Hearing New Voices In Kashmir
By Mariana Baabar14 October, 2004
BBC
Mariana Baabar is the diplomatic editor of the Islamabad-based newspaper, The News. She was one of a group of Pakistani journalists who recently visited Indian-administered Kashmir - the first time either country has invited journalists from the other to visit its portion of the divided territory.
"We have been waiting for you for nearly 10 hours," said impatient Kashmiri journalists as we entered Jammu.
"We have been waiting for more than 50 years," the Pakistanis replied.
Strained relations between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory continue to this day, with both laying claim to Kashmir.
Nothing could have prepared us for the love-hate relationship the people of Jammu and Kashmir have for Pakistanis - from sipping saffron tea and being garlanded with brilliant marigolds to hearing abuse and allegations that we were the agents of the Pakistan government.
All our lives, writers and journalists had been basing their analyses on "briefs" handed out by the governments in Delhi and Islamabad, together with second-hand reports coming over the Line of Control that divides the two sides of Kashmir. Never a first-hand report.
We heard new voices in Jammu and Kashmir - voices critical of Pakistan's Kashmir policies.
Unknown to our readers back in Pakistan there are hundreds of Hindu Pandit migrants in Jammu who say they had to flee for their lives from Muslim separatists in Srinagar.
They said they had been displaced for the past 15 years because of "Pakistan-sponsored terrorism". Go back home, they said, and tell General Pervez Musharraf about our plight.
"What has happened to Kashmir is because of your gunpowder," were the accusations we heard.
Suddenly the cold statistics we were used to hearing from international human right groups, Indian NGOs and the Indian media had a face.
We met mothers whose sons had fallen prey to bullets from the Indian state security, other sons who were missing or in prison and, saddest of all, women who had been raped and abused.
Back home, there were threats that had our families worried.Asiya Andrabi, chairwoman of the Kashmir separatist women's group, the Dukhteran-e-Millat, railed against us in a press conference the day before we arrived.
The visit was part of a "larger conspiracy" and separatist leaders should not meet us, she said.
Another Kashmiri separatist, Yasin Malik, accused the Pakistanis of trying to sell out on Kashmir. In many places we were a handy punch bag for anger directed at the Pakistan government.
Srinagar gave us a feel of what a conflict zone is.
There was security at every step. Inside our bus we had the Jammu and Kashmir police and we were escorted by two jeeps in front and two behind.
At a breakfast stop in Jhagarkoli, an hour from Jammu, a hasty trip to a toilet sparked a pursuit by a police escort who thought this must be the "great escape" by a Pakistani.
The message we took from the people of Jammu and Kashmir was that they all wanted peace and desperately wanted the talks between India and Pakistan to succeed.
Nearly all of them wanted to be independent from the clutches of India and Pakistan - both had been treating this beautiful valley as if it were a piece of "real estate".
The slogan of "freedom" we heard in the University of Kashmir was freedom from state oppression.
Images of conflict are ever-present here. During the Soviet occupation, Afghan refugees in Peshawar started to weave missiles, planes and bombs into their carpets instead of the traditional designs.On the streets of Srinagar, I saw a youngster with a white shirt and a picture of a bullet wound with red paint oozing out.
In bold letters it sported the word "encounter" - the perceived summary executions by security forces that are passed off as regular military casualties.
The leaders of the main Kashmir separatist group, the All Party Hurriyat Conference, have to get their act together quickly.
They blame Pakistan and India for not including them in talks. But then who represents the people of Kashmir?
Those that won the 2002 elections or those that boycotted them?
It seems there is no way out but to ensure fair and free elections under the UN to determine who would join the dialogue.
Meanwhile, a few of us managed to sneak along, with minimum security, to see the graveyard where freedom fighters are put to rest in Srinagar. It was a stark reminder of the continued struggle.
"Come out quickly please," said a Jammu and Kashmir police chief.
"If word gets around that Pakistanis are here we would have a law and order situation on our hands. Thousands would gather quickly to vent their feelings."
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