The vow of silence

THERE used to be lots of Kashmiri handles on my Twitter timeline: learned, angry, ironic, or just gazing at other parts of the Muslim world. Clearly, however, over the past three years, their participation has dwindled to almost zero. It feels eerie. The weeks and months that followed August 5, 2019, when Kashmir’s constitutional status changed, saw much commentary and video-posts of spontaneous “hidden” protests and of the highhandedness of the state. Kashmir was locked down almost nine months before the rest of India was. Those days echoed the days after Burhan Wani’s death in 2016, when protests were put down with a liberal use of pellet guns: lots of hospital stories, except after August 5 getting to the hospital or getting medicines was near impossible.

Then COVID hit. Perhaps, we were too busy watching videos of thaali-banging to notice the moment when Kashmiris began to disengage. I have mentioned this silencing of the Kashmiri voice to friends in the National Capital Region (NCR), but no one else seems to have noticed. Then, I met a Kashmiri friend who said Kashmiris have simply stopped talking, even to each other. Kashmiris now do not express political opinions, not even in private gatherings.

The op-eds in local newspapers have dried up completely. Kashmiris have been careful since the 1990s, when at the height of militancy many suspected one another of reporting to a government agency, either Indian or Pakistani (or both). Two Kashmiris would never talk about “the movement” if a third was present. Now, this “vow of silence” is complete. “People are only concerned with day-to-day living,” my friend said. “Individuals must be thinking but without expression it is difficult to know what their thoughts are.”

***

Less seriously, I asked my friend: what about former Congress party courtier Ghulam Nabi Azad? He told me a story from the early 1970s. Azad’s family was from the outskirts of Bhaderwah in Doda, and his father was a labour contractor for timber contractors, one of whom caught hold of the senior Azad and wanted an accounting of his

Rs.30,000. The senior Azad wailed: “What to do Sir, my son lost it all fighting elections.” Ghulam Nabi had lost his deposit. He never won an election in Jammu and Kashmir—he entered the Lok Sabha from a safe Congress seat in Maharashtra—until he was made Chief Minister and victory in the seat he contested was a foregone conclusion.

How can Azad play a role in the BJP’S plan for a Jammu and Kashmir election in a polarised electorate? Hindus will vote BJP, the others for the National Conference and other old parties of the erstwhile State. Azad will not be a future Chief Minister. So did he leave the Congress, roundly abusing Rahul Gandhi, merely to retain his Lutyens bungalow? “He should have stayed khamosh.” Yes, discretion is the hallmark of politicians, particularly darbaris. Azad was perhaps told to noisily depart the Congress. And this badmouthing comes at a juncture when two things are happening in the party: the October election for party president and Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.

***

Because of Azad’s belated “perestroika”, the lack of transparency in electoral rolls is an issue as is the mysterious yatra. I wanted to join the yatra; it might produce a mine of stories. However, trying to pitch the idea to Rahul Gandhi’s inner circle was like running continuously into a wall. One said there was already a team—to live-tweet or write press releases, one supposes.

Azad in an interview pooh-poohed the yatra, saying it would stay on the main road instead of going from village to village. A news report said that a contingent of 117 yatris, all youngsters, had been selected. The facts are not in question here, but the lack of access to even the periphery of the inner circle of a party that made its mark as a mass movement does not seem to concern the “high command”. And what harm can an outsider do when the party has more than one snake lurking within?

Hopefully, Rahul does the entire 3,500 km distance and, as per plan, concludes it in Srinagar. Perhaps, he can give Kashmiris their voice back. That would be a substantial political accomplishment, if his coterie would allow it. The BJP must be in stitches.

1. During Byzantine rule, this temple was converted into a Christian church. It was later converted into a Catholic one and reverted to Orthodox during the Ottoman Empire, after which it was turned into a mosque. While all the wars and raids it has been witness to over the centuries have taken their toll on the ageing structure, the biggest destruction it faced during its lifespan was during the siege of Athens in the Great Turkish War (1687). The temple, at the time, was used to store X. Name the structure and X.

2. Today it is hailed as a superfood, but in pre-columbian Andean civilisations, its soapy byproduct, which was obtained after washing and before cooking, was commonly used as a shampoo. What is it?

3. In the 1980s, this brand was marketed under the tagline “You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression”. This is identified as an example of “anxiety marketing”, which the company commonly used to drive sales by inducing fears of the social consequences associated with the condition the product claims to address. What brand is this?

4. The mansion that Cornelius Vanderbilt and his wife Alice built on Fifth Avenue in New York City in the 1870s was the largest single-family home in the city’s history. After many additions, the home was sold to a developer in 1927, who demolished it to make way for new buildings. You can still find remnants of the mansion across New York City: two of its six sculptural reliefs are in the Sherry Netherland hotel, and its entrance hall fireplace (along with various pieces of artwork) is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Where in New York are the mansion’s main gates?

5. While speaking to CNET, Simon Whiteley said that it all came from his wife’s Japanese cookbook. Whiteley scanned the characters from that book and digitally manipulated them until they became the otherworldly code that appeared on screen. “I like to tell everybody that X is made out of Japanese sushi recipes,” said Whiteley. Where can we find X?

6. Historically, buttons were used (by the aristocratic and wealthy) only as decorative embellishments. Then, about 3,000 years after they first came into being, something was invented that suddenly made them useful/functional. What was this invention?

7. On November 10,1951, Sir Hugh Beaver went on a shooting party in the

North Slob by the

Slaney river in County

Wexford, Ireland.

After missing a shot at a Eurasian golden plover, he became involved in an argument over which was the fastest game bird in Europe, the golden plover or the red grouse (the former being correct).

Beaver knew there must be numerous other questions debated nightly in pubs throughout Ireland with no way to settle them. What did we get as a result?

8. The first Sherlock Holmes book A Study in Scarlet was the first work of fiction to mention X being used as an investigative tool and it is the reason one still connects it with detectives today. What is X?

9. Originally, this term referred to all products sold by a certain type of seller, whose name indicated that his book shop was on a fixed spot, usually near a university, and it was permanent, while medieval trading was mainly carried on by itinerant peddlers at markets and fairs. What term am I referring to?

10. The abbreviation of its proper name is FDR. The name we know it by is a misnomer because it is, in fact, bright orange and, these days, is made in the shape of a cylinder. What important investigative object am I talking about?