Young people have taken to graves at the hands of occupation. Fifteen is an age of your firsts and I mourn their loss in an unspeakable manner and in a manner that can’t be written. While that is true, it concerns me that it is demanded of me to be inclined to some nationality while giving me options that are severely limited. I could have two nationalities; I could identify as an Indian (which I don’t because this nationality was imposed on us and the promise of plebiscite was never delivered) and I could identify as a Kashmiri. Yet I don’t want either of them while knowing that nationalities can be acquired with the passage of time. Ethnically I’m a Kashmiri, there is no possibility of doubt but my nationality is unknown even to myself.
Our ethnicity is being oppressed for reasons that both sides are responsible for— politically exploited and morally looted; it is the face of a civil war. But even so the brutality doesn’t shy away from the face of stinking inhumanity. Justice is poorly served and people suffer collectively. Our grief unites us and our greed divides us. The scars that are inflicted are deep and except for some of us that gnash our teeth inside our homes; people among our own gather the courage to face the brunt of tyranny alone in several houses that are conjoined and which you’ll find in rubble after their deaths. We have seen decades of it and the cycle has not ended nor has anyone noticed the violation or even acknowledged it as a flaw. I myself have seen a decade of it. I have run in it and I’ve known the reflex of running out of fright and not because I’m guilty of rather assumed treason. So how do I close the door to something that has permeated inside my mind; something that is deeply rooted inside my psyche like a dormant virus? That awakens when an unusual stimuli smacks me in my face and throws me inside the puzzling vortex of infinite possibilities. A fear that thrives among our Kashmiri community which isn’t of our own making but is imposed under the restricting rule that we live beneath. It feeds on us like a ghost while drawing from us the energy of our sheer will. You begin to imagine the magnitude of your friend/brother/father/child disappearing or worse. You begin to curse the darkness that enfolds you and that enfolds them inside it, the victim and the creature alike.
A week ago, my brother had switched off his phone and we were worried sick because we didn’t hear from him from the afternoon. We kept calling but it kept saying the same thing. We had no idea where he was the last time his phone was working and therefore we came to no speculation ourselves. We were seized with the horrible whims of him being taken or something worse. The fear ran its course through our veins like adrenaline and there was no relief. His job isn’t limited to an office; he is a field worker and could be anywhere in Srinagar/Baramulla/Budgam/Ganderbal and these are all districts. All disappearing cases in Kashmir start like this and our fear is valid henceforth. We were relieved when he called to tell us that he was in a camp and it was work related but even that did not discard our fears until he was home safe. The agony that a person goes through over worrying about somebody is awful, it’s like eating your own heart; it is disgusting and it fills you with a sense of despair so keen that you forget everything else. Now mine was a case that did not even happen and was based on a fear. But imagine what happens to someone who has to go through it for real?