1. Narratives of Violence: Negotiating Conflict in
Kashmir
Aditya Prakash
A project report submitted in partial fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Arts in Development
Studies
School of Development Studies,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Mumbai
2014

2. CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the dissertation entitled ‘Narratives of Violence: Negotiating Conflict in
Kashmir’ is the record of the original work done by Aditya Prakash under my guidance and
supervision. The results of the research presented in this dissertation/thesis have not
previously formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, or certificate of this
Institute or any other institute or university.
7th
February 2014
Dr. Ritambhara Hebbar
Associate Professor
Centre for Developing Societies
School of Development Studies

3. 1
DECLARATION
I, Aditya Prakash, hereby declare that this dissertation entitled ‘Narratives of Violence:
Negotiating Conflict in Kashmir’, is the outcome of my own study undertaken under the
guidance of Dr. Ritambhara Hebbar, Associate Professor, Centre for Study of Developing
Societies, School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. It has
not previously formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, or certificate of this
Institute or of any other institute or university. I have duly acknowledged all the sources
used by me in the preparation of this dissertation.
7th
February, 2014
Aditya Prakash

4. 2

5. 3
Acknowledgements
Dr. Ritambhara Hebbar it was most enjoyable working with you. Thank you ma’am for
helping me through this dissertation and through applications.
Thank you!
In Kashmir
Gautham: for coming along. It was fun
Wasim: you were my only contact to begin with
Parvez: for making such research seem energizing
Mushtaq, Nisar, Ejaz: for the ‘mikas’ veg for dinner every night
In 304B
Waqar: for the travel plan
Gunjan: for the zing. O-Ho!
Rinku: for expanding humour
Indivar: Gandhiji... Don’t eat anyone
Vikrant: I have nothing to thank you for. Stay cool.
Its been alright hanging out with you. Hope it’s cool in the future too.

6. 4
Dedicated to my family: Ma, Appa and Ammamma

7. 5
Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Contesting Histories of Kashmir
 Conceptual Framework- Tools for Critical History 10
 A Timeline of Collective Suffering 16
 Important Themes 21
Chapter 2: Narratives of Torture 30
 Narratives 41
 Important Themes 61
The Question of Self Determination 74
Appendix: Notes on the Indian Army 88

8. 1
Introduction
(Note: All names in italics have been changed)
The research focuses on constructing Kashmir from the point of the lived experience of the
stake-less. This is the common person of Kashmir, who is witness and victim but seldom gets a
voice in the conundrum of state versus anti- state debates .His/her narrative is one of fear and
pain and puts the state as a perpetrator of injustice. It also avoids the vested interests of anti
state actors.
“You’ve seen that it’s not easy to figure out the inscription with your eyes, but our man
deciphers it with his wounds.” (Kafka, 1914)
Torture is explored as an interface of state- society interaction; an infliction of fear in the
people’s minds and pain on their bodies. The actions of the state create large-scale suffering
that Kashmiri political representatives represent only in parts. The combination of an
authoritarian state and the closed nature of the political landscape require a research of this
kind to give voice to torture victims. Such an approach is also best positioned to critique the
state, as these victims could not be proven ‘guilty’ by the state apparatus. The ripple effect that
their lives have on societal fear and societal resilience also make them an important cohort to
study.
*
When I was in school, I chided China for being invasive and colonialist in their treatment of
Tibet. When I was done speaking my Chinese classmate said,
“And what about India in Kashmir? What do you have to say about that?”
At the time I thought the comparison was unthinkable. China was an autocratic state imposing
its political will and culture on a weaker nation. India, my country, was for me a shining
example of democratic ideals. An essentially passive state, she was justified in her tough stand
against Kashmiri terrorists who constantly transgressed her authority.
I developed an interest in Kashmir in the early months of 2012. My desire to know about
Kashmir’s recent history at that point led me to look for information on the time of militant
opposition to India. This 1990-95 period was one of frenzy in India and Pakistan. Both countries
jostled for Kashmir as Kashmir itself took up the mantle for independence from India. Benazir
Bhutto called for jihad in Kashmir, inciting Kashmiri Muslims to violent revolution in an
emphatic speech,
“कश्भीय की आवाभ भें भुजाहिदों औय घाज़िमों का खून िै!” (Darlymple, 2008)

9. 2
(The people of Kashmir have the blood of the Mujahids and the Ghazis in their veins!)
As Kashmiris protested the rigging of the 1987 state assembly election, many took up arms.
They would travel across the Line of Control, India’s de facto border with Pakistan in Kashmir
and receive arms training from terrorist groups. The Indian army’s retaliatory Operation
Rakshak unleashed terror to crush the restive population. The result was a period of human
rights violations on an epic scale between 1990 and 1995.
This general situation has always been spoken of. I was interested though, in knowing the daily
happenings of the period and thought of looking into newspaper archives of two major Indian
dailies, The Indian Express and The Times of India for the same. I was taken aback at not finding
a single story published in the several issues of the Times from 1990 that I browsed through.
The Express, on the other hand, published just one news report on almost all these days on
Kashmir. Indian news media had pulled back from Kashmir.
This did not sit well with me. By the time I finished my BA, I had grown more sceptical of the
Indian state’s claim on Kashmir. I was idle and so decided to make my opinion through a visit. I
readied some essential luggage, booked a tatkal ticket and left for Jammu.
The Myth of Normalcy1
I had fallen asleep on the precipitous and tortuous road from Jammu in my taxi. As I opened my
eyes and looked around, the Kashmir valley gleamed emerald and its flat landscape spread far
and wide. Mountains grew on all sides, cocooning the fields and the meadows. It was beautiful.
In Srinagar I actively talked to people on the streets. At first, I talked to shopkeepers on the
Boulevard, the street that circles the Dal Lake and is the heart of tourist Srinagar. Soon my
footprint expanded. I talked to vendors, shopkeepers, children and pretty much anyone who
would care to have a conversation. I rented a cycle and cycled from Dal Gate to Hazratbal and
back. I ate fried lotus stem, the local ‘masala’ (a snack of bread roll and chickpea mash) and
sweets from the shops outside Hazratbal.
I also entered a mosque for the first time and was reprimanded for being dressed in shorts.
“Men must be covered from navel to ankle. That is the law. But you are not Muslim, so it is not
binding”
The mood of my time in Kashmir changed abruptly when I met Waqar, a local journalist. I had
fished out his contact through a thin string of connection. Five minutes after we had met for
1
Title taken from Lowenstein Alfred K., “The Myth of Normalcy: Impunity and the Judiciary in Kashmir”, (Yale Law
School 2009)

10. 3
lunch, I was standing facing a compact graveyard. Waqar pointed to the graves and told me
they were of children who had been gunned down by the security forces.
As I was full of questions, Waqar introduced me to a civil society organization dedicated to
arguing for human rights. The atmosphere was busy. Papers were being typed, tea was being
made and cases of human rights violations were being discussed. There was an open door
policy for visitors. Once I had entered, I was absorbed.
My associations with activists provided the springboard for me to access both information and
opinion on India’s presence and go beyond the saccharine reality of the casual tourist. They
were surprised at my interest in human rights. It was highly unusual for leisure seeking tourists
to burden themselves with such information.
In a subsequent perusal of newspapers, the Kashmir Times from the same period of 1990-95
painted a completely different degree of unrest in the valley. The stories that filled the
newspaper day after day were of killings of militants and security forces. There were
comparatively few stories that discussed the impacts of this contestation on society. I saw a
steady stream of violated people and heard them discuss their trauma and voice their demand
for justice to the activists. Their story did not find mention. I felt obligated to conduct this
research.
Collaborating to create Fear
“A couple of kilometers of the boulevard is not Kashmir. Come with me to the villages. There
when the soldier glares at you, you will piss yourself with the intensity in his eyes” – Engineer
Rashid (Interview, 19th
May 2013)
India presents itself as a punitive force to the Kashmiri. Checkpoints, police stations, army
barracks and interrogation/ torture facilities are imprinted in the population’s mind as the
representatives of India. In doing so India treats the not passive Kashmiri as a ‘spoilt child’ to
be disciplined but not to be answered to. The internal workings of the establishment are veiled
and that is where the state is an abstraction.
“The use of violence by the state underscores its weak hold over an area’s population and not
its strength” (Das, 2004).
For instance, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the Public Safety Act (PSA) allow
the security forces to arrest and detain persons with impunity. More than 70,000 people,
security forces, militants and civilians have lost their lives in the 24 years of conflict. A
disturbingly large percentage of the lives lost are civilians. The present number of forcibly
disappeared persons in Kashmir stands at 8000 and 6000 unmarked graves dot the landscape.
(Scott- Clarke, 2012). The nail grip of the state, abetted by a lack of transparency has created a
large trust deficit between state and society.

11. 4
This gap in conversation backfires on the already thin legitimacy of Indian rule. As Talal Asad
says,
“Suspicion occupies the space between the law and its application”(Das, 2004)
The constant fear of punishment by the state reinforces or strengthens the alienation of the
Kashmiri, generally a Muslim from the perceived ‘Hindu’ nation of India. The Indian state is
steadily antagonizing the population by dealing with dissent with brute force and offering no
space for reconciliation. Even the meager attempts to build bridges between the army and the
populace are not aimed directly at victims of torture. This will be discussed with specificity in
Chapters 2 and the concluding discussion on self determination.
Political parties of Kashmir place themselves on either side of the freedom question. The
National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are the two pro- India parties.
Their stance is usually for more autonomy within the Indian state as opposed to a rejection of
it. However these demands are tempered and placed in the box of a ‘long term’ that seems
forever imminent.
The reign of these two parties covers all of Kashmir’s history within India. Both parties have
constantly concerned themselves with issues of development while creating only a facade of
interlocution with Delhi on the issue of human rights violations. This will be discussed in
Chapter 2 with a slew of the cases including that of Afzal Guru.
It is no coincidence that Mehbooba Mufti once occupied the house that was a designated
interrogation center and the site for several such violations. Omar Abdullah’s similar empty
rhetoric on repealing the AFSPA was called by the interviewed army general as,
“A trick to fool the populace” (Interview, 30th
May 2013)
The Indian nexus in Kashmir, (to invert the use of the term nexus used solely by the state for
the range of violent and non violent anti India actors) perpetuates itself by crushing the human
rights of the people and offering empty promises to prevent the same. There is a self righteous
violence in its seemingly non violent methods to quell dissent as well: The major incentive to be
part of the mainstream is a diminished likelihood of torture and a better economic life through
a lower likelihood of being robbed by state actors. (Interview, 9th
May 2013)
Opposition and its Shortcomings
“Boycott elections and they will let you rape their movement”- Engineer Rashid (Interview, 19th
May 2013)
The pro freedom faction is probably better termed the anti India nexus. As an army lieutenant
colonel explained, separatist parties, the Pakistan army and the militant groups collude.

12. 5
(Interview, 30th
May 2013) This is not remotely as shocking as the Indian media plays it out to
be. The anti- India parties choose not part of an electoral process they allege is biased against
them. It is natural that these parties align themselves with factions who parade sympathy to
their cause.
There are multiple leaders, with multiple short term agendas and the anti India faction is all but
united. Yasin Malik (Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front), Mirwaiz Umar Farooq (Awami Action
Committee) and Syed Ali Shah Geelani (Tehreek- e- Hurriyat) are the most visible of present
anti- India leaders.
A Professor at a major university in Kashmir states that this is an advantage. She explains,
“Having many leaders and a chaotic series of events helps us to not fall into a recognizable
pattern. This is what keeps the Indian government from crushing our freedom movement”
(Interview, 28th
May 2013)
Professor D.N. Dhanagare, sociologist and visiting professor at TISS agrees that sustaining the
right blend of organization and spontaneity is instrumental in taking a social movement to
success.
The manifest function of the anti India movement in Kashmir is eponymous- the call for
freedom from India (Merton 1968). This seems strong and unshaken. The latent function
though or a watered down version of aims is absent. Anti India parties say they cannot be part
of mainstream politics without compromising this stance. There is no clear cut distinction
between a pro freedom and a pro Pakistan sentiment. Pakistan is seen as the possible liberator
of an oppressed people. Even if freedom seems to rank as the best desired outcome it is closely
followed by Pakistani occupation. Whether this faction realistically sets store by Pakistan’s
promise of autonomy or at least (internal) autonomy for Kashmir, is unclear.
“We have a plan for what to do if our independence movement succeeds. We can’t tell you
now”, said an aide of Yasin Malik who was present at his May 2013 hunger strike for the return
of Afzal Guru’s body to Kashmir.
The anti India parties have a strong claim over the population because of an overarching
support for freedom in Kashmir even if there are compulsions of daily life against acting on it.
But their single minded concern for the freedom question as a precursor to development, even
if true, tempers their sway with the public and limits their dialogue with the Indian government
on issues of daily life.
The Election Monitoring report on the 2008 Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections published
by an independent human rights outfit makes the claim for the popularity of freedom from
India, which is not entirely supported by the report’s findings:

13. 6
“We want to add or detract nothing from the analysis and narrative, barring point towards one
unalterable fact, the overwhelming support for “azaadi” which cuts across the divide between
the voters and boycotter” (JKCCS, 2008)
The report found 5 fake voter identity cards. In contrast, the report showed that 2668 of 2900
respondents who voted reported no coercion in voting whether from the state (136) or from
militants (1).
This claim is however, qualified by this research (and possibly others before it). A major portion
of the silent supporters for dissent are the victims of the state. All 6 of the victims interviewed
professed an anti India stance. They were from different socio- economic groups: a student, a
young professional, a beggar, a grocery shop owner, a politician and a human rights activist.
This wide sample was representative of the alienation that being victimized by the state
creates.
Since anti India parties and Kashmir government are not on talking terms there is little dialogue
on the experiences of the state’s victims such as the tortured. These are routinely reduced to
facts and figures by the government which then counters the anti India parties for having
radical Islamist sympathizers and draws up incidents of killings and torture of Kashmiri Pandits.
Advantages of Victim Narratives
Contentious motives hence, often bury the representative qualities of political discourse in
Kashmir. The extra- political viewing of the present situation of this research can provide useful
insight on the nature of the Indian presence in Kashmir. Just like one cannot view one’s home
from the inside of a room, a political critique of Kashmiri politics often gets stuck in conundrum,
with each party presenting an equally compelling version of events.
I will explain this focus on narratives of the disenfranchised through an example of the Kashmiri
Pandit exodus. While this is not the focus of this research, a discussion of the way the political
debate has played out can help understand how appropriation of suffering has taken
precedence over the discourse on the suffering itself.
Anti India parties maintain Pandits are welcome in Kashmir and term their leaving as
unfortunate. They also claim that India helped and even encouraged their migration from the
Kashmir valley. In contrast, mainstream (pro India) parties talk of the exodus as a creation of
sporadic circumstances: an almost instantaneous evaporation of Kashmiri synergetic identity by
the influx of the ideology of radical Islam.
In such divergence, according most careful attention to personal accounts of the Pandit’s
suffering helps draw inference of ground reality. For instance, a discussion between four
persons from the Kashmiri Diaspora community in Toronto shed more light on the departures
between the Pandit community and Kashmiri Muslims in constructing the history of the exodus

14. 7
than all the anti India and pro India rhetoric that I came across(Farrukh Papa, 2013). Two
participants in the discussion were Pandits and two were Muslims.
Farrukh Papa, former JKLF leader said the outmigration of the Pandits was encouraged by
Governor Jagmohan Malhotra in 1990. This argument sees the exodus as somewhat abetted by
the state, which then used it as an excuse to unleash cruel counter insurgency measures. It also
presents India as protecting the Pandits from harm as its state machinery readied itself to
lacerate through Kashmiri Muslim society which it still characterizes as the ‘other’.
This view was countered by poet Deepak Razdan who commented that outmigration had
worked to the disadvantage of the Pandit, who not just lost his home put also his political
identity.
‘I seized to be Indian the day I was evicted out of Kashmir. We are 3 or 4 lakh and scattered
across India. We are no vote bank.’ (Razdan, 2012)
While Papa reiterates the anti- India narrative, Razdan’s statement breaks new ground. He
defines being Indian as being an active participant in the workings of the Indian state. His lack
of political pull is a shortcoming of the Indian political setup. He also reveals an important part
of history: that he considered himself Indian while residing in Kashmir.
Razdan critiques not just the Kashmiri freedom movement but also the Indian state in his
articulation of the exodus. His critique is distinct from the politically motivated one employed
by the army and the Indian state against the freedom movement. India uses the Pandit
narrative to discredit the movement altogether as being unfair and immoral. Razdan contends
this elevated morality that the Indian state accords itself. In light of the Pandit’s present
political vacuum, he dispels both Papa’s and India’s argument that the state machinery acted
with anything more than self preservation on its mind. (Farrukh Papa 2013)
A simple summary of the political stands of communities can leave actual causes and nature of
events shrouded in mystery. Each interest group has a different reading of history, where one
group’s hero is another’s tormentor. These contestations over Kashmir’s history are discussed
in the upcoming chapter. Conflicting versions of history have long, been used by pro India
factions as a means of justifying India’s occupation: that the other side started it and that they
took up arms first and invited the continuing wrath of the state. In a bid to dispel this, I will
explore the appropriation of the history of Kashmir by different interest groups in the next
chapter as well.
Research in Kashmir
The ethos of this research is rooted in the fundamentals of journalism. A responsible telling of
the victim’s story has been attempted. Like Ian Jack, a noted independent journalist, I have

15. 8
tried to imagine that the victims represented here were my neighbours thereby creating
accountability for what I write.
In a short conversation with Basharat Peer, author of Curfewed Night, Basharat told me to
accord most importance to the testimonies of people with the least stakes.
“The man on the street has least incentive to lie”
While attempts have been made to situate the narratives here in context or qualify them with
facts, this has not always been possible. The only official records are the testimonies of victims
recorded by police and juridical authorities. These have been treated as being honest
confessions. By no means have these been considered truthful by face value though. There is an
assumed honesty of purpose and an absence of an intention to mislead the researcher only.
All diversions in the narrative from other established versions of events, whether through
official or NGO produced literature, have been explored for their motives. Hence, a full bodied
construction of the torture victim’s consciousness of both his torture and the political processes
that led to it has been attempted.
Any research on narratives involves second guessing the context of the victim’s words.
Assertion to this effect has been made with the realization that there is no way of ascertaining
whether the interpretation is coherent with what the victim thought. In this regard, I am
impressed by Katherine Boo’s approach in Beyond the Beautiful Forevers. Boo apparently asked
people what they were thinking when they said things to her. This limited the bias in her
analysis to deliberate distortions by the victims and not errors of judgement on her part. My
analysis could not be as detailed. (Boo, 2012)
To reiterate, the primary focus of the research is on persons not part of pro India parties or
rebel groups. These are persons who are victims of the state and have little power to change
their fate. They are strong in their resolve to fight the system that disadvantages them. But
their charity in not traversing the state’s laws renders them weak.
The analysis will focus on the experiences of Kashif, Mushtaq and MLA Abdul Rashid Sheikh,
victims of torture. Their interviews will be transcribed to gauge their persuasions and outlook.
MLA Rashid’s narrative will serve to show what it is like to engage with the state and protest.
This research will also reference two interviews with army officials, one with a two star general
and another with a lieutenant colonel at different points to show the contrast between the
state’s and the victim’s articulation of their respective positions.
A discussion of the timelines of contestation will be presented in Chapter 1. Through the tide of
Kashmir’s history a divide has grown between Kashmiri (Muslim) society’s search for identity
and the Indian state’s erasure of that identity through torture and other violent means aimed

16. 9
actually at controlling territory. This territory versus identity debate forms the crux of
contemporary contestations in Kashmir.
The second chapter on narratives will get pride of place as torture represents not just the worst
of the state but also a reality prevalent too widely prevalent to be a diagnostic measure for
secession. The description of the Nazi state as being born from torture is applicable to Kashmir.
(Amery, 1966) Sadism is like bricks and tables to the Indian establishment in Kashmir. An
incident narrated by an activist involved the police making thirteen year old boys rape eight
year old ones in the police station after arresting them for stone pelting.
In summary, this study of torture will comment on the intrinsic value of life, the hallmark of the
human rights perspective but also provide two other insights. First, it will expose the perversion
of the state machinery; that malicious undercurrent that may manifest itself at the first signs of
dissent. Second, it will describe the environment of fear that torture creates and the collective
memory of pain it feeds.
Finally, the research will conclude with a discussion of the case for self determination for
Kashmir in the last Chapter. A comparison of international humanitarian law which is in
complete opposition to laws created by the Indian state will debunk the legal sanction that the
Indian state claims it has over Kashmir. Structures of injustice that the state is unwilling to
change will manifest themselves more readily then.
Additional interviews with two academics from universities in Srinagar will be used for this
concluding discussion. An interview with a lieutenant colonel of the army will be added as an
appendix to present not just excerpts but the army’s position in their own narrative.
It is on this level field that state presence and societal suffering will be left open for judgment
by the reader.

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Chapter 1: The Conflicting Histories of Kashmir
The purpose of this chapter is to present the current situation of state- society conflict in
Kashmir as a result of divergent conceptions of the idea of Kashmir. Different interest groups
have their unique portrayal of history. This is significant as each version serves to justify a
particular political purpose. The three dominant groups Kashmiri Muslims, Pandits and the
Indian state have each defined themselves in contestation with the other. Their writing of
history is of importance as it holds power over the region’s present social strife and political
unrest.
The primary fracture between the Indian state and the predominantly Muslim population is one
of territory versus identity. For the state, its imperial ambition to control the territory of
Kashmir draws itself from the legitimacy it purports from the Instrument of Accession. For the
populace, the struggle to assert a collective identity as Kashmiri Muslims is an ongoing one in
Indian rule. This socio- political assertion challenged the Dogra claim on Kashmir and the fact
that the Indian rule draws legitimacy from a treaty signed with the very same monarch, makes
this assertion on-going against the Indian state. The practice of Indian rule which references
Dogra rule and Hindu religion, further feeds this socio- political assertion of being Kashmiri and
being Muslim (as discussed in Chapter 2).
Debates central to this thread are the debate on Kashmiriyat (Kashmiri identity), with all three
of the major interest groups- Muslims, Pandits and the state participating and the debate on
self determination primarily between Kashmiri Muslims and the Indian state. These will be
discussed at length after laying the historical groundwork for the legitimacy of Indian rule in
Kashmir and the shaping of Kashmiri Muslim political consciousness.
The Kashmiri Pandit version of events is inlayed within Kashmiri Muslim history as contestation
and within the state history as appropriation. The Indian state and Muslims appropriate the
history of Kashmir to justify their political stands and social outlook and the story of the Pandits
forms a small part of that.
History and historians are situated in different time periods, so are history and its
appropriators. This creates both intentional and unintentional distortions to history as it passes
through the lens of the appropriator’s subjectivity. This chapter will attempt a critical history of
Kashmir based on the knowledge system designed by R.G. Collingwood.
The first part of this chapter will be Collingwood’s conceptual framework which will be
discussed in Kashmir’s context. The second section will be a reconstruction of the timeline of
Kashmir’s recent history specifically focused in the rise of Kashmiri Muslim political
consciousness. The chapter will end with a thematic discussion of the questions of legitimacy
and self determination and Kashmiriyat, divergence on which is directly linked with the
previously detailed timeline.

18. 11
Section A: Conceptual Framework- Tools for Critical History
My attempt at critical history does not elucidate all important aspects of all histories of the
three divergent groups. It accords importance to both fact and opinion. It also takes into
account diverging narratives on a particular incident and qualifies not just the veracity of the
narrative but also the narrative in itself. Classic ‘scissors and paste’ history ignores both
(Collingwood, 1946)
The aim here is to acknowledge the triangle of dependence between the three dominant
histories of Kashmir. Each is dependent on the other two. This exploration focuses on the
history of the rise of Kashmiri Muslim political consciousness. The political identity of the
community has been shaped in opposition to the ruling power: the Dogra state and later the
Indian state and in opposition to the interests of the Kashmiri Pandits.
The focus on Kashmiri Muslim political consciousness is because of three reasons:
 They give Kashmiri society its distinct anti- state character. Hence, they are at the
receiving end of state violence
 They are the multitude and constitute the overwhelming majority of the Kashmiri public
 They define the acts of the other two main stakeholders: the state and the Kashmiri
Pandits
I have made an attempt to keep the scope of my historical analysis large enough to
accommodate these three histories, united by the importance of certain events that proved
monumental to all three albeit in markedly different ways. At the same time the scale of my
research is small.
The kinds of sources that were looked at to construct the timeline that follows in this chapter
are:
 Speeches and interviews of state officials: these ameliorate the well established and
widely documented position of the Indian state on Kashmir. Chief among these are V.K.
Krishna Menon’s speech in the Security Council in 1957 and Interviews of army
personnel conducted for this research.
 Anthropological history of Kashmiri Muslim social and political consciousness. The works
of Chitralekha Zutshi and Mridu Rai are given centre stage.
 Kashmiri Pandit narratives. Rahul Pandita’s autobiographical work form the basis of
much of this counter narrative.

19. 12
One of the limitations of any historical analysis is that the best accuracy it can achieve is as
much as available sources provide and the tide of history is such that it tends to destroy
dissenting histories or at best overshadow them.
Mindfulness of one’s subjectivity is essential in historical analysis (Collingwood, 1946). In this
chapter, while I will bring narratives I gathered from time to time, I will deal mostly with
secondary information. My subjectivity here is that my research is geared towards exploring
Muslim political consciousness and its contestation with the present structure of the Indian
state. Hence, my presentation of facts is to serve that purpose.
This mortar has been chosen to construct what can be called a history of experience. Even for
the state, this is different from official history. A history of experience aims at detailing the
socio-political experience of the Kashmir situation.
When multiple histories exist there emerges a distinction between chronological time and
phenomenological time. Chronological time is a linear flow of events. Some events may be
considered more important than others but there is no alternate valuation of this importance.
In the case of divergent histories, like in Kashmir, phenomenological time must be
acknowledged. It allows me to explore the subjectivity of armed forces personnel, state
officials, Pandits, Muslims, and academics.
For instance, in Kashmiri Muslim consciousness, the events of 1931 hold special importance.
Abdul Qadeer, an Ahmadiyya leader from Punjab delivered a fiery speech against the injustices
of Dogra rule on Kashmiri Muslims. As Qadeer was detained in Srinagar’s Central Jail and an
impassioned crowd protested outside its gates, the Dogra administration opened fire and 26
Muslims were killed. Elsewhere, Pandit property was destroyed. (Faheem, 2013)
This day the 13th
July, 1931 is known as martyr’s day in Kashmir. Muslims observe it in homage
to the killed. The day also marks the birth of Muslim political consciousness. For Kashmiri
Pandits, it does not hold as important a place. The event is lost in a sea of other instances of
violence and damage to property.
I have not looked at similar sources for each, which would probably give the study more depth
and establish events with similar levels of credibility. Supporting sources to the ones spelled out
on the last page were few. The time available for this research lead me to approach the topic in
a way as would be most informative of historical events while expressing the particular group's
sentiment.
Below I have discussed the question of plausibility in a historical analysis and the challenge of
creating a timeline for divergent narratives. This question remains relevant and my position on
it remains coherent throughout this research. This is definitive of the analysis of my approach
to torture victim analysis detailed in the ‘research in kashmir’ section of the introduction.
Plausibility

20. 13
Plausibility of an event is a contentious rationale to judge its veracity according to Collingwood.
This has however been the basis of much subjective revision of history by historians. For
instance, historians in present day India will most likely not believe that space shuttles existed
in the Gupta period.
Even if there were documents to support this hypothesis, the present understanding of the
period does not permit the presence of space ships. Hence, such documents are likely to be
termed as legend and not history. A critical historian would carefully analyse these documents
and determine whether they constitute evidence or legend and not dismiss them off hand
because of what they imply or argue.
Each history has gone through a washing machine of the bias and persuasions of the historian's
society apart from the earlier mentioned personal bias. Since, the historian and historical
material are of two different periods, the historian inevitably regards and rejects based on a
calculated guess of what could have been possible at the time period he seeks to write about.
This can prove to be an unreliable yardstick to judge brutalities. For instance, consider the case
of the Kunan-Poshpora mass rape. Soldiers of the 4th
Rajputana Rifles raped upto 100 women in
the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora on the night of February 23, 1991. (Asia Watch,
Physicians for Human Rights, 1992)
“One by one, they raped me, while my five year old son was forced to watch, weeping beside
the bed,” said Bakhti a survivor of gang rape by six soldiers (Dutta, 2013)
Had it been only the life of Bakhti or that of a few women, the case might have been
entertained as true by a wider section of society. The fact that it happened with around 53
documented and over 100 possible victims makes it seem implausible (Asia Watch, Physicians
for Human Rights, 1992). It also dismisses the convenience of regarding this incident as an
aberration of the state machinery. In Chapter 2 the sadism of the Indian state machinery will be
discussed.
Wajahat Habibullah, the then Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir said in his confidential report
on the incident,
“It is impossible to believe that officers of a force such as the Indian army would lead their men
into a village with the sole aim of violating its women. Even were it possible to concede this and
if the Army were indeed such a brutal force, it would then be impossible to explain why the
officers themselves did not participate in such a orgy”
Any logic, including such a flimsy one cannot be used to explain historical events. Absence of
logic is a hallmark of state perpetrated violence in Kashmir and is expressed by victim narratives
in Chapter 2.

21. 14
The possibility that rapes of such a large number are clearly not mere collateral of a benign
state is dangerous for the Indian state and uncomfortable for the Indian public to accept. Thus,
much scepticism exists in India for the suffering of the Kashmiri.
“What is so special about such atrocities in Kashmir? Bihar is poorer and the people are as
vulnerable to exploitation. We get little funding from the Government of India unlike Kashmir”,
said an academic at TISS about the ongoing atrocities in Kashmir.
According to Collingwood, history is a unique system of knowledge. It does not conform to
other systems that are often used to discredit its reliability. Positivist interpretations of history
limit themselves to cause and effect. History is most certainly an inquiry into the causes of
events but not one caged by the positivist perimeter of fact and fiction. History is based on
evidence. (Collingwood, 1946)
To decide how important Kunan Poshpora is in a history of Kashmir, such as this one, evidence
is of prime importance. Judging the veracity of evidence requires that each source be assigned
weight according to its credibility. Such credibility should not be based on bias towards a type
of historical source. While government relies on its own evidence and human rights activists on
theirs, the deciding factor is which set of evidence matches with the testimonies of the victims.
In the Kunan Poshpora case, the government’s dismissal of the incident and the judiciary’s
refusal to allow it trial amounts to calling the incident an elaborate lie by the people.
“While the ladies were giving out their complaints, the other ladies were giggling and when this
was brought to the notice of the school teacher, he was quite crest-fallen.”, Brigadier HK
Sharma, then commander of the19th infantry brigade to which the accused unit belonged to,
stated in his confidential report on the incident. (Sharma, 1991)
The Indian state continually stated that medical examinations had proved inconclusive to
determine rape. These along with the supposed ‘giggling’ of girls was used to argue that the
mass rape incident did not take place.
The social repercussions of Kunan Poshpora though, belie the government’s assertions and
support the narratives of the victims. While it is not uncommon for the Indian state to meddle
with evidence in Kashmir (cases of fake encounters like Pathribal in point) it is important to take
into account social phenomena. These point to the incident being terrifyingly real:
“No marriage has taken place in the village in the last three years. All girls, raped and not
raped, are single. All the married raped women have been deserted. After intervention by
militants and elders, two husbands did take their wives back, one on the condition that
there be no conjugal relations, the other that he live in the city away from his wife.”
(Amnesty International, 1994)
In contrast, the Indian state’s rhetoric has been more chequered on this case than that of the
victims and oscillates from denial to advocating reconciliation. Indian External Affairs Minister
Salman Khurshid discussed Kunan Poshpora on a 2013 visit to Srinagar,

22. 15
“It’s like war. So many people, who don’t deserve to suffer, suffered in war. And at the end of
the war, you still shake hands, you sign a peace document and you begin to talk to the very
people who have been killing and marauding you. It’s a moral dilemma, it’s an emotional
dilemma”, he said. (Kashmir Reader, Sofi, 2013)
At the end of the day, there is a choice between choosing what we forget, if we can, correct as
we must and make people accountable as necessary and then learn to move on.” Kashmir
Reader, Sofi, 2013)
This promise of justice and rationale for reconciliation was offered after Khurshid accepted the
occurrence of the Kunan Poshpora mass rapes.
“What can I say? I can only say that I am ashamed that it happened in my country. I am
apologetic and appalled that it has happened in my country” (Greater Kashmir, Abid Bashir,
2013)
This promise was an empty one as not a single prosecution was made and neither was
compensation given to any of the victims. The PIL to re-try the Kunan Poshpora rapes was
quashed yet again by court in 2013. The army general interviewed seemed uncomfortable to
talk about Kunan Poshpora and urged me to move on,
“Just leave Kunan Poshpora, tell me how many cases are there of the army committing rape?”
(Interview 30th
May 2013)”
The general’s assertion may have suggested a desire to reconcile and move on as Khurshid
urged the victims to. But the state’s subsequent actions showed that it remained self righteous.
In January 2014, the army after being given the freedom by the Supreme Court to choose
between court martial and civilian trial for the Pathribal fake encounter case (2000) accused,
chose court martial and subsequently acquitted the accused.
“Histories bear a complex relationship with evidence. Evidence is of any importance only if it
has historical value. Hence only history can perpetuate history. Because to be historically
relevant evidence has to be important in context and not just in causality.” (Collingwood, 1946)
Evidence in this enquiry into Kashmir’s history is treated as something more than it was in my
discussion of the Kunan- Poshpora rapes. I offered a stand- alone reading into the case as a
means to infer the roles played by the Indian state and the victims. Evidence offered was to
build my claim that the Indian state perpetrated the horrific incident.
However, situating Kunan- Poshpora in the timeline of Kashmir’s history of state- society
interactions can offer explanations as to why the state acts the way it does. So here, evidence
does the job of placing Kunan- Poshpora in this timeline along with other credible events.
Supporting evidence with narrative helps understand the changing equations between state
and society.

23. 16
The creation of such historical context offers a clearer understanding of why Kashmir is in its
present deadlock. Incident after incident contributes to building the present positions of the
state and the society and deepening the collective memory of pain. In Kashmir these have
become well defined and offer little scope for change and consequently little space for
reconciliation.
Section B: A Timeline of Collective Suffering
In my interview with playwright Arshad Mushtaq, he said he had directed a play he titled
“Memory is Responsibility”. In effect it is the memory of the three divergent groups that
produces divergent histories.
“The essential things in history are memory and authority. If an event or a state of things is to
be historically known, first of all someone must be acquainted with it; then he must remember
it; then he must state his recollection of it in terms intelligible to another; and finally that other
must accept the statement as true.” (Collingwood, 1946)
The origin of this memory of the Kashmiri public starts with the advent of Islam in Kashmir in
the 14th
century. The time before that is forgotten and its rulers are looked at as Hindu and not
as antecedents of the modern day Kashmiri Muslim.
Mughal rule in Kashmir began with Akbar’s annexation of Kashmir into his empire in 1586.
Akbar tricked the Kashmiri king Yusuf Shah Chak by calling him to Delhi for a truce and then
imprisoning him and marching on Kashmir. This is seen as the beginning of foreign rule. This
feeling of foreign domination extends into the rule of the Durrani empire, the Sikhs, the Dogras
and into India's rule in the present day.
The Sikh and Dogra patronization of ‘Hindu’ (Hindu and Sikh) practices is presented as a form of
grave tyranny and an attempt to inundate the Islamic character of Kashmir. (Zutshi, 2004) At
the same time, Afghan rule of Kashmir does not stand out as sorely even though its brutality
too was barbaric.
The reason for this is the linear progression that the Kashmiri Muslim draws from the inception
of Sikh rule in 18th
century to the present rule by a Hindu majority India. The question of the
legitimacy of the Dogra king is important in that the Indian state seeks validation in proving it
while the Kashmiri Muslim seeks justification for the anti- India movement by disproving it.
First wave of Illegitimacy (1846- 1931)

24. 17
The Dogra state’s history ignores the common person. Not unlike, most kingly histories of the
time, it focuses on the raj durbar. However, for Gulab Singh and his successors history was also
a powerful tool to establish their legitimacy as rulers. So their historians were all the more
preoccupied. Some sources say the word Dogra is an amalgamation of the words ‘दो’ and ‘यग’
meaning of mixed blood or low birth. (Rai, 2004)
The Sikh Empire lost the first Anglo Afghan War. Gulab Singh had been named King of Jammu in
return for his services by the Sikh emperor Ranjit Singh. (Huttenback, 1968) Gulab Singh acted
as interlocutor between the Sikhs and the British after the war. This made his position
favourable in the eyes of the British.
Gulab Singh had practically surrounded Kashmir having won Jammu and later Ladakh in 1834.
The british were afraid that he would attack and capture Ranjit Singh’s territories after he died
in 1839. (pg- 80 Huttenback, 1968). The British wanted to control the Punjab and perceiving a
possible contest with Gulab Singh, facilitated the sale of Kashmir by the Sikhs to Gulab Singh for
50 lakh British Indian rupees.
Gulab Singh’s purchase saw smite from the Kashmiri, who reviled the non- Kashmiri Hindu King
and smited him for not having conquered but bought Kashmir. He and his successor Dogra kings
battled illegitimacy both as royals and as rulers of Kashmir.
In this Gulab Singh and his successors used three vehicles to further their legitimacy in Kashmir.
(Rai, 2004) These vehicles were mostly religious and were aimed not at reaching out to the
Muslim population but imprinting the Dogra state on the land:
 Dharmarth Trust which was set up by the Dogras to look after temples. Muslim shrines,
on the other hand, were maintained by Muslim community in their own capacity.
Muslims had no hope from the Dogra state to maintain their shrines. When the British
argued that the Archaeological Survey of India should be allowed to restore and
maintain all monuments in Jammu and Kashmir, they were met with resistance from
Dogra state.
 The post of revenue collector was auctioned to the highest bidder. Inevitably, the rich
got the best lands and so became even more affluent. Further, land rent was fixed at the
amount the bidder paid to acquire revenue collector rights. This created skewed rents.
The rationale was that higher the productivity of the land, higher the price the bidder
will pay for tax collection rights and consequently charge higher rent. An incentive
structure was in place only for the revenue collector but not for the tiller. He was in a
position of compulsion to pay the fixed rent year after year.

25. 18
 The state had the sole monopoly over buying farmer's produce. Even after tax was
collected in kind, the state was the only legitimate buyer of grains in the market. At face
value, this food control can be seen either as a form of control over the population or as
a social security measure. But the events of the famine of 1877-78 dismiss the possibility
of the Dogra regime’s concern for its Kashmiri subjects. There was an excess of rainfall
in Kashmir that year which lead to the rotting of food grains. Hoarding by revenue
officials worsened the situation: grain became too expensive to buy in the free market
and the people starved. Famine was caused because of the laws put in place by the
state. The British systems of land tenure created famine like condition on several
occasions in India in the 1890s (O’Grada, 2011). The Dogra state was callous, though
certainly not unique in disregarding food security of its citizens.
 Begar was thrust upon Kashmir by the Dogra army. Kashmiris were made to carry loads
to the hostile terrain of Gilgit- Baltistan for the maharaja’s garrison. This begar was
compounded by middlemen, who would ask for multiples of the labor demanded by the
king and use the surplus labour for their own chores.
In this way, the Dogra state furthered a class and religious structure that favoured Kashmiri
Pandits who were officials, revenue collectors and feudal lords and totally disenfranchised the
largely peasant class Kashmiri Muslim population. Lack of positive discrimination to educate the
multitude of Kashmiri Muslims by the Indian state led Pandits to continue to dominate
bureaucracy. The tradition of lack of political agency combined with religious suppression of
Muslims resurfaced as the Indian state all but suspended human rights in Kashmir after the
outbreak of insurgency in 1989. But the rise of Muslim political consciousness made them an
active dissenting force against this second wave of oppressive rule. The chief figure of this
resurgence of identity was Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah.
Political Resurgence and Reassertion of Identity (1931- 47)
Sheikh Abdullah made inroads into a purely religious political consciousness as an underdog.
Abdullah’s father was not a politician (politics almost non- existent in the Dogra state at this
point). The two major representatives of Kashmiri Muslims (and so in excess of 85% of
Kashmir’s population) were the clerics of the two biggest mosques of Srinagar: The Jama Masjid
and the Khanqah-i- Mualla.
The Glancy Commission’s 1932 report found the Maharaja’s rule was biased towards Kashmiri
Pandits. Considering Pandits as the repositors of an original culture of Kashmir, a Hindu culture,
the Dogra state along with the Kashmiri Pandits had imagined Kashmir through a lens of
Hinduism. The commission went against the grain of the Dogra administration and
recommended that Muslims be given reservations in jobs commensurate to their
representation in the population.

26. 19
Pandit stance on the committee’s findings was that the Glancy Commission’s recommendations
were acceptable only as long as they did not disturb the status quo in a way that Pandit power
and influence was compromised. So reservations for the limited number of jobs was not
acceptable. If more jobs could be created for the Muslim subjects, while keeping the conducive
conditions for Pandit employment, the Pandit community would be agreeable. (Faheem, 2013)
Sheikh Abdulla protested the lack of renovation of the then unimportant Pathar Masjid (Stone
Mosque) by the Dogra state. The Dogra state’s Dharmarth trust funded the upkeep of Hindu
temples but accorded no attention to maintenance of mosques and Muslim shrines. The issue
of the Pathar Masjid was the gap that Sheikh Abdullah was looking for to break onto the
severely limited but also exclusionary political scene.
Pathar Masjid had been constructed by Noor Jahan, queen regent of Jahangir I, the eldest son
of Akbar. According to legend, Noor Jahan infamously downplayed a compliment about the
beauty of Pathar Masjid by saying, ‘It is but worth a pearl from my shoe’
Clerics immediately declared the mosque, a place of worship now abased by this unflattering
comparison, unfit for prayer. This was the reason that Pathar Masjid was free from
appropriation by either of these two clerics. It was also representative of Sheikh Abdullah
himself, a man who sought to be a politician not a religious leader.
The Dogras used Pathar Masjid as military stables and then as a state granary (for the grain
bought under monopoly from the farmers). Abdullah used Pathar Masjid as a stepping stone to
enter the world of religious politics. But his true ambitions were of becoming a leader to the
Kashmiri nation. He willingly championed the cause of the Muslim majority, his support base,
but sought to make himself leader of a Kashmir tolerant of the minority Hindus and Sikhs.
In a bid to elevate religious squabble to the more respectable and secular theatre of
representational politics, Sheikh Abdullah changed the Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference
(founded 1932) into the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference in 1939. The fruition of this
bid required him to use Kashmiriyat as a political card in way markedly different from which it
had been used by the erstwhile mystic poets as an ideal.
Abdullah advocated syncretism because he wanted to be the leader of the Kashmiri Nation. He
wanted policies that sought to fetch socio- political rights for the Muslims but to not seem anti-
Pandit. There was a socialist fervour to Sheikh Abdullah's anti- maharaja and anti- Pandit
activities, right from the drafting of the Naya Kashmir Manifesto, to the Quit Kashmir
movement. His policies aimed at empowering Muslims, the underclass whilst reducing the hold
o power of the elite Pandits.
However, his vision was not always played out in these secular terms as was see in the example
of the Pathar Masjid anti Pandit riots. At the society level, these demands for the deposition of
the Maharaja deepened a hatred for the affluent minority, the Kashmiri Pandits and castigation
of Pandits for supporting the Maharaja's regime came to the forefront. Although Sheikh
Abdullah was aided by several Kashmiri Pandits like Bandhu Kashyap and Prem Nath Bazaz, they

27. 20
were hardly representative of the larger Kashmiri Pandit community that was not at all pleased
by the power and later the wealth (read land) distribution that Sheikh Abdullah orchestrated
after he became Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in 1948.
Representation Realized (1947 to 1953)
As Kashmir suffered the 1947-48 Pashtun tribal invasions, Pandits and Sikhs were especially
vulnerable. Pandits, who enjoyed power through their position at the top of the land tenure
system and bureaucracy, were now being humiliated by the Pashtun tribesman. Many were
killed, while others were forced to renounce their religion. Rahul Pandita includes his uncle's
narration of the period in his narrative of the Kashmiri Pandit experience. His uncle was in
Baramulla at the time, the epicentre of pillage and rapine by the Pathans. His uncle says he
heard the Pandits' sacred thread was chopped off and they were made to eat beef and chant
the kalima as a ritual to convert them to Islam on the threat of murder. He also describes his
own encounter with the tribals in which the tribesmen come across as poor, wear poor quality
straw made footwear and are keen to loot travelers even if they appear to be Muslim (He
chants Allah hu Akbar to make the tribesmen believe he is Muslim. They do, but they loot him
anyway). (Pandita, 2013)
Sheikh Abdullah was appointed to the post of Head of Emergency Administration in October
1947 and became Prime Minister in 1948. He had risen to become the single most important
figure in Kashmir, one that enjoyed legitimacy with both India and the Kashmiri populace.
Never again in history, did any leader command respect from both these quarters
simultaneously. Not even Sheikh Abdullah himself, when he re-emerged from prison as Chief
Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in 1975. (Faheem, 2013)
As the erstwhile princely state was divided and peace was declared, Sheikh Abdullah became
Kashmir’s spokesperson to India, Pakistan and also became a known face in international
circles. In this time Abdullah mirrored the sentiments of the Kashmiri public on the question of
azadi. His approval of accession to India, later his insecurity about the place of Jammu and
Kashmir within the Indian Republic and finally his rekindled desire for freedom permeated all
sections of the Kashmiri public as well.
Sheikh Abdullah spoke in the UN Security Council on 5 February 1948: "The raiders came to our
land, massacred thousands of people—mostly Hindus and Sikhs, but Muslims, too—abducted
thousands of girls, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims alike, looted our property and almost reached the
gates of our summer capital, Srinagar...” (Abdullah, 1948)
Sheikh Abdullah acknowledged the suffering of the Kashmiri Sikhs and Pandits along with
Muslims. But this period of consensus was short lived as when the Pandit community did not
actively support the subsequent movement for secession from India and were dubbed as
collaborators with an occupying power yet again.

28. 21
The Muslim majority believed in India’s promise of plebiscite up until Abdullah’s insecurities
about the Delhi agreement propped up in the early 1950s. The Jan Sangh was leading
movements in Jammu to fully integrate Jammu with India. (Puri, 1982) The Delhi agreement
granted special constitutional status to Jammu and Kashmir and created Article 370. The article
promised Jammu and Kashmir internal autonomy within India. Jammu’s Hindu majority was
staunchly against Article 370 and desired full integration with the India.
Since Sheikh Abdullah’s influence and knowledge of Jammu was weak, he was afraid that
Jammu’s unconditional integration with India will spin momentum for the destruction of Article
370 and the special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir. Hence, he made a renewed
demand for freedom, this time from India.
Second wave of illegitimacy (1953 to 1975)
As Sheikh Abdullah was jailed in 1953, Kashmiris sought methods more forceful than diplomatic
dialogue. In 1955, some of Sheikh Abdullah’s supporters formed the Plebiscite Front, an
organization deemed radical by the Indian state for its uncompromising stance on the
plebiscite. it slogan was, “Azadi Ya Maut”
India focused all its attention on the international nature of the Kashmir dispute and did not
talk to a single representative leader in Kashmir. It unilaterally declared its legitimacy of ruling
Kashmir in light of aggression by Pakistan. This attempt to win Kashmir by Pakistan made
Kashmir a territorial dispute and directed all of India’s diplomatic energies in making Kashmir
purely a question of territorial dispute with Pakistan and not of the aspiration of the Kashmiri
public
Although the events after 1975 constituted a time that readied the outbreak on militancy in
1989, the positions of the three interest groups had been solidified as early as the 1960s. It was
the contending views on the below discussed themes that led to the events of the period and
still constitute the bone of contention in Kashmir.
Section C: Important Themes
Legitimacy
India’s legitimacy in Kashmir had to be justified against two contesting parties: Pakistan and the
Kashmiri population. The primacy that India accorded its engagement with Pakistan on this
issue was matched by its ignorance of Kashmiri aspiration. This deepened anti India sentiment
in Kashmir and further strengthened the cry for freedom.
In discussing legitimacy of India’s claim on Kashmir, Krishna Menon defends the Instrument of
Accession against the counter claims of Pakistan and a distinct set of counter claims by the
Kashmiri public. Menon argues that the Instrument of Accession is undisputable because in the
British Raj all treaties were made between the Crown and the Heads of states.

29. 22
“On 24 October the Maharaja, who is the head of the State, appealed to India for military help-
and it makes no difference in this particular matter whether the Maharaja is constitutional,
whether you like his face or you do not like it or what is the nature of his domestic life, which
does not come into it. Here is a question of State theory. He is the head of the State and,
according to the constitution, the only person competent to sign an accession; nobody else can
do it.”
With this statement he dismisses the plebiscite in all but a direct mention right at the beginning
of his speech. The rest of his 8 hour long speech focuses on dismissing Pakistan’s claim on
Kashmir outright. Both countries’ outright denouncement of the other’s claim left little for
discussion in the ensuing period.
This is problematic territory. The instrument of accession’s validity when judged by the
precedent set by the British Crown goes against the rationale of an Indian independence
movement. The movement was in no sense ‘legal’. People of India were beaten, jailed and
killed. Their being subjects of the British Crown did not make them naturally subservient to the
crown’s laws. In the context of Kashmir secession movement and India, Arnab Goswami’s
asking Yaseen Malik (JKLF) if he felt ashamed sharing a stage with Hafiz Saeed being an Indian
citizen himself, is dim- witted. (Goswami, 2013)
This said, Pakistan’s claim to liberate the Kashmiri people from Indian dominance was still
weaker than India’s claim on Kashmir. In effect, Pakistan did little to liberate the Kashmiri
people; the raiders looted and raped. Its external aggression to usurp a Muslim majority
population rendered any subsequent basis argued by Pakistan such as self determination or
human rights violations for supporting Kashmir’s movement against the Maharaja invalid.
Sir Mohammed Zafrullah Khan stated that the three main reasons defending the Pakistani
aggression on Kashmir were the protection of the territory of Pakistan from possible aggression
by Indian forces; prevention of a similar action by India, and prevention of the influx of refugees
into Pakistan. None of these reasons, as Menon elucidated had anything to do with the people
of Kashmir. (Menon)
Movements can be supported, not created by an external power. There was dissent against the
Maharaja, but it was the prerogative of the Kashmiri public to overthrow him. Pakistan’s
invading Kashmir was invading the system that prevailed at the time: the Maharaja’s rule. It is
not different than the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq. It cannot count for anything but self
interest.
In fact, Pakistan’s current support for the Kashmiri secession movement might have held more
traction with the international community had it not aggressed in 1947-48. This is because in
the 1990s there was legitimate discontent against India’s unwanted rule in Kashmir and
Pakistan was helping a people’s right to self- determine their future. The way this emancipator
move plays out when militia is formed and killing occurs contradicts any moral justification. But

30. 23
it is not necessarily frowned upon in international politics, with the west aiding dissident (and
oppressive regimes) on several occasions.
The circular debate with Pakistan dominated for the whole of the 1953-75 period. India
installed puppet leaders in Kashmir starting with Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad. As the increased
military presence created an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, human rights violations began a
steady appearance in Kashmir. In absence of free and fair political discourse and the
paramouncy of India’s territorial pride, Kashmiri population of Muslims harboured hate against
the Indian state and the politically content Kashmiri Pandits.
Muslims rekindled the demand for independence as India’s rule turned abusive over Kashmir.
The very preventive war that Krishna Menon criticized Pakistan for was replayed in Kashmir,
not as a war of aggression as Pakistan was charged with but a war of position. (Eqbal Ahmad,
1996) As human rights activist Dr. Altaf Hussain said, “Even a threat to security cannot be a
justification or preventive war according the UN Convention on Human Rights.
Krishna Menon, still mindful of the implications of partition constructed a case for Indian
legitimacy of rule over Kashmir based on the instrument of accession and the British
precedents. In his several allusions to history (he describes the city of Srinagar as one
established by Ashoka 2300 years ago), he never once falls into the trap of calling the Maharaja
a legitimate ruler. His assertion is that the Maharaja was the ruler, whether illegitimate or
legitimate.
Had Sheikh Abdullah, the representative of the people, held the reins of power at this time he
may have been entitled to make that decision but till the maharaja remained on the throne he
was the only one to make the decision.
But even this sleight of hand did not hoodwink the Kashmiri population into believing that the
Indian claim on Kashmir sourced its legitimacy mainly from Dogra rule. In present times the
Indian army draws legitimacy not just from its mandate but also expressly from Dogra rule. In
my interviews with army personnel, Kashmir comes across very much as a territory won and to
be defended. This view becomes stronger as the army loses more personnel in Kashmir.
“Zorawar Singh won us these lands, why should we give it to them (Pakistan and Kashmiri
people)”, says the army general. (Interview, 30th
May 2013) It is interesting that he does not
regard Kashmir as implicit in India but as a territory that has been captured.
The Indian army’s according the Dogra kings legitimacy is possibly more support posthumously
than they ever saw in the Kashmir valley through their reign. The self interested actions of
Dogra kings become the actions of a prototype of the Indian state. This logic propounds that
since Jammu, the Dogra heartland is predominantly pro- India (and majority Hindu) the actions
of the Dogras in ruling the territory of Kashmir are the actions of a precursor to the Indian state.
Two important developments in the 1931- 53 period made Kashmiri Muslims more vocal of
their subjugation by India. The first was a realization of political strength. The population had

31. 24
representatives, whether it was the plebiscite Front or much later the JKLF, whether or not
India recognized it the people had a voice. Secondly, this voice had been moulded in opposition
to Dogra state structures so the population knew how to agitate. Sheikh Abdullah contributed
to this in a large way with speeches like:
"As Mission is at moment reviewing relationship of Princes with the Paramount Power with
reference to treaty rights we wish to submit that for us in Kashmir re-examination of this
relationship is vital matter because hundred years ago in 1846 land and people of Kashmir were
sold away to servitude of Dogra House by British for seventy-five lacs of Sikh rupees equivalent
to fifty lakhs British Indian rupees. Then Governor of Kashmir resisted transfer, but was finally
reduced to subjection with aid of British. Thus sale deed of 1846 misnamed treaty of Amritsar
sealed fate of Kashmir masses.” (Sheikh Abdullah, 1946).
The Kashmiri could muster up spite against not just the mistreatment of Kashmiris by the Indian
state but against illegitimacy also. The national identity of Kashmiri Muslims was one based on
religion and the opposition of the state.
Sheikh Abdullah’s words were now applied to India by the people,
“We wish to declare that no sale deed however sacrosanct can condemn more than four million
men and women to servitude of an autocrat when will to live under this rule is no longer there.
People of Kashmir are determined to mould their own destiny and we appeal to Mission to
recognise justice and strength of our cause.' in his telegram to cabinet mission in 1946.
(Abdullah, 1946)
Secession
Krishna Menon states that there is no provision for secession once the accession in complete
asserting that India is a federation and not a confederation of states. This justifies India’s
continued presence in Kashmir. It also served to indict Sheikh Abdullah and justify his
incarceration by the Indian state.
Menon also states that the constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir formed in 1951, three
years after accession is a “a sub-sovereign body.” Both these statements make it clear that
neither is self determination allowed to the princely states, while they are still free and is
secession an option once absorbed by the Indian union.
The discussion on the princely states’ right to self determination was turned into a circular one.
Autonomy is not considered of relevance by him, simply because both India and Pakistan
absorbed their other princely states trough coercive force.
So, while Pakistan has the cases of Junagadh and Hyderabad to discredit India, India has that of
the Khan of Kalat and the consequent absorption of Balochistan. Menon uses diplomatic

32. 25
precedent with the air of legal sanction to argue against an inalienable right: the right to self
determination.
The forever imminent condition for the UN plebiscite for Kashmir were made subservient to the
will of India and Pakistan to demilitarize. Menon himself denied that this was “no longer a
possibility” pg-22/66 part 2.
Much like the present argument for not revoking AFSPA: That AFSPA can’t be removed unless
there is no disrespect to national symbols like the national flag and anthem and that it will be
removed once the disrespect ceases implies that AFSPA will be in effect till the movement
ceases. Similarly, Krishna Menon says the plebiscite itself is unfeasible because of the clause of
it happened in a situation where Kashmir is not militarised in the same degree as it was and is.
The Kashmiri view on secession as self determination cites various international humanitarian
laws. These will be discussed in the concluding chapter. For their part, the desire to self
determine was an extension of the resurgent Kashmiri Muslim identity that had being anti state
as one of its fundamental tenets. This has already been discussed in the last section of
legitimacy.
Religious accord or Kashmiriyat
The third and final contested theme is Kashmiriyat or Kashmiri identity vis a vis syncretism. Pre
colonial, colonial and now post colonial historians hide the fractures in Kashmir society.
Kashmiriyat presents itself as an ideal but one that the present society rejects. The Indian
state’s represents Kashmiriyat as a newly rejected secularism. This makes two dangerous
misrepresentations (Zutshi, 2004):
 Kashmiri society was always syncretic and there existed no fractures whatsoever
between religious communities
 Indian society has always been syncretic
There have always existed fractures within India's own syncretism. I will not argue the
conservative line that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations, but Hindus and Muslims
have always jostled with each other for space in society. A detailed analysis of this relationship
is material that should be discussed elsewhere.
The first misrepresentation though, can be deconstructed through a careful analysis of the
nature of political representation of Muslims in Kashmir: in opposition to the Pandit community
and the state structure.
From a religious perspective, Kashmir’s mystic tradition did, in most part, advocate religious
equality. Kashmir’s famous poetess, saint and mystic Lal Ded writes, ‘Shiva abides in all

33. 26
that is’ and ‘I said La Illah Il Allah, I destroyed myself in it, I left my own entity and caught him
who is all encompassing’
Lal Ded’s verses come between the first wave of conversion of Kashmiris to Islam by Shah
Hamdan in the 14th
century and the second wave of conversion by Sheikh Nooruddin in the 15th
century. It is said that Lal Ded suckled Sheikh Nooruddin when the child refused his mother’s
milk.
Both saints were revered by Hindus and Muslims. The fact that there does not exist hateful
verse in their writing at a time of such torrid religious and hence cultural change, suggests that
overall the celebrated leaders of the people of that time, did not promote religious
factionalism.
However, there was a class divide between religions even at that time, Pandits being the upper
class and the converted Muslims being lower in the socio- economic hierarchy. This divide
cannot be ignored and so even if conversion were peaceful, there may have existed animosity
towards the Pandits because of their class status. This began to take a religious garb much
earlier than what the Indian state projects.
So, Kashmiriyat was a rhetorical concept that had some basis in reality. This basis was written
about in Mughal times by poets. Kashmiriyat re-emerges in literature in a big way only in the
Dogra period and most notably in the last two decades of Dogra rule: the 1930s and 1940s. It is
more conspicuous by its metaphysical nature by this point than anything else.
If absence of violence between Muslims and Pandits is not taken as evidence of Kashmiriyat, it
seized to be part of Kashmiri society long before the radicalisation of the freedom movement in
the late 1970s. Even its place in society as an ideal was lost in the time of Muslim political
reassertion in the 1931- 47 period.
Lack of Reconciliation and Continued Contestation
India achieved a favourable status quo in 1947-48. It controlled all of the plains of Jammu and
also the fertile and populous Kashmir valley along with the cold desert region of Ladakh. In
contrast Pakistan won territory in the Karakoram. Presently Pakistan controls only about a third
of the region’s population.
The position that India did not aggress on Kashmir and that Kashmir joined India wilfully
masquerades India as a saviour but actually sows the seeds for India’s rigid Kashmir policy and
ignorance of the people’s aspiration. In 1947, when the Pashtun invaders overran Kashmir,
there was no anti India sentiment as such and a strong hatred of the marauding party. India’s
presence in Kashmir was not unwelcome.
It would have been a good time for India to reach out to the Kashmiri population instead of
solely focusing on territorial control. Instead, India emerged as a more partisan and self
interested power than the one Sheikh Abdullah extolled. Similarly Abdullah himself changed

34. 27
into a reviled figure overtime, compromising the demand for freedom. His unilateral
acceptance of Indian suzerainty on the population’s behalf in 1975 angered Kashmiris. His grave
today is guarded round the clock in Kashmir for fear of desecration. (Faheem, 2013)
Infact, Kashmir’s regional identity played up in the face of oppression in 1947. The tribal’s
religion was inconsequential for Kashmiris because they were marauders and unleashed a reign
of terror. Muslims and Pandit families commiserated with each other’s pain. This would have
been an ideal time for Kashmiri society to heal its fractures and wounds. Instead, a renewed
demand for freedom came at the cost of re-opening the fissure between Kashmiri Muslims and
Pandits by reviling Pandits for their support of India. (Pandita, 2013)
The political resurgence of Kashmiri Muslims always characterized Pandits as the other and
their disenfranchisement as an unfortunate if not necessary collateral. Their history of suffering
and collective memory of pain was shaped too deeply by opposition to Pandit hegemony.
Theirs is a history of real but selective collective pain.
In the present day Kashmiri Muslims have a both a strong sense of region and religious affinity.
Their identification with a larger Muslim world or ‘ummah’ makes them look west. There is a
strong sentiment to deny any cultural links with India, at the cost of historical inaccuracy
(Kashmir’s culture was very much influenced and influenced the culture of British India).
In this highly polarised society of today, the Kashmiri Muslim feels an erasure of his identity by
the Indian state. This state, which has cleverly appropriated the sufferings of the Kashmiri
Pandit’s as a vehicle of legitimacy, subjects Muslims to torture and indignity. Its appropriators
are Hindu nationalism espousing elements like Jagmohan, who found evocative words to
selectively describe the suffering of Kashmiri Pandits even as his regime inscribed its presence
on the bodies of Muslims through torture.
In a letter to Rajiv Gandhi justifying his actions as Governor of Kashmir, he wrote about the
victimized status of the Pandits, “The grim tragedy is compounded by the equally grim irony
that one of the most intelligent subtle, versatile, and proud community of the country is being
virtually reduced to extinction in free India.” (Jagmohan Malhotra, 1990)
The very fact that India exercises a pincer- like grip on Kashmir with over 6,00,000 military and
paramilitary troops shows the primacy it accords to physical control. (Channel 4, 2012) The
Kashmiri’s thoughts are not engaged with, his arguments are not debated. For the state, he is
to be essentialized to the movements of his body. These behaviours are then to be controlled
through violence, which is justified through various arguments ranging from security threats to
a revenge for the Kashmiri Pandit exodus. This is India’s way of maintaining the status quo that
it set- up in 1948. It is no surprise that the population harbours morbid discontent in its
thoughts.
Torture becomes a central forum for state- society interactions. As persons are tortured, they
experience the state in the most direct sense, having been denied most fundamental rights. To
trace this arc of the emergence of rights consciousness and identity in Kashmir is important to

35. 28
understand both the cause of state violence and the population’s reaction to it. This will be
explored in Chapters 2. As both perpetrator and victim draw legitimacy from and solace in
history, the divergent histories of Kashmir are central for any contemporary exploration of
state- society interaction.

36. 29

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Chapter 2: Narratives of Torture
Torture is a major forum for direct state society interaction in Kashmir. It is arguably a more
honest interaction between society and state than political debate. While the politics of
Kashmir is stretched and moulded to look free and fair, the forum of torture exposes the true
nature of the state society relationship. Jean Amery describes this unequal relationship aptly,
“A slight pressure by the tool-wielding hand is enough to turn the other-along with his head, in
which are perhaps stored Kant and Hegel, and all nine symphonies, and the World as Will and
Representation-into a shrilly squealing piglet at slaughter. When it has happened and the
torturer has expanded into the body of his fellow man and extinguished what was his spirit, he
himself can then smoke a cigarette or sit down to breakfast or, if he has the desire, have a look
in at the World as Will and Representation.” (Amery, 1966)
The state has the power to be nonchalant with who it chooses for torture. Its larger agenda is
to subjugate the restive population. As will be discussed, there is no unofficially constructed
decree of torture. Any victim for any crime can be subjected to any degree of torture. This
indiscriminate carving on to the bodies of the tortured is aimed at control on the collective
psyche of society.
The victim is an individual and alienated from fellow humans through his new physical and
mental makeup which is a cruel distortion of his self before torture. His physical deformities
and new found limitations are personal and so is his mental trauma. But while the victim can
find little solace for his personal loss in social life, his experiences create a ripple effect of fear
in society and pain to his newer and dear ones.
Torture is hence a powerful vehicle to undo the individual’s sense of pride and purpose. The
tortured individual may well be haunted by fear and resentment and be unable to channel that
into social action against the state. This is the Indian state’s approach to control over Kashmir.
While effective in the short term, the state has ignored the constantly evolving resilience of
Kashmiri society to such a brutal, archaic and mundane form of control.
Kashmiri society has increasingly become accepting of this pain and forums for talking about
torture have expanded. People now talk openly about such brutality over tea and biscuits
without shame and often with a sense of irony. This has turned the torture machine into a
vehicle for social opposition to the state. Here not just the tortured, but his kith and kin and a
slew of human rights activists and lawyers contest the state’s unchecked power.
Thus, the study of torture becomes important because of the intrinsic value of life, the hallmark
of the human rights perspective. An exploration of torture narratives though, provides two
other insights. First, the environment of fear that torture creates and the collective memory of
pain it feeds. This constantly strengthens the demand for freedom it seeks to dissipate. Second,

38. 31
the perversion of state machinery that it exposes; that malicious undercurrent that may
manifest itself at the first signs of dissent.
Dissent
A significant number of Kashmiris resent Indian rule. As I will demonstrate below, denial of
overwhelming dissent in Kashmir is propaganda. The Indian government uses it often. Most
recently Omar Abdullah downplayed this sentiment again, arguing that since there were no
numbers to show that most Kashmiris were anti- India, Stephen Sackur was wrong in making
this insinuation. (BBC, 2014)
The state’s actors for dissent control are the security forces. In cohesion with the state’s stance
of denying dissent, they too must deny the massive numbers of civilians they have killed,
tortured and women they have raped. About 70,000 persons have died in the insurgency
(Kashmir torture trail). 17,000 of these were army, with smaller losses to the CRPF and the
Jammu and Kashmir Police. (Interview, 30th
may 2013) Almost all the others dead are listed by
the state authorities as militants.
If this is true, Kashmir has birthed several thousand radicalized gunmen. This implies a much
more widespread dissent; most dissenting youths are unlikely to become full time Mujahideen.
The thousands of gunmen should be a fraction of the larger mass of dissenters.
The findings of the Citizen’s Council for Justice (CCJ) argue that most killed may not have been
armed militants at all. 192 civilian killings have taken place in 50 villages of the highly
insurgency affected Baramulla and Kupwara districts since 1990. Out of these, 114 or 59% have
been killed by security forces, 51 or 27% by militants and 27 or 14% by unidentified gunmen.
(CCJ, 2008)
As the army general interviewed contended,
“It is very difficult to distinguish between a militant and a civilian since in many areas a civilian is
just a militant not holding a weapon at the time” (Interview, 30th
May, 2013)
If this is true, dissent can still be concluded to be widespread. If this is not true, and civilians and
militants are indeed distinguishable, then still the same conclusion springs forth: why did the
security forces kill so many civilians if they did not sympathize with militants?
If even these options are ignored and a third option is considered: that these civilians were
dissenters but not in any way directly involved with militancy, then the fact that more than
twice as many civilians were killed by security forces than by militants presents an appalling
scenario awaiting state accountability.

39. 32
The fact is that all three assumptions are simplistic. Some ‘civilians’ killed by the military may
have indeed been militants and some killed by militants may have indeed been ‘ikhwans’ or
state spies. There are collaterals on both sides. But even in this best case scenario, the
collateral of formally trained state troops seems much higher than that left behind by militants.
The conclusion that the population is obviously anti- state is undeniable.
This dissent permeates the young and old, the employed and unemployed, man, woman and
child. It finds expression in more subtle ways from some people than others. While some take
to the streets, fewer to guns, many feel dissent in their minds. This feeling could be because of
personal trauma, the suffering of near and dear ones or just the yearning for a life free from the
punishing gaze of India’s apparatus in Kashmir. As Shabbir, an employee of the J&K government
told me solemnly a few days into knowing him,
“There was a time when Kashmir was not India’s atoot ang (inalienable part)”
Counter dissent measures have not been aimed at reconciling an estranged population but at
policing them. Kashmir University can be taken as a case in point. University students are
regularly filtered for visits from Indian dignitaries. For instance, President Pranab Mukherjee’s
and Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the university in 2012 had a handpicked audience.
Students were handpicked based on a single question,
“Will you stand up for the national anthem?” (Interview 20th
may 2013)
NDTV’s coverage of the event, symbolic of mainstream English news coverage, talked of Rahul
addressing a gathering of 700 students while mentioning a line about a small group of students
protesting for Rahul to ‘take his politics somewhere else’. (NDTV, 2012) There is no mention of
the real cause behind this protest: India’s oppressive rule in Kashmir or the behind the scenes
casting of the audience.
It is convenient and self righteous to consider every one of the 700 students listening to Rahul
Gandhi in ‘the packed’ auditorium to be there devoid of pressure from the state. Both focused
action like the filtering mentioned here and the daily workings of India’s abusive presence
contribute to dissent.
On 21st
November 2005, Mohammad Rafiq Shah, a student of Islamic studies at the University of
Kashmir had been arrested from his home in Srinagar and accused of carrying out the 29th
October bomb blasts in Delhi. (Shah, 2012). Had this talk happened in 2005, Mohammad Rafiq
Shah could have been one of the attending students. There is an equal chance he could have
been in the ‘small group of protestors’ and an equal likelihood that he would have been one of
the students weeded out for his anti- India views. Rafiq, though, was drinking urine, sleeping
with a pig and performing fellatio on the co- accused in Lodhi Road police station. (Shah, 2012)

40. 33
After the 2010 protests, several Kashmir university students were detained. All were stripped
and many were beaten. The same happened after Afzal Guru’s death. The same happened in
the interim time period: students were harassed in police lockups for sympathizing with aalaw
(a facebook group called voice) and posting seditious facebook statuses. (Interview May 20th
2013)
The aftermath of such torture makes the possibility of Rafiq, the tortured students or their
friends and relatives being happy condoners of the Indian state a preposterous one.
The Commonality of Torture
The ubiquitous nature of dissent makes such brutality a part of the lives of the Kashmiri public.
Every person tortured bears a message for his friends and family: fear the Indian state. A lot of
people in India think of torture as justified action against the perpetrators of crimes that claim
their lives in terrorist attacks. This trust in violence and the faith that the state is destroying the
lives of evil people is a popular misconception.
There is not much difference in the basic ethics of the interviewees for this research: Mushtaq,
Rashid, Kashif or the restive Kashmir university students and a random sample from the public
of India. The difference lies in their treatment by the Indian state. Crowds can demonstrate
peacefully in Delhi but not in Kashmir. If protests occur, water cannons are used to disperse
crowds in the national capital, while deadly shots to the head are used in Kashmir. (Malik, 2010)
The state however, successfully hoodwinks the Indian public into believing that several of its
futile but malicious actions are fruitful. Lack of information makes the Indian public believe that
the government is punishing the perpetrators of terrorist attacks through arrests and torture.
The proxy-war machine claims several non- violent people as victims.
The study of torture becomes central to the study of the Kashmir conflict. The occupation of
Kashmir is defended through creating an environment of fear in Kashmir. The distinction must
be made between such action aimed at crushing dissent in Kashmir and ensuring security for
Indian citizens.
The army is quick to point out the nexus between pro freedom parties, peaceful Kashmiri
people, Kashmiri militants and foreign terrorists for hire to obfuscate this distinction. The
existence of such a nexus is fact. But only a very simplistic and inhuman understanding that
allows this reality to sanction horrific torture on a population.
“Militants, separatist parties and Pakistan are like three legs of a table” (Interview May 30th
,
2013)
The nexus exists in much the same way as there is a nexus between corporations and the state
or between cabinet ministers and journalists. Few would disagree that such nexuses have

41. 34
claimed lives and continue to jeopardize human freedoms. Nexuses are formed because of
mutual interdependence. The crushing of people’s voice in Kashmiri, ushers them to coagulate
with parties sympathetic to their cause.
For instance, I was present at the mourning of the demise of Ghulam Qadir Malik. Malik was
the father of JKLF chief Yasin Malik. The room was full of people and condolences poured in. A
year later, I attended Yasin Malik’s fast in Maisuma in downtown Srinagar. The JKLF was
protesting for the remains of JKLF militant Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru. (Greater Kashmir,
2012)
For anti- India actors, both violent and non- violent elements are all chipping away at the
foundations of the Indian regime in Kashmir. For the regime, there exists a similar nexus
between Kashmir’s mainstream political parties, the security forces and the central
government. The only difference is that this nexus has legal sanction.
For instance, Omar Abdullah has expressed regret on several occassions on the killing of
ordinary Kashmiris. He regularly condemns the disproportionate force used by the security
forces. The establishment remains rigid in the way it deals with protesters. Perhaps the only
thing more unchanging than forceful crowd control is the lack of attention given to why dissent
exists in the first place and how dissent can be avoided.
The army calls Omar’s rhetoric of repealing the AFSPA from certain relatively peaceful areas of
Kashmir as vote mongering. (Interview May 30th
2013) Omar is moved to tears by atrocities by
the security forces. In the case of the 4 year old boy that died in the Baramulla in 2013, Omar
Abdullah gave an impassioned speech in the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly. (National
Conference Media Cell, 2013). His helplessness stands in contrast to as anti-India Kashmiris
allege, his de- facto installation at the post of Chief Minister by India. And the government at
the center maintains this band of moderates and extremists who claim to have conflicting
interests but really need each other to co- exist.
Any person, if suspected of being part of the dissenting nexus can be tortured in Kashmir. The
Indian state often employed legality to justify this by invoking the large umbrella definition of
sedition. Such legality itself is dubious and will be contested in the last chapter with the help of
international humanitarian laws. Regardless, the reign of torture solidifies the understanding of
Kashmiri society’s collective memory of pain.
In isolation, the following incident cannot be made sense of:
On Saturday, 7th September 2013, western classical conductor Zubin Mehta performed at the
Shalimar Gardens in Srinagar. The establishment emphasised the concert was just about art,
while pro freedom civil society members alleged that it represented an unsavoury diplomatic
move.

42. 35
The choice civil society groups made to refuse to enjoy good music in favour of protest was
because of the irony that the cultural event received widespread international coverage whilst
torture, rape and murder go unreported.
The context of the contrast between the concert and the deaths of 4 Kashmiri youth on the
same day in Shopian (2013, Hindu) is central to understanding the pain Kashmiri public. Locals
protested against the CRPF, claiming two of the deceased were civilians. In the national daily
The Hindu, the Press Trust of India notifies the two as terrorists and mentions the civilian
version as a counter claim. According to Maroofa Banoo, an eyewitness, the two men labelled
as terrorists by the CRPF were a Kashmiri student and a Bihari labourer who had witnessed his
cold blooded murder. (Kashmir Life, 2013) This version, popular in Kashmiri journals, was not
carried by any national daily.
Finally, an analysis of torture has the capacity to expose a perversion of state machinery, which
may at any time be used against any individual in any part of the country. For Kashmir, India is
the warden and Kashmir the prisoner. If the state is willing to use such merciless action on its
own citizens with little proof, it is hardly a matter of parochial significance. It becomes
important to understand sadism as most perpetrators of torture in Kashmir make the most of
impunity to let out their inner demon.
As a side observation, torture affects the families of ordinary Indians like Delhi police
interrogator Mohan Chand who tortured Rafiq. As he taunts Rafiq not in a remote village of
Kashmir but in Lodhi Road police station in Delhi,
“Call your God, here your God cannot save you” (Shah, 2012)
A picture emerges of a state apparatus that acts as a well oiled machine, hoodwinking its at-
risk population by making token arrests. The narrative of torture is the important missing link in
a discussion that serves to victimize some, project torture as a distant problem and de- link the
Indian state’s actions in Kashmir with the larger question of national security.
There is little acknowledgement of the state being at best, a partial creator of the terror
problem in India. The jingoistic action of Indian Army’s Operation Rakshak and supporting
operations of the state police and the CRPF has left the state’s massive imprint on the bodies of
arbitrary persons who are detained, humiliated, hurt and if lucky, let go.
Rape has also been widely used as a method for oppression. A testimony of a rape victim from
the documentary Kashmir’s Torture Trail describes her rape in 2004 at the hands of security
forces at 16 years old:
“A roller with nails attached to it was rolled on my body... Then my clothes were torn... my
tongue would roll back and my eyes would widen, I would scream but no one would listen”
(Neumann, 2012)

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A study of rape victim narratives can also be an insight into the sadistic Indian presence in
Kashmir. Unfortunately, raped women are not allowed to speak about their experiences,
especially to male researchers. Unlike torture, which is widely accepted by the society as a fact
of life, rape is considered a shame. Men routinely discuss experiences of run- ins with the state,
including those of torture over tea and biscuits. Women are not free to discuss their pain.
(Interview 20th
May 2013)
Conceptual Framework
To understand the effect of torture I have referenced reflections of holocaust survivors on their
experience in concentration camps. The method of prolonged detention and use of excessive
and deviant force are analogous to the methods employed by Hitler in the holocaust. The two
works used are: Jean Amery’s ‘At the Mind’s Limits’ and Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for
Meaning’. Amery’s book concerns itself with the tussle between intellect and torture practice
while Viktor Frankl’s work is an analysis of the detention experience through an existential
perspective.
This literature forms the backbone of the overarching analysis of this chapter. It expounds on
themes specific to torture namely: the nature of pain, the futility of logic and consequent
potency of religion (or faith) in negotiating torture. These are vital themes that unearth
patterns in the experience of torture by Mushtaq, Kashif and Rashid.
The literature was read after the interviews were conducted. This let experiences speak for
themselves. The lack of pre- emptive knowledge of torture helped me analyze individual
interviews without trying to fit the narratives into this pre- determined mould. Hence, each
narrative throws up distinct observations which co-exist with the common threads that were
later established with the help of such literature.
This is supported by a Kafkaesque analysis of the state machinery. The arbitrariness of state
torture makes Kafka the reading of choice to make sense of the state’s chaotic violence on the
people. Kafka’s expression is frozen in time: the point of torture in which the state reworks the
bodies of the tortured. It does not dilute its gaze by including larger political aims and pasting
them with the brutal act. This serves, even inadvertently, to spread the focus from the
individual trauma of the victim.
The victim’s conception of the Indian state and the Indian state’s position on the issues the
victim brings to light are included in this chapter. But these are not clubbed with the victim’s
experience of pain. This prevents the dilution of the victim’s narration of his trauma. That said,
allusions that are directly linked with the victim’s experience of torture are discussed with the
narratives and not in separate sections.

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The chapter aims at juxtaposing the claims of the state with the views of its casualties. This
works like a column in a newspaper where the article tries to argue a position while also getting
a counter comment from the affronted party. When positioned side by side, the state’s rhetoric
is exposed as lies next to the victim’s suffering.
Conducting Interviews
Attempting an understanding of the experience of torture is a challenging one for a person
lucky enough to have not borne the ordeal himself.
The first challenge was accessing victims in a capacity that would make them talk about this
personal and terribly painful experience. In Kashmir, my Indian identity drew attention. As soon
as I would leave the small tourist area of Srinagar, I would feel aware of the fact that the people
on the streets realized that I was not a local.
I was fortunate to have been helped by various civil society organizations. Victims thronged
their offices and homes, discussing case details and making (usually political) small talk. Their
assertion, that I was under their aegis, made my interviewees agree to tell me of their
experience of torture. Without their help, accessing victims would have been an impossible
task. Even so, my Indian and sometimes Hindu identity elicited a different response from my
interviewees than what a researcher from a neutral country might have.
Interviews of Kashif, Rashid, the army personnel and Parveena were recorded using a cell
phone with prior permission of the interviewees. Mushtaq’s interview was not recorded, I
made notes as he spoke in a notebook.
My exchange with Mushtaq at the end of our interview is representative of my subjectivity as
an Indian and as a (perceived) Hindu:
Are you Hindu?
I: No, I’m an atheist.
What religion does your family practice?
I: My parents are Hindu.
Mushtaq’s face relaxed into what seemed like a smug smile. He had just described to me how
his faith had seen him through life after torture. To him, my rejecting my Hindu heritage might
have seemed like a vindication of his faith. His faith may have seemed true in light of my
renouncing mine.