Book review: 'My Kashmir: The Dying Of The Light'

My Kashmir: The Dying Of The Light
Author: Wajahat Habibullah
Publisher: Penguin Viking
Pages: 236
Price: Rs499

In October last year, the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) of Jammu & Kashmir recommended the re-opening of the Kunan Poshpora mass rape case in which 31 women had been raped through the night between February 23 and 24, 1991, during a cordon-and-search operation by the Fourth Battalion of the Rajasthan Rifles. The SHRC quotes from the confidential letter by the District Magistrate to the Divisional Commissioner in which he said he was ashamed to put in black and white the kind of atrocities that was brought to his notice. Yet this huge violation of human rights by the army was glossed over as an “invention” of the villagers for two decades.

Interestingly, it is Wajahat Habibullah,  IAS officer and author of the book under review, who in his capacity as head of civil authority was first sent to establish the complaint’s authenticity. In an early chapter, he says that despite meeting residents and alleged victims, he was unable to establish the veracity of the complaint but felt that there was sufficient cause for more inquiry. The state government, he says, deleted his expression of misgivings and gave a clean chit to the army. He adds that subsequently the public saw his report as a “blatant whitewash.”

Later in the book, in an attempt to absolve himself further of responsibility, he says that although he found the complaint of these mass rapes “exaggerated” they were not necessarily “unfounded.” He claims it was the BG Verghese Committee, which was appointed in an effort at damage control “rather than any sincere attempt in reaching the truth” which concluded that the complaint was invented.

Such obfuscation and complete moral ambivalence marks the tone of the entire book and exemplifies the impossibility of any bureaucrat — even a sensitive one — to write truthfully about the complex issues of Kashmir.

This inability to unequivocally take a stand is unfortunate because Habibullah does have a wealth of anecdotes and stories about Kashmir’s turbulent history, especially since he played a key role in many incidents and events in the Valley during his various stints. In 1972, he was posted as presiding officer in a polling booth at Khannabal, Anantnag, and among his observations is the fact that it was a common practice to “manage” elections and for results to be “doctored.”

Later he was key negotiator during the siege of Hazratbal. He admits that the subsequent firing on protesters by BSF at Beejbehera in which 28 people, including women and children, died was “entirely unprovoked.”  A few paragraphs later he says “there is much to criticise in India’s handling of Kashmir,” but then immediately adds, “exacerbated by incendiaries hoping to strike at the heart of India’s concept of its own nationhood.”

Instances of such pussyfooting and noncommittal stances abound. For example, he terms the dismissal of Sheikh Abdullah and his arrest as just a “blunder” although he acknowledges that for the Kashmiris it was a “betrayal.” No signs here of any anguish in the bland recounting of state machinations, stage-managed elections, and political intrigue. 

He speaks of the Rashtriya Rifles badly beating local men in Poshnar in 2005 even though there was “no substantive proof” that militant weapons had been hidden in the village. He narrates how an imam and his son were killed by the army at Pattan because they refused to stop their vehicle when asked to do so. 

But there is no sense of outrage. Instead he says, “In an environment of terrorism, it is not always possible to establish guilt. To be an effective instrument of law enforcement, members of the armed forces must remain protected from mischievous or frivolous complaints.”

Coming to the turmoil of 2010, Habibullah recounts the fake encounter at Macchil and admits it is not the first of its kind. He recounts the death of young Tufail Mattoo who was being chased by police firing tear gas shells, and various other bloody incidents in which youths lost their lives but then says the closest reason for the spiralling violence and cries of azadi is a script penned at a meeting between two radical Muslim leaders Masarat Alam Bhat and Qasim Faktoo.  And this is not his own viewpoint but rather an excerpt from a newspaper clipping. Why should a
seasoned bureaucrat (one who even headed the final court of appeal in the Right to Information Act) have to take refuge in newspaper clippings rather than articulate his own views if he is so convinced? 

This vacuity at the very heart of the book makes it unacceptable as a balanced and nuanced account.