Haider is the first Hindi movie that tells the story of life during the worst phase of militancy in Kashmir and the equally strong response of the Indian army. The fact that Vishal Bharadwaj adapts Hamlet to tell this story is a testament to his skill. Every aspect of Hamlet from his quest of revenge, his stress induced insanity, the sexual tension with his mother was present in the movie. But what I loved the most about this movie was that the point of view of Kashmiri separatists was not mellowed down. In fact, it was so in you face, that I am surprised the sanghis and their goons haven't gone about doing their usual drill of throwing black ink at Vishal Bharadwaj's face or demanding that the movie be banned.
I have always held a view that people should have the right to determine their destiny and nothing should be forced upon them. I have never articulated this in the Kashmiri context and this is a nice opportunity to do so.
Living in constant fear is one of the worst ways to live. And for those ten odd years the Kashmiris lived extremely horrible lives. On the one side the militants were going about terrorizing people and to compete with them the Indian state basically laid siege on the entire state. Random ID checks, restricted movement, nightly curfews, rounding up of entire villages were the norm. People the army had the least amount of suspicion on would 'disappear,' with their families having no clue of what happened to them. And these were not isolated cases. Obviously the militants were no saints, but if torture and more violence was the only response the Indian state had, there isn't much to differentiate the two.
All these are pretty much old stories. But given the passive whitewashing our media gives the situation we never hear the actual narrative. Most poeple in India in this day and age of the internet still tend to believe that most most of Kashmir as depicted in the stupidly erroneous maps that we see in our textbooks or newspapers to be Indian territory and only a small portion is in Pakistan or China's control. The fact though is about 1/3rd of that territory has not been in Indian control since our independence. A fact that is not going to change by drawing maps as we wish. We even forced google to represent it in this way and not to even use a different legend to show the disputed borders. And all this to pacify a hard-line constituency that thinks that shouting out your opposition and taking other people's freedom is super macho. So even beginning to criticize our army or our government for forcing our army onto Kashmir is just asking for trouble.
The only people who should have a say in all this are the Kashmiris including obviously the pandits. The pandits were a group of people who actually looked to us for support and we could not defend them when the militants began terrorizing the state. And unfortunately most pandits today don't see Kashmir as a home. Its associated with too much negativity and hate. If this changes,it would probably be a prominent silver lining to this fucked up situation.
Both India and Pakistan have obviously reneged on the promises made to the people of Kashmir. Forget a plebiscite, Kashmir continues to remain a heavily militarized state. When I visited Kashmir in 2010 this stood out clearly, especially around Srinagar. There would be armed personnel(I cannot remember if they were army, paramilitary or the police) every 100 metres or so. Compare this to the rest of India where even finding a pandu with just a lathi is not the easiest thing. If you let the military decide they are always going to say that we need greater control else we will go back to terror.
Unless there are huge causalities a military does not walk out voluntarily. The Indian army may be disciplined but armed forces by default exist to put fear into people. They are not some cuddly teddy bear that protects. And however disciplined they are given the power they enjoy there will be excesses. Also once you have the taste for power who will give it up? I mean why is AFSPA(Armed forces special powers act) even a thing. Even if somebody makes some crazy argument for it in Kashmir how can it be justified in the north east. Decades after insurgency has died down there it continues to give the army a free get out of jail pass. Its like we want to alienate people there. Every now and then a home minister will say we need to remove AFSPA from there only for the army and the defense ministry to say nothing doing.
The argument that Kashmir is a special case also does not hold. Punjab saw intense militancy during the Khalistan movement. K.P.S Gill did everything the army did in Kashmir and probably more to root the militants out. But once the extremists were rooted out thing went back to being normal. People in punjab don't live in the shadow of the gun. Why should people in Kashmir and the north-east have to. Also we share a super long border with Pakistan. Why is it that only Kashmir is so heavily militarized?
Keeping the militarization aside for a moment a lot of people in India love to make the argument that Indian tax payers have funded a lot of development activity in Kashmir. How we have constructed roads and dams and bridges and the railways. I don't know if they pause to think once in a while. But these are classic arguments provided by colonial powers. The British provided almost the exact same arguments when they colonized us. Heaven, without the freedom of choice, is not heaven after all. A lot of people died to help us achieve freedom. For us to then turn around and use this freedom to colonize another set of people is extraordinarily fucked up.
Given the economic growth India as a whole has seen and the goodwill generated by the inflow of most tourists from India, all you know, Kashmiris, at least in the parts that have been controlled by the Indian state, will choose to throw in their lot with us. If people in India really think Kashmir is that important then we should convince them that aligning with us is the sensible thing to do. Subjugating the people by force is not how this should be achieved. This will only produce the opposite of your aims. Eventually, I submit, it is for the people themselves to determine their future.
I have always held a view that people should have the right to determine their destiny and nothing should be forced upon them. I have never articulated this in the Kashmiri context and this is a nice opportunity to do so.
Living in constant fear is one of the worst ways to live. And for those ten odd years the Kashmiris lived extremely horrible lives. On the one side the militants were going about terrorizing people and to compete with them the Indian state basically laid siege on the entire state. Random ID checks, restricted movement, nightly curfews, rounding up of entire villages were the norm. People the army had the least amount of suspicion on would 'disappear,' with their families having no clue of what happened to them. And these were not isolated cases. Obviously the militants were no saints, but if torture and more violence was the only response the Indian state had, there isn't much to differentiate the two.
All these are pretty much old stories. But given the passive whitewashing our media gives the situation we never hear the actual narrative. Most poeple in India in this day and age of the internet still tend to believe that most most of Kashmir as depicted in the stupidly erroneous maps that we see in our textbooks or newspapers to be Indian territory and only a small portion is in Pakistan or China's control. The fact though is about 1/3rd of that territory has not been in Indian control since our independence. A fact that is not going to change by drawing maps as we wish. We even forced google to represent it in this way and not to even use a different legend to show the disputed borders. And all this to pacify a hard-line constituency that thinks that shouting out your opposition and taking other people's freedom is super macho. So even beginning to criticize our army or our government for forcing our army onto Kashmir is just asking for trouble.
The only people who should have a say in all this are the Kashmiris including obviously the pandits. The pandits were a group of people who actually looked to us for support and we could not defend them when the militants began terrorizing the state. And unfortunately most pandits today don't see Kashmir as a home. Its associated with too much negativity and hate. If this changes,it would probably be a prominent silver lining to this fucked up situation.
Both India and Pakistan have obviously reneged on the promises made to the people of Kashmir. Forget a plebiscite, Kashmir continues to remain a heavily militarized state. When I visited Kashmir in 2010 this stood out clearly, especially around Srinagar. There would be armed personnel(I cannot remember if they were army, paramilitary or the police) every 100 metres or so. Compare this to the rest of India where even finding a pandu with just a lathi is not the easiest thing. If you let the military decide they are always going to say that we need greater control else we will go back to terror.
Unless there are huge causalities a military does not walk out voluntarily. The Indian army may be disciplined but armed forces by default exist to put fear into people. They are not some cuddly teddy bear that protects. And however disciplined they are given the power they enjoy there will be excesses. Also once you have the taste for power who will give it up? I mean why is AFSPA(Armed forces special powers act) even a thing. Even if somebody makes some crazy argument for it in Kashmir how can it be justified in the north east. Decades after insurgency has died down there it continues to give the army a free get out of jail pass. Its like we want to alienate people there. Every now and then a home minister will say we need to remove AFSPA from there only for the army and the defense ministry to say nothing doing.
The argument that Kashmir is a special case also does not hold. Punjab saw intense militancy during the Khalistan movement. K.P.S Gill did everything the army did in Kashmir and probably more to root the militants out. But once the extremists were rooted out thing went back to being normal. People in punjab don't live in the shadow of the gun. Why should people in Kashmir and the north-east have to. Also we share a super long border with Pakistan. Why is it that only Kashmir is so heavily militarized?
Keeping the militarization aside for a moment a lot of people in India love to make the argument that Indian tax payers have funded a lot of development activity in Kashmir. How we have constructed roads and dams and bridges and the railways. I don't know if they pause to think once in a while. But these are classic arguments provided by colonial powers. The British provided almost the exact same arguments when they colonized us. Heaven, without the freedom of choice, is not heaven after all. A lot of people died to help us achieve freedom. For us to then turn around and use this freedom to colonize another set of people is extraordinarily fucked up.
Given the economic growth India as a whole has seen and the goodwill generated by the inflow of most tourists from India, all you know, Kashmiris, at least in the parts that have been controlled by the Indian state, will choose to throw in their lot with us. If people in India really think Kashmir is that important then we should convince them that aligning with us is the sensible thing to do. Subjugating the people by force is not how this should be achieved. This will only produce the opposite of your aims. Eventually, I submit, it is for the people themselves to determine their future.
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P.S: Haider is an excellent movie irrespective of your political inclinations. I would highly recommend that people watch it.
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