A militant’s last goodbye

One Saturday, I was trying my hardest to get home, 45 km from Srinagar, but traffic jams had made it almost impossible. It was already 9 pm and home was still an hour's drive from the village I had reached. Since it was dark and difficult to find any transport, I decided to try and find shelter for the night. I took the name of Allah and knocked at the door of a house. An old woman asked what? I offered Salam and requested a night's accommodation Without a thought, she let me in. Now smiling, I put my bags down. As everyone was in one room, they suggested I sit with them. All of them – the old lady, a young lady and her son (perhaps four years old) – looked quite happy and that made me happy too. The bright young lady had the very beautiful and innocent looks of a typical Kashmiri girl. 

The two women soon started preparing dinner. Just then, the Nokia tune began to ring. The young woman answered her mobile and, when she left the room a few minutes later, tears were trickling down her cheeks. All of us followed. The old lady looked worried. I was perplexed. What might be the reason? It was clear that both women were suddenly extremely tense. Dinner forgotten, the atmosphere had been transformed into one of mourning. Even the child was wailing, its cries pulling at my heart strings. Confusedly, I tried to console them and asked the old woman, who was now lurching almost deliriously. She replied pathetically that her son was caught in an encounter with troops and was calling with his last words to his wife and mother.

All I could do was try to comfort all of them. Just when I thought I was succeeding, there was another call. This time, the speaker was on and it became obvious that he was fighting gallantly even while talking to his family. I began to feel abashed, as I was making merry, living my life the way I wished while he was sacrificing his life, the most precious thing Almighty Allah has ever created on Earth. I was confused at this juncture: if a gun raised against India is wrong, then how come a man in his last moments was proud of sacrificing his life?

The atmosphere of death is tough to describe. The sounds of screaming police and army vehicles, gunshots and mine blasts were audible through the phone speaker. In spite of this terror, he was talking and fighting as if he was celebrating Eid. His wife was shedding tears – a girl dressed in woman's clothes, completely unprepared to take on the problems of the world. Now, she would have to face the future with her and her child's loneliness. Meanwhile, the man who was fighting wanted to talk to his son. He told him, "I'm going to heaven." In a childish way, the baby replied, "ok, go". I was confused, distressed, emotional for the wife and sentimental for the gallant man.

2 am. His shoulder was hit and he had a little pain. We enquired what? He said with a little laugh that his shoulder was hit. Now it was perhaps time for him to say goodbye. God bestows this moment on very rare people in this world. Here, he got the chance and utilized it by saying: "I am a Kashmiri and I represented Kashmir and will die for Kashmir."

It seemed to me as if the stars in the sky were reflecting his bravery and I, like a mere spectator, was watching all this without speaking a word, as if I was dumb, as if I had done nothing in my life to save this family from disaster. The child's face and the mother's face were searing me. My mind was going zig-zag all over the place. No words could express the quality of the silence in the house.

3 am. The phone link was disrupted. But no one could sleep all night except the child who was about to join the list of children without fathers.

9 am. Everything was over. We entered the village nearby where the encounter had taken place. I saw one side of his face but the crowd, in thousands, made it impossible for me to remain at the centre of attention. They were shouting anti-Indian slogans.

10:30 am. Many groups like Jamaat-i-Islami and Hurriyat Conference came and condemned the death in their statements. People in groups from all over the valley mourned and congratulated the parents of martyr. 

This is the first time I begin to ask myself who am I? Where do I stay in this cycle of violence? It is because the face of child and the girl would shatter me when I see them as future orphan and widow. The politicians and onlookers were focused on one dimension of his death: martyrdom in a violent war for an obscure political goal. I had witnessed another dimension of that death – the human impact on individual members of a family. That he was fighting for his nation, I had understood through that awful night. What was unclear was the future of his family, who were now carrying the burden of economic instability on their shoulders. He proudly gave his life in a war that may be just or unjust, good or bad, may give advantage to some nation states, some political groups, some ideologies, some doctrines, some power-hungry politicians, but the violence that gets generated in the valley and the young life we lose cannot be a joke to give advantage to some leaders.

Separatists make people build castles in the air. Something which mystifies and perplexes me about them is that, despite being leaders, they do not value human life. Had they done so, they would never have dared to speak these two words on a martyr's corpse: "mission accomplished." Do they think his mission was sacrificing his life? Wrong. These so-called leaders should please go and see the miserable plight of the families of those who have passed on. I know what I am talking about. I have seen it. I am straight in my approach because I am not a hypocrite. I never argued fairies and heavens for my own life. I work hard for my destiny and would never be ready to make my ‘life’ misused by politics. Perhaps, we in Kashmir have lost the gun battle. We have given up, we should please change the debate and make it as an part of educational process. We should please take it away from streets into the Universities. We must debate in a different way in schools, colleges and Universities in seminars, conferences and assembly halls that Kashmir issue is all and wholly to be solved through intellectual activity. Let the burden be on Universities and scholars. Let’s not lose more life. Let’s not add more orphan and widows.

However shocking an act of violence may be, behind it lies the rubble of shattered hopes, of human desperation and inhuman hatred. If the sufferings of a widowed wife and a grief-stricken mother unite them with other broken hearts, the child's suffering will, in the coming years, expose it to all kind of social evils. Time waits for another encounter, another killing, more orphans, more widows, and the cycle of death and terror continues. To dig out human misery from the pool of lethargy and depression, let us understand the real facts, comment on it…..before we should face the same tragedy.