By Jasreen K. Mayal

If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here—Jehangir, 5th Moghul Emperor on Kashmir.

Flowerbeds and Ruins

Kashmir’s beauty is as captivating as its tragic story of violence. Its deep green forest landscapes are embellished with widows’ wails. The intimidating Himalayan mountain ranges are inhabited by terrorist groups and military containments. However, the framed pictures in my living room tell a different story of a previous time. In one photograph I see my parents honeymooning in a houseboat on the Dal Lake, laughing and shivering. In another picture, I see a flower-market on the lake. About twenty boats filled with exotic flora float on rippling blue waters, and a vendor helps my mother jump from one boat to another. The violet and orange blurs in the photograph fascinate me. Today, pictures of burnt huts and broken earthen vessels lying around the ghost towns of Kashmir fill Indian and Pakistani newspapers. Like most Indians, I too, grieve Kashmir’s slow destruction.

Daily, there are 20 deaths in Kashmir—the state which comprises the Northern tip of India and part of Pakistan. It was a hotly contested territory even before India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain in August 1947. Under the partition plan provided by the Indian Independence Act of 1947, Kashmir was free to accede to India or Pakistan. The Maharaja-- Hari Singh, who was Hindu, wanted to stay independent but eventually decided to accede to India in return for military aid and a promised referendum. Since then, Kashmir, which has a large Muslim population, has been the flashpoint for three India-Pakistan wars: the first in 1947, the second in 1965, and the third in 1999. In addition to this conflict, a brutal separatist movement against Indian rule in Kashmir started in 1989.

More than 45,000 people have died around Line of Control in Kashmir—one of the most volatile borders in the world. Terrorist groups and armies from both countries violate the lives of Kashmiri citizens. An unfortunate result of this is that most Indians from to my generation have not visited the most beautiful part of our country and probably never will. Kashmir is cursed beauty; manipulative politicians have clawed her natural terrain and guerilla raids have set her landscapes on fire. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has looked on as passive spectators.

Indian and Pakistani governments have turned a deaf ear to the screams that echo between the mountains. They do not consider giving Kashmir independence since they believe that it will eventually result in amalgamation of the state with either India or Pakistan. But who is listening to what Kashmiris have to say? Frustrated with their situation of constant warfare, Kashmiris live with a background score of machine guns and bomb shelling. These peace-loving citizens have been forced to rise up against the tug-of-war between India and Pakistan which has killed their men, raped their women and placed guns in the hands of small children. They want relief from such regularly inflicted tortures.

The international community has left Kashmir to boil between India and Pakistan. Since historical facts don’t provide a clear answer to this complicated situation, the UN titled Kashmir, “disputed territory” and refused to mediate or pressure India and Pakistan to resolve the issue. Talks between India and Pakistan have fluctuated over the past five decades. The Kargil war in 1999, however, emphasized the long term effects of negligence towards Kashmir’s status. Relations between India and Pakistan have improved recently and yet neither country has shown initiative in discussing Kashmir’s independence.

BBC correspondent Sanjoy Majunder traveled across Indian controlled Kashmir to bring their pleas in front of the world. He relates the life stories of Kashmiris like Ghulam Mohiuddin Khan, 24, who works as a waiter in the ski resort town of Gulmarg. He has been approached by the militants for recruitment purposes; they offer incentives to the youth to join their struggle. However, if the Indian military gets a hold of militants then they stand to lose their lives. Caught in the war between these two groups, violence is a huge part of his life. The elections in 1987 raised the hopes of Kashmiris; however, these elections did not reflect reality. Rajiv Gandhi, the prime minister of India then, is believed to have modified the elections results to place one of his comrades as Chief Minister of Kashmir. The rigging of those elections played a large part in anti-Indian sentiments among the population; for Ghulam it was a loss of hope. “I don't have any big dreams… I would like to have a quiet life with a steady job, nothing too ambitious. Just enough to make ends meet,” he says.

Radhakrishnan, 74, is a Kashmir Hindu migrant who has been living in a refugee camp in Jammu for the past 13 years. He was a resident of Kashmir his entire life until 1989 when Islamic groups began to attack Hindu minorities in Kashmir to drive them out. His own community members began to turn on him. He left his home and possessions in the border district and went to Jammu for protection. Soon after he left, his home was burnt down by militants. Previously the owner of a two storied house, Radhakrishnan now lives in one room with his wife, two sons and their wives. When the women want to change their clothes they use a dark corner in an alley. Radhakrishnan asks: “I was born in Kashmir - it's my home. Why should I be asked to go away? Why can't I die there?” The governments of India, Pakistan, and the international community are answerable to him. The only question is how long they will avoid his accusatory eyes as they stare from behind the television screen.

Sajjad Lone, 35, took over leadership of the separatist People's Conference party after his father, Abdul Ghani Lone, was assassinated. A proud Kashmiri, he refers to a time when the crime rate in Kashmir was almost zero, and rapes were unheard of. The advent of the separatist movement in 1989 was a turning point for Kashmir. The conflict switched from being political to being violent. Lone speculates that the blatantly rigged elections in 1987 were a catalyst for this change. His patience and faith in India-Pakistan’s prolonged discussions about Kashmir’s future are admirable. “All of us want to go back to the Kashmir that was, the Kashmir of peace,” he says. “Every day that we delay talks we add at least 18 to 20 people to the list of casualties.” He believes that Kashmiris are just as capable as anyone else; he simply asks that they be given an opportunity.

After more than five decades of political instability, turmoil, and continual violence, Kashmir is broken. Before the insurgencies made it unsafe, the Kashmir Valley overflowed with tourists, mostly newly wed couples; the local markets or lakesides were alive with activity in the evening hours. Now it is decorated by empty villages; the huts are a scary reminder of the lack of human presence. Army patrols pass by occasionally. Mostly these people just wait for someone to notice. They apologize for the clichéd headlines: Bomb Kills 12 in Ladakh. They selfishly wish some important person was kidnapped here. Someone might notice then.

The international focus on Kashmir sharpens only when India and Pakistan come scarily close to the brink of a nuclear war. As the citizen of a third world country, I am often frustrated by this attitude. Ideally the best solution for Kashmir’s problem is pronouncing it a sovereign state based on territory as opposed to religion. India and Pakistan would never agree to that option. Splitting Kashmir between India and Pakistan would be complicated and spur even more wars, not to mention the large numbers of minorities that would be displaced as a result of it. The Security Council in the United Nations is one of the few international groups with the power to pressure India and Pakistan to stop obliterating this picturesque valley. Unfortunately for Kashmir, it refuses to help.

I’ve met Kashmiri merchants in Bombay, India on several occasions. They sell ornately designed carpets to my mother and express delight at the Kashmir display in our living room. When they talk to her about “those days,” I see their hazel eyes brighten. We are often invited there; the scare of terrorists that has left Kashmir isolated saddens these people. Their pale skin and pink cheeks are startlingly beautiful in brown-skinned India, but the shadows in their eyes reveal more than I would like to see. Like their homeland, these beautiful people are helpless.

Muzamil Jaleel, a journalist in Kashmir, considers himself to be part of Kashmir's cursed generation. He says that he has become immune to the death of his own people and has developed an inability to mourn. He urges the international community to resolve issues between India and Pakistan. “It seems that the outside world too is unable to feel the pain of Kashmir… It is not only important in order to avoid a nuclear conflict: it is imperative to end the suffering of the Kashmiri people,” he says.

I am a patriotic Indian and yet I advocate for Kashmir’s independence. Some find it strange that I value the lives of Kashmiri children more than India’s pride. As a citizen of India, Pakistan, or the world we have a choice to make. We can be silent and let the bloodshed continue. Or we can speak.

Image Courtesy Corbis