kashmiri essay on my mother

Lal Ded: The Mystic of Kashmir

by Mir Saeid | Jan 16, 2021 | Books & Literature , Kashmir Diaries , Wisdom & Stories | 7 comments

Fondly called as Lad Ded (Mother Lalla), Lalleshwari was a 14th century Kashmiri mystic and poet. She was the creator of Vakhs, a kind of poetry. A revolutionary mystic of her time, Lal Ded’s verses are some of the earliest Kashmiri compositions and form an integral part of the Kashmiri literature. 

Also known as Lalla or Laleshwari, Lal Ded was an ardent devotee of God Shiva. She also often used her poetry to engage with Shaivism and Sufism. Lal Ded’s verses have come down from generations to generations through the folk tradition of Kashmir and perhaps there isn’t a single Kashmiri who hasn’t heard of her.

Lalleshwari was known to be Kashmir’s rebel poetess for she challenged the ideas of caste system, social and religious discrimination and rejected conventional society. 

In this article, we get to know more about this poetess whose verses are deeply rooted in Kashmir’s culture even today. 

Life of Lala Ded

She was born sometime around 1320 to 1355 in Pandrethan in Kashmir as ‘Lalleshwari’, in a Kashmiri Pandit family. Later on, she came to be known by many names including Lalla Arifa, Lalla Yogishwari, Lalla Yogini, Laleshwari or simply Lalla. However, Lal Ded is her most recognizable and most commonly known name.

After being briefly educated in the religious texts, she was married off at the age of 12 into a family that regularly mistreated her. Her mother-in-law treated her cruelly and spoke ill of her to her husband. Lalla’s mother-in-law is known to have put stones on her plate of food and then covered it with rice. Even when she was not given proper food and always remained half-fed, Lalleshwari is known to never have complained. 

Every morning, Lal Ded left the house to fill a pot of water from the river and wouldn’t return until it was evening; in-between, she spent her time at Lord Shiva’s temple on the other side of the river. 

Soon, she found her guru in Sidh Srikanth and pursued yoga under him. And when she turned around 26, Lalla renounced her marriage and material life to become a mystic. Having given up all her possessions, she would wander around naked or in rags, chanting her verses.

Laleshwari openly questioned the elite and unassailable Sanskrit academia. It was her unprecedented courage to renounce a conventional life that made her rebel against the tradition and yet, a significant contributor to the Kashmiri culture.

Interestingly, Lal Ded most probably never saw herself as a poet. In fact, her words were merely mantras or chants that were aimed at praising God. It was her power to impact others that her listeners formed her sayings into chants and mantras. Before her Vakhs came to be published, they have been orally passed down from generation to generation in Kashmir.

She used the first person in her vakhs and also used her names quite frequently. Like, ‘I, Lalli’ or ‘I, Lal’ were commonly used by her.

Lal Ded’s Poetry in Kashmir

Lal Ded’s Vakhs will take you on a beautiful journey through the disillusionment of the world, the distress of the man, a search for God and finally, the realization of the highest truth. Her vakhs not only show her poetic genius but also depict her mystic experiences. 

Although her vakhs are quite personal, the lessons taught by them are universal. Although profound, her humanism makes it easy to relate to Lal Ded’s verses. Thus, her work is timeless and resonates with different people. 

These verses are deeply embedded in Kashmir’s culture. Generation after generation and century after century, her verses have been preserved in collective memory, in songs and in proverbs and hymns in the valley. 

Her vakhs have played a very important role in shaping the Kashmiri language and literature. In one of her well known vakhs, she emphasizes on the fact that there is no distinction between the people of different faiths. In many of her verses, she even defied the patriarchal authority of the Guru. 

One of her most significant contributions include bringing the difficult Shaiva philosophy from the confines of Sanskrit-knowing scholars to the wide spaces of the common Kashmiri-knowing people. While translating these highly evolved yet subtle concepts along with her mystic experiences into a language widely known by the masses, she not only made them easily accessible but also enriched the Kashmiri language. She successfully explained ideas and experiences that would otherwise be unreachable to the ordinary people.

Her easily recitable verses in the mother tongue made her vakhs secure a place in the collective memory of the Kashmiris.

While the beginning of Kashmiri literature is often debated, one thing is for sure- the credit for the revival of the Kashmiri dialect is owed by Lal Ded. 

Since her verses were not written down during her time, it cannot be said for sure how many of her vakhs were actually preserved. Over the many centuries, some may have been changed and some may have been made additions to. 

Lala Ded and Her Popularity

Lal Ded’s openness and her understanding of the genuine problems of the common people is what made her so immensely popular among millions. 

Even today, almost every Kashmiri, irrespective of whether he is Hindu or Muslim, literate or illiterate, is able to recite some of Lal Ded’s Vakhs. Her name in the valley is said with utmost pride, admiration and respect.

Her poetry has also been widely translated including English translations in ‘Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (1994)’ , ‘Naked Song- Lalla (1992)’ and a lot more.

After having lived most of her life as a mystic and inspiring others, Lal Ded died sometime during the late 14th century.

Final Words on Lal Ded

All in all, Lal-Ded was a wise woman and a genius poetess with an un-shattering faith and confidence made her leave a mark on the world. By knowing more about her, there is no doubt that her contribution to Kashmiri language, culture, tradition as well as heritage is truly commendable. In fact, it is also often said- ‘Lalla is to Kashmiri what Shakespeare is to English’.

You must visit Kashmirica’s Shopping Page for  Kashmiri Dresses ,  Pashmina Shawls ,  Salwar Kameez ,  Kaftans ,  Men’s Pashmina ,  Attar Perfumes ,  Kashmiri Jewellery ,  Rugs & Carpets ,  Wall Hangings ,  Kashmiri Foods ,  Organic Kesar ,  Pure Shilajit ,  Organic Honey ,  Almonds ,  Walnuts ,  Dried Apricots , and other  Dry Fruits .

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Mir Saeid is the Growth Hacker of Kashmirica , a brand that is poised to ‘Bring Exclusives from Kashmir to You’. An enthusiastic cultural entrepreneur, he is driven by a passion to bring about a social impact. He has a Masters in International Business from the University of Bedfordshire and has worked in leading Marketing positions at various SMEs and Startups for 8+ years.

Intrigued by the crafts of his birthplace,  he decided to bring the art on the Global Connoisseur through the internet. A polyglot who speaks English, Arabic, Urdu & Koshur, Mir loves traveling, reading, writing, and spending time on the cricket field – a passion rekindled just recently.

Thank you so much for posting this article about Lal Ded! I did know of her or her poetry and I look forward to reading her poetry. I am a mystic and a poet – but NOT necessarily a mystic poet! I want to study them, to strengthen my connection with The Divine and to deepen/raise my spiritual consciousness. God is ALL and God is LOVE and ALL is LOVE – no matter the appearances! Thank you again, Mir Saeid!

Sources like the one you mentioned here might be very useful to me! I will submit a link to this web page on my blog. I am positive my visitors will discover that very useful.

Lal Ded is a very popular figure it seems.

I didn’t know that. You have written a great article about Lala ded.

Wow. You have an eye for details.

Term Humanism used in the article is a grave mistake. Better was to use humanity. Humanism is a godless philosophy of the West.

So helpful! I just discovered this poet earlier and now I have more knowledge about her life and what her poetry addresses. Many thanks!

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Kashmir: a tale of two mothers

A one-time homeland to Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs is being tragically torn apart.

Swaran Singh

Iftikhar was my favourite taxi driver while I lived in London. An elderly Muslim from Lahore, he spoke in lilting, lyrical Punjabi typical of that part of the world. In June 1999, as India and Pakistan fought the Kargil war, he was driving me to Heathrow when the conversation turned to the conflict. I asked what he thought. ‘Doctor sahib ‘, he said, ‘when my mother had me, she was suffering from tuberculosis. She was weak and her milk had dried up. Her nextdoor neighbour was a Sikh woman who had also given birth. My mother asked her to breastfeed me. When you ask me about the war, what can I say? I was born of one mother’s womb; another mother suckled me. How can I choose?’

I thought of Iftikhar as India and Pakistan are again on the brink. On 5 August 2019, Amit Shah, India’s home affairs minister, announced in the upper house of the Indian parliament ( Rajya Sabha ) that a presidential order had been issued revoking Article 370, depriving the state of Jammu and Kashmir of its special status that conferred on it a certain level of autonomy, and fundamentally changing the relationship between India and Kashmir.

The immediate and long-term consequences of this Indian move will be far-reaching, and may be very damaging. No one can foresee the outcome and many will rightly be trepidatious. But at this critical juncture, it is important to realise the complexity of the Indian-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir, and its varied victims. Much of the media portrayal of the conflict is one between a Hindu nationalist India and the Muslim population of Kashmir. This is only partly true.

I come from a clan of Kashmiri Sikhs from Poonch, a beautiful district in Kashmir with the line of control (LOC) that divides India and Pakistan running right through it. Kashmiri Sikhs are ethnically distinct from Punjabi Sikhs, and were originally Kashmiri Brahmins (or Pandits, as Kashmiri Brahmin Hindus are commonly known).

There are several versions of when and why my family converted to Sikhism. One tells the tale of two brothers, Madan and Gopal, from Rishikesh who travelled north and settled in Poonch in the late 18th century. This chimes with accounts of Max Macauliffe (1841-1913), who traced the arrival of Sikhs in Kashmir as accompanying Raja Sukhjawan, a Hindu who was made governor of Kashmir by Timur Shah in the mid-1750s. Some historians believe Sikhism came to Kashmir during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s rule in the early 19th century, while others believe it was Banda Bahadur (1670-1716), the Sikh general who created the Khalsa (the pure ones) in Kashmir. Bahadur was born in Rajouri, a region adjacent to Poonch to which he retreated, following a lost battle, in order to raise a fresh army. Regardless of the historical veracity of competing accounts, Kashmiri Sikhs have been a culturally, linguistically and ethnically distinct group for at least 200 years.

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No more, though. Kashmir has been ethnically cleansed of its Sikh and Pandit populations, in a systematic and purposeful manner. Over half-a-million non-Muslim Kashmiris have been driven out of their homeland since 1990. Beginning in 1989 with the assassination of Pandit Tika Lal Taploo in Srinagar, a meticulously planned and ruthlessly executed campaign of terror was unleashed against non-Muslims. My paternal uncles owned two iconic bookstores in Srinagar ̫ Hind Book Store and Kashmir Book Store, famous with hippies, backpackers and the assortment of Western travellers who flocked to Kashmir and its idyllic beauty, and celebrated it, as Led Zeppelin did, in their majestic song ‘Kashmir’. But my uncles, fearful of the posters that appeared on walls claiming Islamist rule, the masked men with Kalashnikovs forcing locals to change the time on watches to Pakistan Standard Time, and threatening messages broadcast from mosques, left everything they knew and owned behind, to live as refugees in neighbouring Jammu. They were lucky to escape unharmed. Girija Tickoo, a young Pandit woman, was abducted in June 1990. Her mutilated body was found on 25 June 1990. She had been raped and then her sawed in half, possibly with a carpenter’s saw, while still alive. Sarla Bhat, a 24-year-old nurse, was tortured and gang-raped over five days in April 1990 before being shot and killed. The list of atrocities against Pandits is long and horrific. And the indifference of the world startling.

Perhaps it was ever thus. In 2010 my mother, terminally ill with cancer, agreed for me to video-record her narrating her life story, so my young children would know her, even if only through that movie. She was of the generation that spoke little, and whose waking hours were consumed by a thousand chores, big and small, and who had to look after a large family with very little money and none of the accoutrements of modernity. Over two hours she told me things that I neither knew nor could have imagined.

Several people in my extended family had been killed by Muslims in the 1947 partition madness. In revenge my great grand uncles had gone on reprisal killings. In the massacre of one family, they abducted 10-year-old Muslim girl. When my great grandfather found out, he was extremely angry and distressed. He insisted that the child be taken back to her family, but there was no family she could return to. He adopted the girl, and when she turned 13 he married her to his 13-year-old son. I knew her as an aunt with piercing blue eyes and a perpetual hint of mischief on her face. I spent a lot of my childhood playing in her house with her son. My dying mother told me that her real name was Fatima, that she never spoke about her past, and died taking all her secrets and untold griefs with her.

The long, hard road to Cass

Jo bartosch.

That very year my brother-in-law Gurdev was contacted by a family from Lahore claiming to be his cousins. Gurdev was born in Lahore. His parents fled at the start of the killings in 1947. His paternal aunt refused to leave the family home, insisting that the ‘madness would pass’. The family was attacked and everyone killed but for two young boys, who had to choose between being killed or converting to Islam. They converted, and 60 years later, thanks to the internet and social media, traced Gurdev. The families agreed to meet as the Pakistani side was planning a trip to India. A date was set and my sister, Gurdev’s wife, started planning a meal.

The choice of dishes was problematic. The Muslim part of the family wanted only halaal ; my sister refused to cook anything but jhatka meat (the Sikh way of killing an animal, with a single stroke severing the head to minimise suffering). The only option was to cook a vegetarian buffet.

Gurdev’s cousins arrived, attired in the Pathan garb of Kamaeez Shalwar , and with Muslim skull caps. Gurdev greeted them in all his turbaned glory. The cousins read the Namaaz in my sister’s Sikh household before eating. There were tears of joy and sorrow, much reminiscing of what little each could remember from their turbulent past, a long list of all the uncles, aunts and peers who had passed away, and proud displays of the achievements of the younger generation. No one mentioned partition, politics was studiously avoided, and religious differences, simultaneously visible and completely ignored, were not allowed to get in the way of the palpable intimacy of the occasion. Like Iftikhar’s two mothers, here were those of the same flesh and blood, brought up by two different mother cultures. They would not eat the same meat, but could love each other nonetheless.

Kashmir has been bleeding profusely for 30 years now. Kashmiris, once famous for their pacifism, have turned against each other, and one community has driven the other two out of the land. Kashmiri Muslims have their own long list of accumulated tragedies and suffering. When I was growing up, Sikhs used to make fun of their avoidance of conflict by telling a story about 100 Kashmiri Muslims who flee from a confrontation with a Sikh armed with a stick, explaining, ‘What could we do? We are all alone, but the Sikh and the stick were two!’ That famous pusillanimity is long gone. Fuelled with rage at ill-treatment by Indian forces, armed by Pakistan, infiltrated by ISIS-trained killers, Kashmiri Muslim youth are driven in hordes into extremism. In the process, they have forgotten their ties with their Hindu and Sikh brothers and sisters, whom they perceive as the enemy.

There are no villains or heroes here. The geopolitics of Kashmir, the nationalistic frenzy being whipped up, the macho posturing and duplicitous diplomacy, the raw pain of individual and collective devastations, all point to a continuing catastrophe. Pakistan sees Kashmir as its revenge for its own dismemberment and the creation of Bangladesh. India sees Kashmir as absolutely vital to its national security. Neither side will relent, while Kashmir bleeds from a thousand cuts. Kashmir seems trapped between two punitive, vindictive fathers. There is no healing and no soothing mother around, just perpetual distress and hardship.

Meanwhile, the world media has an easy interpretation of the Kashmir problem – a nationalistic India persecuting a Muslim minority state. It is expedient to focus on the tragedy as one only of Kashmiri Muslims, since for many, Kashmiri Sikhs and Pandits do not meet the criteria of victimhood. Kashmiri Hindus can’t be considered victims because they are, well, Hindus. Since India is supposedly in the grip of Hindu nationalists, any suffering Hindu group can be ignored, akin to the idea that Jews can only be oppressors because of the plight of Palestinians. The victimhood of Palestinians automatically places Jews in the oppressor box. So it is with Kashmiri Hindus, although they are ethnically, politically and even on religious grounds far removed from the Hindus of central India.

Moreover, the Sikhs won’t claim victimhood. Deeply ingrained in the Sikh psyche is the requirement to stay in Chardi Kalaa – spirit in ascension. Sikh history is a litany of persecution and massacres by the Mughal rulers of India. The Sikh prayer has a section where the torture of Sikhs is graphically described and blessing sought for the souls of those martyred. The descriptions – of Sikhs scalped and bodies dismembered, sawed and broken on the rack – would not be allowed in a BBC news report without the warning: ‘Some listeners might find the contents distressing.’ Every Sikh child hears these descriptions at every prayer, which ends with ‘May the Sikhs be in Chardi kalaa , may all be blessed by the will of God’. To be a Sikh is to stay upright, righteous and resilient. Sikhs have lost many battles, but have never been defeated; for to be a Sikh is never to accept defeat. Such a culture does not seek or fetishise victimhood. Sikhs seek no comfort, and none is provided.

But that does not make their suffering any less painful or less deserving of world attention. The elders of my clan are dying, holding on to whatever remnant of Chardi Kalaa they can muster. Soon they will all be gone. The world will move on. My clan painfully watches its own destruction, aware that no one cares. They are victims of a denial of their victimhood.

Kashmir’s tragedy encapsulates all the ethnic, religious, territorial and cultural conflicts that currently ravage the world. From the legacy of colonialism to the geopolitics of the post-9/11 world, Kashmir puts in stark contrast the world’s modern fissures. To see it entirely as a problem between Hindu nationalism and Muslim victimhood is to miss the messy complexity and ignore the plight of all of Kashmir’s victims.

Swaran Singh is professor of social and community psychiatry at the University of Warwick and an NHS consultant psychiatrist.

Pictures by: Getty Images.

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Essay on Kashmir: History and Beauty in 600+ Words

• Updated on  
• Jan 20, 2024

Essay on Kashmir for Students: Kashmir is a region situated between India and Pakistan in South Asia. It is believed that the name Kashmir originated from the word ‘Ka’ which means water, and ‘shimera’ to desiccate. 

The story of Kashmir is complex and has historical, cultural, and political dimensions. Over the years, many rulers and empires, like the Mauryas , Kushans , and Mughals have influenced the paradise of the Earth. The region especially had the special influence of Mauryan ruler Ashoka who contributed to the cultural as well as the architectural heritage of the region.

Cultural Diversity of Kashmir

Kashmir is a region that has a rich history and ancient roots. The place has witnessed the rise and fall of many dynasties, such as the Mauryas , Kushnas , and Guptas . On top of that, these dynasties contributed to the cultural and geographic location of Kashmir, which includes the influence of the Silk Road and the blend of Hindu, Buddhist, and later Islamic influences.

Kashmir Issue

The dispute related to the sharing of borders didn’t stop after Independence. Whether it was India, Pakistan, or China, tensions related to the disputes of the region always created a heat of fire between the countries that led to wars. The list of some important wars are as follows:

1. First Indo-Pak War (1947-1948) : Fought for Jammu Kashmir shortly after India’s independence.

2. Sino-Indian War (1962): A conflict between India and China for the territorial region Aksai Chin. 

3. The War of (1965): Fought mainly over Kashmir.

4. Kargil War (1999): A conflict between India and Pakistan in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Article 370 Scrapped

Geographically, Kashmir lies in the northwestern region of the Indian continent. Its total area is around 225,000 square kilometers, which is comparatively larger than the member countries of the United States. 

Out of the total area, 85,800 square kilometers have been subject to dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947. It is important to note that the areas with conflict consist of major portions called the Northern, Southern, and Southeastern portions. The 30 percent of the northern part comprises Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan and is administered by Pakistan.

India controls the portion which is more than 55 percent of the area of the land. The area consists of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Kashmir Valley, and Siachen Glacier which is located in the southern and southeastern portions of India. The area is divided by a line of control and has been under conflict since 1972. 

Also Read: Speech on Article 370

Sadly, the people living near the International Border and the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir pose not only a life threat but also do not have a stable life. Replacement and relocation affect the people living in the line of control not affect the people physically but also psychologically and socially aspects. In a survey conducted by the National Library of Medicine 94 percent of the participants recognize stress. Furthermore, the youth population was facing stress and anxiety regularly.  

However, a historic decision from the Supreme Court of India that nullified Articles 370 and 35A and permitted the state to have its constitution, flag, and government except in defense, foreign affairs, and communications decisions. After the decision, many initiatives were taken by the government of India to strengthen the democratic rule of the state. Schools, colleges, and universities were opened regularly in the union territories to develop the youth academically, socially, and as well as physically. 

Furthermore, strict measures to control criminal assaults such as stone pelting have started showing positive impacts on the continuance use of technologies such as mobile networks, and internet activities. Further, the discontinuity of Technology has started showing positive impacts on the lifestyle of people. Regular opening of schools, colleges, and universities, on the one hand, is helping the students to have good career prospects. 

Additionally, the fear-free environment that further increases tourist activities will further improve the local economy and contribute to the local as well as the national economy of the country. 

Also Read: Essay on Indian Independence Day

Kashmir is also called the Paradise on Earth. The region is blessed with natural beauty, including snow-capped mountains and green and beautiful valleys. The region is surrounded by two countries, which are Pakistan and China.

Kashmir is famous for Dal Lake, Pashmina Shawls, beautiful Mughal gardens and pilgrimage sites of Amarnath and Vaishno Devi. 

According to a traditional story, Ka means water and shimira means Desiccate. 

Kashmir is known as the ‘Paradise on Earth.’

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This was all about the essay on Kashmir. We hope this essay on Kashmir covers all the details for school students. For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu.

Deepika Joshi

Deepika Joshi is an experienced content writer with expertise in creating educational and informative content. She has a year of experience writing content for speeches, essays, NCERT, study abroad and EdTech SaaS. Her strengths lie in conducting thorough research and ananlysis to provide accurate and up-to-date information to readers. She enjoys staying updated on new skills and knowledge, particulary in education domain. In her free time, she loves to read articles, and blogs with related to her field to further expand her expertise. In personal life, she loves creative writing and aspire to connect with innovative people who have fresh ideas to offer.

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The Forgotten Muslims: How Kashmiris Breathe Islam Under Occupation

Published: May 19, 2022 • Updated: March 22, 2023

Author : Ahmed Bin Qasim

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Introduction

!هم کیا چاہتے؟ آزادی  !آزادی کا مطلب کیا؟ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ 1 !تیرا میرا رشتہ کیا؟ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ Hum kyā chahtay? Azādi! Azādi kā matlab kyā? Lāʾilāhaʾillā-llāh! Terā merā rishtā kyā? Lāʾilāhaʾillā-llāh! (What do we want? Liberation! What does liberation mean? That there is no God but Allah! What makes you and me one? That our God is none but Allah!)

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The contested nature of Pakistan did not arise from Pakistan being insufficiently imagined, but rather it arose from it being insufficiently decolonized… Once the mobilization in the name of Islam had created Pakistan, the leadership of the new country, for the most part, unaware of the radical nature of its formation, began to banalize its claims and the process of depoliticization of Islam started. Unlike other Kemalist entities, Pakistani’s Kemalist tendencies continued to run up against the founding narrative of Pakistan as a Muslim homeland. The recuperation of the Pakistani state in Kemalism meant that the decolonial potential of the experiment of Pakistan would remain unfulfilled. The tragedy of Pakistan remains that those who rule it, do not believe in it and those who believe in it, so far, have not been able to rule it. 25

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Memories of Mother

2021, Chapman University

A brief essay on my mother with translation of five poems from her book Nagar and Vairagya

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Mothers encompass of a bundle of emotions that sometimes defy reason. This seems applicable to all the mothers who keep awake all night with their sick toddlers in their arms, constantly uttering those compassionate words, "It's OK honey, Mommy's here. Mothers run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween costumes. They show up at work with milk stains on their dress and diapers in their handbags. Mothers cannot restrain tears from trickling down their cheeks when they hold their babies for the first time in their arms; and mothers give birth to babies they'll never see. Mothers scream at their kids who clamour for ice cream before dinner and confront all odds just to watch her kid perform and repeat to themselves "That's my child!!" mothers teach their children to tie the shoelaces even before they started going to school. Mothers incontinently turn their heads when they hear the word "Mom", even though they know that their kids are nowhere around. Mothers silently shed tears for their children who have gone astray. Their heart aches to watch her son or daughter disappear down the street, walking to school alone for the very first time.
The paper is a study on the poem My Mother at Sixty-six by Kamala Das. This paper envisages the qualities of the mother and tries to bring out the eternal bond the term ‘MOTHER’ echoes between mother and the child.

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The Enduring Strength and Richness of Kashmir’s Literary Life

Sharanya deepak on the many landscapes of kashmiri writing.

In her story “Hapath Yaraz’ or “a bear’s friendship,” Kashmiri writer Onaiza Drabu illustrates the universal parable of a friend who does more harm than good. The story tells of the camaraderie between a man and a bear, who, on a quiet day, sit down for a cup of tea and girdas (Kashmiri flatbread). As the man takes a nap, a flitting bee sits on his face. The bear, trying to protect his friend, throws a rock at the bee, missing the insect but killing the man instead. “Hapath Yaraz” is one of the 29 stories in Drabu’s book The Legend of Himal and Nagrai: Folktales from Kashmir , and it is all written this way: in stories interspersed with the sudden emergence of Kashmiri idioms, untranslatable and intangible to outsiders, that Drabu uses to elevate the flatter English. The proverb, one used among Kashmiris, is universal, but its tale is told in colloquial, discrete language particular to Kashmir.

With the book, Drabu, who was born in Srinagar, the largest city and summer capital of India-controlled Kashmir, created a collection of Kashmiri folktales spanning the region’s many depths. The book travels through the minds of woodcutters in deep forests, grandmothers near old fireplaces dampening rice with warm meat, reckless cousins arguing in cold winter nights. “We Kashmiris love our stories,” she writes. “Cut off from the rest of the world, in this multicultural, multilingual potpourri of customs and traditions, we have spun our own yarns to live by.” Like many folklorists, Drabu understands that folklore reflects the deepest fascinations, fears and the temperaments of the people to whom they belong. “Folktales are alive in everyday rituals, in conversation and in instinct in Kashmir,” she writes.

By speaking through hundreds of Kashmiris, Drabu enacts the idioms of the region, the way proverbs sneak into everyday chat; she tells of fables that predate the region’s vast, mountain-clad landscape and how Kashmiri expressions—often macabre, often comical—hold a secret language of expression. “We are who we are through the stories we told, and the stories we are told,” writes Drabu. “This book is retold so it contributes more than a nostalgic sense of home; for it to have the purpose of upholding memory while fighting erasure.”

Kashmir, a region disputed by India and Pakistan since 1947, lies on both sides of the border between the two countries. India-controlled-Kashmir has been under a military occupation by the Indian state since 1989, and under it, the Indian state has oppressed and brutalized its people for more than three decades. Human rights abuses, erratic arrests, disappearances and constant prison-like surveillance are imposed on Kashmir; the voices of Kashmiris have been silenced, and their movements towards their own self-determination crushed with force. The Indian military holds special powers in the region under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, where it can, in the claim of security, destroy property, arrest and shoot and shoot any Kashmiri on sight.

More than 47000 people have been killed in the conflict. Recently, 25-year-old Merajuddin Shah was shot dead by the military at a checkpoint. In another incident, 65-year-old Bashir Ahmed Khan was found slain outside his home with his 3-year-old grandson sitting on his chest, and the little boy was later used by members of the  Indian government for supporting their actions in Kashmir. On August 28, 2020, the Shia Muslim festival of Muharram, a procession of mourners was open fired on by the armed forces and police, leaving Kashmiris injured and blinded. On August 5th, 2019 , Kashmir’s limited autonomy and statehood under Article 370 of the Indian constitution was revoked, and the valley was put under a communication blackout for more than eight months. The revocation gave sweeping powers to the Indian state to institute what experts call its settler-colonial project in Kashmir, enabling it to seize land and create large demographic shifts that further the dispossession of Kashmiris on their own land.

If the occupation is one of the land, it is also one of narrative; an imperialism on Kashmiri thought and discourse, a chokehold on language and truth. Even today, it is Indians who write most of Kashmir’s most popular histories and stories. These documentations diminish the region to stereotypes, espouse racial and religious bigotry against Kashmiris, and contrive movements of Kashmiri self-determination and resistance as terrorism. In this context, even if Drabu’s folktales do not directly address the conflict, it is integral that she talks of erasure. Folklore is an act of “preserving” Kashmir: its idioms, its language and its varied histories.

Today, Kashmiri writers are of all forms. They write folklore, journalism, novels, blogs, poems, ghazals, nazms: literature can be found scribbled on trees, on social media, in notebooks kept in attics. They write across languages: in Kashmiri, Urdu and English, and within Kashmir lie distinctions, of class, caste and language.

Writing in Kashmir is not only a question of importance, says Kashmiri novelist, Shahnaz Bashir in an interview with Wande Magazine but “a question of duty.” Bashir’s fiction is set in the decade of the 1990s, where Kashmir saw a series of human rights crimes by the Indian armed forces, including incarceration and mass arrests of young civilian men. Claiming that it was aiming to curb militancy, the Indian military rampaged through the region, arresting and torturing Kashmiris on sight. Bashir’s first novel The Half Mother circles a woman’s life as she waits for her son, who is taken by the Indian army, to return. It reflects on the realities of many such women who are denigrated to “halves”—half wife, half mother—when their male family members are disappeared.

Daily life in Kashmir is such in which time can quickly jump from banal routine to torrents of grief, and its literature reflects this view of reality. In Bashir’s short story “ The Transistor ,” part of a larger collection titled Scattered Souls . a distraught Mohammad Yusuf Dar watches as a stray bullet pierces his beloved transistor—“Its remains, a soldered electronic chip connected to a naked speaker by a thin wire, lay scattered beside him, still blaring the BBC news.”

In Kashmiri writing, adept, lucid descriptions for the region’s life emerge; its writers formulate deltas in language in which to express their sensibilities. In his essay, Under Siege , novelist Mirza Waheed writes of the things that Kashmiris will remember during India’s many persecutions. “The crunch of the military wheel, the callous thud of jackboots, and the impudent knock on the door continue to ring somewhere inside your head,” writes Waheed, referencing the siege of August 2019, during which Waheed, who is in London and cannot reach his family members, brings back memories from his own childhood in the 1990s in Kashmir. Waheed narrates the siege from a distance, calling it a “a stratagem designed carefully to humiliate an entire people.” Waheed’s writing on Kashmiri life is poignant; he shows that grief and solace are always moments away from each other while demonstrating that the Kashmiri always eventually finds himself ensnared by India’s imperialism. His novel The Collaborator also summons these themes. In one of its most vivid scenes, Waheed’s young protagonist investigates a mountain of Kashmiri bodies killed by the military. Searching the bodies for their IDs, he notes that there is “a profusion of tiny yellow flowers growing among the grasses here … In places, they have grown in great numbers among the fallen and decaying.”

The Kashmiri writer undertakes a daunting task: to write within the landscape of an ongoing violence while exposing the other nuances of daily life. In his book of short stories The Night of the Broken Glass , Feroze Rather deals with subjects of militarization, revenge, and caste; in A Curfewed Night , Basharat Peer talks of teenagers swept up in freedom movements. When truth itself is obscured by an outlying propaganda that serves the occupier’s interests, Kashmiri novels become a place to tread the narrow bridge between fiction and reality.

As the war rages on the region, many women writers have also come forth to tell their stories. In Sadaf Wani’s story “ August, A River and Other Unmovable Entities ,” she writes of a spirit looming over Srinagar, trailing and watching women as they roam the streets of their city, watched, criticized and taunted. “The road on the bridge is smudged by broken bricks and rocks, and some of the bricks have disintegrated to form an orange powder,” she writes, illuminating subtle details that reveal the volatility of her home. Wani’s story is filled with ingenious symbolism that tells of how women navigate a militarized urban space.

Kashmiri poetry also holds complex testimonies; Kashmiri poets write about embattlements, but also the landscapes that surround them, the seasons that change, the stories that are left to keep close. In the 1990s, Kashmiri poet Zareef Ahmad Zareef asked in Urdu, of the destruction of his homeland. “I have lost the city of love I had found. What frenzy is this?”

Inshah Malik asks a similar question in her poem “Rain and Dreams”: “What is this war called?/ When it rages both inside / And in the street.” In Malik’s work, the poet is reflexive, narrating verse in response to calamity and grief. Like Malik, other Kashmiri poets write about the internalization of the conflict, but also of new worlds. Poet and academic Ather Zia writes that “Friday is for Azaadi,” invoking the resonant Kashmiri chant for freedom from India’s chains. “In Kashmiri poetry, there is a sense of duress, but at the same time, pushing back against that duress.” says author Suvir Kaul in a podcast interview with Terence Sevea. If Kashmiri literature is about resilience, suffering and a stoic endurance, it is also about aspirations, desires, and the wish to illuminate the mechanisms of autonomy in the region.

Kashmiri writers work continuously within erratic systems of violence and surveillance. In 2018, Kashmiri poet Madhosh Balhami ’s work of more than thirty years was lost when his home burned down in a gunbattle between armed forces and militants. In April of this year, Kashmiri journalists were branded as terrorists for doing their job.   It is not new that colonizers usurp histories and language, obfuscating lived experiences to serve their own interests. As India continues to oppress, emboldening its forces to entrap and subject Kashmiris, they write and fight back; in the art lies a deep defiance of India’s paternalistic ownership of the region, one that attempts to, but cannot, seize their minds.

What do Kashmiris want? A question is often asked of the people of Kashmir by Indians, but it is rhetorical as India’s opinions and plans for the region are executed in an echo chamber of its own prejudices. Kashmiri writing is proof that the answers to that question lie with Kashmiris, and only them.

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Sharanya Deepak

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VIII Literature

8.1 the oral tradition.

The oral tradition of Kashmiri language is highly colourful and complex in nature. It consists of various folk forms and its folk literature is the most representative form. It was from Kashmir that Somdeva collected various forms of stories with varied motifs for his universally acknowledged Kathasarit Sagar of 11th century AD. Kashmiri language has not only preserved its folk tradition but also has enriched and modified it in every age. It represents many aspects of social change, behaviour patterns, hopes, repressed wishes, creative thoughts, unconscious yearnings and collective dreams. The folk literature analyses the social drama in the geographical frame and with reference to the historical compulsions. For its beauty, diversity and complexity of interpretation, Kashmiri folk literature has received the attention of various scholars of different fields of learning. Hinton Knowels, compiler of the first anthology of Kashmiri folk tales, writes, "Kashmir as a field of folk literature is perhaps not surpassed in fertility by any other country in the world".

The folk literature in Kashmiri mainly exists in four forms

The urgency to preserve the folk tradition was felt long back by some European scholars. They contacted various storytellers and a good number of folk tales, proverbs and sayings were collected. The pioneers in this context are J.H Knowels, Aurel Stien and G.A.Grierson. In 1887 Knowels compiled Folk Tales of Kashmir, a dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs and Sayings. Aurel Stien heard many tales from an oil seller named Hatim and these tales were later edited by Grierson and entitled Hatims Tales. Nand Lal Chatta and C.L.Hakhoo brought out folk tales collections in Hindi entitled Kashmir Ki Lok Kathayein. S.N Dhar’s Tales of Kashmir is also helpful to the students of folk tales. However the most painstaking efforts for preserving the oral tradition were made by the Cultural Academy of Jammu and Kashmir by publishing many volumes of folk songs as well as folk stories. Mohd. Sultan Bhagat brought out his Kaashur LukI Theatre. Moti Lal Kemu tried to preserve the folk drama and made efforts to make it relevant to modern times. He not only wrote in folk form but also added new dimensions to the stage play by using folk elements as symbols.

Kashmiri folk literature is a treasure of unwritten history. It depicts life in various colours and moods. It shows the importance of many social institutions like joint family. It depicts women, specially common and elite and brings out contrasts in their behavior. There are reflections on local customs like Khaana Daamaadi and adoption .One not only comes to know about the social life of the community through Ladeeshah and various Baanda Paathairs but also feel the revolting spirit of the common people who use folk forms to express their displeasure and disapproval of political and economic exploitation.

Kashmiri folk theatre comprises of many Paathairs. The main ones are Darza paathair, Bata paathair, Raaza paathair, Buhari paathair, Haanz paathair, Bakarwaal paathair, Gosaain paathair, Waatal paathair and Mughal paathair. The paathairs are not originally written rather, they have striking resemblances. In some cases they differ only in name. For instance, Bata paathair and Buhari paathar are same in presentation and texture. Being unwritten, the paathairs constantly change in text according to the changes in social setup, contemporary taste and political scenario.

The main characters of paathairs are Maagun and Maskhar. Maagun is in a way the director and producer of the paathair. He is also head of the Baandes in their day today lives. He is like the Sutradhaar of Sanskrit drama. He performs various roles. Maskhar is the chief character in a paathair. His role is of interest for the audience and of much significance for Maagun. Goopali is an important female character in some paathairs like Gosain Paathar.

The study of Kashmiri proverbs and sayings shows social conflicts, psychological contradictions, economic compulsions as well as linguistic beauties. These sayings show how some aspects of the cultural destiny of the people have been shaped.

Kashmiri folk songs are especially rich in depicting emotions, dreams, miseries and desires of the Kashmiri woman. In these woman is represented in complexity of her relationships. She has to observe and honour all the values of feudal society and has to be selfless and emotionless like a stone. From dawn to dusk, she is supposed to attend the domestic work. One can find ample evidence of polygamy, early marriage, Pardah system among the upperclass Muslims, and curses of widowhood everywhere.

Generally the parental home of a woman is a source of joy for her, while the home of her inlaws is the cause for constant nightmare. A woman should be under the control of Hash (mother-in-law) and Zaam (husband’s sister). She has no right to complain. Speaking to her husband in daylight is considered indecent. Hence many instances of moral laxity can be found. The other reasons for this laxity were early widowhood, poverty, strained relations between husband and wife, feudal sensuality and licentious attitudes. All these factors combined, gave rise to professional prostitution among common and aristocrats.

8.2 EARLY PERIOD (900 TO 1554 AD)

Most of the Manuscripts written in Kashmiri before the fourteenth century have not been found so far as they may have been lost due to recurrent foreign invasions and natural calamities. There is no evidence to show when Kashmiri got over its dialectic stage. At the same time it may be mentioned that the scholars of Kashmir did consider Kashmiri language suitable for serious themes like philosophy and literature. When Shiti Kantha wrote his Mahanaya Prakasha in Kashmiri he translated every Vaakh in Sanskrit to communicate himself fully. One can find some phrases of Kashmiri in Kahalan’s Rajatarangani. In his Desh Opdesh, Kshendera (11th century) suggests that poets should write in their own language. Some people, without much evidence believe that in about 150 B.C Nag San, a Kashmiri Buddhist Scholar wrote his Milind Panha in Kashmiri and BrihatKatha of Gunadhya was also written in Paishachi of Kashmir (Dardic group).

The earliest use of Kashmiri Language was found in Chhuma Padas. This oldest specimen of Kashmiri literature was used to express and explain various Shaivit doctrines especially the Pratibhajna philosophy. These Pads are in Apabharmasha form of Kashmiri and they are as difficult to understand as those of Shiti Kantha’s Mahanay Prakash. Mahanay Prakash, the first book of Kashmiri poetry is written in Sanskrit style. The author claims that he has written the book in Sarvagochara Desha Basha (language of the common people) but the nature of the subject, Sanskrit expressions and the Sanskrit translation of the Vaakhs show amply that Shiti Kantha doubts his communicative ability in Kashmiri language. Mahanaya Prakasha has only linguistic and esoteric importance. The Vaakhs of Shiti Kanth are also very important for the study of the Vaakhs of Lal Ded. Shiti Kanth provides form and subject to Lal Ded which Lal used with different poetic and spiritual experience and recreated Vaakh in Kashmiri and got it to pinnacle of glory.

Vaakh and Shrukh

Vaakh and Shrukh are Kashmiri words for Vaakya and Shloka of Sanskrit. There is not much difference in the structural forms of the two differently named genres. Both are fourlined. However, there is difference in their subjects. Vaakh is associated with Lal Ded so much so that her Vaakhs are the only authentic source for understanding her creative personality. Shrukh form is mainly associated with Nund Ryosh popularly known as Sheikh-ul-Aalam and Alamdari Kashmir (i.e. universal teacher and the Banner Holder of Kashmir). Lal Ded was born in early 14th century at Sempora near Paandrethan and was married at Padampora (modern Pampur). After her marriage she was named Padmavati according to custom but she is known as Lal which was probably her parental name and which is short form of Lalita (The Goddess of Fortune). She was most probably initiated into Yoga at an early age by Siddha Shree Kantha, popularly known as Sedhamol. She did not have a pleasant family life. Early spiritual practices coupled with her sublimation, added great intensity to her spiritual experience. She was born with a poetic soul and had a natural linguistic flair. Hence her experience found expression in such creative language that her Vaakhs have everlasting freshness and inspiration. She presents linguistic transition in 14th Century. Her Vaakhs represent the dawn of the modern Kashmiri language. Her poetry not only provides numerous idioms and phrases but also philosophical thoughts to the Kashmiri language, which adds beauty of expression to it. She is the maker of modern Kashmiri. Due to her inborn communicative skills, her Vaakhs are considered a great literary treasure both for the common reader and the critics. She recreated Vaakh in such a manner that it became the standard of criteria for judging this genre for all types. Assonance, inner rhymes, depth of meaning, images, non-didactic nature and inner poetic conflict or auto-drama are some of the characteristics of her Vaakhs

Lal was a Shaivite of Trika branch. Her spiritual experiences come from her active Sadhana and bear no impact other than Trika. On the basis of her Vaakhs it can safely be said that she was neither mad and naked nor undisciplined. She was against religious rituals and dogmas, as she became elevated in Sadhana in the later part of her life. The control of Chitt (Consciousness) and its absorbtion in Shunya – a positive void, is the pinnacle of her experience.

NUNDA RYOSH

Nunda Ryosh (Sheikh-ul-Aalam) is the founder of Rishi order (a form of Reshi Sufism) of Kashmir. He was greatly influenced by Lal Ded and considered her a great apostle of light .Lal and Sheikh shared the same spiritual moorings and both are the makers of the composite culture of Kashmir. Lal bears a spirit of revolt and reformation and the same is true of the great Sheikh, who lashed out upon that mullah mentality which wanted to exploit the masses and was trying to tarnish the fair face of Kashmir. Sheikh gave his message of love, simplicity, tolerance and non-violence.

The form of poetry used by Nunda Ryosh is known as Shrukh, which is a four-line composition like vaakh. The vaakhs of Lal Ded and shrukhs of Sheikh are intermingled. Many efforts have been made to identify them separately. Even the vaakhs of Lal Ded have been interpolated.

Sheikh was a great organizer. He visited the whole length and breadth of the valley to deliver his message and strengthen the Rishi order. The order believed in public works, service of people as well as meditation for long periods away from mundane world as practiced by the Sheikh himself. Sheikh was a vegetarian and survived on fallen leaves of Difsacus and Chicory. Amongst his disciples Nasr-ud-din, Baam-ud-din, Zain-ud-din, Payaam-ud-din and Shyaama Bibi are well known.

Shrukh unlike vaakh is didactic in content and exhortative in nature .It is a vehicle of Sheikh’s teachings. Instead of abstract images, Nunda Ryosh used the names daily use articles and visual images to express his ideas. Sheikh believed in moral preachings’ for the upliftment of man and harmonious social living and used shrukh to convey his ideas.

Nunda Ryosh died in 1438 AD and was buried at Tsrar-I-Shareef , which has become a place of pilgrimage since then. Sheikh enjoyed reverence of masses and he is the only poet- sage in whose name a coin was issued by the Afghan governor Aatta Mohammad Khan in 1809, almost 370 years after his death. The prophetic insight of the poet seer is evident from his Shrukhs. Only a saying is quoted here

Shahi Khan popularly known as Budshah became king during this period and ruled effectively from 1420-1470 AD. He is also known as Zain-ul-abdin. He is considered one of the greatest kings of Kashmir and a genius who appreciated the cultural tradition and left no stone unturned to preserve it. He was the lover of cultural heights and respected scholars, poets and artists. Almost all fine arts got new life due to his patronage. He was himself a poet and wrote in Persian and Kashmiri languages. It is believed that many books in Kashmiri were written during his reign. These include Zaina Tsareth by Som Pandit, Zaina Prakash by Yodha Bhat, Baanasur vadhKatha by Avatar Bhat. Only Avatar’s Baanaasur vadh katha has survived the ravages of time. It is a long narrative poem about the love affair of Usha and Aniruddh. It is the first epic poem in Kashmiri, but its language is highly Sanskritized. Some scholars prefer to term it as a form of Kashmiri Apabhramsha.

After the death of Badshah in 1470, no Kashmiri work was created, except for Gana Prashast’s Swokh Dwokh Tsareth written in the Baanasura katha style. Folk literatures, however, must have flourished in abundance during this intervening period. Of the folk tales that survived, the AkaNandun and Heemal Naagiraay entertained the people during the calamities of famines and floods, and it is performing the same function even now.

Rupa Bhaawani (1625-1721) the saint poetess was well versed in Vedantic philosophy . She knew Sanskrit and Persian well. She composed vaakhs, which do not have as much of linguistic beauty as the vaakhs of Lal. These seem to be distant from common speech. She wrote her vaakhs in a scholarly fashion, depicting spiritual journey of a seeker. After Bhawani, the vaakh form was continued by Kashmiri pandit saints for their personal communications. Mirza Kaak, Lachi Kaak and Rits Ded expressed their experiences in vaakh form. Rits Ded (1880-1966), though illiterate, was conscious of the whole vaakh tradition and contributed to it by her rich expression and experience. She herself claims the impact of Lal Ded, Nunda Ryosh, Rupa Bhaawani and Mirza Kaak.

No poetic form ever dies and it is as true about vaakh. In 1998 Bimla Raina published her vaakh collection Resh Maalyun Myon. Her Vaakhs are of high literary merit. It seems, she has not only rediscovered vaakh tradition but also has recreated it. Her second collection of vaakhs Veth Ma chhe Shongith (2002) further adds to her mastering of Vaakh. Bimla Raina also tries to rediscover idiom of Lal Ded.

8.3 The Medieval Period (1554-1819 A.D)

After the establishment of the Muslim rule in the 14th century, many cultural changes took place. However, linguistic changes were most prominent. Persian was rapidly establishing itself in place of Sanskrit. At the instance of Bud Shah the Kashmiri Pandits adopted Persian and the bulk of them became Karkuns – i.e. service class. Kashmiri language developed very rapidly during this period and the important genres of Kashmiri poetry Vatsun and Masnavi came into being and developed to a greater extent. Hence this period can also be called as the Vatsan and Masnavi period.

Genres like Vatsun- a literary form, were used in many Indian languages especially in Kannada for expressing spiritual thoughts. Vatsun genre may have existed in Kashmir even before Lal Ded. However, the first Vatsun writer of repute is Habba Khaatoon. There is no authentic reference about her life. One has to depend upon the folk tradition, legend and her own poetry to determine the course of her life. Folk tradition and legends provide only contradictory accounts. Habba Khaatoon is one of the makers of Vatsun form in Kashmiri and is surely the first significant romantic poetess. Her Vatsuns are brimming with her personal emotions, agony and love. The depths of her feelings give inner rhymes to her Vatsun. She decorated her style with imagery and medial rhyme. Her emotions are reflective of the emotions of the woman in general. She was well educated in music and enriched Kashmiri music by composing Rast Kashmiri, a new raag in Kashmiri music.

Khawaja Habib Ullah Nowsheri (1555-1617), Mirza Akmal-ud-din Badakshi (1642- 1717) are the other two poets of this genre.

Sahib Kaul (1629 ?) is the most important poet of the Mughal Age of Kashmir. His Sanskrit works are well known. He wrote three books in Kashmiri viz. Kalpa Vriksh, Janma Charit and Krishnavataara Charit. His language contains many Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit words. He was a Shaivite and had a remarkable craftsmanship. Krishnavataara is praise worthy for its musical style and the development of Vatsun.

Arnimaal is another remarkable poetess of the Vatsun genre. She was born at Palhalan and married to Bhawani Das Kachru of Srinagar who was a high official in Pathan court. Due to the charms of the court beauties he forgot his poet-wife. This separation is the subject matter of the Vatsan poetry of Arnimaal. Her love lyrics are sensuous, full of agony, reflective of her heritage and flair of language. An example of the kind is given below:

She was so popular a poet that her contemporary Mahmood Gami, one of the epoch makers in Kashmiri poetry, was fascinated by the flair of song quoted above. He adopted this couplet for his own Vatsun and made his own additions to it. The Vatsuns of Arnimaal have much to tell about the poetess.

Sochaa Kraal (1774-1855) is a significant mystic poet who believed in the doctrine of Wahadat-ul-Wajood, which means that God and man are not separate qualitatively and in essence. Sochaa Kraal expressed his thoughts in a simple but effective style – Naav dar aab ta Aab dar Naav (The boat is in the water and the water is in the boat)

Shah Gafoor had vast knowledge of Sufi tenets as well as the Shastras. He presented an amalgam of both for communicating his experience –

Mohmood Gami (1765 – 1855) is the most attention deserving poet of his times not only for the development of Vatsun but also for the genre of Masnavi. The whole creative beauty of Vatsun is reflected in his lyrics. He was inspired by the folklore and the poets like Arnimaal. He had capacity to understand the tradition and recreate it. He influenced not only his contemporaries but also the poets of the coming generations. His own cotemporary Wali Ullah Matoo called him the master poet. His Vatsuns have a wide variety of themes and they present a synthesis of mundane and spiritual elements.

Mohmood was well versed in Persian and Arabic and had deeply studied Persian poets especially Jami and Nizami who are the masters of Persian Masnavi. Mohmood introduced not only Masnavi with its variety of colours but also Naat to Kashmiri poetry. At the time of his death at the age of 90 he had made Kashmiri language richer by his Vatsun and Masnavis. He introduced Persian aesthetics to a great extent to the Kashmiri poetry. He is remembered for his nice diction, craftsmanship and melody that appeals even to modern taste.

Mohmood is basically a lyricist. His lyrics represent Kashmiri culture, social life, yearnings and repressions.

Most of Masnavi writers are also Vatsun writers. Even Naats, Manqabats and Leelas have been written in Vatsun form. Bhakti poets Parmanand and Krishna Razdaan who wrote Leelas also wrote Masnavis in Vatsan technique. The great mystic poets from Rahim Saab Sopori (1775) to Bhaagiwaan Ded ( d 1950?) have used Vatsun form to express themselves. As such Vatsun is the best part of Kashmiri poetry as it has preserved the essence of vocal Kashmiri music. Even the non-Sufi lyricist poet, Rasool Mir could not but use this classical form of Kashmiri literature. Rahim Saab, Rahmaan Daar, Shamas Faqir (1849 to 1904), Niama Saab, Asad Pare(1862-1920) are some of the mystic poets who added to the linguistic beauty of Vatsun. Rahmaan Daar’s Vatsuns are musical with freshness of experience and idiom. Daar’s Shesh Rang, in its unique form of eight lined stanza, is a six stanza song. It is an allegory. Niama Saab & Shamas Faqir communicate deep thoughts in simple language. They have mastery over expression and experimentation in the use of language. Asad Pare’s expressions convey his deep experiences mainly in allegorical style.

In the early 20th century, mystic tradition and Vatsun genre continued with more vigour. Wahab Khaar (1912 d),Ramzaan Bhat(1887-1918),Ahmad Batawaari(1845-1918),Samad Mir(1892- 1959),Abdual Ahad Zargar(1904-1983),Bhaagiwaan Ded etc. developed Vatsun genre and took it to its glory. Samad Mir an illiterate sawyer and a great mystic poet with intensity of spiritual experience, used new metaphors. Zargar was another seeker of the ultimate reality. According to T. N. Raina "Zargar used imagery that would shock normal sensibility into an unusual awareness". Bhaagiwaan Ded is the last poet of repute in the mystic rosary of Vatsun. Her collection Mani Pamposh published in 1998 shows how she has masterly used language and form. She was influenced by her senior contemporaries, Samad Mir and Ahad Zargar. Among all the mystic poets of Kashmir her work is most voluminous. Due to her communicative skills, innovative imagery and command over language, she has carved out a place for herself in the annals of Kashmiri mystic poetry. Almost all the mystic poets were influenced by the philosophy of the Hindu mysticism. They believed in universal love and are the torchbearers of the composite culture of Kashmir.

Due to the wide influences of Persian language a new poetic form viz. Masnavi came into being. Masnavi is a long narrative poem and it has mainly four kinds.

No doubt, a number of local legends like Heemaal Naagi Raay, Aka nandun and the Hindu epics are a part of Masnavi Contents, but most of the Kashmiri Masnavis are translations or adaptations of Persian Masnavis with unchanged characteristics. Mohmood Gaami wrote the Masnavis like Sheereen Khusro, Laila Majnun, Yusuf Zuleikha, Sheikh Mansoor, Sheikh Sanaan and Pahalynaama. His most famous Masnavi, with its linguistic smoothness and beautiful meter changes is Yusuf Zuleikha. It became a model for others who followed him. Gaami however due to the overwhelming Persian impact could not change Persian Masnavis as much as to suit the temper of Kashmiri language perfectly.

Maqbool Amritsari wrote three Masnavis, some Vatsuns and ghazals. Only Yusuf Zuleikha is available in manuscript form. He lived for a greater period of his life in Amritsar and much is not known about him.

Wali Ullah Matoo (d 1858), was a contemporary of Gaami. He wrote Masnavi Heemaal Naagi Raay – a local love legend which depicts hostility between the Naagas and Pisaachas. The poet uses simple language, maintains local temper but does not absorb himself into his subject well and that is the reason why his Masnavi seems soulless.

Maqbool Shah Kraalawaari (1820-1877) wrote Gulrez – considered to be the best Kashmiri love Masnavi. He also wrote some satirical Masnavis, Grees Naama and Peer Naama. Gulrez is an adaptation of a Persian Masnavi of Zia-ud- din. It is based on a roman tie tale of love between Ajab Malik and Nosh Lab. The poet has taken certain liberties with the original to make it suitable to the local people. Local colour in atmosphere and traits of characters, beauty of plot and the vivid expression of emotions are some of the qualities of this Masnavi. The poetic flow and beauty of narration make Gulrez the most important Masnavi of Kashmiri literature. To the poet goes the credit of writing the first satirical Masnavi Grees Naama in Kashmiri language.

Prakash Ram Kurgami (d1885) is the author of Ramavtaar Charit , Lava Kusha Charit , Krishnavataar , Akanandun and Shiv Lagan.His most famous Masnavai is Ramavtaar Charit which is the first Razmi Masnavi in Kashmiri . Its language is sweet and is neither burdened with Sanskrit nor Persian vocabulary. It presents the beauty of Kashmir and creates Kashmiri settings in Lanka. Its songs are melodious and soothing. They are good enough for religious sentiment. He depies the beauty of nature, excellently.

Vishnu Razdan of Kulgam, a saintly man has translated Valmiki Ramayana into Kashmiri. Almost all the poets of the 19th century and early 20th century including Abdul Ahad Azad (Chandar Badan) wrote Masnavis. Narrative poetry provided rich entertainment to listeners of that time. Masnavi satisfied the yearnings of people who possessed nothing but frustrating dreams. A fairy or princess depicted sensually showed them such daydreams. Some times they found mystic dimensions in Masnavi and got their hallow spiritual needs satisfied. The long periods of subjugation had taken away the whole zest of activity from their lives. Hence epic heroes like Saam became great source of catharsis. Religious romance and the hallow sensuousness are sources of satisfaction for the people who are bereft of good things in life.

Eighty percent of Masnavis are unpublished as yet. Among the published ones the following three Razmia Masnavis are very significant.

The Shah Naama of Wahab Pare is purported to be a very free translation of the Shah Naama of Firdosi and it seems that Wahab has not paid full attention, nor has he been very serious to the translation. Wahab’s Shah Naama is a huge work of 23491 verses and it has not been possible for him to keep its cohesiveness. Amir Shah Kriri could not make his Saam Naama an organic whole due to the lack of craftsmanship. There are so many digressions in it and too much use of Persian vocabulary does not suit the poem. Bulbul’s Saam Naama has artistic niceties. The smoothness of plot and the flow of language make it a masterpiece. As against Wahab and Amir Shah, Bulbul’s warp and woof is local and hence responsible for effective narration. Against looseness of Wahab and Amir Shah, Bulbul has woven the whole story around the center figure Saam that gives compactness and freshness to the whole epic. Bulbul uses a sweet language, local imagery and common man’s idiom.

Naat is a sort of ode in which adorations to the Holy Prophet of Islam are sung. It has no definite form. Hamud and Manqabat are respectively the praises of God and great seers. Sometimes Hamud Manqabat and Naat are interconnected .

Naat starts with Nunda Ryosh where it is a part of Hamud. After about 150 years Habib-ullah-Nowshari wrote Naat. A little later Fakhir wrote beautiful Naats in Kashmiri in a very simple language. Walli- ullah - Matoo also wrote Naats fulfilling all the literal demands of this genre. Maqbool Shah Kraalawaari introduced Naat in Vanvun form and filled the genre with genuine emotions. Abdul Ahad Nazim and Pir Aziz-ullah Haqani are very important poets in the history of the development of Naat. Nazim’s language, emotions and etiquette are quite suitable for Naat writing.

However the master poet of this genre is Abdual Ahad Nadim (1258-1329 H). He took Naat to its perfection. His simple language devotion, reverence and allusions are the qualities of his Naat. His Naats are in Vatsun form. It has given effectiveness to his poetry.

Naat writing continues till date and modern poets like Mir Ghulam Rasool Nazki, Fazil Kashmiri, Dina Nath Nadim, Pitamber Nath Dhar Fani, Rahaman Rahi and many others have written beautiful thought provoking Naats.

After 1990, most of the poets in Kashmir valley wrote Naats. Some critics believe that the upsurge owns its origin to the political situation over there.

According to Aurbindo, world is not Maya but Leela of God. In this sense Leela as a genre of literature means ‘to play’. As such, Leela is that poetic expression which contains various colours and aspects of creation and thereby reflects the play of the Creator. It doesnot have any definite form. However, as Leela is a song set on instrumental music the Vatsun form is most suitable for it and bulk of this type of poetry has been written and is being written in the Vatsun form.

The early traces of Leela are found in Nund Ryosh. There may have been some other Leela poets, but it is Prakash Ram who popularized this genre. In his Ramavtaar Charit he has inserted a plethora of Leelas and these Leelas were more popular among the masses than the epic itself. He set the pattern of Leela which was followed by Vishnu Razdan whose Leelas have been collected in Leela Sagar recently. Some of his Leelas like Padi Kamalan Tal bi aasaay are evergreen. Leela is basically a devotional song which got attention of many poets. These include Nila Kanth, Vasudev, Anand Ram and Bhaskar Ji. The Leela’s of Nila Kanth are adorations of Lord Krishna and are very popular .However the greatest poets of Leela in 19th century are Parmanand (1791-1885) and Krishna Razdan (1850-1925).Parmanand lived at Mattan which is not only a sacred place but also an important transit camp during Amarnath pilgrimage. The place was resplendent with spiritual light. So the atmosphere was suitable for Parmanand. He had a vast study, which is reflected, in his poetic works along with his spiritual experiences. Among his writings Radha Swayamvara is most interesting and musical. His Leelas have been rightly called lyrical narratives and are in Vatsun form. His devotional songs are artistic expressions of his inward experiences in most suitable idiom. Parmanand has depths of meaning and passionate intensity. The allegorical character of his poems is remarkable.

Sometimes Leela’s of Parmanand are didactic yet their excellent allegorical character, matured wisdom and imagery makes such Leelas very communicative. His Karma Bhomika is an example of such Leelas. It is said that his disciple Lakshman Bulbul wrote some of the Leelas for Parmanand.

Krishna Raazdaan had a firm faith in Shaivism. His Shiv Puran and Shiv Lagan show his mastery over poetic art. His observation was minute and it provided raw material for his poetry .His usage of ordinary expressions conveys more than what the words mean. The inner music of his mystic experience is well conveyed by his words. He generally used Vatsun form and sometimes he experimented with other forms with equal success. No poet could surpass him in style, depth and diction.

Govind Kaul, a saint of Radha Swami order was also a Leela poet. But the most important Leela poet of the mid 20th century is Jiya Lal Saraf. His Leelas are in Vatsun form and were published in two parts entitled Bhajan Maalaa. He has the credit of translating Panchastavi, Gauri Stutti , Bhaja Govindam , Mahimna Sotraa in verse in Kashmiri. All his Kashmiri translations are sweet and linguistically flawless with their original music well preserved. These translations are being sung like Leelas. Saraf made Leela very popular. Prem Nath Arpan’s verse translation of Bhagwatgita has been very popular like popular Leelas sung all over the valley. Pushkar Nath kaul author of Poshe Daale is another living Leela poet whose Bhajans are very popular.

After the exodus of 1990, many new Leela composers like A. N. Dhar, N. N. Suman, K.N. Bhagwan, P.N. Shad, J. L. Juroo and N.K. Yarbash have emerged.

Marsia is an elegy, a mourning song for someone the poet loves. Marsia describes the qualities of the deceased. A Poet can write Marsia on any body, but it is generally associated with the martyrs and events of Karbalaa. Hence, Marsia is a form of poetry in which the character of the people, especially of those who were with Imam Hussein during his martyrdom, is sung. Hussain is the epic hero in the Marsia genre.

The classical Marsia of Kashmiri is different in technique form the modern Marsia which bears the influence of Urdu Marsia .The classical Marsia consists of five parts viz, Barkhast, Dunbaale,Gath , Krakh and Nishast. The Marsias sung during the mourning meetings in the month of Muharram are of this nature. Some important Marsia writers of the classical Marrsia were Hussain Mir, Hakkem Azim, Mohd. Baqir ,Mirza Abhu Qasim and Munshi Ahmed Ali .

The Marsia-writing in Kashmiri started in early period. Shyam Bibi wrote the first marsia in Vatsun form. It was written on the death of Nunda Ryosh. Then comes the name of Mahmood Gaami who wrote an elegy on the death of his son. Nazim also wrote Marsias. Wahab Khaar also wrote a Marsia expressing his shock over the death of his son. Maqbool Kraalawaari wrote Marsia and his Marsias contributed a lot in the technical growth of the genre .He wrote in Mussadas form i.e. six lined stanzas. Pir Haqani translated some Persian Marsias into Kashmiri. Ghulam Mohmaod Hanfi wrote many Marsias of merit. Marsias have been written in abundance by some modern poets belonging to Hindu as well as Muslim communities.

Marsia writing has enriched Kashmiri language with new words, phrases, allusions, expressions, thoughts, forms and styles .The greater portion of Marsia literature is unpublished as yet.

8.4 Modern Period (1819 onwards)

The Ghazal and the Nazam are two genres of Kashmiri poetry that developed in the modern period. Ghazal had taken its birth much earlier.

Early Developments

The word Ghazal means ‘talking romantically’. Romantic approach of the poet determines the temperament of his Ghazal. However, the genre has not remained limited to romantic experiences and expressions. It has been a vehicle of expression for all sort of thoughts – mystical, philosophical, psychological and has become gradually richer with varying dictions and styles. A Ghazal couplet has the rhyme scheme ab ab – ab. Every couplet is complete in meaning. The bravity of words that can enfold the various dimensions of experience is the main beauty of the Ghazal.

Ghazal was adopted in Kashmiri due to the increasing Persian influence. In the early period some poets like Fakhir experimented with this genre, but Vatsun remained a dominating force. Mahmood Gaami was the first poet who used Ghazal form with liberal Persian words. Maqbool Amritsari wrote Ghazals but it was Rasul Mir who under the influence of Gaami gave Ghazal the rear lift. His Ghazal is the product of imagination, feeling and musicality. Rasul Mir was the greatest among Ghazal writers till his times .He was greatly interested in Ghazal but did not have any pretensions of mysticism or narration. He limited himself to the expression of his experiences of human love. He even discarded the platonic notions and only sang of human love. He is sensuous and passionate in his expressions. He has his own stature as a romantic poet and he moulded the Ghazal form to suit his intensity of experience.

Maqbool Kraalawaari also wrote Ghazals. But it was Wahab Pare of Hajin who developed Ghazal by writing 781 Ghazals which exist in his Deewan .In most of his couplets he just seems to be a rhymester but many couplets contain poetic experiences and beauty of expression. Samad Mir and Ahad Zargar have contributed to Ghazal in a manner as to suit their mystical experiences. However the pioneers of Ghazal in the first half of 20th century were Ghulam Ahmad Mahjoor (1885- 1952) and Abdual Ahad Azad (1909- 1948).

Modern Developments

Mahjoor was a lover of beauty and the adoration of beauty in any form is the chief quality of his Ghazals. He made his songs reflective of his feelings in a conventional style. He had capacity to understand the pulse of the time. He inspired the Kashmiri people for political & social change. He wanted to protect the tradition of love and tolerance.

He loved various colours of life and depicted the hues of nature in his Ghazals. This attracted the attention of Tagore and he called Mahjoor ‘the Wordsworth of Kashmiri poetry’.

Mahjoor is a link between old and new poetry .He enlarged the canvas of Ghazal, decorated it with new and fresh imagery, widely referred to local flora and fauna and made his Ghazal the chief vehicle of his thought.

Abdul Ahad Azad’s creed was humanism, scientific temperament and revolution. He was moved by the subjugation, suffering and poverty of the people of Kashmir. His advocacy of the universal brotherhood was not liked by some sections of the conservative society but he continued with his ideology. Like Majhoor he gave a new direction to Kashmiri poetry with his simple diction. His Ghazals are better known for his radical humanism in a language that was perfectly understood by the people.

Mirza Arif, Ghulam Rasool Nazki, Fazil Kashmiri are some other poets who developed Kashmiri Ghazal. However, it is after 1947 that Kashmiri Ghazal achieved its literal and creative heights through the works of Nadim, Rahi, Kamil, Firaq and others.

Dina Nath Nadim is a very significant poet. He contributed to Ghazal also. He was associated with the cultural renaissance of Kashmir and was a progressive poet. His Ghazals have the beauty of language and unique of tradition. His images are mostly taken from rustic life and are captivating.

Abdul Rahmaan Rahi was associated with Nadim and in his early poetry he bears Nadim’s influence. His poetry collection Nowrozi Saba contains conventional and musical Ghazals. After 1960, Rahi’s poetry does not evince an objective approach to life and subjectivity becomes main tool of his creative ability. He tries the quest of truth through his own experience. That may have made his creative effort, ambiguous at times. This whole phenomenon is reflected in his Ghazals which are included in his Siyah Rooda Jaryan Manz .

Mohammad Amin Kamil is one of the makers of modern Kashmiri Ghazal. He has infused realism in the genre and his Ghazals are a mirror of his sensibilities, human feelings and psychological depths. Kamil is a master of Ghazal writing. He understands the basic temperament and tenderness of the genre. His use of Kashmiri words and craftsmanship is very remarkable. In every couplet he has conveyed some experience. The observation and imagination with a touch of satire gives elegance to his Ghazal. He has his own style and he has the credit of bringing the Ghazal out of the clutches of feudal values.

Ghulam Nabi Firaq’s Ghazals have emotion, flow and depth. He bears the influence of the English lyric.

Moti Lal Saqi, Ghulam Rasool Santosh, Muzaffar Azim, Mishal Sultanpuri , Ghulam Nabi Khayal ,Margoob Banihaali, Chaman Lal Chaman , Moti Lal Naaz, Makhan Lal Kanwal , Rasool Pompur, Radhey Nath Masarrat ,Manzoor Hashmi, Arjun Dev Majboor , Nishat Ansari , Farooq Nazki are some important names in the history of the development of Ghazal.

Naseem Shifai’s Darichi Mutsrith makes the presence of the poetess felt in Ghazals with intensity of feeling and soft language.

Rafiq Raaz has given a new direction to Kashmiri Ghazal by the freshness of his style. Many younger poets are influenced by him. Suneeta Raina Pandit with her Rihij Yaad and Sonzal came up as a very prominent Ghazal writer.

Ghazal in Kashmiri language has developed rapidly during the last 50 years. It is rich both in content and language. Sometimes it has continued with conventional forms of expression and sometimes modified itself with new experiments in style. But in every case it has come out of its traditional mechanical frame and has taken many steps towards sophistication. There are new tools of communication, new perceptions and new metaphors. These have added to the aesthetics of the Kashmiri Ghazal.

Nazam is a form of poetry in which a single thought is expressed without any digressions. Nazam is an organic whole that indicates a single creative attitude of the poet. There is no restricted form for this genre. Many experiments have been made in its structure. Sometimes a poem is written without any rhythm and sometimes blank verse form is used for it. Inner rhyme is the most important element of the modern Nazam. The development of Kashmiri Nazam has the following stages :-

a. Till 1947: Some scholars believe that Nunda Ryosh wrote first Kashmiri Nazam Gongal Naama. After him Parmanand wrote some beautiful Nazams. No doubt, these are allegories but they cannot be termed as Nazam in modern context. Modern Nazam starts with Mahjoor and Azad. However, none of the two had complete notion of this genre. Basically the genre with its modern characteristics came from Europe. It came through Urdu into Kashmiri. After 1857, need for a new form was felt by the people connected with the Aligrah movement. A similar development took place from 1938 in Kashmiri due to the spread of education and political struggle. Mahjoor, Azad and Zinda Kaul (1884-1965) wrote some beautiful poems such as, Dariyaav, Shikwa-I-Iblees, Inqilaab of Azad and Yamberzal and Azadi of Mahjoor. Zinda Kaul popularly known as Master Ji wrote poems. His Sumaran(The Rosary) was the first book in Kashmiri which was awarded Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956. His poems are devotional and philosophical in content and are rich in structure and style.

b. 1948-1960: The Progressive Movement affected Kashmiri literature with the same intensity as Sir Syed Movement had given new directions to Urdu Nazam after 1857. Certain political, economic and social changes also helped in the growth of the Nazam. Well-educated youths of that period were influenced by Karl Marx .The social change and economic revolution became their creed. The young poets gave up all the previous models of adoration and adopted a new form of expression called Nazam to suit the changing times. Realism was their watchword and the working class was the center of their attention. Most of the modern poets of repute were the torchbearers of social change, which in spite of good humanitarian motives became sloganism in literature. Though the poets never bothered for literary refinement and originality yet it can be safely said that poems of this period are a milestone in the growth of the Nazam. It was the only period when common people took great interest in Mushairas and literary functions. They found a mirror of their lives in Nazam. Poets of this period were greatly influenced by Nadim. The new forms that were born as a result of the change are free verse, sonnet, blank verse, the opera and the Tukh(Quatrain). Ornamental language and other traditional conventions were discarded and every effort was made to meet the demands of change. Some good poems like Nadim’s Me chamm aash paguhch, Kamil’s Yaarabaluk Sahar were written in this period.

Nadim was a born poet and even the poems written with socialistic motivation by him bear certain degrees of literal beauty . Wothi baaguch kukilee (Arise the cuckoo of garden), Dal haanzni hond Vatsun(The song of the boat woman) are some of the instances.Nadim introduced new rhythms superbly. His original imagery and use of blank verse (as in Bu gyavana az) speak of the many creative capabilities of Nadim.

Rahi was a progressive poet in essence but at the same time his poems impress the reader by his craftsmanship. He introduced the monologue-technique in his Gata-ta-Gaash (Darkness and Light) Nowroze Saba shows his maturity and promise of creativity. Some of his important poems of this period are Zindagee(Life), Path agar yiyi the motas vaary (Then if death were to come) and Azich kath(Today’s tale).

Mirza Arif also played his role in the development of Nazam, with the same progressive notions. Dusa, Zanaanan hund ehtejaaaj(the protest of women) are some of his important Nazams. Kamils Mas malir (1955) contains many poems depicting progressive trends and growth of Nazam. He experimented with the form of Nazam and he himself claims that his style and craftsmanship are different. This difference is amply brought forward in his second collection Lava ta Prava(Dew Drops and Sunbeams).His other two poetic collections are Beyi sui paan and Padis Pud Tshaayi. His craftsmanship is commendable. Kamil successfully uses references from Hindu mythology in his poetry to communicate effectively. He has freshness of language and beauty of metaphor. The poet seems conscious of the changing values of the modern life.

Ghulam Nabi Firaq shows influence of the progressive Urdu poem and romantic English poetry. He has written some good poems and his subjects are conventional like agonies of life and love. Almost all those poets who have contributed to Ghazal have also contributed to the development of Nazam in their own way. However, most of the poets are not having any new experimentation in structure of the poem and some of them write in traditional style.

c. 1960 onwards: Nadim, Rahi, Kamil. Moti Lal Saqi, Muzafar Azim , Ghulam Nabi Khyaal , Arjun Dev Majboor, Vaasdev Reh, Mishal Sultanpuri, Margoob Banihaali, Moti Lal Naaz , Nishat Ansari, Naji Munavar, Santosh, Rasul Pompur and Farooq Nazki are some of the poets who contributed to the development of Nazam. These poets have explored new horizons. The same poets who had discarded the tradition under the influence of progressivism are trying to recreate at present. Poets like Rahi are finding new meanings in Lal Ded and other classic poets. Old idioms are being used to communicate the new meanings. Poet’s creativity has displayed their special use of images and symbols. Modernity was a trend upto 1980 but it could not become a movement like the Progressive movement. It had its influence upon the poets like Rahi. But the circumstances prevailing in Kashmir after 1990 have affected their creativity to a great extent and poetry has become much more topical.

Nadim was the first poet who affected structural changes. He took up abstract themes in his Nazam after 1960. His Naabad Tyathavyan is a milestone not only in the development of Kashmiri Nazam but also in the evolution of Nadim. This poem set a new trend of style, structure and thought in Nazam. Some important poems of Nadim in this context are Kaathi Darwaazaa Pathi Gara Tani, Lakhchi chuu Lakhchun. However his best contribution in this regard are his small poems which have a chain of metaphors, symbols and unlimited scope of meaning. Such poems of his are called Haarisath.

Rahi exhibited many elements of modernism through his poems. His poetry bears the influence of existentialism. The poet seems lost in his agony of loneliness and has no solace and feels bereft of all those things which man had taken for granted as his conventions and support. One of his poems Badbeen (The Cynical) expresses the tragedy of man who has nothing to depend upon. The poetic collection of Rahi viz. Sihya rooda jareen manz is a masterpiece work that shows the changing attitudes and creative evolution of the poet.

Moti Lal Saqi’s three poetry collections( Modury Khaab, Mansar,Neery nagma) show the changing trends of Nazam. His poem Mandore is a fine example of artistic use of symbol and his Vaaraag uses symbol of smoke to express his sensibilities. Majboor’s Tyol presents the trauma of the migration of a large section of Kashmiri pandits following militancy in Kashmir. Almost all such poets communicate the agonies of exodus and it has almost become a trend in literature. It is replete with emotion and is topical to a greater extent. Moti Lal Naaz’s Poshe Kuj presents some fine poems, which are the mirror of his feelings expressed in a suitable style. Rasool Pompur’s Safed Sangar and KhandI contain nice poems.

Some very recent trends can be found in the Nazam of Shafi Shouq, Ghulshan Majeed , M.H. Zafar and even in Rahmaan Rahi . Shouq and Ghulshan’s poems are better understood at an abstract level and they represent to some extent the postmodern trend in Kashmiri poetry. Naseem Shafai sees the bleeding society through the eyes of a woman with wounded sensibilities.

Growth of Prose

It is not known what type of prose existed till 19th century, as no prose work has been found. In 1821 the first effort was made by Serampore Missionaries who got New Testament translated into Kashmiri in Sharda script. The same was reprinted in 1884 in Persian script. In 1879 the first book in Kashmiri was printed and the subject matter of this book was geometry. This book was authored by Pandit Mahadev Gigoo who wrote under pseudonym of Ram Joo Dhar . The book was printed on hand made Kashmiri paper in Kashmir. In 1898 Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal published Ishwarakaul’s Shabda-amrita, a work on Kashmiri grammar in Sanskrit. Moulvi Yahaya’s Tafseer-I-Quraan and Kaashar Kitaab by Agha Sayyad Mohammad with heavy Persian diction were also published.

The Persian script of Kashmiri was not suitable for reading and writing, as it had no diacritical marks. It can be one of the main reasons for the lack of prose till 1947. Kashmiri prose writing did not develop till it got the attention of Mahjoor and Mirza Arif who persuaded writers to write in Kashmiri prose.

The greatest contribution of Progressive Movement in Kashmir is the development of Kashmiri prose. The Cultural Congress stressed on the development of fiction, drama and criticism. It was in the meetings of cultural congress that modern prose really evolved. Since July 1948, Radio Kashmir and since 1958, Jammu and Kashmir Cultural Academy have been doing their best to develop Kashmiri literature and language. The development of Kashmiri prose is actually the development of various prose genres like drama, short story, novel etc.

Kashmir has a rich tradition of folk drama which is entertaining the people over centuries. However, interest was shown by some people in stage and literal drama. Nand Lal Kaul, Tara Chand Bismil and Ghulam Nabi Dilsoz were the first to take steps in this direction. Kaul’s Satuch Kahwat was written in 1929 and staged in Raghu Nath Mandir, Srinagar for four years. Its language is heavily Sanskritsed, yet people took it very eagerly. Dilsoz wrote a play titled Lailaa Majnoon and Shirin Farhaad for a gramophone company. The recordings entertained the people. Bismil wrote Satuch Vath. A big step towards the drama writing was taken by Mohi-ud-din Hajni by his Grees Sund Gara, most probably under the literal influence of Gowdaan of Munshi Prem Chand. In 1944, various drama clubs came into being. The Sudhar Samiti Club wanted to affect social reformation of Kashmiri Pandits through the medium of drama. Due to the efforts of Balraj Sahni, Indian Peoples Theatre Association (IPTA) was established and this had its impact on the development of theatre in the State. The Cultural Front took theatre to rural Kashmir. Its purpose was not to develop drama but rather the theatre was used as a medium, to awaken people politically and socially. Due to the political considerations Bata Har play of Prem Nath Pardesi could not be staged. His second play Shaheed Sheerwaani whose songs were written by Mahjoor was not successful due to the lack of its stage ability. Some plays like Ali Mohammad Lone’s Viz chhi saany, Roshan’s Son Sansaar and Amin Kamil’s Pagaah Chhu Gaashdaar were staged. All the three dramas were published and titled as Kuni Kath in 1955. The impact of Progressive Movement was felt through the medium of drama. Nadim contributed, as usual in this field also .His plays include Zameen chhi Greesy Sonz (The land is the tillers), Nekee ta Badee(Good and Evil),Vaavan Vonnum and the famous opera Bombur ta Yemburzal. Nadim liberated Kashmiri drama from the shackles of other languages by using the diction of the common people with aesthetic effects. The opera was shown to Khrushchev and Bulganin in 1956 when they visited the state. Hemaal-ta-Naagiray was his next opera. Shihil Kul is a drama of bigger canvas and some of its parts were presented through light and sound medium in an open theatre. The Vitasta is an opera with fine musical language. It was a great stage success and the Times of India considered it “ a glorious feast of Colour, dance & drama”. It was staged in many cities of India. Vitasta is the first Kashmiri opera to win international fame.

The writers who followed Nadim include Amin Kamil (Raav Roopee), Muzaffar Azim (Sony Kisur), Ghulam Rasool Santosh(Gulrez), Pushkar Bhan(Dodi Majnoon), Jagar Nath Wali (Zoon) Noor Mohmood Roshan(Choor Bazar)Som Nath Zutshi(Potsh)Aziz Haroon (Soda),Akhtar Mohi-ud-din(Nasti hund Sawal).

Kashmir Theatre Federation formed in 1962 consisted of 17 drama clubs. It helped in the promotion of drama. In 1960, Tagore Hall was constructed and the State Cultural Academy has been organising drama festivals since then. Many new dramatists came to forefront. They include Moti Lal Kemmu, Avtaar Krishen Rahbar , Sjood Sailani , Bansi Nirdosh, Hari Krishen Kaul , Mohammad Subhan Bhagat.

Ali Mohammad Lone wrote Taqdeer Saaz. Kemmu has many plays to his credit. Some of them are Tshaay, Haram Khaanuk Aana and Manzil Nika. Natak Truch is collection of his three plays. Kemmu enriched drama by his stagecraft and creative production. Sajood Sailani wrote Zalur, Rwopaya Rood, Tanate Ku, Shihul Naar, Kajy Raath, Gaashi Taarukh. Other plays in Kashmiri include Hari Krishan Kaul’s Dastaar, Lone’s Chaary Paathir and Suya. Pushkar Bhan’s Rangan handy Rang, Farooq Masoodi’s College Paathir, Rattan Lal Shant’s Shahrag, Kemmu’s Lal bu draayas lolare, Dakh yeli Tsalan, Nagar Woodaasy,RadhaKrishen Braroo’s Reshy Vaar.

Many European dramas have been translated into Kashmiri and some of them have been staged. Radio drama is a very popular genre in Kashmiri. Mention may be made of Pushkar Bhan’s Machama –a social satire, which was a great success. Som Nath Zutshi, Akhtar Mohi-ud-din, Ali Mohammad Lone, Avatar Krishan Rahbar, Soom Nath Sadhu, Bansi Nirdosh, Shankar Raina, Hriday Kaul Bharati, Rattan Lal Shant, Amar Malmohi, Bashir Dada and Sajood Sailani are some of the successful radio drama writers in Kashmiri.

The Short Story

Dina Nath Nadim and Soom Nath Zutshi are the first ones whose short stories Jawaabee Card and Yeli phol Gaash were published in Kwong Posh in March 1950. Arjun Dev Majboor followed with his Kwolivaan. The other writers who started short story writing are Aziz Haroon and Noor Mohammad. Some more writers who came to forefront include Amin Kamil, Umesh Kaul, Ghulam Ahmad Sofi, Akhtar Mohi-ud-din and Deepak Kaul. Short stories of these writers are motivated by the Progressive Movement in form and content. However, these writers introduced the genre in Kashmiri and paved the way for new writers who were not bound by any political convention or some particular social philosophy. They started to think for themselves and this affected their writings. Akhtar felt the change and tried to develop short story according to the demands of creativity. He created realistic situations with moving characters .His short story collection Sath Sangar was published in 1955. His second collection Sonzal shows better growth of his creativity. Amin Kamil’s collection Kathi Manz Kath shows his understanding of character and deep observation of society. Kokar Jung is the most famous story of his. Generally Kamil uses a light satire and tries to tear off the curtains of hypocrisy. Sofi Ghulam Mohammad has two collections Sheesha ta Sangistaan and Loosymuty Taarkh to his credit. He writes fine prose but has less art of characterization. Bansi Nirdosh has three short story collections to his name viz Baal Maraayo, Adam Chhu Yithai Badnaam and Girdaab. Nirdosh has mastered the art of story telling. Avatar Krishna Rahbar’s Tobruk, a short story collection, has fine technique, suitable language and art of characterization.

Short story writers continued with new experiments and more stress was given on character development than plot. Writers like Ali Mohammad lone, Santosh, Bharti, Hari Krishen Kaul and Shant made inroads into new trends. Akhtar continued to develop his short stories with new patterns. Gahe Taaph Gahe Shihul, Rotul, Mayate Kath, Irtqa, Hatak are some of the short stories that show his experiments with structure and the changed attitudes for creating a tense atmosphere with inner conflicts of the character at subjective level.

Hari Krishan Kaul Taaph (Sunshine) written in 1967 is his first short story. His other short story includes Pati laaraan parbat , Haalas chu Rotul, Yeth Razdaanaya and Zool Apaaraum. Kaul’s diction is a mirror of his art. Kaul has his own style and does not bother for experimentation. He has always something to convey and his stories are multidimensional. A tender satire is a pleasant factor in his fiction. The ordinary events of common day life within the frame of a particular culture and a political setup provide the basic substance to his short stories. His colloquial is a beauty.

Rattan Lal Shant has three collections of short stories namely Achhar Waalan Pyath Koh, Trikoonjal andRaevimut Maane to his credit. Shant knows the art of short story and that is why his short stories are well streamlined. He knows the use of words and is never extravagant in his use of language. He presents characters with all sorts of tensions and deals with them with perfect psychological understanding. The short stories in Trikoonjal present a three dimensional social picture where characters act and react with their own motives. Shant writes with perfect understanding of the cultural patterns involved.

Hriday Kaul Bharati’s short stories present abundance of experimentation. His short stories are subjective and are much more abstract. He uses symbols freely and does not follow the traditional plot, character or social setting. His Humzaad, tsakarvyuh, Mili hund Deh are his representative short stories.

Some other short story writers include Bashir Akthar, Amar Malmohi, Ghulam Nabi Baba, Abbas Taabash, Ghulam Nabi Shakir, Farooq Massudi, Gulshan Majid, Shamas-ud-din Shameem, Chaman Lal Hakku, Shafi Shooq, Majrooh Rashid, Nazir Jahaghir, Iqbaal Fahim, Rattan Johar and Makhanlal Pandita.

After the exodus of 1990 some writers have influenced short story writing with their creative activity .One of them is Roop Krishen Bhat. His short story collection Harda Vaav shows that the writer is very conscious about the rapidly occurring changes, their impact upon the individual and society. Roop Krishen’s stories present tensions, conflicts and the helplessness of man who is alienated under the force of unpredictable circumstances.

Novel in Kashmiri language has not developed like in other Indian languages. The main reason for this is the multilingual character of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. There is not much readership for novel. Kashmiri people prefer to read novels in Urdu, Hindi and English. In such circumstances very few novels as listed below can be termed as commendable though none of the novels possesses perfection.

Literary Criticism and Research

Abdul Ahad Azad has the honor of being the first literary research scholar and critic in Kashmiri. He wrote three volumes of Kashmiri Zabaan aur Shayiraa with deep research and critical insight.

Mohi-ud-din Hajni contributed to criticism and research with his Muqalaat and other works.

State Cultural Academy Publications: The Academy published many research works regarding the poets and writers of various Ages. Such Collections include critical assessments by scholars like Mohd. Yusuf Taing, Moti Lal Saqi, Mohd. Amin Kamil and Rasheed Nazki. The Academy also published some collections of folk songs and folk stories. Most of the critical essays written by the individual authors were published in the journals of Academy – Sheeraza and Son Ada.

Mohd. Yusaf Taing is a leading critic with colourfulness of language not quite suited for criticism. However, Taing has a high degree of critical insight, vast study and clear perceptions. Talash is a collection of his critical essays.

Anhaar, journal of Kashmir University helped greatly in evolving literary criticism and expanding the cipher of literary research. Rahmaan Rahi is a very important modern critic with clear perceptions and remarkable understanding. He is well versed in the European trends of criticism. Kahwat is considered the threshold of modern trends in the art of criticism.

Ratan Lal Shant is a well-versed literary critic. He has written many thought provoking articles about practical criticism. His work Kaashur Afsana 'Az-ta-Pagah' is a critical analysis of the merits and demerits of the modern short story. It shows the depth of understanding Kashmiri, English and Hindi literature.

Amar Malmohi’s interest is on contemporary criticism. His Vakshnay ta Vatshnay is a collection of articles presenting objective criticism.

Naji Munawar interest is on research rather than on criticism and Pursaan is his well known criticism.

Ghlushan Majid and Shafi Shouq are critics with modern sensibilities. They have contributed much to the development of criticism and research. Shouq has written Kaashiri Adabuk Tawaareekh.

Trilokinath Raina writes in English and has rendered valuable services to Kashmiri language by his translations, critical appreciations and research. His latest work A History of Kashmiri Literature is a commendable work.

Basic experiments of essay writing were made in the Pratap magazine of S.P College Srinagar. But no serious efforts were made to develop essay for a long time. Some essays were written by Somnath Sadhu and Sofi Ghulam Mohammad. But the pioneer in Kashmiri essay writing is Mohammad Zamaan Azurdah. He made essay a distinct literary form in Kashmiri. He has added colourfulnes to Kashmiri prose by the variety of his essays. Fikar ta Tikar (1980) and Nuna Posh (1986) are his two essay collections. His essays bear the impact of Pitras Bukhari and some other Urdu writers. Humor and satire makes his essays very interesting. He creates humorous situations.

Rasool Pampur and Manzoor Hashmi have also contributed to essay writing. Zaifraan Zaar is a collection of Hashmi’s humorous essays. Zareef Ahmad Zareef makes his essays very interesting by the use of natural Kashmiri idiom. Ghulam Ali Majboor writes fine essays, which seem spontaneous and colourful. Pushkar Nath Dhari’s Cheti Naav is a fine collection of literary and social critical essays.

The Journalism

Prof. J.L Kaul has the credit of using Kashmiri for the first time in print word (1936) in the magazine of S. P. College. It was followed by Lalla Rukh magazine of Amar Singh college. However it was Mahjoor who published Gaash newspaper but could not continue it. In 1949 Pamposh a journal was brought out at Delhi. In 1952 Mirza Arif brought out Gulreez. Information department of J&K Government devoted a part to Kashmiri in Urdu Tameer in 1960. Presently the same institution publishes a bi-monthly literary journal Aalov. This journal has achieved good reputation within a short period of time. The publication of many journals continued for some time but none of them could go on for some considerable period of time. These Journals include:

The above-mentioned journals could not continue their publication for a considerable period of time due to many reasons. The State Cultural Academy has been publishing Son Adab and Sheeraaza regularly.

Kaashur Samachar continues regular publication. Now its under the editorship of S.N.Bhat Haleem. Kshir Bhawani Times (Jammu), Vitasta (Kolkatta), Naad (Delhi), Patrikaa (Delhi) are some of the journals which have a considerable Kashmiri portion in Devnagri.

Samprati is a centre for preserving culture and language of the Kashmiri exiled batch at Jammu. It publishes Satisar, a literary journal in Persian script.

8.5 The Translations

Below is the list of Kashmiri translations worth mentioning:

Copyright CIIL-India Mysore

Journal of International Women's Studies

Volume 21 Issue 6 Article 19

August 2020

Violence and Motherhood in Kashmir : Loss, Suffering, and Resistance in the Lives of Women

Shazia Malik University of Kashmir

Follow this and additional works at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws

Part of the Women's Studies Commons

Recommended Citation Malik, Shazia (2020). Violence and Motherhood in Kashmir: Loss, Suffering, and Resistance in the Lives of Women. Journal of International Women's Studies, 21(6), 309-320. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol21/iss6/19

This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. This journal and its contents may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. ©2020 Journal of International Women’s Studies.

Violence and Motherhood in Kashmir: Loss, Suffering, and Resistance in the Lives of Women

By Shazia Malik1

Abstract This paper examines the social and political context of aggrieved mothers in Kashmir through personal narratives collected by the author. The context for this analysis is contemporary Kashmir positioned precariously in geopolitics. The paper attempts to reconstitute the meaning of motherhood within the context of the ethnic culture of Kashmiri Muslim society. At the same time, it seeks to explore how mothers deal with the political situation that is responsible for the early and violent deaths of their children and offers a discursive theoretical framework to demonstrate how mothers find the meaning in their own motherhood. The paper explores, through two case studies, the degree of choice mothers may have in either restraining their sons from joining the current violent political situation through militancy, or in their active resistance to these engagements. The article concludes with reflections on how mothers make sense of their sons’ militancy by uniting the political with the emotional intimacy of mothering following the death of their sons.

Keywords: Kashmir, Kashmiri women, motherhood, personal narratives, women’s narratives. Kashmiri Muslims, violence and motherhood, militancy.

Introduction This paper examines the social and political context of aggrieved mothers in Kashmir through personal narratives collected by the author. The theme of motherhood as a counter-piece of feminist analyses has re-emerged in recent years for example in the works of Ellen Ross (1995) and Elleke Boehmor (2005). Studies on motherhood, as Ellen Ross (1995) contends, are in the process of moving from the margins to the centre of feminist discussion, and the mother increasingly a subject rather than a distant, looming object2. The context for this analysis is contemporary Kashmir positioned precariously in geopolitics. The paper attempts to reconstitute the meaning of motherhood within the context of the ethnic culture of Kashmiri Muslim society. At the same time, it seeks to explore how mothers deal with the political situation that is responsible for the early and violent deaths of their children and offers a discursive theoretical framework to demonstrate how mothers find the meaning in their own motherhood. The paper explores, through two case studies, the degree of choice mothers may have in either restraining their sons from joining the current violent political situation through militancy, or in their active

1Assistant Professor, Centre for Women’s Studies and Research, University of Kashmir Srinagar , Jammu and Kashmir. 2Ross, Ellen, New thoughts on the oldest vocation: Mothers and Motherhood in recent feminist scholarship. Review Essay Signs: Journal of women culture and society, 1995, 20(2): 397-413

309 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 resistance to these engagements. The article concludes with reflections on how mothers make sense of their sons’ militancy by uniting the political with the emotional intimacy of mothering following the death of their sons.

Methodology Through an ethnographic study, based on two in-depth interviews with aggrieved mothers the present study documents and analyses their firsthand experiences with issues of violence and the political uncertainty to expand traditional notions of motherhood. The present paper also relies on the video recordings of funeral speeches of these mothers. In addition, national and regional newspapers are also important sources of information. It is important to mention here that both of the women I interviewed for this article gave consent for the recording. I have used pseudonyms to replace the identities of the women, their locations and the names of their militant sons, in order to protect their confidentiality and safety. Initially I collected some videos of funeral speeches by the mothers of dead militants, through friends working as photojournalists. Some parts of videos are available on YouTube as well3. After watching the videos, I tried to get in touch with some of these mothers, through my friends working as journalists, and people I am acquainted with, in their neighborhoods. I am highly thankful to my participants who trusted me and shared valuable and painful experiences with me. Talking about their dead sons is extremely painful and tragic; I therefore started the conversations quite informally. Being someone who shares the same community identity, it was not very difficult for me to convince them to speak to me. Throughout the work, I have tried to adhere strictly to feminist standpoint epistemology, an approach to knowledge construction that breaks down the boundaries between academia and activism by engaging subjectivities. I expressed my deep regrets to them for asking them to remember the horrors while unraveling their stories. However, I am burdened by their expectations of sharing their stories in the right contexts, as perceived by them in their own experiences. I recorded the interviews personally with the aggrieved mothers at their homes in district Kulgam, without involving any male member of the family. The interviews took place from December 2018 to April 2019. I interviewed five women and only two have been used for the purpose of this paper. Confirming to the said approach, I strongly agree with Abigail Brook’s argument that women, as members of an oppressed group, have cultivated a double consciousness- a heightened awareness not only of their own lives but of the lives of the dominant group (men) as well4. This approach as viewed by Abigail Brooks, not only takes women as serious knowers but also attempts to translate women’s knowledge into practice, so that what is learned from women’s experience can be applied towards social change and elimination of oppression not only for women but for all marginalized groups5.Indeed, in collecting information, it was assumed that there is no single/unilateral version of truth, and our subjective experiences and social locations determine our perception of truth or falsehood. Based on the narratives collected for the present study, the chief objective is to construct a picture of the gendered experiences of violence by aggrieved

3 See the following inks available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2KmflESf2cE , https://youtu.be/O2FraUTIKtk 4Abigail Brooks, Feminist Standpoint Epistemology: Building Knowledge and Empowerment Through Women’s Lived Experience, IN Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber, Patricia Lina Leavy (ed.), Feminist Research Practice, Sage Publications London, new Delhi, 2007 p.77. 5 Ibid p.76.

310 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 mothers of dead militants. My effort here is to open conversations about the ways in which mothers make sense of the death of militant sons. While doing so, my study seeks to make a qualitative assessment of the impact of violence in Kashmir on mothers. It also aims to uncover the voices of ‘unheard mothers’ to develop broad statements within a feminist framework. One of the efforts is to lend voice to their silence, to provide, as it were, spaces for the articulation of their experiences and agency. My research will, hopefully, allow for further, comparative study and enable interested researchers to build on the idea of discursive responses to motherhood under siege.

Reflections of Motherhood in iconographies of Kashmir In their iconographies, nation-states have emphasized the roles of women that are stereotypes and connected in some way to women’s biological capacity for mothering6. Becoming a mother is a biological function of a woman; however, Adrienne Rich has emphasized that motherhood as both the experience and the institution has a social significance reinforcing a universal feminine role beyond giving birth7. Motherhood demands the raising of infants through adulthood and catering to the needs of the children into adulthood. Judith Butler, who describes motherhood as performative, implies that women become mothers not primarily by biological function, but by their culturally encoded lived realities8. Irene Oh (2009), further explains that motherhood as performative underlines mothers' agency by focusing upon what mothers self-consciously do rather than what mothers biologically are.9 Irene oh (2009) also emphasis the observation of Saba Mahmood, who insists that motherhood as the performative subject can express agency not only through acts of subversion but also through acts of collusion with the dominant culture10. However Margaret and Dana, in their book Muslim Mothering Global Histories, Theories and practices(2016) notes significantly that the Muslim Motherhood has been looked at superficially as passive gendered role in the present global political environment, in which Islam and Muslims are too easily judged and objectified.11Rejecting the dominant western view about Muslim mothering, the book observes there is no unified way in which Muslim women engage in or disengage from the social institution of motherhood12.Julie Peteet in her article Icons and Militants: Mothering in the Danger Zone (2005) approaches mothering as a paradoxical practice that is simultaneously agential and limiting13. Julie Peteet advocates that woman, as icons of the nation, is a cultural construct14. Nevertheless, Zeina Zaatari has observed, in her work focusing on culture of motherhood in Lebanon, that religion has been an important factor which informs women’s activities, choices and practices, aiming to

6Elleke Boehmor, Motherlands, Mothers and Nationalist sons: theorizing the en-gendered nation, IN Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation, Manchester University Press. (2005), p-324. 7Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, 10th anniversary edition, New York, 1986. 8 See for example: Butler, Judith, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex New York, Routledge, 1993. 9Irene Oh, The Performativity of Motherhood: Embodying Theology and Political Agency: Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Vol. 29, No. 2 ,2009, pp. 3-17 10Ibid p-4 11 Margaret Aziza Pappano and Dana M. Olwan (ed.) Muslim Mothering Global Histories, Theories and Practices, Demeter Press, Canada, 2016, p-4 12Ibid p-3 13 Julie Peteet, Mothering in the Danger Zone, In, S. Therese, A. Karolyn and H. Judith (ed.), Gender, Politics and Islam, Orient Longman, New Delhi,2002, p-133. 14 Ibid p.134.

311 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 promote changes, within their immediate locales and in the ‘nation’ in general.15. Muslim mothering, like all forms of mothering, can elicit a range of experiences and emotions that are themselves marked by contradictions, tensions, and even ambivalence16. With this understanding of motherhood, which is neither homogeneous nor passive, which is agential as well as managed, I will try to contextualize what motherhood signifies culturally and religiously in Kashmir. The motive behind going back to traditional notions of motherhood is to see its relevance in today’s politically charged atmosphere of Kashmir. Two mothers in Kashmiri Mythology the mother of Aka-nandun and Lalded are important figures in understanding the nature of a form of motherhood that has been idealized in Kashmir. Kashmiri mythology encompasses all religions that flourished here in the past including Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. One of the Kashmiri myths titled Aka-Nandun features a character of a young prince being slaughtered in front of his parents to teach them the lessons of detachment and selflessness. An extraordinary Saint agrees to give a son to a royal couple who had seven daughters on the condition that they would return the child to him after twelve years. After twelve years, the Saint reappears and asks the father to slaughter the boy. His mother painfully tries to negotiate with the Saint. He asks the mother to cook his flesh. Once the cooking is done, she is asked to serve the cooked human meat to all family members including the dead boy and the Saint. The deserted mother calls for her slaughtered lad. The young prince then appears alive before his mother, without a single scratch on his body, while the Saint disappears. Kashmiri folklorists see this tale as a lesson of sacrifice, selflessness and detachment from this world.17 Thus, the story tells us about the pain and agony a mother experiences when her child is taken away. Also, it would follow that the negotiations that the mother had with the Saint were rewarded in sparing his life, unable to stand the pain expressed by the mother. Her wailing finally touched the Saint’s heart such that he recreated him for her, following the trial he put her through. The story is so much part of present folk culture that any male child, whose mother seems over-protective and extra caring, is nicknamed as Aka-Nandun. In the latter phase of the history of Kashmir, the notions of traditional motherhood changed altogether in another Kashmiri mythical story of Lalded (Mother Lala). Born to a Brahmin family, her domestic life turned out to be a troubled one, and her husband treated her cruelly. Her mother in law often starved her. At the age of 26 Lalded is believed to have renounced home and family and wandered from place to place in search of truth and sang songs in praise of divine love18. Braving trials and humiliation that came her way, she grew in stature to become a questor and teacher. Lalded is regarded as a foundational figure by the Rishi or Sheikh Nurru-din Wali, seen by many as her spiritual son and heir. Lalded lived through a time of seismic turbulence during the Kashmir’s transition to Islam19. Far from being a passive spectator she was aware of the changes in her surroundings–which were leading to a redefinition of state, society and religious affiliations—and was capable of questioning them. She played a significant role in setting the course for the integration of these changes into the historical

15Zaatari, Zen, The Culture of Motherhood: An Avenue for Women's Civil Participation in South Lebanon, Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Duke University Press Vol. 2, No. 1, 2006, pp. 33-64 Duke University Press. 16Op.cit, Irene 2009, p.7. 17The story has been cited from, S.L. Sadhu, Folk Tales from Kashmir, Kashmir News Network, http://www.koausa.org/folktales2/doc/slsadhu.pdf accessed on 06 April 2019. 18Ranjit Hoskote, I, Lalla, The Poems of LalDed, Penguin Classics, India , 2011, p- xvi. 19Ibid, p-xxiv.

312 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 memory of the Kashmir valley.20Lalded thus became an icon of motherhood though she gave birth to none. The popularization of the notion of Kashmiryat or composite culture of Kashmir is attributed to her. Mother Lal as the icon of Kashmiriyat attained a political significance. Describing Lalded, Nyla Ali Khan writes ‘she chose to break the mold of patriarchy in a stiflingly traditional society by not allowing her intellectual and spiritual freedoms to be curbed’21. Thus, the maternal sentiment in the image of the mother, Lala is of an activist aiming to transform the community. Tracing the history of the outbreak of the Freedom Struggle in Kashmir, G.H. Khan (1980), in his book Freedom Movement in Kashmir has noted that the gun makers of Srinagar offered stiff resistance when Gulab Singh sent troops under Wazir Lakhpat22 to take over the charge of the Kashmir valley from the then-Governor, Sheikh Imam-ud-din who had already declared his independence. In the encounter the Sheikh defeated the Dogra forces with the popular support. In the victory, an important role was played by the wife of Sheikh Imam-ud-din. Her subjects conferred on her the title Madar-i-Meherban (Kind-Mother) who took up arms and took the vow not to allow the Sheikh to enter her chambers until he repulsed the invaders. With the help of British Soldiers, the people’s resistance was however, crushed23. Thus, the maternal sentiment in the moments of conflicts and social changes has been central in the region of Kashmir.

Women in the politics of resistance: A background The valley of Kashmir has been described as the most militarized corner of the world. As per the report, Structures of Violence, by the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies (JKCCS 2015), the estimated numbers of soldiers, the paramilitary and the police, deployed in Kashmir were between 6.5 lakh24 to 7.5 lakh.25. In August 2019, after reorganization of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) State as two Union territories, namely J&K and Ladakh, the estimate went up to around 8.5- 9 Lakh Soldiers as per official records26. The roots of the present situation can be traced from the development that followed, after the partition of India. In August 1947, Pakistan and India became independent States in accordance with a scheme of partition provided by the Indian Independence Act 1947. The State of Jammu and Kashmir, having Muslims in the majority, was supposed to accede to Pakistan. However, as James D. Hawley (1991) has ascertained, the Maharaja of Kashmir, accessed the State to India on 26 October 1947 against the wishes of the people of Kashmir. Many historians have questioned the validity of the instrument

20Chitralekha Zutshi, Languages of Belonging; Islam, regional Identity, and The Making of Kashmir, Permanent Black, 2011, p. 21. 21 Nyla Ali Khan, The land of Lalla-ded: Politicization of Kashmir and construction of the Kashmiri Women, Journal of International Women’s Studies, Vol. 9 Issue 1, September 2007. 22 When Maharaja Gulab Singh (the Dogra Ruler) began to expand his state, he first conquered Bhaderwah where one minister, Wazir Lakhpat, rebelled against his ruler and collaborated with Gulab Singh for support. 23 Khan G.H, Freedom Movement in Kashmir 1931-1940; Light and Life Publications, New Delhi, Jammu, Trivandrum, 1980, pp.78 24 A unit in the Indian numbering system. 25Structures of Violence - The Indian State in Jammu and Kashmir, International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian Administered Kashmir (IPTK)& Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), 2015, p-11-16. 26 Vikram Sharma, Forces deploy 1 million to guard Kashmir Valley, THE ASIAN AGE, VIKRAM SHARMA, Aug 18, 2019 https://www.asianage.com/india/all-india/180819/forces-deploy-1-million-to-guard-kashmir- valley.html

313 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 of accession which they believe was manipulated by the Indian Government27. The Kashmir issue was brought to the Security Council by India on 1 January 1948. The Security Council adopted a resolution on 21 April 1948, which provided for a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, to determine the future status of the State28. Since then, the plebiscite has remained a distant dream, and in 1989 the previous secessionist political struggle turned into an armed rebellion. In the post-independence period, the major act that has governed military action in Jammu and Kashmir is the Armed forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (as Amended in 1972). Even a non- commissioned officer can order his men to shoot to kill if he thinks that it is necessary to do so for maintenance of public order. The Act permits arrest without warrants with whatever force may be necessary, against any person against whom suspicion exists29. Under these circumstances, women have seen the deaths of their loved ones, and, frequently, the bread-earner in the family, either a father or a spouse. Every death in the family leads to the destruction of the family, as a viable socio-economic unit, creating an ambiguous space for women’s assertion. At the same time, militarization, as Cynthia Enloe looks at it, is a process that happens at so many levels. It happens at the individual level when a woman who has a son is persuaded that she can be a good mother if she allows the military recruiter to recruit her son so her son will get off the couch30. According to Cynthia Enloe, there is an increasing diffusion of military ideas into popular culture and into social workings31. Recent feminist scholarship on Kashmir has observed that the Secessionist Movement uses the culturally dominant symbols of maternal sentiments for its sustenance, and therefore, bestow them with the title of ‘Mothers of the Martyrs’32. In the 1990s when the resurgence of violence began with the birth of militant organizations like JKLF (Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front), the demonstrations and protests deployed slogans such as:

‘shaheed ki jo mauthai wo quamkihayathai’ (He who dies a martyr, gives life to the nation).

While glorifying the mothers of martyrs, and in turn the martyrdom in itself, the JKLF handed out the Shaheed Maqbool Butt Award to the mothers of those young boys who were killed in the Amarnath Shrine Board agitation, in Srinagar in 2008. These mothers reiterated that they would meet them again in heaven33. Women took to the streets in large numbers, walking alongside their men, raising pro-Kashmiri independence slogans, in the six months long 2016 unrest which started when the security forces killed Hizbul Mujahidin Commander BurhanWani, known as the poster boy of new militancy in Kashmir. Women sang obituaries for his death and told stories— folklore—which conveyed the tragedy of his death and betrayal amidst strict curfews and an

27See for example, Howley James D., Alive and Kicking: The Kashmir Dispute Forty years Later, Penn State International Law Review, Dickinson Journal of International Law Vol. 9 No.1 1991 28Cited from Ibid p. 30. 29Bhasin Anuradha Jamwal, Women in Kashmir Conflict : Victimhood and Beyond, IN, Shree Mulay and Jackie Kirk (ed.), Women Building Peace Between India and Pakistan, Anthem Press India, 2007, p.173 30 Schouten, P. & Dunham, H. (2012) ‘Theory Talk #48: Cynthia Enloe on Militarization, Feminism, and the International Politics of Banana Boats’, Theory Talks, http://www.theorytalks.org/2012/05/theory-talk-48.html (22-05-2012). 31 Ibid. 32 See for example, Parashar Swati, Gender, Jihad, and Jingoism: Women as Perpetrators, Planners, and Patrons of Militancy in Kashmir, Studies in Conflict Terrorism, Volume: 34, Issue: 4, TAYLOR &FRANCIS, 2011, p.310. 33Parashar Swati, Gender, Jihad, and Jingoism: Women as Perpetrators, Planners, and Patrons of Militancy in Kashmir: Studies in Conflict Terrorism, Volume: 34 Issue:4, TAYLOR &FRANCIS, 2011, p.310.

314 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 internet blockade34. The pain and agony of Akanandun’s mother; her negotiations to never let go of her son; and Lalded’s zest to help the community rise from the repression as a collective motherhood for Burhan Wani , all reconstitute motherhood that is politically informed and emotionally stable.

Motherhood and the political subjectivity of women: examining the discourse of mothers Very often when I go to participate or attend conferences/seminars in mainland India, when people learn I am from Kashmir, they often ask me questions regarding Kashmiri mothers. In one such conference held in 2010 at Aligarh Muslim University, a participant asked me ‘Is there any role of mothers in raising the boys who grow up to be militants and stone pelters in Kashmir?” I had no data to support an answer to this query; however, I referred to an old interview of a female separatist, Asiya Indrabi, who had desired her sons should follow the footsteps of Osama-bin Laden and Mullah Omer as their role models (it turned though they grew up to become engineers). To this day I am struggling to find the right answer. Later in an event, one women, while listening a short speech by Shah Faesal35 in a storytelling workshop held at Jammu, expressed “how I wished the sons in Kashmir were raised like you, it is the fault of us as mothers.” That was the moment I decided to interrogate this problem. Her opinion came at a time when Indian mainstream media delivered multiple debates on the growing Islamic radicalism in Kashmir and Kashmiri Muslim women came to be seen as victims of it. Irene Oh, in an article, The Performativity of Motherhood (2009) rightly points out that in today's tense religious and political environment, in which Islam and Muslims are too easily simplified and objectified, to insist upon the complexities of identity and the shared hopes of mothers seems but a small gesture toward the understanding necessary for a just peace36. In the following section, I aim to locate this complexity by examining the present discourses on Kashmiri motherhood through funeral speeches, performance of funeral rites and narratives of the mothers of militants and attempts to challenge the dominant notion of victimhood of Kashmiri Muslim mothers.

Examining the narratives of mothers in Funerals Naseema One is awestruck to see Naseema alongside the dead body of her son, delivering a powerful speech in front of a huge gathering of thousands of people. Naseema began with a public apology: “Please listen my dear villagers, I seek your forgiveness if my son has caused any inconvenience to any of the villager. “She says this repeatedly insisting that she won’t take the dead body for final rites if anyone has any grudge against him. People wailing all along gave her reaffirmations that her son had achieved martyrdom, a status Muslims perceive as the highest reward from Allah. She continues to say, almost with a grudge, “When my husband got killed, I and my children were left alone, and I raised my children with my blood. Today he is gone, and I

34Malik Inshah, Gendered Politics of Funerary Processions; Contesting Indian Sovereignty in Kashmir, Economic and Political Weekly, Women and Kashmir special Issue, Vol II no. 4, Dec. 2018. 35 Shah Faesal is a politician and former Indian Bureaucrat from Kashmir. In 2009 he became the first Kashmiri to top the Indian civil services examination. Soon after joining the civil services he was projected by the state as role model for the youth in Kashmir. 36Irene Oh, The Performativity of Motherhood: Embodying Theology and Political Agency: Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Vol. 29, No. 2 ,2009

315 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 wish he becomes a reason for all of us to enter the heavens. Please oh People, be witness to his martyrdom”.

Saleema Another video that triggered a debate around the symbolism of motherhood being manipulated by the militant outfits on religious lines was of a woman who pulled the rifle of her son’s militant friend who was attending his funeral and shot a bullet into the air (a gun salute). She did not say anything; she first kissed the foreheads of the militant friends of her son claiming thereby her right of mothering to them after her son was no more. There is no doubt that the death of a son is a matter of immense grief to the mother, the family and community members. Funerals are supposed to be a site for expression of shared grief and pain. Traditionally women are expected to throw themselves into the grief by expressing their pain with tears and crying loudly. However, in the above cases, the funerals become political expressions for both the mothers and community members. In the case of Saleema, the gun salute by a mother was the first of its kind, but the public appeal was similar to Naseema’s speech. Both rejected tears and tried to legitimize the action of their sons by openly supporting their ideology. They looked powerful and empowered during the short period (funeral) of life- long pain. Their martyrdom is thus constructed around maternal sacrifice and the intense sentiment of mothering in a charged political atmosphere.

316 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 Examining the discourses on motherhood through personal narratives Naseema I met Naseema (the mother in first funeral video—see footnote 3) at her home in Kulgam. She lost her husband in the1990’s while he was crossing the Line of Control. In their ten years of marriage she bore him five children and never thought she would have to raise them as a single mother. She never received the dead body of her husband and continued to nurture her children with love and the little resources she had. After almost 25 years, her son, who was an active militant, was killed in an encounter in a nearby village. Naseema couldn’t see the face of her dead son, because he was mutilated after being killed and most of his body parts were burnt. Watching her video prompted me to meet her, to see how one makes sense of motherhood in such a politically charged atmosphere. As soon I turned on my recorder, Naseema spoke non-stop, just the way she spoke at the funeral. I was shocked: I expected her to break down, to say ‘I miss my son, his life was more important than his martyrdom’. She said nothing of the sort. She took pride in her son’s identity as militant. Contrary to the belief that mothers of martyrs are guaranteed a place in heaven, she said, ‘while both my husband and son have achieved martyrdom, it does not guarantee my place in the heavens. Allah will judge me by my own virtues’. Justifying his act, she argued her son was interrogated several times in jail, his torture leaving him emasculated and therefore unable to be married. According to Naseema, her son was arrested in 2005 and jailed for more than a year. After his release, she sent him to Srinagar to do masonry work, which he agreed to even though she had made efforts to give him a decent education till graduation. His ill-fate return led to his arrestin 2008, again in Srinagar. It was difficult for the illiterate mother to discover the location of the new jail, but she somehow managed to reach the Zadibal (Srinagar) police station with her daughter. Her son was again released a year later. In 2012 when he was to be arrested third time, her son finally joined the HizbulMujahideen group. With a broken voice she said to me during our interview: ‘how would I give my son? I didn’t. No mother will ever! But I know he had nothing left in life, torture had left him emasculated, he was not allowed to work peacefully and wherever he went they followed him’ while sharing her grief she pointed fingers against her own community. “Who knew my son except his own friends’ relatives and neighbors? He died because someone from my own community first informed about his alleged links with militants and later revealed his location to them when he was active.” She was not ready to accept his militancy before 2012, and she justified his innocence in these words: ‘they assumed my son had links with militants, because he talked to a militant or met him, but he could have been someone from his school, college, village or any relative. After all, those who join share the same blood and soil.’ She quickly added she never asked her son to return. That would be a sin. His mission was much larger than the material goals of life. She is contented that he achieved everything he aspired for. She repeatedly refused to go into grief for her son, and instead talked about his bravery and her own bravery. However, she is still not able to come to terms with the fact that her son’s body was burnt. She said she was momentarily annoyed over her son’s fate but then he came to her in her dreams as her newborn son, and she was more at peace realizing that he was not dead but reborn, a sign of eternity. He is preserved where he came from and where we will all return to—just the way Akanandun37 was reborn. She said earlier she thought it was difficult to visit her son’s grave, but after three months when she went to feel his presence there, she actually felt relieved and could scent a fragrance that she associated with her son. She still feels an eternal bond with him. These feelings have been that the death nurtured through the many funerals where her son has been

37 As a reminder, the son of an overly protective mother in Kashmiri folklore.

317 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 honoured. She discovers contentment in peoples’ reaffirmations about his martyrdom, asserting that his act was a legitimate one in the eyes of her community. Here it is important to invoke Julie Peteet’s observation that in resistance movements the willingness to die is more significant than the willingness to kill. The honour that mothers like Naseema find in the death of their sons is not that their sons killed their enemy but rather, they sacrificed their own lives. As such, political strife becomes a personal sentiment after accepting the fate of their emotional bonding with their sons through their violent deaths. Thus, the personal and intimate sphere of motherhood turns into public and political motherhood after their son’s join the militancy or are killed for being a militant. While they bury the bodies of sons, they adopt their political ideologies more intimately. The discursive analysis provides more explanation of thesis I propose: the intimate becomes political, and the political becomes intimate. But this is not the only way this mother keeps her motherhood alive. She has two more sons. One of her sons who is married has been taken to different camps and police stations for questioning several times, his only fault being that his brother was a militant. Pointing out that this son of hers is physically weak, compared to her dead militant son, she vows to protect him. In our interview, she asked me

‘Why don’t you write about this injustice? When my son, who they think did wrong, has been eliminated, why are they not sparing us now? My other sons are working hard to make both ends meet but they are always mistrusted and put under surveillance’.

Naseema has just arranged the marriage of her youngest son who is still in his early 20s. She explains her reasoning, stating, “what if he is picked up by the army and returns as a man unable to produce offspring?” During all our conversations, Naseema managed to work on house repairs. I tried to engage myself with her grief and her courage, the two, which in practice were inseparable within her.

Sajida Another woman I interviewed, Sajida (pseudonym) lives just three miles away from Naseema’s home. Sajida’s son joined the militancy when he was only in the 10th standard. Sajida, unlike Naseema, is not very vocal nor articulate, but she shared with me the same sense of courage in the death of her son that is being honoured. While I was with her at her home, Sajida’s other son was taken to the camp for questioning. I asked her, whom she would approach for his release? She said no one. She said she goes to meet her son and never expects the authorities to help her. Her son’s pictures holding a Kalashankov are displayed on the decorative wall Almirah (wall shelves) in the guest room. Sajida becomes serious while talking and then suddenly smiles as her eyes fall on the picture of her son. I asked her if her son had sought her permission when he left to join militancy. She smiled and said he didn’t. She remembers though, speaking to him about it when they met after he took up a gun. Her son, she said, had told her that “as a mother you would have never allowed me, and I had made my decision.” Then she quickly adds, “I had three sons, he was the son for my Akhirah (life hereafter), and the other ones take care of my worldly matters’. She had told her son she would have allowed him to go, had he spoken about it. I did not question her, whether she could have done that in reality. However, in her broken voice she said he died a respectable death and has secured his place in

318 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 heaven. Although deep down there is nothing that soothes her as a mother, her separation from her son is bearable because of “divine intervention” but she notes that the agonies build up every day. What keeps her going in life is her concern for her son who lives with her. But even with him she is not free from anxiety: the authorities conduct arrest sprees, day in and day out, not allowing these women to stabilize their motherhood.

Discursive analysis of the emotions of mothering The above two narratives bring out the pain and agony that accompanies the loss of dead sons. In this section I outline four discursive features of the emotions of mothering. Mothering is an intimate feeling and is typically a private sphere for women. However, as the funeral speeches and the narratives of these mothers depict, these women’s experiences collide with political realities associated with the secessionist movement in Kashmir. While their maternal sentiments are emotional, to legitimize the violent death of a son, the mothers express this emotional sentiment cautiously, but politically. Thus, and this is my first point, they own what is political in their intimate world. The legitimacy of what is political around the death of their sons comes from religion and in this case from Islam. Although the political movement may not be a religious movement, the practices and principles followed to achieve the political goals are associated with their particular religion. Both religion and politics are external factors in constructing the performance of mothering in Kashmir. They are external but become intimate and personal. It is obvious from the narratives that the families of militants suffer intimidation by the security forces even after the suspected militants have been eliminated. Therefore, the second discursive domain of the emotions of mothering pertains to their internalization of the sentiment of ‘the political’, which is a process of empowered motherhood. They are empowered in the sense that they negotiate with powerful armed forces to protect their children and their own motherhood, a motherhood that is tested day in and day out, while their other family members undergo intimidation. Inshah Malik points out that the experience of victimization among women encourages women to take control and direct their lives into struggles for change. In this process of change, women are themselves significantly agential rather than mere recipients of the actions of others38. Again, in protecting their intimate private sphere of mothering, they find a way to balance their motherhood, moving between being protective for their surviving sons and being connected to eternity for their dead sons. Thirdly, the kind of language the mothers use while referring to the activities of their militant relatives indicates a conscious use of militant and agentive lexicon While referring to the activities of the men who are/were active militants, they referred to the idea of ‘the field’ very often. In order to infer the period when a person was an active militant, they would say ‘he was active in the field’ thereby operationalising the militancy in the same sense a social activist or a feminist activist might refer to the “operationalisation” of theory. The use of this idea of “the field” indicates that these mothers held conversations with their sons regarding their activities and offers a legitimization while they were still alive. Fourthly, mothers emphasize, overwhelmingly, the harassment they and their families experienced at the hands of armed forces and other state agencies in control, prior to their son’s involvement. The mothers repeatedly voiced this fact, perhaps remorsefully because that is what

38 Malik Inshah. Muslim Women, Agency and Resistance Politics: The Case of Kashmir, Palgrave Pivot India, 2019 p. 4.

319 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020 they believe motivated their sons to join the militant ranks. This is significant because it is a discursive effort to legitimize their sons’ activities after their sons’ deaths. One of the main questions that this article sought to answer was whether Kashmiri mothers hold any power or role in restraining or allowing their sons to join the militancy. Before Naseema’s son joined the militant ranks, she made all efforts to keep him away from it even after the arrest sprees. At one point she sent him to Srinagar to take on masonry work, as mentioned above. This clearly indicates that she had no willful intention of sending her son to join the ranks of the militants. Thus, she was not charged by any religious or political sentiment before he joined the militancy. Though she repeatedly says she never asked him to return. In Sajida’s case too, the son left his home to become a militant without informing any family member. Sajida’s had even told her son once that she would have never permitted him to go, and that she would have made it difficult for him to do so. However, like Naseema, she proudly makes it clear that she never asked him to come back once he made the decision to leave. Their mothering in the intimate sphere is disrupted by the outside political disturbances and not by their own social values and morals. However, once the sons joined, mothers developed a political rationale for their sons’ behaviors.

The Political as the Intimate and the Intimate as the political I do not wish to romanticize Kashmiri motherhood, but it needs to be recognized that their motherhood has a specific political and cultural context that shapes their ‘performativity39’ on daily basis. Borrowing Zeina Taari’s thesis, I argue that Kashmiri Muslim mothers, as with many mothers who live in patriarchal cultures, tend to identify the oppression that they experience more with structural features (militarization in this case) endemic to their societies, rather than with their religious practice or with the men directly in their lives40. Tracing the cultural significance of motherhood in the iconography of Kashmir leads to an understanding of motherhood idealized in daily lives of the community. As mothers they also reveal a political consciousness in their performativity’ and thus they strategically select the choices they make for the survival of their remaining children. Emphasizing the harassment at the hands of security forces and police that has been inflicted on their families on a daily basis, these mothers are not valorizing death; instead, they are seeking preservation of life. The honor associated with the death of their sons (martyrdom), helps them to achieve what anthropologist Nancy Scheper- Hughes has described as “letting go” of the dead ones41. Kashmiri women’s reconfigured maternal practices are of political significance for two interconnected reasons. First, mothers are making their grief public on the world stage, asserting that Kashmir needs their attention; and second, they serve to break down gender dichotomies through political discourse in the public realm to serve their larger political goals. Kashmiri mother’s performativity should be understood within the complexities of ongoing death and destruction and a hope of peace. For Kashmiri mothers, violence and conflict have had a severely tragic impact on them, consciously becoming part of larger political goals. While letting go of their sons—their intimate understanding and acceptance of their sons’ actions for the political cause of Kashmiri freedom—the intimate becomes political and the political becomes intimate.

39As used by Ellen Ross and Saba Mehmood. 40Zeina Zaatari, The Culture of Motherhood: 2006, p-35 41Cited from, Julie Peteet, Mothering in the Danger Zone, In, S. Therese, A. Karolyn and H. Judith (ed.), Gender, Politics and Islam, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2002, p.157.

320 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 21, No. 6 August 2020

The Crisis In Kashmir Has Started A Conversation I Don’t Know How To Have

This year I picked up a pastime I thought was reserved for white people: fighting with my family about their terrible politics.

BuzzFeed News Reporter

I didn’t have a great year, if I’m being honest. In all fairness, my most recent years haven’t been great thanks to my own inherent pessimism, and I really did think that 2018 was going to kill me . But I was wrong. 2019 is the one that almost did me in: I moved to another country, tried to navigate an incredibly hostile city, survived the first year of marriage, and almost bought out the entire country’s worth of antibiotics thanks to a litany of increasingly rare and peculiar illnesses. When I recently complained to my doctor about toe stiffness, he suggested it might be gout, like I’m a rich baby living in the 19th century. (Don’t worry, it’s merely the debilitating arthritis I inherited from my mother.)

Maybe I could’ve navigated 2019 better if I didn’t simultaneously feel like my family was cracking under the pressure of a confusing geopolitical conflict. I talk to my parents a lot — every day, which is shocking even to other brown people. But in my defense, what if one of them dies and haunts me, saying, “Oh, and this is what you were doing that made you too busy to pick up a call from your mother??? ” This year, though, I called less and less. I just couldn’t do it. My mom is smart and my dad is funny, and I like wrapping up my worst days by complaining to them and having them calm me down and build me back up. But lately, they’ve just made me feel alone.

This is confusing and somewhat niche, but bear with me, because you’ll need it to understand why I’ve blocked or muted about half of my family on WhatsApp: In August, the Indian government revoked Article 370 , which up until then, had given the state of Jammu and Kashmir a special status within India, preserving its autonomy. Kashmir, tucked between Pakistan and India, is a much-contested region both India and Pakistan have fought over in a conflict that has spanned decades. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Kashmiri Hindus were driven out of the land after being targeted by Muslim insurgents. This is, at least, the narrative my family, along with other Hindu Indians, tells me, but according to some separatist leaders , the Indian state constructed the exodus in order to incite further conflict and be able to intervene. A hundred thousand Hindus left the valley , with only a few thousand remaining. My family considers their forced removal to be an ethnic cleansing; Kashmiri Hindus have lived in refugee camps for decades since. The conflict in Kashmir is long and complicated, but this New Yorker story is a solid primer on recent tensions in the region.

Since the revocation, Kashmir has been placed under curfew, there are internet and cell service blackouts, journalists trying to report on the region are being turned away, and Muslim residents live in fear. None of this is necessarily new, just better reported, and it’s certainly not unique behavior from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist government. Modi’s record as an Indian politician has been punctuated by his anti-Muslim rhetoric, namely during the 2002 Gujarat riots . India is a stark example of how any country can fall into the deep, dark trap of religious nationalism .

Both of my parents were born and raised in Kashmir, as Hindus in the Muslim-majority state. My mom waxes poetic about Srinagar, her hometown and the largest city in Kashmir; a tourism poster of the city hangs in my brother’s home, and my half-white niece ignores it every day, proof of the privilege my parents wanted her to have when they moved to Canada. As a kid, my mom always told me stories about how my grandparents fled in the early ’90s; they were, as my dad tells me, fearful of being ethnically cleansed as Hindus in the region. I accepted these stories, believing — as I continue to believe — their fear to be sincere. Why wouldn’t I? Children of immigrants often have little history to hang on to — my brother, who was the last of our nuclear family to be born in India, has a birth certificate that’s just a handwritten note that reads “Boy, Koul.” There’s no reason to suspect your parents of biases you’re too naive to understand at 6 or 7. Other than these little stories, I dutifully ignored Kashmir. It was complicated, and I was just trying to fit in around white people. The solution, as far as my child brain was concerned, didn’t involve trying to understand the specificity of a conflict between two brown countries that I didn’t really feel a part of to begin with.

The Indian government’s logic behind the revocation was to create a space for Hindus to return to the region, decades after they had been run out or killed. But what the government did — imposing curfews, blocking internet access, creating a police state — has cut Kashmir off from the rest of the world. Kashmiri Muslims are being targeted by a government that wants to control India’s only Muslim-majority state.

As a human being, it’s been heartbreaking to watch. As a Kashmiri, it’s fucked with my sense of self.

Kashmiri protesters save themselves from the tear gas during a protest against Indian rule and the revocation of Kashmir's special status in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, Aug. 30.

I don’t talk about Kashmir a lot because I don’t feel like I have a right to. I was born in Canada, and nothing really betrays my particular heritage other than my last name. Only other Kashmiris can pinpoint where I’m from, and they do it with glee, which does indeed tickle me, for some reason. Kashmiris find each other all over the world and we cling to the specificity of our heritage. Your mom screams at you all the time? Me too!!!! Kashmiris eat a ton of meat, we perfected rogan josh, we love nadru and tsiri tsot and sheer chai (this last one is truly one of our worst culinary contributions to the world and we should be ashamed). We were raised on Kashmiri ghazals that our other brown friends didn’t understand, because our language was particular, with no real script, and a set of some of the most specific insults known to man. Who knew there were so many ways to tell someone you’re going to fuck their sister? My mom was proud of me when I graduated high school, but she was really proud of me when I got two conch piercings in my mid-twenties.

I wouldn’t argue that 2019 is the worst that Kashmir has been through — 1990 and 2001 and 2016 were pretty bad too. But this year, the revocation of Article 370 led to more visible coverage about Kashmir than I had really seen in recent memory. It’s a region of the world rarely reported on, and the research coming out of the area is often written by and for Kashmiri Hindus. The Hindu narrative is now the prevailing one in most Indian media, aided by the current Indian government, which is deeply nationalistic and outright hostile to Muslims.

The confluence of my age, my recent status as an immigrant (but, like, from Canada so, you know, come on, Scaachi ), and my increasing existential dread forced me to read more and pay better attention and, ultimately, get angrier. Maybe the only thing that’s really changed is now, in my late twenties, it’s not really possible for me to say nothing. The privilege of passivity isn’t mine anymore. I’m the youngest in my family by far, and have been treated as such for most of my life, but you can’t get away with acting like you’re 12 just because your dad still can’t believe you’re competent enough to pay your own rent. (That said, please send money. Beti here needs a new coat.)

{ "id": 123849316 } There’s no reason to suspect your parents of biases you’re too naive to understand at 6 or 7.

But also, my god , does it not feel like every book and television show and movie and article has been about Kashmir this year? I know, logically, that’s not true, but when I was browsing the selection at a bookstore in Miami’s airport last week and found a book about Kashmir tucked between romance novels and thrillers, I felt like I was being followed by a heritage I’ve ignored for most of my life. Information and art about Kashmir reached a fever pitch in my own brain and, seemingly, in the world around me.

It’s easy, when you’re young, to tell yourself that you’ll deal with the hard things when you’re grown: I’ll learn how taxes work when I’m bigger , or, The electoral college will make more sense to me after college. These excuses work just fine when you’re a kid, but time moves faster than you do, and one day you’re 28 and sunstroked and half-drunk in the Miami International Airport and trying not to cry because you don’t understand who you are or where you came from or what you’re supposed to believe. You know you should buy the book about Kashmir, but it feels like an anvil in your hands, like it could crush your own heart. Instead, you get a bottle opener shaped like a woman, her butt connected by springs. She twerks, so you can ignore the fact that your mother’s mother tongue is dying and that you’re fighting with your whole family about the future of your little community.

My family is Hindu — so Hindu that, for years, their stories about Kashmir didn’t include the existence of Muslims at all. Like a lot of Hindus, we were taught to be friendly to Muslims, but not too friendly. We couldn’t marry them or foster any kind of real intimacy. Friendship was fine, but we were warned to not get too close. I didn’t interrogate this with my family. I merely ignored their advice, dated whom I wanted, made close friends with whomever else I wanted, and did my best.

My best wasn’t very good. It rarely is. This year, when I saw my cousins posting celebratory meals and messages of joy after the revocation, I felt like they were living in an alternate reality. It was hard for me to fathom that my own family, who is otherwise quite liberal and thoughtful, could sustain such heartlessness about Muslims in Kashmir. The seeming focus of my family, and of other Hindus in general, was that the ends would justify the means. By disrupting the region further, by creating a larger Indian military presence in the area, by refusing to protect Muslims as a minority class in the region at large, “we” would somehow be able to “return” “home.” For the first time in my life, I engaged in a pastime that I thought was largely reserved for white people: fighting with my family on Facebook about their terrible politics.

Kashmiri women shout pro-freedom slogans during protests after Friday prayers in Srinagar in September.

One particular cousin and I went back and forth for a day, on his page and then mine. One of his friends watched our exchange and called me “a fucker” in Hindi (finally, my weekly lessons are proving useful). My smart, educated, thoughtful family referred to the New York Times’ coverage of Kashmir as “fake news” and the “biased media” refusing to hear the “Kashmiri Pandit side.” The Kashmiri Facebook groups and email lists I’m part of stopped being fun; instead, I was bombarded with chains of people trying to figure out how to get “the real story out there.” On Facebook, my conversation with my cousin dwindled thusly: “It is pretty arrogant to talk as if you have mastered the constitution of India and are able to pass judgment,” he said to me. “Your arguments are passionate but hollow to me, because you haven’t lived the life in that part of the world.” My cousin grew up in Rajasthan, a hot, arid state in Western India, hundreds of miles away from Kashmir’s cold mountains. His context is uniquely Indian and Hindu and exclusionary. Mine is global and anxious and lonely.

We haven’t talked since. I haven’t attempted to. I’m too tired.

My husband, who is white enough to get mad that turmeric stains our kitchen countertops instead of accepting placidly that everything in our home is now yellow, initially found this very funny. “See, now you’re going to have an awkward Thanksgiving dinner too!” He compared it to white people going home to their relatives to argue about their Trump-voting ways, which I guess is apt, but somehow mine feels much worse: My family has real trauma in their history, real fear, and real marginalization. It complicates their narrative significantly. I get where they’re coming from. I just think they’re wrong.

What makes my conflict with my family over Kashmir different than, say, a white person begging their relatives not to vote for Trump, is that my family is suffering from intergenerational trauma. A lot of white people don’t have a history of ethnic cleansing, a family line that’s been disrupted by government and war and death. When my mother talks about her parents having to flee Kashmir in the middle of the night, I believe her, because I can see the light in her eyes dim. I wish I could fix it for her, as if I could make the world less cruel. That doesn’t mean we should consider it acceptable that another family — any family, different from us only by religion — will suffer the same fate, decades later.

{ "id": 123849717 } It was hard for me to fathom that my own family, who is otherwise quite liberal and thoughtful, could sustain such heartlessness about Muslims in Kashmir. 

I’m not interested in fighting over who I think is or isn’t responsible for Kashmir’s lifetime of havoc; I’m similarly not interested in hearing arguments that Muslims need to be “punished” for whatever hand a few of them may have had in destabilizing the area. But for my family, there is real fear there. They remember losing their home. My mom was already in Canada when her parents were driven out.

That’s cold comfort when it comes to seeing my own community commit the same infractions against others. The cruelty that Kashmiri Pandits experienced doesn’t mitigate our callousness toward displaced Muslims. If our home was taken from us, why would we foist that onto someone — anyone — else? None of our trauma, real or interpreted, is a valid reason for generations of lies and propaganda spread about Muslim people. It doesn’t justify Hindus reacting placidly to the subjugation of another religious group. It’s not a mistake that Modi’s government has made Muslims the target of his campaign: It’s a great, quick way to whip up Hindus.

It’s a deceptively simple thought that I keep returning to: When this happens to us, we call it ethnic cleansing. When it happens to Muslims, we call it righteous. In one context, Kashmiri Pandits are victims looking for retribution. In another, we’re a privileged class: fair-skinned, high-caste, with a religion that isn’t constantly being policed by white and brown people alike. (Or, at least, just not in the same way that Muslims are interrogated globally.)

It’s a conflict not dissimilar to the ones progressive American Jews are having now about Palestine. Though the specifics of these conflicts are different at heart, there’s a commonality there. There has to be a way to maintain and understand the historical context of your own people’s suffering while also refusing to pass that legacy down to other disenfranchised groups. There has to be a way to ask for accountability for your family’s grief and displacement without displacing others. Right? I say this to myself every few days, and sometimes it rings so naive and gullible that I can’t trust myself anymore.

I don’t know how to talk about Kashmir with my family, which makes it hard for me to know how to talk about it publicly. I have been told by some of my own blood that I’m not entitled to an opinion on it because I’ve never been to Kashmir, and because I’m not really Kashmiri since I’ve been so whitewashed by the West. But this, to me, just feels like a silencing tactic. If Hindus who live comfortably around the world, who don’t worry about being oppressed by other brown people, aren’t going to speak publicly about the harm their own community is doing, who will?

Over the course of the year, I have attempted to write about Kashmir six or seven times, both for my day job and just for myself. I interviewed other Kashmiris for my forthcoming book to try to make sense of it. At our company holiday party a few weeks ago, I cornered the only Indian immigrant I know in the newsroom and forced her to talk about Kashmir, which mostly meant me screaming in her ear over Pitbull songs. (Sorry, Tasneem, I got excited.) All of my attempts have felt like failures, mainly because this doesn’t feel like my story to tell, and yet it’s the only thing I want to talk about. The topic makes me feel stupid and uneducated and illiterate. My dad, whom I love terribly, finds my anxiety about this all very funny. He has always been liberal, believed in the same things I did, full of compassion, and has always been mindful of how racism and religious prejudices have affected me and our family. Kashmir is his big blind spot. I feel almost desperate when I talk to him about Kashmir, like I just want him to be better about this.

Weeks ago, we fought about the lack of internet and cell service in Kashmir. I argued that it was a tool to keep the people there even more oppressed. He brushed me off, laughed at me, his silly pyari beti . I didn’t call him for a few days after that. My dad has, many times in my life, launched silent treatments against me because of whatever disrespect he seemed to glean from my behavior. This year was the only time in my life I felt completely unwilling to speak to him , a Koul family first.

I don’t even think he noticed.

In March, my family is supposed to go back to India for a wedding, and I’ve asked my mother to go to Kashmir with me. It feels dishonest, somehow, to keep visiting the same places — Agra, Jaipur, Jammu, Delhi — and never go to the valley. My mom hasn’t been back there since she first left, now more than 40 years ago. She’s been afraid to return and refused to bring me as a child in case of regional unrest. She’s willing to go now, but my father is trying to chip away at the idea. His current argument is, incredibly, that it will “rain,” so why bother taking my mother to the very place she was born and grew up? As if rain might wash away the roads completely. As if he isn’t afraid of something darker, more nefarious in the region.

{ "id": 123849731 } We may have been the hunted, sure, but now we’re the hunters. We know better, but we’re not doing better.

My parents are old as hell. Their parents are dead. My brother has forgotten his Kashmiri, and his daughter is so detached from it I’m not sure if she even knows where it is. I feel like I’m running out of time to understand a family history that will soon turn into dust. All year, I felt like something indescribable was being wrestled away from me, and I want some of it back. But do I have the right to it to begin with?

India and Pakistan have been fighting over Kashmir for my lifetime and my parents’ lifetimes. I’m not arrogant enough to think that it’ll get solved in 2020. What I’d actually like is for the unafflicted in this conflict, people like myself, young first- and second-generation kids, to recognize the legacy of trauma that we’re encouraging. I’m not asking for an answer or a definitive explanation. All I really want, to close out this terrible, year, is for my family to acknowledge a hard, complex, and unfair fact: We may have been the hunted, sure, but now we’re the hunters. We know better, but we’re not doing better.

It used to be that when an Indian person heard my last name, or where my family emigrated from, they’d smile and say, “Oh sure,” and we’d move on. But now we talk with trepidation. We’re all trying to figure out where the other has landed. Muslim Kashmiris have, rightfully, treated me with caution. Pandits, meanwhile, assume we all agree. I’ve been most disappointed with the twentysomething kids with no attachment to Kashmir beyond their grandparents’ birthplaces, who parrot what their elders are telling them about Hindus and India’s superiority. India — a country I’ve never lived in but a place that, I assumed, had to take me as I was, in a way that Canada or the US never could — has become more foreign to me.

Does being Indian mean anything, namely as someone who very much might not be Indian? Does it mean anything good ? Can I, this late in my life, eons detached from the place itself, begin to refer to myself as Kashmiri instead?

In my parents’ house, on a long table in the living room, they have a few model shikaras, wooden river boats found on Dal Lake in Srinagar. As a kid, these were merely toys that represented a fantasy world to me, like something you’d see if you fell through the looking glass. It was easy to pretend as if Kashmir wasn’t real, that it was a dream my parents had, and I’d never have to think about it beyond looking at those little boats. I wasn’t allowed to, but I’d play with those boats anyway — tipping them back and forward, peering inside their windows, pushing them along the table, all while imagining a world much less fraught than the one I ended up living in. ●

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• | Kashmir 2019 Siege |

Mother Tongue — A Short Story by Muzaffar Karim

“There is no mother tongue, only a power takeover by a dominant language within a political multiplicity.”

—Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

Yeran chai kuni sonras te kharas, won dui ath karas [1]

T he Goldsmith and the Blacksmith kept smithing separately in his head. He was absolutely clear about what he had to say until he reached Sheikh ul Alam International Airport. The alienated lingual ambience of the airport wreathed around him and the digital ly recorded announcements from unseen speakers swarmed his soul. He shivered and this produced a low humming in his ears that amplified into a pitched tone as if from a shunk . [2] With another shiver , he dismissed this sacrilegious sensation . But the music intensified itself into a shrill noise that pierced his soul. He felt himself personified into Rahim Saeb Sopori’s metaphor — Tanni gaemai rabaab, ragan gayam taarei . [3] Within moments, his entire being reverberated with this song in some singer’s voice , in a tone that he could not recall. The crescendo of Zeer o bam thovtam cheero lo [4] was broken by the Urdu pronounced by the Lady who offered Sultan Kashmiri his boarding pass. At times, when someone talked to him in Urdu, Sultan would pretend as if he had not understood anything . He loved Kashmiri as much as he hated Urdu. He smiled in panic and took the boarding pass. As he passed through the inevitable third round of frisking and checking, a normal routine at the only airport in Kashmir, he did not feel the hands of the Kashmir policeman as creepy as they had felt when the CRPF jawan had frisked him a few moments ago . Maybe because he was a Kashmiri or maybe his entire being was cursing him for smiling and understanding Urdu.

The Goldsmith and the Blacksmith are swapping places.

Frustrated, he looked up and saw an iron-railed ceiling high above him. The ceiling made him look puny while the brown- colored Haer [5] easily flew over to another place. The magnanimity of the architecture compressed his being. “Don’t stand here,” a policeman ordered in Urdu. “You can wait for your flight over there.” He pointed towards the rows of fixed steel chairs where some people were already waiting to board . The Kashmiri – toned Urdu writhed his soul and he wanted to puke, but the new instruction from the policeman directed that feeling back to his stomach. “Did you check your baggage?” the policeman asked humbly in Urdu, but Sultan felt he was hissing like a shahmaar . [6]

Baggage checking was an extra security feature at Sheikh ul Alam Airport which was comparatively easy. You just had to identify your bag from hundreds of others and Sultan had just done it. Disgusted by all the formalities, he asked the policeman in pure honey-dewed Kashmiri, if that was all. Feeling intimidated, the policeman smilingly said that it was all. Taking his seat in the row of chairs where no one was sitting, Sultan began to wonder about this space that was carved right out of his motherland , yet made him feel alienated. He recalled all the checking and frisking that he had undergone . The Urdu smile of the boarding-pass-lady ended the chain. He wanted to relate to this space which was carved out as a tear falling from the earth into the sky. “ Was the place inverted ?” he pondered . Was it the reason for his nausea? He shifted his attention to the external architecture. It was designed like a shrine without the minaret or a dome. The honeycomb designed externals adorned it with a sacredness of Sufi shrines. But all the iron webbing within , profaned that idea. No Sufi saint is buried here, Sultan thought. This place can never be sacred. Was it then a modern shrine for all the liv ing people ready to leave their motherland from within its confines ? Was he dead then? The English announcement from unknown speakers drilled his ears and he courageously shielded them with a verse from Ahad Zargar to contemplate upon his own death and life. The roaring voice of Rashid Hafiz hummed softly with Zind kar mordas seeth sohbath, rind chaali baegrus loal mohbat — Gindnai madd narr wasluk zaar. [7]

The Smiths are taking back their places.

People were moving easily around him. He felt like the only living thing dead-arrested to one place. The place was still alien. The only thing he could relate to was the name — Sheikh ul Alam . He imagined Sheikh ul Alam, wearing a Kashmiri turban and a long pheran while entering the airport. “ Could he understand the place or would he be as baffled as him ?” , Sultan asked himself. Could this place also compress the Sheikh of the whole Alam , reducing him to a dot? Was this thought sacrilegious? Was he going mad? He had to remove the image of Sheikh ul Alam disappearing in his own airport. He sighed and his sigh made him recall one of the Shrukhs of Noor ud Din. Yath waav haali tchong kus zaali, til’ kan zaales ilm tai deen. [8] Was this that place?

He would have settled with the apocalyptic interpretation of the place had not a gentleman carrying an Urdu book sat down two three rows away from him.

Sultan Kashmiri, a reputed scholar of the Kashmiri language and the only living interpreter of Kashmiri Sufi poetry, was travelling to America for the first time to attend an International Conference on the Kashmiri Language. The conference was his own brainchild and it took him three and a half years to materialize it. He wanted all the scholars in different universities across the globe working on the Kashmiri language to gather on one platform and discuss the future of the language. The only condition was that everyone there should speak in Kashmiri. It took time to get people on board but keeping in view the lifelong contribution of Sultan Saeb, everyone agreed. He had charted a manifesto for the conference that opened with a couplet that he was trying to remember.

When the person-with-the- Urdu -book closed the book over a bookmark, Sultan Saeb could see the portrait of Manto gazing at him through those round glasses. A casual hunh [9] broke the gaze and he imagined all the naked prostitutes wearing Urdu sentences that hardly covered their bodies. He went back to the speech that he had prepared in his mind.

Yeran chai kuni sonras te kharas Won dui ath kaaras

The Blacksmith and the Goldsmith share the same anvil, but what they produce is completely different. Pay attention to this skill and you will get all the answers. Obviously the poet is offering a spiritual lesson here, but I want to bring to all of you the unique feature of Kashmiri poetry and language . . . Most of our poets are Sufis and most of them belong to the lower working-class families . . . Nowhere will you find . . .

“ Was Kabir not also from a family of weavers ?” , Manto’s phonemic Urdu prostitute whispered in his ear .

Sultan Saeb had singlehandedly managed to radicalize and popularize the Kashmiri language among the youth. Among many of his books , publications, and interpretations, the most famous was his Kashmiri magazine Shruk , through which he was able to untangle many dimensions of the Kashmiri language. The uniqueness of this magazine lay in the fact that it was a rapporteur magazine based on the literary meetings that were held every 11 th of the Kashmiri calendar. The talks and discussions were minutely recorded and elaborated in detail under his supervision , all of which was then published in the form of a magazine.

Nowhere will you find poets embracing their working- class title or caste as a penname … Wahab Khar … Sochh Kral …

“ Should we dismiss Rumi as elite ?” , whispered a whore with Alif Daal Bae [10] written seductively over her rising bosom. Yunus Emre passes as a hobo through the streets of Sultan Saeb’s mind. [11]

Sultan Saeb’s name was synonymous with the Kashmiri language. His contributions were enormous, so were the anecdotes. A famous one was that he had never uttered a word from the Urdu language in his life. English was out of the question. Some took it as his weakness while others affirmed that he had read every book of every language but remained a Kashmiri all along. Some people even claimed that his Kashmiri surname was just a ploy to hide his low caste.

And they demystify the mysteries of the spiritual world through working- class metaphors … the one that I just recited … nowhere will you find …

“ Chalti chakki dekh kay, diya Kabira roye ” [12] , a whorish laugh hummed.

The tears of Kabir seemed sweet to Sultan Saeb and this terrified him. He opened his eyes, gazed at Manto and pushed him back into the cover of the book. He checked his watch. It was almost boarding time. He looked around but no one seemed to be in a hurry. The Urdu -speaking gentleman in a dashing suit-pant sat comfortably, reopened the book and started reading. Sultan Saeb went up to the policeman to enquire about his flight and came to know that the flight had been delayed due to bad weather. Sultan Saeb walked the long corridor to have a look at the sky. It was dark and cloudy.

When he returned he found his chair occupied by a lady with a tilla -clad pheran . [13] He smilingly accepted the intrusion only to find that the last vacant seat was just beside the man reading the Urdu book. Confused, he again checked his watch, but it was not even namaaz [14] time. Seething with anger, he sat violently and, in the process, jolted the man with his book falling flat on the ground. Sultan Saeb did not want to feel guilty of having caused the prostration of a book written in Urdu. Urdu is a shahmaar , he often said, that is eating the Kashmiri language. He could not help but say sorry. The man picked up his book, smiled and politely replied that it was alright. That smile flashed bright in Sultan Saeb’s eyes. It gnawed his vision. He somehow remembered that sarcastic smile in every detail. It continued to flash before his eyes like the strobing light of an emergency vehicle. He looked at the man’s face submerged in Manto. He knew that face but from where? The thought agitated him beyond his co mprehension . He flashed a thousand faces in his mind but the sharpness of a smile like that found no match. The sharpness of the smile slashed all those faces into pieces only to emerge as the singular face of that stranger. Sultan Saeb fell deep into an unknown abyss but Wahab Khar saved him. He remembered a similar experience that Wahab Khar had had. He hummed to himself – Torre seeth kernam biryanae, jan jan gernam samaanai, gatjar choknam vosta karan . [15]

He came back to his speech.

Yeran is the self … the anvil upon which you will forge your soul … What will you make out of it … Remember the Prophet said, Man arafa nafsahu faqad arafa rabbahu … One who knows Self Knows God …

The ring chiming from the Urdu- speaking gentleman’s phone broke the fabric of his thought. He closed the book revealing Manto’s angular face. The sharp flick of hair caressing his forehead pierced Sultan Saeb’s soul. As the man held the phone close to his ear and began to talk, Sultan Saeb could see his face completely. The face terrified him again , making him shiver from within . H e looked down in a sweat . Manto gazed back at him. He looked up; the man was smiling his usual smile. Terrified, Sultan Saeb stood up and began to walk. He wanted to come back to his speech but the smiths had left their job. The anvil and the tools lay to waste. There was no one in the workshop. The self was broken, the soul empty.

As he walked, he was confused about what was happening to him. Initially, he thought it was this godforsaken airport but now he had apprehensions that it was this fellow human being. He reasoned himself to remove the apprehension and instead focus on his speech. He tried to recall the speech but his mind wandered through the memories in search of that person who in just a moment’s time had haunted .

The self is all we have … Decorate it or forge weapons out of it … No , no , this is wrong …the self should be the anvil to forge the soul … is it not ? … yes … so said the Prophet… is that a hadith or a saying ? …

Sultan Saeb found himself confused. No Kashmiri verse came to his rescue and he thought it better to search for that man from his memories. Is it memory … or is it the fact that he is reading Urdu ? … Do I hate Urdu or am I afraid of it ? … was the face of that man a symptom of that fear?

Urdu is a Shahmaar eating Kashmiri.

“ Aren’t our slogans of Azaadi in Urdu ?” , teased the whore. Urdu is the Shahmaar that will coil itself around the body of the colonizer , breaking its spine.

Rasa Javdani [16] gifts his pheran to Ghalib. [17]

Should we forge weapons ? … is Blacksmith a better interpretation ? … What does   Goldsmith do ? … except decorating the self ? …

Confused with everything, Sultan Saeb found it better to face the fear than to walk away. He moved again in the gentleman’s direction to occupy his seat , which was still empty except that the man had placed his book on it. Manto teased Sultan Saeb with his flick. He courageously moved towards him. When he approached the seat, the man switched off his phone and picked the book up . Ah! That smile, Sultan Saeb felt a sharp quiver.

Is the self to be dismantled or to be forged the main aim of Sufism ? … Anonymity ? … Non-identity ? … was this smithing ? … or to carve out something ? … an identity ? … a greatness ? …

Both the smiths are heavily hammering the anvil as if in a competition.

W atching the man reading, Sultan Saeb questioned himself while resting comfortably in the chair . When did I start hating Urdu or was I always in love with Kashmiri? Was Urdu the raqeeb [18] in his love? He went back to his childhood , and as far as he went , Kashmiri —his mother- tongue— was with him. He tried to remember but to his utter surprise he could not recall even a single memory of his beloved mother. This was terrifying.

Nothingness or Being … crushing the gloated self under the anvil … or decorating it … the hammering of the blacksmith or the goldsmith …

“ Mother, where are you? ” Sultan Saeb cried from within the nothingness of his being. He could only hear the echo of his own emptiness.

One whore was singing Khwaja Ghulam Farid’s Meda ishq vi tu, meda jaan vi tu, Meda deen vi tu iman vi tu [19] … the Goldsmith’s hammering reverberated loudly when the other whore started with Baba Bulleh Shah’s Bullah ki jana mai koun [20] … the hammering of the Blacksmith dissolved the other, reducing it to a lull …

There was no trace of someone called Mother. For a moment, Sultan Saeb forgot every single syllable of Kashmiri. The head of the sacrificial lamb from the last Eid, with its tongue protruding out , came to his mind. Was he a thinking being or a feeling being?

Was Sakr related to Fana or Sahw [21] …

Sultan Saeb felt the voices in his head driving him mad.

Koran paran dod Mansoor [22] …

Was Baqa Sahw or are they entirely different ? …

Wa ma ramaita iz ramaita [23] …

Maei lod Aadam maei dyutus Jaan … Maei zaav Muhammad maei won Koraan … Maei nish non draav malik ul jabbar …

Kafar sapdith korum y aqraar [24] …

He was shivering and feeling cold. He felt as if he would lose control over his bowels and defecate right there. He was trying to recall a Kashmiri verse or a glimpse of his mother that would save him. He was not able to differentiate between the hammering shots of the Blacksmith and the Goldsmith. Only a loud rhythmic pattern syncing the lub-dub of his heart was lashing in side his head. The sound resembled the ancient ritualistic dance of some tribes before their deity or some god dancing over the mountain tops of the Himalaya s, bringing down gigantic avalanches with each swerve and step .

Shav ti shaitaan wuchum ek hi shay [25] …

He felt a nerve snapping from its neural comb. He longed for a verse, a glimpse. Far off from somewhere , he felt a sharp Kashmiri phrase hitting him like a bolt and bringing him back to Kashmir, to Sheikh ul Alam airport, to that steel chair, before that Urdu -speaking gentleman who was talking on his phone in Kashmiri. A smile comfortably yawned over his face. The face was no longer terrifying , although he still had that wistful feeling that he knew him. As he was getting comfortable, the Manto-reading-Urdu-knowing-Kashmiri-speaking gentleman pronounced two words that hit Sultan Saeb like the throes of death — “Punjaeb” “Bihaer”. [26]

It is a chilling , cold morning in a familiar Downtown Srinagar. Sultan is a child trying to fit in with the rest of the boys from the neighborhood . Their wintry mouths are billowing mist . All the boys h uddle in a circle, bring forth their dry wintry hands towards the center and place them one on top of the other . Sultan hurries towards them lest he’s kept out of the game. He cries in Urdu, “ take me in, I will also play ” . The moment he places his hand on top of theirs, a boy with an absolute sharp smile pushes him away declaring in Kashmiri, “Punjaeb, Bihaer … Bloody Hindustani!”

The English and Urdu announcements from the unidentifiable speakers call for the passengers. The gentleman is readying himself. Sultan Saeb wants to do something to him , anything at all , but he does not know in which language. Courageously , he stands before him. Both of them greet each other in Arabic and walk away.

…………….

[1] Yeran chai kuni sonras te Kharas is a Kashmiri Sufi song by Ahmad Dar (? – 1926) which is explained later in the story. Simply translated it means that the Blacksmith and the Goldsmith share the same anvil but don’t share the same craft or the product . Pay attention to this craft, it has spiritual meanings.

[2] Shunk or Shankha is a type of conch shell that produces a high note sound when blown. It holds a sacred place in various religions , especially Hinduism.

[3] Tanni gaemai rabaab, ragan gayam taarei / Zeer o Bam Thovtam Cheero Lo is from a Kashmiri Sufi song by Abdul Rahim Sopori (1755 – 1870). The lines can be translated as: My body turned into a Rubab, My veins became strings,

Stretched and taut, you play me high and low.

[5] Haer is the brown- colored Myna.

[6] Shahmaar (The King of Snakes ) is a leviathan snake with mythological origins.

[7] Zind kar Mordas Seth Sohbat is a Kashmiri Sufi song by Ahad Zargar (1882 – 1984) full of inverted religious symbols to bring home mystic themes. These lines can be literally translated as: While living, copulate with the dead, the licentious give love, Female and Male will then gamble the game of conjugal union.

[8] Yath Waav Haali is a shruk by Sheikh Ul Alam Noor ud Din Noorani (1377 – 1440) commonly known as Nundreshi. He is the most revered Sufi saint of Kashmir. His poems (known as Shruks) are considered a translation of Quran in Kashmiri. The Shruk mentioned here can be translated as: Who will light a candle in this hurricane-town and burn his/her knowledge and religion as the oil?

[9] Hunh is an expression for disgust and repulsion.

[10] Alif Daal Bae is Adab and means Literature in Urdu and Kashmiri.

[11] Rumi and Yunus Emre are famous Persian Sufi saints and mystic poets.

[12] Chalti Chakki dekh key is a couplet (doha) by Indian saint and mystic Kabir Das (1398 – 1518). The line can be translated as: Upon seeing the hand-mill Kabir cries.

[13] Tilla-clad Pheran : Pheran is long garment usually worn in winters and is a part of traditional Kashmiri dress, made fashionable and attractive by embroidering it with silver or golden threads known locally as tilla.

[14] Namaaz : Prayers performed by Muslims.

[15] Torre seeth kernam biryanae is a famous Kashmiri Sufi song by Wahab Khar (1842 – 1912) meaning:

My lover/Master cut me into pieces, chiselled me into beautiful shapes and sprinkled wisdom over them.

[16] Rasa Javdani (1901 – 1979) is a famous poet from Kashmir who wrote both in Urdu as well as in Kashmiri.

[17] Ghalib : Mirza Assadullah Khan Ghalib (1797 – 1869) is one of the famous Urdu poets of the Indian subcontinent.

[18] Raqeeb means a rival or a competitor in love.

[19] Meda ishq vi tu is a song by Khwaja Ghulam Farid (1845 – 1901) which can be translated as:

You are my love, my life as well/You are my religion, my belief as well.

[20] Bullah ki jana mai kon is a kafi poem by the Punjabi Sufi saint Bulleh Shah (1680 – 1757) which can be translated as:

Bullah, who knows who I am.

[21] Sakr is the mystic state when one is intoxicated by God’s vision and is lost. Sahw is the returning from Sakr to sobriety.

Fana is a mystic stage when one annihilates oneself into the being of God. Baqa is a further stage when one regains the self and attains permanency, achieving the ability to enter Sakr and Sahw with ease.

[22] Koran paran dod Mansoor is a famous shruk by Sheikh ul Alam which can be translated as:

Why didn’t you die reading Quran, why were you not turned to dust, why have you not died, reading Quran burned Mansoor up?

A reference to the great Sufi mystic Mansoor Alhaaj (858 – 922), who said Anl Haq (I am Right). In Arabic, Haq is also a name of God and thus can also be translated as I am God for which he was sentenced to death. Some say that he was hanged, burned alive while others say he was cut to pieces.

[23] Wa Ma Ramaita Iz Ramaita is a verse from Quran (Chapter 8, Verse 17) alluding to the episode when Prophet had to leave Mecca because of the atrocities of those who didn’t believe in him. His house was surrounded. So, God ordered him to go out and sprinkle the dust in air. He did so, and they couldn’t see him. Later, God revealed the verse which means that you didn’t sprinkle the dust over them it was I who did it. This episode is one among many episodes that is used as a reference to explain Sakr and Sahw.

[24] Maei lod Aadam maei dyutus jaan is another line from the aforementioned song by Ahad Zargar which can be translated as:

I gave birth to Adam, I gave birth to Muhammad and myself revealed the Quran, I made known the God Almighty, by turning a Kafir (non-believer), I became the one who believes.

[25] Shav ti Shaitaan wuchum ek hi shay is a famous Vakh by Kashmiri Sufi and mystic poet Lalla Ded or Lalleshwari revered both by Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir. An important influence in the spiritual life of Sheikh ul Alam as they were contemporaries. This vakh can be translated as:

Lalla went to find Shiv (God) and found Shiv and Shaitan (devil) together.

[26] Punjaeb and Bihaer are terms of colloquial slang used to refer to anyone who is a non-Kashmiri. It literally means someone who belongs to Punjab and Bihar respectively.

About the Contributor

Muzaffar Karim

Greater Kashmir

Kashmiri Language: Essence & Culture

Language is what makes us human. it is how people communicate. by learning a language, it means you have mastered a complex system of words,….

Mohammad Hanief

Language is what makes us human. It is how people communicate. By learning a language, it means you have mastered a complex system of words, structure, and grammar to effectively communicate with others. To most people, language comes naturally.

We learn how to communicate even before we can talk and as we grow older, we find ways to manipulate language to truly convey what we want to say with words and complex sentences.

Of course, not all communication is through language, but mastering a language certainly helps speed up the process. This is one of the many reasons why language is important.

Language is one of the most important parts of any culture.  It is the way by which people communicate with one another, build relationships, and create a sense of community.  There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today, and each is unique in a number of ways.

Communication is the core component of any society, and language is an important aspect of that. 

As language began to develop, different cultural communities put together collective understandings through sounds.  Over time, these sounds and their implied meanings became commonplace and language was formed. 

Intercultural communication is a symbolic process whereby social reality is constructed, maintained, repaired and transformed.  As people with different cultural backgrounds interact, one of the most difficult barriers they face is that of language. 

Language is an indispensable component of the culture of a nation or people. Language, rather culture, make the identity of a nation. The value systems of western society are different from the eastern society. Values are so deep rooted in societies that it is difficult to isolate or destabilize them. 

The identity of Kashmiri people is their language, Kashur. Kashmiri is the mother tongue of more than one crore people of Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmiri is the language that is blossomed with one of the richest literatures in India.

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has advocated that the medium of instruction is home language/mother tongue /local language/regional language for schools, until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond.

All students will learn three languages in their school under the ‘formula’. Mother tongue use in worship is very essential in communicating the gospel to the deepest level.

About Kashmir and its core language, a recent entrant into the list of the official languages of Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmiri is a language from the Dardic subgroup of Indo-Aryan languages, spoken by about 50 % of the population of Jammu and Kashmir region.

Around 7 million Kashmiris in the Kashmir region speak this language, and it is among the 22 scheduled languages of India. Kashmiri is considered as one of the oldest languages used in the Indian subcontinent. It is widely considered as a Sanskrit language which sounds valid considering the fact that before its conversion to Islam, most of the Kashmir Valley was inhabited by Brahmins.

Kashmiri literature is as old as 750 years; this is the age of the emergence of many modern languages’ literatures such as English. It is one of the oldest spoken languages of India and the constitution of India has recognized it as an official language under Schedule-VIII.

The Kashmiri language has uniqueness of secularism and delicacy of communal harmony. It has the spiritual poetry of Nund Reshi and Lalleshwari (Lal Ded) which is brimmed with mysticism in effect and a true philosophy of life for all irrespective of region or religion.

Indo-European language family is native to western and southern Eurasia, consisting of languages of Europe, northern Indian subcontinent and the Iranian plateau. One of the branches of the Indo-European family is Indo-Iranian.

Indo-Aryan languages, also called Indic languages, are a branch of Indo-Iranian languages. Indo-Aryan languages are spoken by more than 800 million people, mainly in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal. There are more than 200 known Indo-Aryan languages. Dardic is a subgroup of these languages.

Dardic languages are spoken in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, some parts of Afghanistan, and in the Kashmir Valley and Chenab Valley in India. Kashmiri, Shina, Chitral, Kohistani, Pashayi and Kunar are the subfamilies of Dardic languages. The Kashmiri subfamily includes the languages Kashmiri, Kishtwari and Poguli.

Sanskrit influences can be easily seen in Kashmiri. When Muslims ruled Kashmir, the Kashmiri language borrowed many Persian words. In the recent years, Hindustani and Punjabi have influenced Kashmiri vocabulary. Three scripts are used in Kashmiri.

They include Perso-Arabic, Devanagari and Sharada. Roman script is also sometimes used. Since the 8th century AD, Kashmiri was written in the Sharada script. This script is not used today, except for religious ceremonies of Kashmiri Pandits.

Today, Perso-Arabic and Devanagari scripts are used, wherein Perso-Arabic is recognized as the official script of the Kashmiri language and it is used by Kashmiri Hindus and Kashmiri Muslims alike. Unlike other Indo-Aryan languages, many old features of the Old Indo-Aryan have been retained in the Kashmiri language.

Kashmiri has two dialects, namely, Kishtwari and Pogali. Kishtwai is a conservative dialect, used mostly in the Kishtwar Valley. Pogali is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in some parts of Jammu, and is intermediate between Kashmiri and Western Pahari.

Thus, we can see that Kashmiri is a very old and a rich language having its own unique characteristics due to which it stands out from other languages. Spoken by a majority of people in Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmiri got the special status of official language of Jammu and Kashmir in 2020. This decision was greeted by Kashmiris all across the world over and has served as an important step in promoting this language.

When one develops an interest in the Kashmiri language one is tempted to delve deep into history in order to get to know the origins of this ancient language. Least research rather scientific research is conducted and only few commentaries are provided in this direction to provide an empirical treatise with an inquisitive insight on the origin and development of Kashmiri language. The perspectives regarding the discourse of ‘power and language’, which George Orwell explicitly describes in ‘Power and English Language’, in case of Kashmiri language are naive if not absent.

Professor Rehman Rahi, a celebrated Kashmiri poet who devoted his life to promoting and preserving the Kashmiri language and gave its poetry a distinct identity, published more than a dozen books of poetry and prose in Kashmiri and is credited with restoring the language spoken by more than six million people to the realm of literature, lifting it out of the shadow of Persian and Urdu, which once dominated the literary scene in Kashmir.

In the 1950s, he attended a poetry reading session in the village of Raithan in central Kashmir, where a Kashmiri poem was greeted with tremendous applause. Rahi then went onstage and read his work in Urdu, then the region’s official language. That was the beginning of his long love affair with the language, which he described in his 1966 poem “Hymn to a Language”. He also promoted Kashmiri in more concrete ways. He was one of the biggest supporters of a campaign to restore the language to schools, an effort that finally succeeded in 2000. He helped recruit teachers and scholars to teach Kashmiri and created a course to teach it to children.

The evolution of its script and development of Kashmiri language is an important and interesting area of study. The role played by Sufis and Rishis in the development of Kashmiri language is also exemplary and must be documented.

(The author is a regular contributor. )

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.

The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.

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Kashmiri Futures : A Beginning

mohamad junaid is assistant professor of anthropology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. He has a PhD from the Graduate Center, City University of New York, with research on violence, youth activists, and political subjectivity in Kashmir. His work on military occupation, history writing, space, and memory has appeared in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East ; Identities ; the Funambulist ; and several edited volumes and anthologies.

deepti misri is associate professor of women and gender studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is author of Beyond Partition: Gender, Violence, and Representation in Postcolonial India (2014). She is also editor, with Elena L. Cohen and Melissa M. Forbis, of a special issue on protest in WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly (2018) as well as editor, with Mona Bhan and Haley Duschinski, of the Routledge Handbook of Critical Kashmir Studies (2022). Her scholarship on visual culture, gender, disability, and militarization in Kashmir appears in Biography , Cultural Studies , Feminist Studies , and Public Culture .

ather zia is a political anthropologist, poet, short-fiction writer, and columnist. She is associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and Gender Studies at the University of Northern Colorado. Ather is author of Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir (2019). She has edited, with Haley Duschinski, Mona Bhan, and Cynthia Mahmood, Resisting Occupation in Kashmir (2018). She is founder-editor of Kashmir Lit and cofounder of the Critical Kashmir Studies Collective. She is also an editorial collective member of the journal Cultural Anthropology .

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Mohamad Junaid , Deepti Misri , Ather Zia; Kashmiri Futures : A Beginning . English Language Notes 1 October 2023; 61 (2): 1–14. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00138282-10782010

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This special issue inaugurates a scholarly and creative conversation that seeks to detach the future of Kashmir from the narrative, aesthetic, and political frames of powerful nation-states that have sought to keep Kashmiris confined to a long and seemingly enduring colonial present. It seeks, moreover, to inspire radical imaginations of possible futures in danger of foreclosure by occupying states, and asks us to think about occupation as a temporal as well as spatial regime.

What does it mean to pose a question about Kashmiri futures at a moment when the future—understood not as a mere passage of time but a site of unfolding possibility—seems to be disappearing into thin air under conditions of extreme repression, silencing, and surveillance? In the months that we worked on this issue, disappearance was very much on our minds. Kashmiri journalists disappeared into prison cells. Newspaper archives and online websites vanished. Articles that were in preparation for this issue disappeared as Kashmiri scholars, particularly those located in Kashmir, came under increased surveillance. Already on online venues, Kashmiri fiction, nonfiction, and poetry had begun to disappear. 1 It would not be going too far to say that this issue has taken shape around an absence. At its heart lie the silences, hesitations, and self-censorship that authoritarian regimes are known for imposing. The blank pages at the center of this issue are meant to mark this absent presence. Yet, despite the intensifying despair brought on by the conditions of the settler-colonial present, the contributors in this issue have chosen to write, and write, moreover, around visions of liberatory futures.

“Kashmiri Futures” comes together at a critical time for the people of Kashmir. Under settler-colonial assault from the Indian state that, led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), brooks no space for Kashmiri voices, dissent, or dreams, Kashmir is in a moment when imagining alternative futures looks difficult, even absurd. Yet it is precisely at this moment that continuing to imagine such futures becomes a radical act. “Kashmiri Futures” inaugurates a scholarly and creative conversation that seeks to detach the political and imaginative future of Kashmir from the narrative, aesthetic, and political frames of powerful nation-states that have sought to keep Kashmiris confined to a long and seemingly enduring colonial present. 2 It seeks, moreover, to inspire radical imaginations of possible futures in danger of foreclosure by occupying states and asks us to think about occupation as a temporal as well as spatial regime.

For Kashmiris to gather in the form of this special issue and to write and think with each other is to challenge the sense of despair that India’s settler-colonial project has sought to create among Kashmiris. Ever since India occupied Kashmir in 1947, Kashmiris have fought for and refused to give up their UN-sanctioned right to self-determination. 3 The Indian state, on its part, has refused to negotiate with Kashmiris over the question of sovereignty. Instead of resolving the problem, it has persistently sought to change the reality on the ground to foreclose any possibility of a fair political solution. 4 To the international community, India often claims that Kashmiris are with India, yet it does not allow Kashmiris to freely express their will or their opinions. For seventy-five years the occupier state has enforced this politically deflationary condition, which has caught the entire South Asian region in a seemingly endless spiral of zero-sum nationalist hatred and has subjected Kashmiris to relentless campaigns of state violence. From the Kashmiri perspective, this enforced state of being constitutes what we call settler-colonial realism, a state that—while mystifying and obscuring its own condition of production 5 —creates a sense of existence for the colonized that is denuded of any sense of popular agency. Kashmiris are suspended in a space of fear and foreboding, forced to watch the destruction of their society, history, and future. India’s settler-colonial realism has declared not only that any hope for or dream of Kashmiri freedom is a dangerous illusion but also that it is impossible even to imagine a Kashmiri future outside the framework of Indian settler colonialism—which indeed, for Kashmiris, is no future at all.

Arguably, the question of Kashmiri futures has already been at the heart of all activism and scholarship to date in this vein—after all, the long-standing Kashmiri demand for self-determination necessarily looks to a decolonized future. Yet, while an imagination of the future has implicitly shaped the larger field known as critical Kashmir studies (CKS), 6 the latter has rarely explicitly examined the future itself; it is arguably the past and the present that has been much more pressing in our analyses. This is no surprise, for one way in which settler-colonial powers function is arguably by confining colonized populations in the present, partly through a continual manufacture of crisis. 7 This issue rejects such temporal entrapment in the crisis-ridden present, projecting a scholarly, political, and creative vision into a future defined on the terms envisioned by Kashmiris rather than the powerful states that seek to determine Kashmiri aspirations and futures. We take inspiration from and join ongoing conversations around Black futures; Indigenous futures; Palestinian futures; environmental futures; and feminist, queer, and trans futures, offering this issue as merely a beginning in a longer conversation about liberatory futures for Kashmir in the hope of unfolding vibrant conversations across these fields. 8 We also take inspiration from imaginations of the future that are already underway in Kashmiri visual art, protest cultures, and literary and cultural representations. 9 Building on this work, we draw attention to the Indian occupation of Kashmir as a temporal regime that secures India’s territorial control by way of a profound reorganization not only of space but also of time.

• Kashmir’s Settler-Colonial Present

This special issue comes four years after the drastic events of August 5, 2019, when the Indian government unilaterally abrogated Kashmir’s “semiautonomous” status, split the historical state into two directly controlled “union territories,” and opened the “territories” to Indian settlers. Indian authorities have since opened the region to Indian mining contractors and industrialists, given full domicile status to people from the Indian mainland, and redistricted the voting constituencies to ensure victory of Hindu right-wing parties in a region that remains more than two-thirds Muslim. For Kashmiris, especially Kashmiri Muslims, the state has been turned into a totalitarian space. Popular political figures and human rights activists have been in jail since 2019, while journalists and students have been arrested or are regularly harassed. Kashmiri government employees have been fired from their jobs for expressing views even mildly critical of the government. Schools are regularly forced to organize events to salute the Indian flag, sing the Indian national anthem, and organize “yoga days”—which has become Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s regular mass spectacle.

India’s ruling right-wing regime has signaled to its Hindu voters that, by unilaterally abrogating Kashmir’s autonomy and turning Kashmir into a union territory, it has magically ended the “Kashmir problem.” India’s compliant nationalist media lauds Modi as a “strategic genius” for finally showing Kashmiris their place by taking away their “special status” and throwing Kashmir open for Indians who wish to permanently settle there, thus ending the “injustice” against Indians. Furthermore, the abrogation was carried out on supposedly feminist grounds, whereby the Indian government presented itself as a savior of Kashmiri women and LGBTQ people. 10 From the perspective of Indian nationalists, Kashmiris have been rightly and at long last “integrated” as Indians, even if it has meant their political disempowerment and dispossession.

For Kashmiris, the reality of political disempowerment and the threats of forcible demographic change and material dispossession are not new but part of a historical experience that took shape almost right after the Indian annexation in 1947. India has always ruled Kashmir as a colony, sometimes with the support of a tiny comprador Kashmiri elite. 11 The irony of the term special status had never been lost on Kashmiris. It did not signify an exalted or privileged status for Kashmiris. Special meant that Kashmir was a zone of exception and emergency, where human rights and democracy were suspended and the Indian military had special powers of impunity. 12

If anything, the events of August 5, 2019, were meant to give Hindu Indians a feeling of a Hindu conquest over predominantly Muslim Kashmiris. To maintain this sense, the Indian state doubled down on its repression of Kashmiris. Any dissident Kashmiri public voice was to be expunged. The only Kashmiris allowed to speak would be those who used their speaking “privilege” to perform obeisance to Indian nationalism and confirm Indian conquest. If before August 2019 Kashmiris were treated as “anti-national” threats and as proxy enemies backed by Pakistan, now their entire existence as a people was to be called into question. India’s nationalist politicians began to speak of Kashmiris and the “Kashmir problem” in the past tense.

Settler-colonial realism works by imposing its own ontology on the world. It deflates emancipatory politics by demobilizing and demoralizing the Indigenous while giving the settlers a self-righteous sense of being actors in a new stage of history. The Hindutva regime in India has announced a “new India” that countenances no opposition and that will solve all problems with an iron fist. The champions of this new state demand war. 13 To Kashmiris, it tells them that they have no other way than to accept their present condition as the final reality, a fait accompli. It is in this context that imagining decolonial futures becomes more urgent than ever.

• Settler-Colonial Realism, Decolonial Futures

Emancipatory politics must begin with destroying the appearance of a “natural order,” and decolonial politics in particular must decenter settler perspectives, rather than “reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity.” 14 As editors located in American academe but with roots in Kashmir, we asked ourselves what decolonial futures might mean for Kashmir and Kashmiris. In the face of the ever-intensifying attempts by the settler-colonial state to prefigure Kashmiri futures, materially and imaginatively, are there Kashmiri imaginations of the future that break from dominant states’ figurations? If so, what are the narrative and aesthetic forms that have lent and continue to lend themselves to the narration of decolonial Kashmiri futures? How do Kashmir’s diverse communities envision convergent or divergent futures around Kashmir, and what might it take for these futures ever to be reconciled within a decolonial frame? What Kashmiri pasts are implicit in decolonial visions of Kashmiri futures? What does a decolonized future mean in a context like Kashmir, forged through multiple and layered histories of colonialism? Do decolonial visions of Kashmiri futures open up alternate geographies of belonging within and beyond South Asia?

The actual process of decolonization of Kashmir is coterminous with the decolonization of knowledge production about Kashmir. 15 At the outset, this involves understanding Kashmir as having its own history, parallel to that of the regions around it, simultaneously independent and interconnected, rather than as subsumable under the post-1947 Indian and Pakistani states. From this point of departure, Kashmir also needs to be excavated from the post-partition histories of these two big nation-states, and understood as sharing a common condition with many peoples and nations left colonized in the aftermath of the earlier waves of decolonization, which did not lead to the liberation of all the formerly colonized peoples. Decolonization will mean a future in which Kashmiris are not fated to be controlled by one or the other states but can articulate and create their own modes of freedom, which may include modes of imagining freedom outside the bounds of the nation-state altogether. Such a decolonization will need to recognize the authenticity of Kashmiri resistance and decenter the dominant counterinsurgency frame that uses global Islamophobic formulations to preclude Kashmiri resistance as a legitimate political movement.

Imagining alternative futures for Kashmir, especially in the overwhelming context of an emergent settler-colonial state, will also require plotting them in defiant opposition to the material needs of extractive capital, the ideological hatreds of nationalist politics, and the violent logics of state control. Such a decolonial future will need to be imagined and built outside the languages of domination, in a language that breaks apart the dictates of the present despair. Such futures come from the desire to live, thrive, and imagine against the settler-colonial realism that pronounces the settler future an unalterable order of nature and a “done deal.” 16 They involve not simply systematically dismantling the structures of domination and control but also making something new in their place, something that people would have freely made themselves, based on the principle of mutual thriving instead of the zero-sum logic of settler colonialism. It would even involve both stepping into the new yet familiar and returning to the old but forgotten, a future that experiments yet draws on the strength of the tradition. For Kashmiris and all other peoples colonized in the present, this would require renewing the commitment, resuturing the ties among those held down by oppression, and reinvigorating the struggles—struggles that will end only when the soldiers return home to their own country and restore sovereignty and dignity to the people.

Decolonial futures also entail the work of resistance and reinvention at once. Envisioning such futures for Kashmir requires interrupting the epistemic control of the state over the narration of Kashmiri aspirations and desires by insistently foregrounding Kashmiris’ own imaginations of political future. It calls for new formations of selves and identities, alternate geographies of belonging, and new modes of relating that open out to self-determining futures that may not be fully known in advance. 17 It would call all communities invested in the future of Kashmir, including multiple Kashmiri diasporas, to reject the figuration of their homeland as mere territory and to forge other ways of belonging routed through mutual and consensual relations with each other and with the land, wind, and air, rather than with nation-states engaged in an extractive relation to land prefigured as mere territory. Such futures must also be capacious enough to guard against the reproduction of internal hierarchies of caste and gender, and must be driven by values of mutuality and respect.

• Writing, Art, and the Imagination

This issue is a repudiation of the enforced disappearance of Kashmiri writing. It is a protest against the imprisonment of the student Aala Fazili for writing against the occupation, of the editor Fahad Shah for creating Kashmir Wallah as a place where young Kashmiri writers expressed themselves, of the human rights activist Khurram Parvez for diligently documenting the violence against the people of Kashmir, of the journalist Aasif Sultan for his reporting, of the photojournalist Sajad Gul for visually documenting Kashmiri protests, and of the journalist Irfan Mehraj for helping document rights violations. It is a protest against police and judicial harassment of other Kashmiri writers and poets, confiscation of years of their writings, and their forced censorship. It is also a protest against the deliberate erasure of newspaper archives and other historical records. 18

In a recent news story about Kashmir’s disappearing newspaper archives, a young journalist decries the deletion of all her news stories that had appeared in a local newspaper. Significantly, she frames this attack on journalistic writing as an attack on literature. “Journalism is literature in a hurry but it’s literature,” she notes. 19 Meanwhile, a young Kashmiri poet, speaking to a newsmagazine about the muzzling of Kashmiri poets, noted that, although his poems also took on other themes, “the majority of [his] work focuses on conflict, its impact and resistance.” 20 These remarks bespeak a key awareness among Kashmiri writers that the task of witnessing is shared across genres, with poets, journalists, and human rights workers bearing a joint charge in their writing: to give witness to the conditions enmeshing Kashmiris and to record their sense of both the present and the future. 21 In an era of erasure, censure, and repression, the expectations and responsibility placed on poets and writers by Kashmiri literary and civil society fundamentally shape a public understanding of who is a “real writer” and what a writer’s primary charge should be.

Poetry in Kashmir has been a form of “ ehtijaj [protest or dissent], a situated act, a deeply political gesture; written, embodied, commemorative . . . a form of ‘placemaking’ in face of erasure and occupation.” 22 This is true also of other genres such as fiction, memoirs, creative nonfiction, and even academic writing. Increasingly, Kashmiri writers are inhibited from engaging with their political life due to fear of censure. It is no exaggeration to say that writers of resistance literature are fading from the scene, owing either to self-censorship or to denial of space for such writing. Many writers and journalists prefer to remain silent rather than compromise their true expression, and many are changing professions. 23 Academic writing is no exception to these norms, and while editing this issue, we each encountered more than one author who felt compelled to withhold or withdraw his or her submission for fear of punishment by the state. This moment in history is essentially a push to kill true literature in Kashmir, despite the impossibility of such an outcome.

This session seeks to advocate that the State should encourage and invest in literary stories from Kashmir to be published widely so that the imagination of the reader is enthused, and compelled to travel to Kashmir to experience the places and culture in which the stories are weaved, similar to the role that cinema plays by its visuals. This will also help in building a new narrative for Kashmir of its rich heritage of literature, music, folk songs and culture. 25

This instrumentalization of writing to stir the tourist’s desire for the Kashmiri landscape implicitly dismisses the pain borne by Kashmiri bodies.

While promoting literary festivals to subsume the culture of resistance literature that has been part of Kashmir for decades, the government of India allows writing only if it reproduces bureaucratic dictums without question. As one Kashmiri poet, Zabirah (who uses a single name), phrased it, “We are not allowed to breathe until and unless we breathe as per the rules and the wishes of the government.” 26 A great danger is unfolding as a whole era of writing is being annihilated, leaving the archival and literary space emptied of the suffering, desires, joys, and hopes of Kashmiri people. Will writers in the future find any credible record of the present? Will they hear Kashmiri voices of resistance in the archive?

The blank pages at the center of this issue are intended to hold space for writings that have been made absent by state censure, because the authors either retracted them or declined to write. These empty pages are laden with hope—they do not mark a compliant silence, which would be uncharacteristic of Kashmiris, but are there to make note of a forced silencing. In posterity, our hope is that these blank pages will point back toward an excavation of words that were censured and censored in this contemporary moment. 27

• Creative Visions

As we began to assemble this issue, we considered the narrative and aesthetic forms that have lent themselves to the narration of decolonial Kashmiri futures. Is there a Kashmiri futurism in Kashmiri art and literature, we asked in our call for papers? Do Kashmiri writers and artists, like Palestinian, African, and Black and Native American artists, engage futuristic genres to envision a decolonized future? While we could not think of any such fiction, at least in the Anglophone writing and visual work that has flourished over the past decade or so, we received two submissions of short fiction set in a dystopian future. These fictions constitute possibly the first works of Kashmiri speculative fiction on the landscape of Kashmiri writing.

Set in a distant future, both fictions take on the Indian state’s dictate to Kashmiris that they must not only forget the question of their sovereignty but also actively display loyalty to India to live in their historical homeland. In both stories, settler colonialism has annihilated the local culture, tradition, memories, religion, economy, and even ecology. Nothing is the same. In Ather Zia’s story “the land of dreams,” apples and Kashmir’s famed saffron are banned, long enough ago that they have been forgotten. The famous Dal Lake has dried up, and people do not even know what a lotus flower looks like. Kashmiris are not allowed to read or write. Unfortunately, the second of these fictional pieces was withdrawn just as we were finalizing this issue. The author explained: “Thank you for understanding that my circumstances are not ideal for any sort of writing, even if it is fiction set in the future.” This missing short story is one of the disappearing submissions that we have marked with the blank pages in this issue.

Beyond the limitations of speculative fictive futures, we can also see the real terrain of feminist aspirations. In the section for creative visions, we are proud to carry the Kashmiri Feminist Manifesto, written by Zanaan Wanaan, an independent feminist collective including trailblazing young women. Zanaan Wanaan means “women speak,” and the collective first became famous for singing the Italian protest song “Bella Ciao” in Kashmiri. In their manifesto they trace their evolution, their inspirations, and their hopes for a feminist Kashmiri future despite ravages wreaked by the Indian military occupation. They note that their collective is part of a local Kashmiri feminism that has been evolving for years and survives Indian occupation every day. The manifesto reminds us that Kashmir is a political issue and cannot be understood in any other context. It also alerts us to how social patriarchy is evolving around the dynamics between different genders, exacerbated by the acute militarization. The manifesto calls for a feminist future for Kashmir through a concerted praxis of solidarity with transnational feminist, decolonial, socialist, and antiracist movements. 28

• Interventions

In the academic essays included in this issue, engaging futures involves tracing unregimented temporalities and their implications through different registers that range from poetic and visual to ecological to queer and trans. In his article “Future’s Moving Terrains,” Abdul Manan Bhat “turn[s] to poetry, as literary form and as form of knowledge,” to reflect on what he describes as “the grammar of futures under occupation in the modern world.” Drawing on the twentieth-century Kashmiri poet Ghulam Ahmed Mahjur and his use of the Islamic Persianate ghazal tradition, Bhat sees this tradition as a critical conceptual resource for imagining futures and, within it, poetry as “a technology through which futures are postulated, negotiated, and lived.” Bhat shows how in Mahjur’s ghazals the metaphor of “garden” intertwines “the zamīn [land] of Kashmir with the zamīn of poetry,” creating a productive ambiguity and therefore making land and language one terrain. Bhat imagines the poem as a space of congregation, calling on “sounds, bodies, and objects” to come and gather yet again in the garden. What comes after is still to be imagined. Instead of a closure, Mahjur wishes to keep the future’s “door” interminably open. Future for the poet, then, is the act of persistent becoming, an act of persistent congregation.

In her essay, “Weathering the Occupation,” Mona Bhan asks “what it might mean to reclaim weather and climate in Kashmir as geopolitical agents whose effects, force, and vitality, regardless of the Indian state’s pretense to contain them, challenge and unsettle state-sanctioned boundaries.” Writing in the aftermath of the drastic 2019 political changes enacted by India’s BJP government, Bhan shows how the Indian state sought to use weather forecasts over parts of the historical state that have been under Pakistan’s control since 1947 as a way to satisfy the Indian national ambition of “expand[ing] into portions of Kashmiri territory” even farther. Though banal, such forecasts became displays of India’s imperial stamina and colonial prowess. In contrast to the hegemonic state’s geopolitical uses of meteorology and weather forecasts, Bhan describes how in Kashmir weather forecasts are in fact critical for everyday life, and discourses about it animate the public sphere. Understanding the role of weather in Kashmir’s political life, argues Bhan, requires that we center the future because weather’s real political agency lies in destabilizing presumptions about the longue durée ; it carries the force to “unsettle national geographies” and “transform local, regional, or global politics.” Recognizing the agency of weather, Bhan writes, means restoring “Kashmiri histories of ‘preexisting’ relationships and future ‘co-becomings’ with land, mountains, snow, and glaciers, in order to envision futures that exceed the vision (or lack thereof) and temporalities of carceral settler states.” Dismantling weather as a settler-colonial technopower would involve seeing weather as a form of placemaking and thus as an anticolonial political praxis.

Ifsha Zehra’s article, “Notes on Kashmiri Visualities,” turns to art and creative visual cultures as a way to counter “circumstances of visual fatigue and visual stagnancy” after 2019. Whereas documentary and photojournalistic modes of visual representation were a key aspect of the visual cultures of Kashmiri resistance before this, after 2019, with the heightened criminalization of Kashmiri journalists and human rights activists, visual and photographic archives associated with human rights documentation have begun to disappear. With the stagnation of such documentary modes of visual archiving, Zehra calls for a turn to visual art as a way to “push beyond a pessimistic future of dispossession, uncertainty, and hopelessness.” Meanwhile, despite the intensive surveillance of the digital visual sphere, Kashmiris continue to circulate ways of seeing in the digital sphere that bespeak their future aspirations. For instance, Zehra points to Sadaf Wani’s observation that when Kashmiris leave out signs of military occupation in their photographs of the landscape, it is not simply a naive turn away from reality but also an attempt to create a “virtual reality . . . [whereby] people [Kashmiris] can see . . . [or] create the aspiration of a different Kashmir than the one they live in.” Finally, Zehra takes up the digital collage art of a young Kashmiri woman visual artist, Kashmir Pop Art, unpacking the ironic dimensions of her digital collages, which draw on archival photographs from Kashmir in order to project creative visions of Kashmiri futures.

“When the present itself is marked by violence or is perpetually deferred,” Uzma Falak argues, “what does imagining the future entail, and whose privilege is it?” In her article “Resisting the Clockwork of Occupation,” Falak reminds us that imagining futures itself needs time, a luxury not available to Kashmiris. It is not that people’s time is rich with actions or agency but that the state has systematically kept people from imagining different futures “by coercing them into a modality of survival and a forever-exhausting present.” Under such circumstances of violence and other forms of state coercion, Falak writes that the experience of lived time in Kashmir is marked by “a nonlinear, nonunidirectional temporal imaginary in which what we call past, present, and future and the spectrums in between and beyond transmute into each other.” Drawing on her ethnographic research, Falak shows how women’s sonic practices, through an interplay of “ruptures” and “radical in-betweenness,” enact new Kashmiri modalities of liberation praxis, “reclaiming and taking control of their own time.”

Diana J. Fox and Shazia Malik, in their article “‘I Am Very Sexy, Sexy, Sexy’: Expressions of Freedom in Kashmiri Transgender Wedding Songs,” explore the performances of Shabu, a “transgen” wedding singer who rose to popularity after YouTube videos of her performances became popular. 29 Considering a few of Shabu’s performances, they observe the minute ways in which these performances prepare women for marriage “while provoking the patriarchal order, teasing its rigidity.” Fox and Malik also detail how Shabu’s entry into this scene was a result of shifting norms around wedding celebrations in the 1990s, when the conflict forced Kashmiris to downsize the grand wedding feasts ( wazwaans ) of the past. Malik’s interview with Shabu traces how the livelihood possibilities for transgender performers in the wedding economy were heavily impacted as the scale and shape of Kashmiri weddings began to transform—Shabu turns to the wedding economy after her family, traditionally papier-mâché artists, leave that line of work following the decimation of the handicrafts industry in the 1990s. 30 Finally, Fox and Malik offer a detailed analysis of three of Shabu’s wedding songs that have circulated on YouTube, closely studying the lyrics, gestures, and audience responses to reveal how her performances trouble conventional norms of gender, opening up alternative possibilities for gender expression for women.

• Conversations

Included in this issue are three sets of converging conversations that evoke multiple scales of engagement with the futures. In the roundtable “Researching Kashmir: Power, Position, and Ethics,” Mona Bhan, Mohamad Junaid, and Hafsa Kanjwal discuss the future of research in critical Kashmir studies through a close consideration of questions of power, ethics, and positionality that have come to the fore lately. Beginning with a discussion of their own complex positionalities, Bhan, Junaid, and Kanjwal detail how their own locations have shaped their scholarly approach to studying Kashmir and reflect on how researchers might implement self-reflexivity and disclosure to carry out Kashmir research in the future, with attention to both intersectional vulnerabilities of Kashmiris living under occupation and careful attention to differences of access that may exist between Kashmiri (resident or diasporic, Muslim or Pandit) and Indian researchers. They also reflect on the awkward disjoint between CKS and South Asia studies, echoing an impetus within the field to draw out alternate geographies of belonging that compel us to trace relationships to other fields such as Palestine studies, Middle East studies, Africana studies, or Indigenous studies. 31

A second roundtable, “Decolonial Futures: Diasporas, Occupied Homelands, and Struggles for Sovereignty,” features Natalie Avalos, Kealohi Minami, Meta Sarmiento, Reema Wahdan, and Ather Zia in conversation with Faye Caronan (co-organizer Nishant Upadhyay). This roundtable brought together Indigenous, Tibetan, Kānaka Maoli, Chamorro, Palestinian, and Kashmiri scholars, activists, and artists who are engaged in fighting for sovereignty of their homelands. The questions traced how the settler-colonial and imperial nation-states, like the United States, India, Israel, and China, erase struggles for self-determination, sovereignty, and democracy. Neocolonialism and extractive capitalism was a common thread linking all the struggles from Turtle Island to Kashmir. Contributors noted how imperial settler states conveniently stereotype resistance to colonial rule as violence or terrorism, while commodifying land in places like Hawaii and Kashmir, where tourism is deployed by imperial states to obscure colonial conditions. Panelists insisted on centering self-determination, and they defined the pivotal issue of sovereignty through the Indigenous perspective in which people’s material and spiritual relation to land is the basis of sovereignty as well as solidarity among occupied peoples working toward an emancipatory global future.

Finally, our cover image by the Kashmiri artist Khytul Abyad captures a tension at the heart of this issue. In Abyad’s sketch, an army jackboot hovers over a profusion of flowers that recall a long poetic tradition of figuring Kashmir as a garden, as Abdul Manan Bhat reminds us in his article in this issue. Rendering the boot in midair, just before it comes down, Abyad’s image conveys both the beauty of the garden and a foreboding sense that it stands to be obliterated entirely by the jackboot. Yet straining out of the reach of the boot is organic life bound by nature to return, endure, persist. In this ambivalent moment when Kashmiris feel alternately enervated by a fresh wave of violence, and energized by the knowledge that resistance has never died, we submit this special issue as an offering toward futures for Kashmir yet to come, futures that can be tended through the slow and fecund work of the imagination. In that hope we conclude with the call of the poet Mahjur: Come now, O gardener, bring forth the grandeur of a new spring, bring forth means for flowers to blossom and nightingales to dance. 32

Zia, “Enforced Disappearance of Kashmiri Writing.” Ironically, this article itself seems to have disappeared from the internet, along with several other select articles published on the literary blog Kashmir Lit .

Misri, “Dark Ages and Bright Futures.”  

Like much scholarship in critical Kashmir studies, this special issue focuses mainly on the Indian-controlled Kashmir Valley. For a larger set of essays that places Kashmir in a transregional frame, including Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan and Ladakh, see Duschinski, Bhan, and Robinson, Palgrave Handbook of New Directions .

Mushtaq and Amin, “‘We Will Memorise Our Home.’”  

Veracini, Settler Colonialism , 13–14 . We draw here on Mark Fisher’s concept of “capitalist realism,” which Fisher defines as “the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it” ( Capitalist Realism , 2 ). Indeed, this sense is continuously reproduced by the capitalist cultural industry, which immobilizes imagination. Settler-colonial “realism” seeks to create a similar sense, insisting that the colonized must accept the condition of their own powerlessness as an unalterable reality.

Bhan, Duschinski, and Misri, Routledge Handbook of Critical Kashmir Studies .

Hawari, “Radical Futures.” Hawari makes a similar observation in the context of Palestine: “[Palestinians] are locked in a continuous present in which the settler-colonial power, Israel, determines temporal and spatial boundaries.”

Joronen et al., “Palestinian Futures” ; Keeling, Queer Times, Black Futures ; Medak-Saltzman, “Coming to You from the Indigenous Future” ; Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip .

For an overview of the many artistic representations of the “Kashmir calendar” by artists like Mir Suhail and Maria Shahmiri, or by groups like Aalaw, see Misri, “Dark Ages and Bright Futures.”   Nitasha Kaul’s novel Future Tense (2020) also offers an important fictional elaboration of the question of Kashmiri futures.

Mushtaq, “Militarisation, Misogyny, and Gendered Violence” ; Bhat, “Kashmir’s LGBTQ Community.”  

Kanjwal, Colonizing Kashmir.  

Junaid, “Death and Life under Occupation.”  

Chandrashekhar, “Indian Media Is War Crazy.”  

Fisher, Capitalist Realism , 17 ; Tuck and Yang, “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” 3 .

Junaid and Kanjwal, “Contesting Settler Colonial Logics.”  

Kauanui, “A Structure, Not an Event.”  

Bhan, Misri, and Zia, “Relating Otherwise.”  

Kashmiri media have essentially been gagged, with a law passed in 2020 that not only endorses but has also institutionalized censorship in Kashmir. Even a small social media post that hints at criticism of India leads to arrest and censure by the state. Many Kashmiris have been jailed for as little as responding with an emoticon.

Al Jazeera , “Kashmir Journalists Say Local Newspapers Erasing Their Work.”  

Zargar, “‘In the Disconnected Land.’”  

Sinha, “Everyone’s a Poet of Loss, Memory, and Madness in Kashmir.”  

Zia, “Poetry as Dissent,” 417 .

Adnan, “Journalists Switch Professions.”  

These include the Gulmarg Literary Festival, the Kumaon Literary Festival, and the Kashmir Literary Festival.

Kumaon Lit Fest, “This session seeks to advocate that the State should encourage and invest in literary stories from Kashmir.”  

Yasir, “As Kashmir Crackdown Endures, Poets Stifle Their Verses.”  

Kashmir Lit Team, “DELETED: Forcibly Disappeared Kashmiri Writing.”  

The Ladies Finger , “Decolonial Feminist Statement on #MeToo in Kashmir.”  

As Fox and Malik explain in their article, transgen is local parlance in Kashmir for “transgender.”

Shafi, “‘We Want Dignity.’”  

Ali et al., “Geographies of Occupation.”  

This translation of Mahjur’s famous ghazal is taken from Abdul Manan Bhat’s article in this issue.

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Mother Tongue First: Kashmir And Kashmiri Language

Co-Written By: Zeeshan Rasool Khan& Eram Hameed Khan

Wilhelm von Humboldt aptly said: “Absolutely nothing is as important for nation’s culture as its language”. Culture and language have the deep-rooted relationship with language constituting an indispensable element of culture. The latter is key component involved in nation building and can be termed as oil that keeps nation and society functional. However, the transmission of culture from one generation to other is possible only through the language. For preserving a culture and identity, safeguarding mother language is of utmost significance. History bears witness that people struggled and are struggling for domination of their mother tongue in many of states in India. Having said that, in Kashmir; there was a time when terms like ‘Poen’ and ‘Nabb’ were used in lieu of existing, originally Persian Urdu words, ‘Aab’ and ‘Aasmaan’, meaning water and sky respectively and are no longer heard from any corner. Slowly and steadily we are turning disloyal to our cultural and native language_Kashmiri. Despite our ancestors, educationists, scholars of past were committed for protecting it, who always favored putting their ideas, thoughts forth through local language and even translated religious scriptures into Kashmiri but ruefully scenario has changed a lot. We prefer Urdu and English over local language, prioritize schools with “English Medium” tag over others.

Teaching other languages is the need but at the cost of mother tongue has posed a challenge. The present generation is incapable of putting anything on paper in the language they had inherited. The situation has worsened to the extent that speaking Kashmiri symbolizes illiteracy and backwardness for many. People nowadays converse mostly in other languages rather than Kashmiri.In some homes parents stress children to talk in non-native languages; they sometimes react against the child for going native. Even discourse of our religious preachers is largely based on non-native languages so that they will be deemed well-learned.Sometimes we speak Kashmiri but that too seems to be hotchpotch of words from different languages.Now except(spoken) by veterans, Kashmiri writers and many Kashmiri Pundits,Kashmiri in its original form is hardly spoken anymore/ anywhere.

However, for years now, Government along with several organizations came into motion and is endeavoring to preserve, promote and popularize the mother tongue. Some educationists, religious scholars, and common people are taking pains to keep this language alive. Some institutions confer awards with this motive that is encouraging and awe-inspiring. Many daily newspapers are published in the Kashmiri language in addition to books on diverse issues especially poetry. A positive development that took place is that the youth have started playing the role. Many youths have picked up the pen to gather their opinions in the mother tongue. Some have produced award-winning collections, inspiring others to return back to roots. Education department acting swiftly introduced the Kashmiri language in the school curriculum and declared it compulsory subject at secondary level. Results are good; students have started showing interest again which is emboldening. But lot more has to be done to cope with existing challenges.

Teaching Kashmiri in schools is applaudable. It has caught the attention of students towards this language. However, there is a need for further improvement. In most of our schools’ teachers who have been assigned to teach Kashmiri are from varied academic backgrounds. At some places science teacher teaches Kashmiri, at other an Urdu teacher, consequently, they fail to comply with the requirement of students and the latter remain almost untutored. This problem can be solved with ease but demands sincere action. We have no dearth of Kashmiri knowing people. Many youngsters are holding a master degree in Kashmiri but the state of affairs has cast them down. Their qualification has never been valued instead they are mocked by so-called scientists and philosophers of the era. The better strategy is employing them productively. This will not only be a booster for students but will provide an incentive to others to choose Kashmiri as their subject of studies thus furthering its promotion. Other school teachers and administrations need to be concerned about the matter and must not force children to use other languages; rather they must translate what they teach and encourage students to do projects on different themes in their own language. This will bring about more clarity in concepts and eliminate confusions if any.

Similarly, Organizations making efforts for its promotion need to intensify their activities. Besides encouraging Kashmiri-literary people, organizing awareness programs to educate general masses about the importance of native language is also the need of time. Organizing seminars, essay and quiz competitions, debates within schools and colleges on the importance of mother tongue can be constructive. Creation of web pages in the Kashmiri language, devising Kashmiri language keyboard apps for computers and cell phones can also be advantageous. Use of Signboards, advertisement boards, posters and hoardings written in Kashmiri may help in long run. Parents who believe by speaking Kashmiri, their progeny cannot compete with others must know that credible researchers suggest that a child need to attain critical level of mother tongue proficiency that would result into increased success in second language acquisition, i.e., Perfection in “First language” will lead to excellence in acquired languages so there is no question of incompetence. Parents have the crucial role as they are the one, who can carry it (Kashmiri language) on to next generation. They need to realize the significance of mother tongue and make serious efforts for its persistence.

Moreover, the positive and collective approach of all individuals belonging to every section of society is decisive for future of Kashmiri – language. Let’s us all take the initiative to protect our language, the integral part of our culture and identity. Otherwise if this vehicle of intangible cultural heritage is lost, it will have serious repercussions on our society and nation as well.

Zeeshan Rasool Khan , writes on current socio-political issues , Contributor at Kashmir Reader Srinagar

Email : [email protected]

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• My Mother Essay

An Introduction to the Essay

The word Mother is a very pious word and whosoever is called by the name ‘Mother’ is a person who sacrifices and prioritizes her children over anything. Her whole Life revolves around the well-being of her child, their growth, their development, and their welfare. A Mother not just only gives birth to a child but she takes a Lifelong commitment to take care of her child. 

The only unconditional love in the world is the mother's love. My mother is my inspiration, my superhero, my best friend, and my guiding light. My life would not have been beautiful without my mother. Through ups and downs and in every step of life, she holds my hand and supports and encourages me. No matter what happens, my mother is always there beside me- cheering me up and motivating me. All mothers in the world are great and so, we should not celebrate their contribution in our life on Mother's Day only, which is 10th May, but every day of the year and throughout their life. It is because no gesture of appreciation is ever enough when it comes to acknowledging our mother. Her selfless love and sacrifice are the precious of all gifts under the sun.

An Essay on Mothers

My Mother- The Multi-Tasker

Mothers play an important role in everyone’s Life since she acts as a Protector, a Friend, and Guide for Life. A Mother does everything selflessly for her child and without any condition. There the love of a Mother is known to be Unconditional. 

The way she manages my family with utter dedication and devotion is inspiring. The relationship with my mother is something very hard to explain. I do not merely love her because she is my mother and we should respect our elders. I love her because she is my world and when I was not able to speak and communicate she took care of me, time and time again. The best part about my mother is that even though I have grown older she knows and understands my needs without me speaking a word. I learned kindness and love from her. She taught me no matter how bad a situation might get, only love can improve it in the most effective way. She has been the rock-solid pillar of my life and in every big moment of my life. 

My Mother has constantly supported me throughout my entire Life, whenever I am in a danger or in a situation where I am stuck, she has always been there for me, protected me, and guided me. She has been my favorite teacher who has taught me about Life and the beauty of it. She is the essence of truthfulness, sincerity, and lots of love. The only person who holds our family together is my Mother. She cares for everyone in the house and for the ones in need outside the house as well. One of the most beautiful things that I learned from my mother is empathy. Be it strangers or animals, she treats everyone equally which makes her more amazing. Moreover, she taught me to not hurt anyone on purpose and help people whenever possible. Not only this but also she taught me to not differentiate among rich or poor, beautiful or ugly. She says that it is the heart of a person that makes them beautiful and rich and not temporary possessions. 

My Mother is my constant source of encouragement, be it in Life or in school for studies. She has always inspired me to do other activities along with my studies. She has taught me to enjoy every aspect of Life and live Life to the fullest. She wants me to do those things in Life as well which she could not do or pursue. She is my backbone for everything. My mother has inspired me through her hard work and sacrifices. She taught me once never to get disheartened by failure and to keep challenging the failure with our honest effort. And one day, failure will pave the path to our success. The strength of facing hurdles and overcoming it is what I have learned from her. 

Mothers have never-ending qualities even though they do not get much credit for their goodness and hard work. She binds everyone in the family and plays a very important part in everyone’s Life. Even when I do something wrong in Life, she scolds me but at the same time, she makes me understand and helps me to get out of the situation. She forgives me after every mistake but ensures that I’ve realized my mistake first. She is the most selfless human being I have ever encountered in my life till now.

My mother knows me in and out. Even if I am lying she catches me immediately and I start feeling guilty. We should never lie to our parents and especially, to our mother. They simply do not deserve it. Mothers spend a significant part of their lives making us capable of standing on our own feet. Sometimes, they have to sacrifice their own career and happiness for that. So a mother's trust should never be destroyed. And when it comes to my mother, I would not change a bit about her. She is the best chef, reading partner, and an independent working woman who can balance almost everything with utmost perfection. Even her imperfection makes me proud of her. Without my mother, I would never become a better human being. My Mother is my biggest strength and makes me, even more, stronger when I go through all my ups and downs in life. The best thing she possesses is her patience. The patience she has is difficult for anyone to have. She deals with every situation in the family, in my life, or even in her Life with so much patience because of the reason the family is bonded so strongly. It is the responsibility of every child to appreciate their Mothers and give them the love and respect that Mothers deserve.

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FAQs on My Mother Essay

1. What is the role of a mother in a family?

Mothers provide an ideal environment for the family and are the best role model in everyone’s Life. She is the one person everyone in the family can totally depend on in Life. She is the only one who asks every member of the family at the end of each day if they’ve had their proper meals all day long or not.

2. What does a Mother do to provide a comfortable life to her children?

A mother works hard day and night in order to give her children a comfortable life. She teaches her children to believe in themselves and have faith in themselves and never give up on Life. She teaches them moral values and the difference between right and wrong and how one decision in their lives can impact their futures.

Kashmiri Dictionary

Mõaj – mother

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