Forgetting Kashmir's Past
By Noor ul Haq
15 April, 2012
Countercurrents.org
An open letter to Wajahat Habibullah after his suggestions that Kashmiris must forget the past and the time is ripe to move forward. While addressing a Convention on Democratic Rights of Kashmiri Youths organized here by the Centre for Policy Analysis, NCM Chairperson Wajahat Habibullah said that Kashmir is passing through a state of stress. But there is also a window of opportunity which should be used for seeking redressal of problems. Expressing his optimism, he said under the present situation in the state, "the time is now ripe to move in the direction.”
Forget what? My past! Tell me that is a joke: that by forgetting my past I would “flourish”, be “happy” and have a “better future”.
Forget what? That my mother was ordered to lift her veil by the Indian army in front of her son, a little boy in Class 4. “Show us the bombs hanging from your chest,” they told her. It was during a crackdown.
Crackdown. Ah! that mischievous English word that came to nestle on our tongues, and became a monster of a phrase, during the time you were Divisional Commissioner of a beautiful valley we call home.
Must I forget watching, with the horrified eyes of a 10-year-old peeping through a hole, your “disciplined soldiers” dragging away and beating the men of my village, my frail old grandfather among them, his head cracked and bloodied?
Must I forget my father’s burnt legs, sliced forehead, ironed and bruised body, the result of torture in one of your army’s interrogation centres? Must I forget the sight of your soldiers beating up my brother on his way back from school; tearing up his bag and books?
Must I forget the nightmare of my own torture while I was just a teenager? They, your sentinels in uniforms, beat me up and passed electric current through my body. Why? I have no idea to this day.
And forget the hundreds of mothers who were raped by the guardians of your nation? The wailing, brutalised mothers and sisters of Kunan Poshpora gang raped by your “brave” Rajput soldiers on February 23? Forget the thousands of martyred youth, widows, half-widows, disappeared persons, unmarked graves? And the thousands of orphans, the little withered flowers, must I forget?
Forget the betrayal? After occupying our land, your first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehra went on All India Radio on November 2, 1947 to promise us the freedom to decide our future. “Fate of the state of Jammu & Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. The pledge we have given not only to people of Kashmir but also to the world. We will not and cannot back out of it.” Then, on November 25, 1947, he told your parliament: ‘We have suggested that when people of Kashmir are given a chance to decide their future, this should be done under the supervision of an impartial tribunal such as United Nations Organization.”
Those promises were never honoured. Must I forget that too?
I did try to forget. But the memories won’t fade away, so terrible are they. And then where should I draw the line between past and present? Kunan Poshpura or the rape and murder of Asiya and Neelofar in Shopian in 2009? Gowkadal 1990 or Sopore 1994 or the uprising of 2008 and 2010?
I can’t forget, Mr. Wajahat Habibullah? Nor must I for forgetting is a luxury an oppressed people can’t afford.
Noor ul Haq is working as a freelance journalist, in New Delhi Email: [email protected]
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