“We should not talk about the uprising over phone, they might be snooping on us,” my 12-year-old brother Zaid tells me over a call. His tone is angry, and 36 days of the siege are taking a toll on him. Like many children in Kashmir, he hasn’t been to school since June, and this vacation that he wanted since the schools opened in March, has been hijacked by a siege since Eid. Like any other Kashmiri kid, he runs up and down the neighbourhood in search of news. He comes home and breaks it like a war time reporter. Most of the times, he brings rumours. But he tells it like he means it.
He knows what an occupation is - he has lived in it.
He knows the numbers of the people who have been martyred over the last 36 days. He knows their names. He lives in a slaughterhouse. This is the Kashmir he was born into.
For this generation, born in the 1990s, our childhood was slaughtered
For this generation and my generation born in the 1990s, our childhood was also slaughtered. We were told not to speak when the soldier abuses our parents. We were told not to get angry when the soldier passes lewd remarks as our women pass the camps that have spread like measles.
Even though we have grown into adults, our voices are stifled. In the age of the Internet when information is a human right, even that tool of dissent has been cut off. No news comes from home. We rely on the memory of home, its lanes and bylanes, where once upon a time we were witnesses, lisping the revolutionary anthem.
The recent death of Burhan Wani (right), a young militant, evoked much anger in young Kashmiris disenchanted with military occupation
Hum kya chahtay? Azadi
We want freedom, and that’s a pledge we took when we were born in Kashmir. Our folklore tells of King Sulayman who came to Kashmir and dewatered the valley. Then there was Zain ul Abidin, the Budshah. Whenever the labourers haul the ropes, or heavy carts or harvest the fields we sing in unison, “Budshah, Padshah”. The King, the Great King. A reminder of seven centuries of Kashmiris, of a time when Kashmir, the bridge between Central Asia and South Asia, was the epicentre of intellect and culture. Our ambassadors went to Greece, Turkey and beyond.
Woh mehki mehki Azadi
Aayi Aayi Azadi
It is not a law and order problem; it is a war, a war of unequals. On one side is the occupation and on the other side the people, who are in the corner. Like those hard, rib breaking punches, Muhammad Ali took against Foreman in Kinshasa, knowing he was old and could not out-punch him. He took the punishment in his guts. He waited and waited until Foreman tired himself out and no punch was left in him.
In this battle, the will of the occupier is to occupy and the will of the people is to resist. People have always outlasted their oppressors. History bears witness.
The fragrance of the freedom struggle is gunpowder and tear gas, the ratatat of guns in the night, the mosques blaring songs of freedom, the songs that Zaid sings nowadays.
Young protesters have taken the lead in the current agitation against Indian occupation in Kashmir
Hai Haq Humara Azadi
When you’re born in Kashmir, there are two things that you need in order to survive: resillence and defiance. In the words of MC Kash, “In the land of saints, each man born, is born a rebel.” In 2008 and 2010 we had a Ragda, the Kashmiri word for an intifada or peaceful uprising that pushed the armed resistance to the background. Over 200 people, mostly teenagers and young adults, were slaughtered. Post the 2010 uprising, “Death flies in, thin bureaucrat, from the plains - a one-way passenger, again”, the words of Agha Shahid Ali resonated with us as we watched the occupation’s time-buying exercises. If the uprising is distorted, defamed and delayed, surely people will quieten down. That is one way out for India that sent its interlocutors, who after several trips to Kashmir, wrote a report only to be sold to a scrap dealer in New Delhi. The Hurriyat that institutionalised the people’s movement were caged in their homes. After five years of continuous arrests, India seeks dialogue.
Mere Qalam se likhna Azadi
In between 2010 and 2016, there has been an intellectual intifada, as Kashmiri novelist Mirza Waheed puts it. In these years, through social media and discussions in the streets, the youngsters developed a greater and bolder identity of being a Kashmiri. The discourse was hijacked for years by foreign writers, who added a nationalist twist to the tales of Kashmir. But this has been reclaimed by the young. They write and sing, they weave poetry and paint what it means to be a Kashmiri, under occupation. Today’s uprising is not only bold but it is imaginative and there’s a crystal clarity in thought, of what we want, a sovereign Kashmir without an occupation.
Hai Vaada Humara, Azadi
The pledge of resistance has been taken by the fifth generation of Kashmir, who are the ones who lead the streets of Kashmir, lead when it comes to forming the online and offline opinion of Kashmiris.
Jo tum na doge, toh ch’heen ke lenge, Azadi
This is the sentiment on the ground, if India isn’t willing to talk about Azadi, Kashmiris will take it, like the Algerians, the Irish, the Libyans. Of course, we see the response: seventy Kashmiris killed, forty days of curfew. But Kashmiris still take to the streets, singing this song of Azadi.
This is a broadcast from the free people of Kashmir.
Muhammad Faysal is a storyteller born in Srinagar, Kashmir. He tweets at @_faysal
