DOCUMENTING UNREST IN THE VALLEY

MUHAMMAD FAYSAL, 25, BLOGGER

Within hours of the J&K government ordering a ban on 21 social networking sites and apps in the Valley, Muhammad Faysal, a political blogger in Srinagar, tweeted, “A screenshot of a mobile screen of a Kashmir activist after the social media ban.” The accompanying picture carried icons of VPN (virtual private networks), which would enable the use of apps despite the ban. “In the past such bans have not worked. This time also, people here will find alternatives,” he said.

Faysal is one of the earliest proponents of recording unrest in Kashmir, online. He is founder member of the voluntary group that runs the site lostkashmirihistory.com. Apart from latest data on killings, disappearances, torture, and rape cases, the site is a repository of news articles, blogs and PDF copies of more than 100 books on Kashmir. In his free time, Faysal tweets on politics, the internet crackdown in Kashmir and films clashes.

“Kashmiris like me are fighting the news blackout through such videos. The amateur video is evidence with which we can make ourselves heard globally without approaching any media outlet,” said Faysal. “Secondly, it challenges the state’s narrative of Kashmir. This is the narrative of people, and not of any political party,” he added.

Faysal said while media reports say that young citizens of Kashmir have recently started capturing clashes and encounters on their phones, the trend goes back to 2008 when markets across Kashmir got flooded with cheap smartphones. The following year, the Shopian rapes and murders took place. People widely shared pictures through bluetooth. That was the phase when the mobile phone emerged as a source of images in Kashmir. “Pictures of mutilated corpses and bullet-ridden faces of civilians including minors started travelling to remote corners of the Valley. These pictures had shock value,” he said.

Between 2008 and 2010, Faysal filmed many protests and clashes across Kashmir. He remembers that people were apprehensive of getting clicked because of the fear of being persecuted by the authorities. “Once I saw kids playing in a street in Nawatta area and started taking their pictures. They stopped me saying that they would be arrested,” he said.

When, in the summer of 2010, 17-yearold student Tufail Mattoo was killed by a tear gas shell, Faysal became part of a loose online group, which campaigned for a fair investigation in the case. “The online space turned political after that tragedy and has remained so since then,” said Faysal.