Guest Post by Chirag Thakkar
Witnessing a culture of wounds trying to put itself together in times of a grave catastrophe is a difficult pursuit. For the archivist of State violence, the horror with which TRP-hungry television studios build a spectacle that is acutely wedded to a deep-rooted, pungent nationalism around catastrophe and relief in Kashmir, is frustrating. The insensitivity with which the Indian media has rubbed salt in the wounds of a people is appalling. One wonders if ours is a culture of calculated amnesia or of sightless apathy.
There is something very unique about the way in which we relate with the pain of the other. What is unique is the precision with which we reproduce perceptions about the masculine, hardened sons of soil – the security forces – and yet, at the same time, remain unmoved in failing to recognise the state of exception Kashmir has been in. What is also unique is how measured and stingy we are with our sympathy.
The design with which jawans involved in the rescue operation get valourised in this constructed spectacle and the gross silence over darker crimes of security forces that runs beneath this narrative is unsettling. But no sooner do the pages of the archive and the ledger get turned back, than the wounds of an ailing culture come to fore.
It is important to remind ourselves how the very culture of militarisation produces trophies of loss and bare survival for victims in a wound culture. The spatiality of this state of exception seals off any distinction between the messiah and the murderer, ‘between human and inhuman, between the living and the dead’, as Agamben would insist. The saviour or the rescuer and the perpetrator are no more distinguishable in case of Kashmir. When talking about a stranded, a flooded Kashmir, we need to talk about the very encampment of lives, of territory, and bodies. One fears that while rebuilding of homes, property, offices, fields, farms, bazars, shrines, schools, hospitals and communities that got damaged and displaced in the flood might take their own course and time, the very war motifs of this camp – guns, barbed wires, army bunkers, mass graves of anonymous bodies, checkpoints — will visibly reemerge sooner. No doubt, the ‘good’, ‘brave’ soldiers have saved many lives of tourists, of civilians, (and not of migrant, invisible labourers). But does the narrative of how the community itself responded to the catastrophe not deserve any representation? The meticulous and restless relief work performed by self-help groups of Kashmir University students, professionals, of youth, of community organisations and civil society find practically no place in this spectacular ‘good soldier’ narrative. The media meta-narrative thoroughly glosses over the affective relations and accounts of friendship within the community.
What the spectacular media will not tell us are staggering findings of the Young Kashmir Volunteers Alliance’s rapid assessment report. The alliance composing of University students from the department of Social Work, professionals, research scholars and several volunteers tracked the status and intricacies of relief work carried out by community volunteers studying 26 relief shelters in Srinagar. The findings reveal that 96% people were rescued by local volunteers and that 92.3% of the relief shelters received food supplies from community donations. Out of the 26 relief shelters studied, only one reported rescue by the army and by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).
We will be able to unpack how Kashmiris are portrayed as savage, ungrateful, uncivilised, angry, stone-pelters only if we unlearn the ‘good solider’ construct that we are constantly fed by the culture industry and by the collaborators of the occupation. We need to unwrap the jawan from the flag and examine the way soldiers come to know and understand the world in which they act. The manner in which the national media manages to consistently nitpick on a few stray incidents of stone pelting further reproduces the orientalisation of Kashmiris.
The wounds Kashmiris bear witness to and dress every single day are deep. The Indian Armed Forces in Kashmir have used various techniques of humiliation, pain and cruelty in the past 24 years. Several reports confirm the systematic use of torture by the Armed Forces – the Amnesty International, the ‘Alleged Perpetrators’ Report of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, the Wikileaks cables to name a few. One could say that ‘torture-as-technology’ functions as the ideology of the State.
Unnerving testimonials of torture survivors expose how the Armed Forces have employed the harshest techniques to obtain forced confessions – burning of, and insertion of wires into, the penises of suspects, electric shocks, starvation, rolling of ghotna (roller), forced squatting, severe beating, anal fisting with danda, sexual torture and sodomy, forced fellatio – being only a few of the techniqus that are used with regularity. Most of these techniques are used in clusters.
Suspects are picked up randomly. They are picked up from identity parades, crackdowns, from playgrounds, from lanes, from homes and schools. Typically, an identity parade is where the onus of proving one’s innocence, and importantly, one’s identity lies with the suspect. And the geography of such biopolitics is scattered. Apart from infamous, dedicated torture laboratories or ‘interrogation centres’ like PAPA II, one’s bedroom could also become one’s torture cell. When a local school gets hijacked by the Army, classrooms are turned into torture cells. It is true that the floods will continue to live in Kashmiris’ memory, the wounds they continue to bear also need to be remembered and archived.
Around 7000 unmarked, unknown graves in Kashmir have been discovered over the years. Many of these are still under enquiry by the State Human Rights Commission. The memories of these forced burials continue to haunt Kashmiris. The memory of the Kunan-Poshpora gang rape that the Indian state denied for several years continues to be performed by Kashmiris. The many massacres, the countless curfewed nights and days and months continue to haunt a culture, a people. The mothers of 8000 disappeared of persons and numerous half widows continue to perform their wounds and memories. As long as ghosts of AFSPA linger on, no aerial rescue operation, no compensation packages will be able to erase the memory of a regime of torture, rape and enforced disappearances.
Chirag Thakkar is a performance artist and an independent journalist. He researches the bio-politics of torture and memory in Kashmir at the Department of Political Science, Delhi University.
References:
Agamben, Giorgio: (1999) Remnants of Auschwitz, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen, Zone Books: New York.
Agamben, Giorgio: (1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen, Stanford University Press: Stanford.
Amnesty International: (1992) Document – India: Torture, Rape and Deaths in Custody
Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Soceity: (2012) Alleged Perpetrators – Stories of Impunity in Jammu and Kashmir
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
Could Chirag Thakkar,or some other informed person, please write a similar piece in hindi , (with slightly more detailing) for widespread dissemination. This is urgently, urgently, required as you can imagine. Madhuri
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And why should we not take the “staggering findings of the Young Kashmir Volunteers Alliance’s rapid assessment report” without a pinch of salt, if not a wee bit of analysis? We all have biases, and mine align with those of the author. There is more than a point in highlighting the role of the state and media in subjugating those who are already suppressed. But doing so in a shoddy manner only weakens the cause.
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Its a touch bemusing that an amalgam of so-called “kashmiri” groups called “Young Kashmir Volunteer Alliance” is taken as a touchstone of empirical robustness of disaster relief data.
Critique the Army for all that is wrong, but to deny the huge relief effort undertaken by them is more than churlish, its just stupid. Not just the Army, but mainstream India have mobilised for relief. I saw “Kashmir relief” initiatives in at least 2 Durga Pujas in Mumbai. In my workplace, a multinational largely staffed by upper caste, middle/upper-middle class, university educated, urban hindus (read: the sort of people voting for Modi!) created an instittuional employee volunteering initiative, gathering both material as well as (most importantly) cash – a lot of employees donated a day’s salary to that – for the PM’s relief fund.
There have been no such initiatives for the floods that happened recently in the North East. Call it disaster fatigue, call it differential media treatment. But the response of mainstream India to the Kashmir floods has been comparable to what happened after Uttarakhand and Gujarat earthquake.
Its shameful to sweep al of this under the carpets of chaps like Yasin Malik who exhorted people to throw stones at Army choppers!
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Somnath,
I find it appalling that so many like you find government and official sources most authentic, “empirically robust” and divinely true. I am afraid I don’t worship your official figures as much. I keep my feet on the ground. That’s where we begin, we begin by taking them with a pinch of salt.
No, I am not denying what you may prefer calling “the huge relief effort undertaken by the Army”. I am not sure what was huge about what they did. The intent is not to belittle whatever efforts the Army has taken to save people anyway.
And yes, what you call “mainstream India” may have mobilised for relief in Kashmir and you may have donated your salary for the Prime Minister’s relief fund. I am afraid I am not issuing any certificates to those who contributed to the relief fund.
There is more to Kashmiris and Kashmir than Yasin Malik! Learn to appreciate a people beyond the bombardment of media images of them stone pelting.
The only point I will gracefully agree with is about differential treatment of the media. Yes, you are absolutely right in pointing out how floods from the North East and crucial events in several parts of the country often don’t make it to the hungry television studios, and reckless broadsheets.
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Sir,
The article you linked here states that: “around 96% percent people were rescued by local volunteers, a study says. ……. The study was conducted by Young Kashmir Volunteers Alliance (YKVL) , an amalgam of various Kashmiri volunteer groups.”
If tomorrow, Indian army comes up with a survey, that states that most of the flood victims were rescued by the army; will you accept that as a reliable study too?
And please also throw some light on how the study conducted by the YKVL can be taken as a reliable unbiased one, and by which methodology they conducted their study.
Hoping for a kind and civilized response.
-Abhishek Oza
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Dear Abhishek,
Thanks for your comment. I think you are clearly missing the point. To answer your question straight up: No, I won’t believe the findings of a hypothetical survey that the Indian Army is to conduct. I would rather find out from the field, from Kashmiris who witnessed the flood. In any case, what I have been trying to say is that the media spectacle that valourises the jawans glosses over and silences community efforts that have been more effective in rescue and relief. Those tuning into television sets from their comfortable drawing rooms watching the flood rescue and who know little about actual ground realities are most likely to believe the Army and media surveys. I find little interest in buying those. You may please go ahead and believe them!
On methodology employed by volunteers of the alliance:
This rapid assessment was conducted in consultation with civil society groups and activists in Kashmir. The site for data collection was the relief shelter. On method, specifically, the report says “Snowball sampling technique was used to seek information about the location of relief shelters in Srinagar city. In the snowball sampling technique the first contact persons in one of the relief shelters provided the addresses of other relief shelters and the respondents. Using this technique, a sample of twenty six relief shelters was generated subsequently “
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Dear Madhuri,
thank you for pointing out to the urgency of such a pressing concern – that of mass dissemination in other vernaculars. I am afraid I will only be able to do a very poor job of it. Hindi is not my first language. I could, however, request some kind friends to help me with the semantic translation. Give me some time. I can only try.
Dear Tridib,
thank you for the comment. What is so shoddy about the findings of the Young Kashmir Volunteers Alliance? While we are at it, here’s a link to their report that Kashmir Dispatch has carried for more clarifications:
http://www.kashmirdispatch.com/results-notifications/290926584-kashmir-floods-people-s-damage-assessment-report.htm
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Pretty smug, ivory tower article. Indian soldiers are risking their lives on the border and within the boundaries of the state, every day. What is Chirag Thakkar doing, except BMW, bitch moan and whine?
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Dear Chander Patel,
Who is denying the meticulous work soldiers do? Wait, let me guess! Is ‘Border’ your favourite Hindi film? Or is it ‘Hero: love story of a spy’?
And yes, I like my ivory tower, and I like bitching, moaning and whining against your jingoism and naked nationalism.
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I am a media educator in mumbai and I read the report with great interest and not a little disappointment. This stems from once again realizing how little real training and motivation to report correctly our journalists have. Riding in government and army helicopters over the scenes of disaster and flooding, being rowed along in boats belonging to the Indian army, how much more embedded can we get? I have been a journalist for 40 years and have witnessed the deterioration in our observations of the core principles of journalism – to stay sceptical, keep reassessing sources, research, investigate and cross verify.cabove all, at least to try and be objective.
Thank you for your report. My father was a doctor in the Indian army and the soft corner will always be there. But soft corners need not blind me to reality or my duty as an information disseminator. The Indian media needs to introspect very badly.
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thank you so much, Carol. You have articulated a very critical problem – that of embedded journalism. Embedded in ideology, embedded in apathetic journalism! I
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I was pained to read the article by Chirag Thakkar.
If only Mr Chirag had shown the courage to visit the place when the calamity struck the beautiful valley he would have probably understood the humane work undertaken by various agencies. Youths from the valley and large number of volunteers worked tirelessly to save lives or else the casualties would have been unimaginable. There was no discrimination on the basis of caste , creed or status…..so Mr Chirag please come out of the comfortable environments of Delhi and do some real research before you start publishing articles which are based on fictitious surveys. While army never took the credit for saving 100% people during floods it was very naive on your part to claim that 96% of civilians were saved by the volunteers. Ultimately it does not matter who saved how many lives…what matters is that people came together in times of crisis to help each other. I only hope you mature with time and start writing articles keeping in mind the journalistic ethos and contribute towards the nation building.
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Dear Chirag,
I was re-reading my comment and it sounded harsh. I did not intend it to be so. The report is sloppy because of the sampling technique as well as its description of the data. For more issues on snowball sampling just check the internet. Plus, the sample size is not mentioned! The questionaire is not provided etc. etc. But these are of secondary importance. More important is your write-up. You criticize the “biased” media coverage. To show that it is “biased”, you put forth the Report. How do we know that this Report itself is not carried out by biased individuals (with or without PhDs)? It would have been better to point out the leading questions asked by reporters, or the fact (as pointed out by someone else) that they moved around with the army. And so on. Finally, I would not totally wish away the effort of the army.
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Hats off to you Chirag for writing the what is as clear as the day to Kashmiris like myself who have been flood-hit. We wonder why the army didn’t just do the saving and the news media the reporting but we realize that a militarised rescue/ relief ‘mission’ cannot be any other way, every life saved is a replacement for one that has been taken and one is expected to a grateful that such a replacement is being offered, there is no paradox between the killer/saviour those retrieved are permanently dehumanized.
With regard to much lauded ideals of ‘scientific objectivity’, are the individuals carrying out the report biased simply because they are Kashmiri or because of the conclusions they have reached or is one a derivative of the other? The terrible need to conflate axiological neutrality with objectivity in research means that not only must every word written in the report be taken with a ‘pinch of salt’ but the credentials of those involved must also be suspect to our mind games in objectivity.
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The findings of the report quoted by the author that 96% of the people were rescued by volunteers is hard to digest because such organisations lack the training, technology, experience or central command, control and communication as well as experience of conducting such operations as the military. It simply defies common sense that NGOs and civil society groups could mount such an operation given the extreme conditions. The airlift capacity of the military with its helicopter fleet itself would give a significant advantage to the forces to carry out rescue and relief work. The medical corps of the armed forces are amongst the best trained in emergency medicine. To quote such a vague report in itself highlights the author’s anti-India position. If one wants to focus on human rights violations in Kashmir that is a seperate issue. It must be highlighted and the bad apples in the military need to be taken to task. To take away credit from the brave jawan many of whom lost their lives in the rescue efforts is unethical.
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Thanks Mr.Chirag for bringing out the harsh reality and making conspicuous the whole machinery of the state in collaboration with the media to make the kashmiris look ungrateful, selfish and unpatriotic etc which in turn may subliminally justify the torture and rapes of these ”selfish”, ”ungrateful” and ”unpatriotic stone pelting people”.Its the job of the Indian Army to rescue the people in times of catastrophes just as is their job to secure the borders.Whether the kashmiri is grateful to the Army for their “help” or not is not an issue at all, even whether they acknowledge that “help” or not is neither an issue.
The problem is when the Medias glamorizes the Armies’ efforts and make that look like a huge “charitable “service to the people who they have raped, massacred, tortured and made homeless over the years.
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