[In recent times, especially the last year, there has been
relative calm in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, a mostly Muslim
region held by India and claimed by Pakistan. The attacks of militants
demanding that the region be removed from India’s control have abated after
nearly two decades of violence. Local support for the militants has diminished
considerably, although the desire for freedom from India and to become a
sovereign republic has not, nor has hatred for the Indian Army, which has a
formidable presence here.]
By Manu Joseph
 |
Fayaz Kabli/Reuters
Tourists at a ski slope in Gulmarg, 34 miles from Srinagar, Jammu and
Kashmir, Feb. 7, 2012.
|
NEW DELHI
— There was the smell of hay and soil in the crowded village hall in the
Kashmir Valley. The men were on plastic chairs in the front rows, and the women
were in the back ones. The doorway was packed with adolescent boys and young
men with fierce, translucent eyes. The only sound in the room belonged to the
speaker, with occasional deep-throated exclamations of men and honest applause
of all.
A district magistrate in India
usually does not enjoy such attention.
But in this cluster of farming villages on the slopes of a
hill, 60 kilometers, or 40 miles, from Srinagar, a city of paradisiacal beauty
and the capital of the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir,
people will listen with great care to any man who tells them how he plans to bring
roads, electricity, jobs and good schools to their villages, which have been
impoverished by decades of strife.
In recent times, especially the last year, there has been
relative calm in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, a mostly Muslim
region held by India and claimed by Pakistan. The attacks of militants
demanding that the region be removed from India’s control have abated after
nearly two decades of violence. Local support for the militants has diminished
considerably, although the desire for freedom from India and to become a
sovereign republic has not, nor has hatred for the Indian Army, which has a
formidable presence here.
Facing the villagers in the hall was one of Kashmir’s stars,
the 29-year-old deputy district magistrate, Dr. Shah Faesal, who has a degree
in medicine. Almost everybody in Kashmir is beautiful, and Dr. Faesal’s clean,
studious, good-boy charms are somewhat unremarkable in this room.
What made him the center of attention is the fact that two
years ago, he ranked first among more than half a million candidates in the
Union Public Service Commission examination, one of the most prestigious in
India. Dr. Faesal was the first Kashmiri to top the civil service exam, an
achievement that brought a procession of ecstatic, drum-beating people to his
home when news broke on television channels.
When it was Dr. Faesal’s turn to speak to the gathering,
there was spirited applause. A young woman, a local journalist whose head was
covered, blushed as she stood holding a recording device close to his face. She
almost never met his eyes through the course of his speech.
Dr. Faesal has a firm but reverent style of speaking. He
told me after the meeting: “I respect everyone. It is very useful to be that
way, but I am not putting on an act. I address every person I meet as ‘Sir,’
including the village women. They love it when I call them ‘Sir,’ and they
start laughing. Nobody has ever called them that.”
He said that the recent period of peace in the region was
not a window of deceptive calm, but the first sign that common sense was
finally winning. He wants to make the most of it to bring development to
Kashmir’s poor.
Vivanta by Taj, one of the two five-star hotels in Srinagar,
is an immediate beneficiary of peace. The hotel is set on top of a hill of
tulips and ancient trees and is surrounded by great, snow-capped mountains. It
is guarded like a fortress by armed men, but many of its defenses are not
visible to the pampered guests.
A security official, who had undergone a month’s counterterrorism
training in Israel, told me that the hotel had its own intelligence gathering
system, which includes using a network of local residents for information about
anything unusual in their neighborhood.
It had been about 10 months since the hotel opened, and all
its 48 operational rooms were booked, even though February was not peak season
in Srinagar. The revival of the tourism business is evident all over Srinagar.
Honeymooning couples from across India are arriving in droves, confident that
they will return alive.
The simplicity of peace can end at any moment in Kashmir.
There can be another attack by militants, or street protests of Kashmiris
against the Indian Army that can last days. But the people here are growing
confident that this may be a new beginning they had wished for.
The restaurants and cafes are filled with happy
conversations. The joy is visible in the people walking down the streets, many
of whom look pregnant because they are holding, under their long checked robes,
a cane-wrapped pot filled with burning embers of coals to keep warm. They are
so used to it that they, including Dr. Faesal, can go to sleep with the pot of
red coal
between their legs.
When the meeting in the village hall was over, some elders,
the district magistrate and Dr. Faesal went upstairs for a feast. There were
huge pieces of fried river carp, and chicken and lamb, which the men tore into
with both hands, their fingers growing luminous with oil. And they boisterously
discussed things to be done in the villages.
Dr. Faesal has a cheerful face even though his life has been
marked by tragedies that are common to thousands of Kashmiris. His father, a
schoolteacher who spoke against violence, was killed by unidentified gunmen a
decade ago. Before that, Dr. Faesal’s father was one of the thousands of
Kashmiris who were routinely humiliated by the Indian Army, he said.
“Once, after a terrorist strike, the army just picked up
some men in revenge and beat them up,” he said. “My father was among them.”
According to Dr. Faesal, his father was also forced to
recite a Hindu chant, “Ram, Ram.”
After the meal, the district magistrate left in a car that
had a red light on it, and he was followed by armed guards and an old, battered
ambulance, which had nothing in it but a narrow bed. It might as well have been
a hearse. As the ambulance made its way through the unpaved village lane, two
little girls mimicked the sound of the ambulance siren.
During the long years of conflict here, that had been the
predominant sound of childhood.
Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and
author of the novel “Serious Men.”
TIBETAN WRITER SAYS CHINA IS BLOCKING HER FROM AWARD
The embassy is giving Woeser an award from the Prince Claus Fund. The fund’s Web site says the award is given out annually to individuals and organizations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America “for their outstanding achievements in the field of culture and development.”
By Edward Wong
BEIJING —
A prominent Tibetan writer living here in Beijing said on Thursday that the
police had placed her under house arrest to prevent her from receiving a prize
for culture from the Dutch Embassy.
The writer, Woeser, said in a telephone interview in the
afternoon that there were police officers downstairs in her apartment building,
where she lives on the 20th floor. She said she was unsure of the exact number,
but had noticed at least two men in a car outside the main door and others
waiting nearby. She said Beijing police officers came to her apartment on
Wednesday night and told her she would not be allowed to receive the award. “I
told the embassy last night that I probably won’t be able to go this evening,”
said Woeser, who like many Tibetans goes by only one name.
The embassy is giving Woeser an award from the Prince
Claus Fund. The fund’s Web site says the award is given out annually to
individuals and organizations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America
“for their outstanding achievements in the field of culture and development.”
Woeser, who has written critically of the Chinese
government’s policies in Tibet, said she had planned
to go the Dutch ambassador’s residence on Thursday at 6 p.m. to have dinner and
receive the award. The ceremony was originally to have been at the embassy but
was recently moved to the residence.
Woeser said the police might stay at her apartment
building for a couple weeks or even a month. “I just asked them how long
they’ll be there, and they said they don’t know,” she said.
Security in Beijing has been bolstered ahead of the Monday
opening of the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which are together known as
the lianghui, or “two meetings.” During this time, people deemed to be
potential troublemakers are kept under close watch by the police. Moreover,
many critics of the Communist Party have been harassed in the past year, as
senior officials, especially those in the security apparatus, have apparently
watched with growing concern the revolutions that have toppled long-seated
dictators in the Middle East.
It has also been a fraught year for Tibetans in
particular. Since last March, at least 22 Tibetans in western regions have set
fire to themselves to protest rule by the Han, the dominant ethnic group in China. Fourteen of those
died. In recent months, there have also been clashes between security forces
and Tibetans in towns across the Tibetan plateau; in several cases, security
forces opened fire with live ammunition, reportedly killing some of the
protesters.
Most of the self-immolations have taken place in the town
of Aba, known as Ngaba in Tibetan, which is home to Kirti Monastery, an
important center of learning. The majority of those setting fire to themselves
have been monks from Kirti. The town is now in a state of lockdown,
with checkpoints on roads leading into it and paramilitary troops in riot gear
standing or sitting on each block during the day.
The month of March is a delicate time in China-Tibet
relations. The Dalai Lama fled to India in March 1959, after the Chinese Army
quashed a Tibetan uprising in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, during the initial
Chinese occupation there. There has been a history of Tibetans protesting
Chinese rule on the anniversaries of the Dalai Lama’s flight, and one such
protest by monks in 2008 in Lhasa, and the suppression of it by security forces,
led to the widespread uprising that enveloped much of the Tibetan plateau that
spring. Since then, the Chinese government has increased the presence of
security forces across the plateau each March and has barred foreigners from
traveling to many areas there during that month.
