dramatic just to catch the attention of the world. They abducted the daughter of the then federal Home minister of India. This really had an impact on the masses who took their threats with a pinch of salt till that point. Now masses got aware to what extent these people could go. Fear psychosis gripped the entire state and the nation as well. While all this was happening, the Chief Minister of Kashmir, DR Farooq Abdullah was having fun in some foreign land.

Militants demanded the release of five dreaded terrorists in exchange for the safe release of the home ministers daughter. All the action was in Kashmir, there was confusion, chaos, curfew. Both domestic as well as foreign press gathered to witness the release of the kidnapped and the arrested terrorists. Talks on this issue continued for five long days and finally government bowed before the militants for the release of the home ministers daughter in exchange for the five dreaded terrorists. And here the whole movement took a new turn, it was a moment of jubilation for the militant groups and their sympathizers. People danced and sang on the roads till midnight, prepared feast and fired crackers. They were celebrating their first victory against government. Now they knew how to make the government to dance at their tunes.

The militancy in Kashmir attained significance and took a new dimension, daily clashes between the Indian paramilitary forces and militants reached new heights with high casualties on both sides and tragically a number of civilian casualties too. Pakistani leadership, those days headed by Benazir Bhuttoo, openly voiced support for the Kashmir struggle and its goal of independence. And India continued to rely on its armed forces for restoring stability in the state. India kept accusing Pakistan of "direct incitement to subversive violence and terrorism." Pakistan in turn continued its "moral and political support" in addition to a worst kind of propaganda. Situation was becoming alarming and explosive for a common man.

Kashmir was burning, everything was changing and so was its history. It was the January of 1990. Hardly anyone was lucky enough to sleep, as everyone heard the voices that came stabbing through the stillness of cold night, numbing everyone and penetrating the heavy silence that had settled over the once lively and calm city.

No one for sure knew this could ever happen to a place where both Muslims and Hindus lived in harmony for centuries, trusting each other more than their own kin. But this ugly face was unknown to the innocent masses who just wanted to live peacefully in their homes along with their families. The voices that were becoming louder and louder were accompanied by the high-pitched wails of terror all around. People stayed awake and paced restlessly on their terraces, patios and lawns, hearing the threatening slogans from the loudspeakers placed at the mosques, which hovered in the night like hungry vultures. With our hearts stuck in our throats, we the children were most vulnerable, most terrified, because we had never encountered violence in our lifetime and of such dimension, where we were supposed to give up everything, or face death.

We were huddled in one room, I was the eldest and after me were three sisters, two of them were not even in teens, the youngest one was barely eight. Being the eldest I was trying to console them, where no consolation was possible. As voices came nearer we could peep out sometimes through the windows and see a huge procession carrying mashals, (wooden torches) shouting slogans and banging the doors of the houses that were on the main road. The mere sight of the flames in the dark air were frightening, as they danced like wild witches on cold night. Those slogans, sights and shouts continue to haunt those innocent people who are witness to all this mayhem and this nightmare will stay with them for all their life.

That was the time that I realized, we were different from the majority community in the valley. Before this dividing moment, all of us were living together like a large family. We had Muslim friends, whom we trusted more than Hindu friends, though they may not have still changed, but something has definitely changed our psyche. We are no more as free as we used to be.

Days passed by, Jagmohan was soon made the Governor of Kashmir and with this change, the then Chief Minister Abdullah resigned and Presidents rule was imposed on the valley. Governor Jagmohan tried to console and heal the wounds of people as a "nurse," but there was so much rage and hatred amongst people, no one was ready to listen a single word of sanity. Scare, confusion, mayhem and helplessness gripped the whole valley. No one was sure of the next moment, and every sane parent wanted their kids out till some sanity was maintained.

This is how the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits and Hindus and off course stray Muslims too, started. Initially they sent their kids out for safety purposes and stayed back home, but most of them were eliminated and the scare made rest of the community members to flee. For Kashmiri Hindus it became an unending trail of misery, while as the Muslims, who also left valley due to the scare, as many of them were also killed, but they all had an option to return which they did and thereby enjoyed the best of the both worlds. But no Kashmiri Hindu was allowed to return as if they were behind the miseries of the militants ideology.

A few months later, I saw the camps overflowing with refugees who had fled their home in Kashmir, where terrorism had erupted like wild fire. Most of them moved to Jammu, which is the winter Capital of the State, with their bare belongings, thinking and hoping that soon they will return with dignity, when things will be normal. Which every Kashmiri Pandit cherishes to dream even today, for the love of their mother land?

While visiting camps and talking to these refugees, I could feel the pain and agony they were undergoing by the recent turn of events. Each one of these refugees had their gory tales: of their women and children massacred and abducted, of fathers, sons, brothers butchered, of River Jehlum brimming over with the bloated corpses, of women who had preferred death to anyone touching them, of wild mobs coming in from other villages, along with their animals and cattle.

Months passed by, nothing was normal again. Still most of the people were not ready to leave Kashmir and give up everything easily. They could neither leave nor raise their voice against the repression. Everybody felt trapped as their own existence was sinking like a boat, right decisions failed one and all. No body was sure of the next unknown moment.

The State was witnessing chaotic conditions, total anarchy, unrest and open uprising against the Central rule (Indian Rule), Muslims wanted to break the shackles of Indian bondage. Most of them actually believed that Kashmir was going to be independent or become a part of Pakistan by January 26, 1990. Even State police instead of going against the extremists were aiding and abetting them. The valley had been stricken with violence, bloodshed and brutality. The so called innocent minds were being ruled by the terrorists and even the government apparatus had fallen apart like a lifeless octopus. Death threats were being sent to those who defied their diktats and all this scared one and all. There could hardly be anything worst than this in a valley where people would think twice before throwing a Kangri (firepot) at other person in rage, but now Kalashankov culture had gripped and unnerved the whole society and keeping track of the dead count by the evening had become a daily feature.

Many sent their children in the beginning of the January 1990 to their near kin's in other parts of India, to tide over a month or two of crisis. People thought it would be a momentary phase and soon good sense will prevail upon the miscreants and peace will return to the once Happy Valley, but nobody could visualize it as an apocalypse. Nobody could imagine in their wildest dreams that this will be the point of no return, a new chapter in their history, where thousands of people would be herded against their will, out of their hearths and homes and ancestral lands and driven forcibly to unknown destinations.

Email:

Seema kachru

KASHMIR BUZZ