Disappeared Persons: Poetry of Resistance from Indian-Occupied Kashmir

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A Kashmiri masked Muslim protester jumps in the air to avoid stones thrown at him by Indian police during a protest in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir: photo by Dar Yasin/AP, 29 April 2016

A Kashmiri masked Muslim protester jumps in the air to avoid stones thrown at him by Indian police during a protest in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir: photo by Dar Yasin/AP, 29 April 2016

Amjad Majid: From Exile with Love

    In memory of going to an “Indian passport office” to get a passport

1. Pehchaan Patr (“Permanent Residential Address”)

They drafted it out
From ink and paper
Printed and laminated
Stamped, notarized, authorized
From bureau to bureau
From a filing cabinet
To stained yellow decrepit bureaucratic hands
 
And as exposed as I was then
I still remember now
That they drafted it out
From ink and paper
While I stood naked
Waiting in line,
in queue at the window,
holding my flesh and my blood
 
As my own…
…far away from my home.

2. You Can’t Draw a Map with a Gun

They put their barbed wire
around our open fields
and draw fences
out of instruments
made of thin air.
They paint our grass
a khaki green
and call our land
an integral part.
And indeed,
an integral part we are
of none but ourselves
separate from all else
refuged by a valley and mountain tops
and forest lands
that bear witness
and proclaim
as nature does
that we are of ourselves
and of none other
and we know one another
from our family names
that history calls us by
to remind us as history often does
that we are of ourselves
and of none other
than ourselves.
And there are those
who call our rivers
streams and water lanes
their jugular vein,
for them too
 
We are ours,
ours to keep
ours to stay
as it has been,
and as it shall be.
 
All of them together
are their own as well
as they have the right to be,
a right that for us
they have made a dispute
when it is
they who are disputed
they who are conflicted
uncertain of their borders,
and insecure enough
to line up uniforms and guns
like dominoes
that will topple over
one day in winter
when it becomes clear to them
that you can’t draw a map with a gun.

3. Disappeared Person

On a night like this
I could dig myself
an unmarked grave,
crawl in,
claim your face as mine
and give the name of death
to an abduction,
but I know well
that you are alive
in the hollow of a chinar
 
I see you there
at every corner
where my silence comes to rest
you are this land
as you are of this land
and your breath
is what pushes the wind here
you are between every Bismillah
and every Ameen
that holds me steadfast in prayer.

4. Curfew the Night

Curfew the streets,
the schools, our homes,
curfew the news,
the newspapers, radios,
the internet,
the television channels,
 
Curfew our speech,
our movement,
our protests,
our mourning,
our plight,
 
Curfew the truth
Curfew the night
Curfew freedom itself
if you will
if you dare
 
Curfew hope
Curfew life
and still you will find
Our one death divides you
into a frenzy of fear
 
You are paranoid and afraid
but fear not
someday,
one day,
we will free you from that fear.

5. From Exile with Love

You say we have time,
I say time has us,
it has grabbed us by the feet,
it has tied us to space.
 
There is a time before time
a thought before thinking
a feeling before feelings
a language before language,
there is such a place,
where you and I meet.

6. In Love at a Time of War

Many many days ago,
on a day before the yesterday of the day before
the world was born from an apple,
we all saw the gardens rise from soil,
flowers opened for butterflies,
roses invited dewdrops,
birds avoided language and chirped instead.
 
We saw snowfall after sunrise and before sunset,
at the earliest of times,
heavy rains cracked open rocks,
from which waters gushed forth into rivers
that were soon lost in fountains, springs and streams.
 
Salt lost its solid state
and gave a liquid taste to the seas
and emotion to the first sadness
in the tears of the first newborn.
 
Many many days later,
on a morrow of the day after tomorrow
I have become flesh and bone from history
and today my heart has sweetened
red sugar rushes through my veins,
 
I speak
and I fail to understand my own language,
What are these words?
What is this feeling?
I look at your photographs,

Their gloss reflects my new clarity.

Amjad Majid: From Exile with Love from Kashmir Lit, 2016

Masked demonstrators shout slogans next to a burning tyre during a protest in Srinagar against the recent killings in Kashmir: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 26 July 2016

 

Masked demonstrators shout slogans next to a burning tyre during a protest in Srinagar against the recent killings in Kashmir: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 26 July 2016

 A masked Kashmiri participates in a torch light protest in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, on Thursday. The largest street protests in recent years in the disputed region, that left dozens of people dead and hundreds injured, erupted more than a week ago after Indian troops killed a popular young rebel leader.: photo by Mukhtar Khan / AP, 21 July 2016

Kashmiri villagers carry the body of separatist leader Burhan Wani during his funeral procession in Tral, some 38 kilometers (24 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian Kashmir Indian troops fired on protesters in Kashmir as tens of thousands of Kashmiris defied a curfew imposed in most parts of the troubled region Saturday and participated in the funeral of the top rebel commander killed by Indian government forces, officials and locals said.: photo by Dar Yasin / AP, 9 July 2016

INDIAN ADMINISTERED KASHMIR - Kashmiri Muslims walk past an Indian paramilitary trooper during a curfew in Srinagar. By @TauseefMUSTAFA: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 16 July 2016

A man who was injured by pellet gun fire in the clashes between Indian police and protesters, sits inside a hospital, in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir: photo by Danish Ismail / Reuters, 14 July 2016

An Indian paramilitary officer stands guard during a curfew in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir: photo by Farooq Khan/EPA, 13 July 2016

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An Indian paramilitary officer stands guard during a curfew in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir: photo by Farooq Khan/EPA, 13 July 2016


INDIA - A paramilitary officer holds stones in his hands during clash with protesters in Srinagar. By @TauseefMUSTAFA: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 10 July 2016

Kashmiri people look out from windows during a ceremony marking Martyrs’ Day at Mazar-e-Shuhada (Martyr’s graveyard) in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir. Martyrs’ day is held to pay homage to 22 civilians killed in 1931 by the troopers of the then Dogra ruler of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, in Indian Kashmir on July 13. Every year the local government in the region observes a function to remember these martyrs by visiting their graveyard and laying flower wreaths on their graves.: photo by Farooq Khan / EPA, 13 July 2016

Ather Zia: Driving Without a License (lasan) in Kashmir

The law has much blood on its talons. It’s especially ethical if you don’t have a lasan. Between background checks and grease-money, the lasan, leaking from the law’s stained teeth, is what you need, get it maybe never.

Anyways, it’s a contrivance, a measure of know-how over a vehicle to transport people in metal boxes when you already carry them in your heart, like your boy who died of a bullet that grazed your chest and entered his.

In Kashmir when you drive without a lasan you drive on the right side of life.

I sleep to dreams of being a young, irascible driver from Maisuma, the invincible artery, throwing stones at paramilitary his happiest past-time (being with a Neruda or a Said is not always the best you can dream),
 fed on a staple

diet of an adoring mother’s curses. I am terribly in love and sore from heartache

-- without a lasan but that is my least worry -- probably till I have no money to bribe policemen who catch me every time I stop like a stone

unwarranted outside my beloved’s house, not that she cares. 
I drive singing to

old Bollywood songs and cursing India in the same breath. Wishing every bunker melting away like I believe, without license.

Ather Zia: Driving Without a License (lasan) in Kashmir, from Kashmir Lit, 2015

Women react as they stand at the windows of a house watching Kashmiri Muslims carry a body of 20 year old Riyaz Ahmed Shah during his funeral in downtown Srinagar: photo by Tauseef Mustafa/AFP, 4 August 2016

Women react as they stand at the windows of a house watching Kashmiri Muslims carry a body of 20 year old Riyaz Ahmed Shah during his funeral in downtown Srinagar: photo by Tauseef Mustafa/AFP, 4 August 2016

 300 pellets. That's vengeance. Such horrific acts come at great cost to nations #Kashmir: image via Harinder Bawaja Verified account @shammybaweja, 4 August 2016

INDIA - Women mourn during the funeral of a Muslim Kashmiri in Srinagar.  By @TauseefMUSTAFA #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffard, 4 August 2016

INDIA - Kashmiri muslims clash with Indian security forces after the funeral in Srinagar.  By @TauseefMUSTAFA #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffard, 4 August 2016

This is remarkable. Night vigils in Sopore, #Kashmir. No violence, no coverage.: image via Azad Essa Verified account @azadessa, 3 August 2016

RT @BasimSafdar Heart wrenching. No words. May Allah be with #Kashmir #KashmirKillings: image via Mehreen Sibtain @Mehreen_Sibtain, 4 August 2016

RT @BasimSafdar Heart wrenching. No words. May Allah be with #Kashmir #KashmirKillings: image via Mehreen Sibtain @Mehreen_Sibtain, 4 August 2016 

I haven't come across a more telling representation of India's relationship with #Kashmir @frontline_india: image via Mirza Waheed @MirzaWaheed, 2 August 2016

 
"All of them could lose their eyesight." Pellet guns cause severe eye injuries in Kashmir.: image via Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish, 13 July 2016

Mother, they're using "non-lethal" #pelletguns to lethal effect in #Kashmir. The world is turning #blind.: image via Rafiq Kathwari @brownpundit, 12 July 2016

Use of pellet guns that have blinded more than 50 children - reports on ground #UNForKashmir #KashmirSiege: image via Inshah Malik @InshahMalik, 10 July 2016 

An x ray of a #Kashmir boy hit by pellets...This evil weapon meant for beasts should be banned. @hrw @UN: image via Wasim Khalid @WasemKhalid, 12 July 2016 

11 year old at #Kashmir hosp. his card reads 'pellet injuries...damage eyes...liver and spleen grossly...' #KashmirSiege: image via najeeb mbarki @najeebmubarki, 12 July 2016

Beaten up by the security forces. They probably fear he may shout the word freedom #KashmirNow: image via Dr Rita Pal @dr_rita, 13 July 2016

Maaz Bin Bilal: A Shriek about Kashmir -- A Ghazal

     To Abir Bazaz, Javaid Iqbal Bhat, Hamzah, and all my Kashmiri brothers

How do I see, think, dream, or speak about Kashmir?
One more ghazal shall I tweak about Kashmir?

Another bloody summer looms over the Dal,
Wani’s died and been deified this week, about Kashmir.
 
Vani is also voice in Hindi and Sanskrit,
There’s a roar now, not a creak, about Kashmir.
 
Thirty killed or martyred in only three days,
What vengeance is this that we seek about Kashmir?
 
Pandits were driven out, and Muslims are curfewed in,
Of raw flesh and fury -- a reek about Kashmir.
 
A green land of saffron, of rishis and shairs,
What is Indian, what is unique about Kashmir?
 
Courting bullets on streets are those sons of the soil,
Swaraj, their birthright, kindles the pique about Kashmir.
 
A mighty pretty valley, its people’s mighty will,
What is strong, and what is weak about Kashmir?
 
Relentless calls for azadi, will it ever come?
Is there debate, any critique about Kashmir?
 
A handsome boy died, which a nation defied,
Beauty, power, what is the mystique about Kashmir?
 
Here is no space for a maqta this time, Maaz,
Humiliation, pain wreak havoc about Kashmir.
 
This summer, snows have melted into tears of rage,
Burhan’s voice has become a shriek about Kashmir.

         July 2016

Maaz Bin Bilal: A Shriek about Kashmir -- A Ghazal, from Kashmir Lit, 2016

Kashmiri protesters shout anti-Indian slogans during a demonstration in Islamabad. By Aamir Qureshi #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 4 August 2016

The message is crystal clear! #GoIndiaGoBack #KashmirUnrest #FreeKashmir: image via OurBurhanOurHero @sheikh_shifa, 2 August 2016

Syed Ali Shah Geelani writing on the wall: GO INDIA GO BACK. #Kashmir GoIndiaGoBack: image via Syed Ali Geelani, 1 August 2016

Syed Ali Shah Geelani writing on the wall: GO INDIA GO BACK. #Kashmir GoIndiaGoBack: image via Syed Ali Geelani, 1 August 2016

A Kashmiri Muslim protestor throws bricks at Indian policemen during a protest in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir: photo by Dar Yasin / AP, 25 June 2016

Muslims in Kashmir offer prayers at Jamia Masjid in Srinagar: photo by Farooq Khan / EPA, 3 July 2016  

Indian policemen try to detain supporters of the Kashmiri politician, engineer Abdul Rashid Sheikh, during a protest in Srinagar: photo by Farooq Khan / EPA, 19 April 2016

Pakistani supporters of banned organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) offer funeral prayers for Indian-occupied Kashmir Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani: photo by Aamir Qureshi / AFP, 15 July 2016

A Kashmiri child watches an Indian paramilitary trooper standing guard during a curfew in downtown Srinagar. Large parts of Indian-administered Kashmir have been under continuous 24-hour curfew since the death on July 8 of a popular rebel leader sparked wide-scale protests and clashes with government forces who have fired and killed 46 civilians so far.: photo by Tauseef Mustafa / AFP, 25 July 2016

A man shows his tooth to an Indian policemen as he seeks permission to see a doctor after he was stopped during a curfew in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir: photo by Danish Ismail / Reuters, 19 July 2016

Nusrat Bazaz: Thoughts of a Father

 
Maybe they will lift it today
I will go and find work
Fell a tree, perhaps
Mute witness to this horror
Or wash a street
Still streaked in red
 
Maybe I could go to the busy bazaar
And buy
A canister of oil,
And a bag of rice
As white as the valley’s snow
 
Maybe your Mauj will cook it
In turmeric water
Add a dash of salt
Season it with oil
And leave it to cool
 
Maybe I will feed you the sunshine -- rice
Your favourite tehri
One small fistful after another
And gaze with regret
At your beautiful eyes
 
Maybe later we will hold you close
And softly sing
The songs of azadi
And lull you to sleep
After nights of hungry wakefulness
 
Maybe they will lift the curfew
Maybe they will lift it today
Maybe they will
A little more patience, my child
A little more patience …

Nusrat Bazaz: Thoughts of a Father, from The Summer of Our Discontent: Poems inspired by 2016 Summer Uprising in Kashmir, in Kashmir Lit, 2016

Kashmiri Muslim women wail as they watch the funeral procession of suspected rebels, at Barhama, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday: photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP, 5 October 2015

Kashmiri Muslim women wail as they watch the funeral procession of suspected rebels, at Barhama, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday: photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP, 5 October 2015

A Kashmiri villager cries for his missing relative after a cloud burst at Kullan village in Ganderbal district, on Friday. At least four people were killed in a series of cloud bursts that were reported from several parts of Kashmir during heavy rainfall: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 18 July 2015

 

A Kashmiri villager cries for his missing relative after a cloud burst at Kullan village in Ganderbal district, on Friday. At least four people were killed in a series of cloud bursts that were reported from several parts of Kashmir during heavy rainfall: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 18 July 2015
 

Activists of the Awami Ittihad party get into a scuffle with Indian policemen as they are stopped during a protest to mark International Human Rights Day in Srinagar, India on Thursday: photo by Dar Yasin/AP, 10 December 2015

 

Activists of the Awami Ittihad party get into a scuffle with Indian policemen as they are stopped during a protest to mark International Human Rights Day in Srinagar, India on Thursday: photo by Dar Yasin/AP, 10 December 2015

 Muslim women at afternoon prayers during Ramadan in Srinagar, Kashmir, on Thursday: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 23 June 2016

 

Muslim women at afternoon prayers during Ramadan in Srinagar, Kashmir, on Thursday: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 23 June 2016

 

Kashmiri Muslims pray as an unseen custodian displays a holy relic, believed to be a hair from the Prophet Muhammad’s beard, during celebrations for Miraj-Ul-Alam (ascension to heaven) at Kashmir’s main Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar this morning: photo by Tauseef Mustafa, 5 May 2016

 

 Kashmiri Muslims pray as an unseen custodian displays a holy relic, believed to be a hair from the Prophet Mohammed’s beard, during celebrations for Israa wal Miraj at Kashmir’s main Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar: photo by Tauseef Mustafa / AFP, 5 May 2016

 

Kashmiri Nomadic Muslims devotees listen to the sermons of a Muslim cleric as they gather at the forest shrine of Miyan Peer, on the first day of Ramadan, in Baba Nagri, about 44 kilometers (28 miles) northeast of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, India: photo by Yawar Nazir, 7 June 2016 

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 Kashmiri fisherman on Dal Lake in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered  Kashmir. The temperature in the Kashmir valley has risen and people are out enjoying the warmer weather: photo by Farooq Khan/EPA, 18 February 2016

Kashmiri fisherman on Dal Lake in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered  Kashmir. The temperature in the Kashmir valley has risen and people are out enjoying the warmer weather: photo by Farooq Khan/EPA, 18 February 2016

Kashmir, India. Sand miners extract silt from the river Jhelum, to prevent overflow, in early morning fog in Baramulla town, in the divided Kashmir valley between India and Pakistan: photo by Shams Ulhaq Qari /Barcroft India via the Guardian, 13 October 2014

Kashmir, India. Sand miners extract silt from the river Jhelum, to prevent overflow, in early morning fog in Baramulla town, in the divided Kashmir valley between India and Pakistan: photo by Shams Ulhaq Qari /Barcroft India via the Guardian, 13 October 2014

A Kashmiri man sleeps in a boat along the algae-covered Anchar Lake on Thursday: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 12 May 2016

 

A Kashmiri man sleeps in a boat along the algae-covered Anchar Lake on Thursday: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 12 May 2016

A Kashmiri fisherman rows his Shikara, or traditional boat, during sunset at the Dal Lake in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. Nestled in the Himalayan mountains and known for its beautiful lakes and saucer-shaped valleys, the Indian portion of Kashmir is also one of the most militarized places on earth.: photo by Dar Yasin/Associated Press, 22 April 2016

A Kashmiri fisherman rows his Shikara, or traditional boat, during sunset at the Dal Lake in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. Nestled in the Himalayan mountains and known for its beautiful lakes and saucer-shaped valleys, the Indian portion of Kashmir is also one of the most militarized places on earth.: photo by Dar Yasin/Associated Press, 22 April 2016