Jammu and Kashmir has a long and complicated history, stretching well over two millennia. Ruled by Hindu and Buddhist kings before the advent of Islam – Mughals and Afghans – and the British, it has been seeking independence for at least a couple of centuries, if not more. The last to rule Jammu and Kashmir were the Dogras; they settled with India after its independence from British rule. Pakistan never accepted the treaty between India and the Dogra rulers. Almost one-third of the state remains under its control while India controls the rest, with the help of a huge army.
Sheikh Abdullah was the state’s first prime minister (later changed to chief minister) since Kashmir was ruled by India under the provisions of article 370 of the Indian constitution. He was arrested in 1953, over unsubstantiated charges of a conspiracy to make Kashmir secede from India. Despite the promise of a plebiscite, India continued to drag its feet on the issue after his arrest and it has never come to pass.
Sheikh Abdullah was a believer in India’s secular democracy. Embittered by his arrest, he later denounced India; a short-term agreement with Indira Gandhi in the seventies led to his restoration as chief minister but did not lead to any significant development as far as Kashmir’s independence was concerned. Further worsening of relations between India and the Kashmiri political leadership; alleged rigging of state elections in 1987; and high-handedness of Indian security forces created the conditions for rise of insurgency in the Kashmir valley.
One of the first fallouts of the insurgency was expulsion of a large number of Kashmir pandits from the valley.
Karan Mujoo’s novel, This Our Paradise, tries to capture the phenomenon of Kashmiri Pandit exodus, which took place in the early 90’s. Since the Modi government took power in 2014, the exodus has been used by right-wing commentators and activists as a beating stick to castigate the left and Indian Muslims. The argument they make is: Muslims, who complain about ill-treatment as minorities in Modi’s India did the same, or worse, to a minority community in their midst.
Films like Kashmir Files have tried to polarize the situation in recent times, by alleging a nexus between leftists and those who forced the pandits to leave Kashmir.
Karan Mujoo adopts a far more nuanced approach to the issue. Through weaving a tale of two families from seemingly opposite sides, he explores human complexities and changing relationships within and outside families: between religion and its followers, citizens and state; the self and the other. The larger questions concerning occupation, justice, role of religion, are investigated through their effects on ordinary people.
It starts by describing the departure of a pandit family, from Kashmir to Jammu. Navigating difficult terrain, geographically and politically, they reach Jammu, only to be oppressed by searing heat of the plains, degrading circumstances – relative poverty, mocking as ‘smelly’ refugees – and uncertain future. Told by an adolescent narrator, a cricket-lover nursing a broken foot, the initial description of their exile hides a tragedy beneath its exterior layer. There is deeper pain; shock at a more personal misfortune than their collective exodus. “In my own heart there was a gaping hole, a void, a wound”, we read the narrator say in the beginning.
Simultaneously, we read about a Muslim family and its trials and tribulations. Poor, without means or resources, the parents watch their son slowly take to politics of violence and fundamentalism, in the hope of seeking a better future for himself and Kashmir.
Both the narratives complement each other, filling in the gaps, circling around the same events seen through different perspectives. A sense of inevitability, or foreboding animates the plot; gives it power: we know something would happen.
By the time it happens, we are almost prepared but still shaken by its impact. The ‘gaping hole’ makes more sense; brings more pathos to the circumstances. We intuit the enormity of the loss better when it concerns only a few, not many; it illuminates the unique way in which each one of us feels pain; grieves. What happened in Kashmir in the early 90’s to the pandits is painful and inexcusable although many theories, part-apologia, part-explanation remain in circulation: they were in cahoots with the occupying architecture of the Indian state; they had come to occupy the best jobs; they were the most educated and affluent class. But suffering is never annulled by privileges; they only act as a buffer to delay its impact. What I can add is that when I visited the valley, for travel and research purposes in recent years, everyone I met expressed sadness and pain at the exodus of pandits: everyone had a story about how their leaving affected them adversely; there were tales of love, affection, friendships; and ties of culture and community that bound them together.
The sense of balance in Mujoo’s debut novel is praiseworthy. So is its focus on what makes us all human, we who share a common fate, despite our differences, big and small. It is a must-read for those looking for a deeper engagement with Kashmir, beyond the TV news and media headlines.
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