I have been traveling to India since I was born, and my cultural identity has always been twofold. Kashmir for me is inexplicably sacred – perhaps it is the magnanimity of its people, or the time spent with my family, but it is the only place in this world where I can be still, in spite of its convoluted history.
Kashmir has been at the nucleus of geopolitical dispute since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, and has since been fraught with insurgency and general disaffection. On the 5th of August, the Indian government revoked articles 370 and 35A of the constitution, rendering the state of Jammu & Kashmir void of its legislative autonomy. Perhaps preempting an adverse public reaction, the Modi regime imposed a regional curfew which is still in effect today, nearly two months after the fact. In the days preceding Modi’s announcement of his new policy, approximately 2,000 Kashmiri politicians, professors, and activists were detained by the military, and all modes of correspondence were suspended indefinitely.
Modi’s obduracy with regard to Kashmir alludes to his virulent anti-Muslim philosophy, the ramifications of which are being felt across India. Kashmir’s population is comprised of nearly eight million Muslims, which makes the state vulnerable to Modi’s pernicious Hindu-nationalist agenda. His political legacy has been largely premised upon the subjugation of India’s Muslims, and his recent political maneuvers make evident his desire to religiously polarize the country and make perpetual these cleavages, in pursuit of a “new” India.
For several summers, I have been working with a non-profit organization which strives to ameliorate Kashmir’s public school system, as well as the general circumstances of its disenfranchised people. As a teacher of young children, I have become acquainted with the adversities faced by Kashmir’s youth – both socioeconomic and institutional. This summer in particular, I felt as though my work had a tangible impact, and the relationships I cultivated with my students were truly impermeable. Now, I wonder if they have left only nebulous futures, given the turbulent political atmosphere.
It is devastating to witness the erasure of a place to which I feel so viscerally attached. Lately, I have been asking myself why it is so easy for us to be apathetic about situations which do not pertain immediately to us. We might feel some tangential empathy, but it seldom translates to an impassioned response. India is exemplary of a pervasive epidemic of inflamed jingoism, echoes of which we see in the United States, in Israel, in the United Kingdom – yet Kashmir remains on the periphery of the global conversation. The India of Modi’s creation is vastly different from that of my childhood; this “new” India is apparently rife with acrimony and intolerance, and I am genuinely terrified of what comes next.
The world is changing, quickly and seismically, and we must actively communicate our political grievances, while acknowledging that dissent and the expression of it are luxuries that have been afforded to us. We must seek out ways in which we can positively impact the communities we belong to, both locally and globally.
