It was not like where I came from.
Kashmir was not Afghanistan and Kashmiris were even more different from us Afghans.
I was a Mujahid and had fought hundreds of battles for years against the bloody communist Soviets, alongside other courageous Mujahideen who came from all over the world. By the grace of God, we were successful in forcing them to leave the land of the brave and crowned our victory by making the last empire in the world crumble into bits and pieces.
After fighting the Soviet Hinds with our Stinger missiles, I was sent to wage Jihad against the Indian Hindu Kaafirs.
The Kashmiris were not allowed to offer Namaz. The Kaafir forces had occupied their land and were destroying their mosques. They were building temples of their idols. People did not dare to leave their homes and were living a life not worth living. Crops were being destroyed by the occupying forces and people had nothing to eat. The Muslims of Kashmir were forced to change their religion. This beautiful paradise had been turned into an ugly hell by the infidels.
Hearing all of this and after the invitation of some Kashmiri leaders, I decided to go and liberate Kashmir from these savage Kafirs.
It was the spring of 1999 when I left Khost for the Valley of Kashmir.
A year has passed now.
The reality in Kashmir did not resemble any of the stories which I had heard in Peshawar or from other Afghans in Quetta, and which had made me come here. Soon the naked truth started to unveil an unexpected reality.
Every neighbourhood had a mosque while many of the neighbourhoods had more than one, which catered to the different sects living here. There were absolutely no restrictions on religion, while I kept noticing some obvious restrictions embedded in Islam which were collectively disregarded by the converted Muslims in Kashmir.
While I had been made to believe that a war was being fought in Kashmir, I was surprised to find the opposite.
The habits of Kashmiris had nothing to do with war.
Their marriage ceremonies were lavish. Hundred Manns of meat, chicken and rice and at least ten different dishes, complimented by various side-dishes like chutneys, pickles and salad. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, mineral water, mouth-fresheners, wet-tissues. Sparkling jewellery and beautiful clothes.
All imported from the land of the occupier.
The luxurious houses on ten and sometimes twenty jerib were astonishing as well. Different colours, exquisite wood, high glass windows, majestic green gardens and bright flowerbeds. All secluded by high walls and protected by heavy iron gates.
Even a hundred deaths would not be sufficient to make me imagine that we Afghans, while opposing and fighting against the rule of the Soviets, would at the same time want to keep any association with the occupiers.
However, in Kashmir this was nothing out of the ordinary.
In Afghanistan, leaders were the commanders of the Mujahideen and fought at the forefront.
Here it was different.
A rare glimpse of the leaders would be offered to the people at funeral prayers of Mujahideen or sometimes they would be seen on television and in newspapers repeating their rhetoric.
While in Afghanistan the leaders had tanks, Kalashnikovs and a brave heart, here the leaders favoured Hartal and innocent youth with stones as their weapons. The leaders were fond of visiting Delhi and Mumbai for medical treatment and more than often their treatment would be paid for by the occupying forces. They also preferred to spend the harsh winters in warm and comfortable houses in either the political or financial capital of India.
This was incomprehensible.
I could not imagine Burhanuddin Rabbani or Ahmed Shah Massoud going to Moscow for medical treatment while the Mujahideen kept fighting the Soviets, or that they would retreat to apartments there, because the winters in Kabul, Kandahar or Jalalabad were too harsh.
Children, wives and family members of these leaders in Kashmir have high paid government jobs, while they claim to fight against the same government.
How is that possible?
I asked this question to my Kashmiri host, Ghulam Nabi and to other Kashmiris, but nobody could give me a satisfying answer.
This ‘war’ in Kashmir had also produced a large prosperous class while the price of each and every commodity had increased. We had opium in Afghanistan, but I sometimes wondered what they had in Kashmir.
In some areas, the price of 5 jerib of land is one crore Indian Rupees. During the war in Afghanistan, nobody would be even willing to pay one single Afghani for a hundred jerib of land in Kabul.
Hundreds of thousands of children of this growing and large affluent class in Kashmir including the children of many leaders, study in various colleges and universities located in India. Many of them have settled in cities in India and have jobs in Indian, American and Jewish multinationals. Some of them have settled comfortably abroad in UK, US and Europe while they keep instigating the youth in Kashmir to pick up stones and arms to fight the Indian forces.
In Afghanistan, we had millions of child refugees who fled to Pakistan and Iran and lived in inhuman conditions in tents, but none of them went to Moscow or Tashkent to study and find jobs.
The Soviet Union was our enemy. How could we send our children to study and work there?
The general population of Kashmir is as confused as their leaders.
What is it that they want?
This question has denied me my sleep since I came here, and every Kashmiri has a different answer to it.
Some want to be free, which they call ‘Azaadi’. Some want to become part of Pakistan. Others would like to be part of India. Another portion wants to break up Kashmir and create smaller Kashmirs.
It is a junction of confusions.
I have had long nights of conversations with Ghulam Nabi. I told him that we were supported by the American CIA, Saudis, half a dozen other Western intelligence agencies and the Pakistani ISI, but we never wanted to become part of any of these countries. We were fighting for our land, while they were fighting for their interests.
They used us and we used them.
From some Kashmiris I had come to know that Pakistan also occupied almost half of Kashmir. This made me realize what the game was about, as I had seen enough of Pakistan and its agencies.
I said something to Ghulam Nabi, which totally baffled this poor man. “Ghulam Nabi, let’s say that Afghanistan was occupied half by the Soviet Union and half by the Americans. Could we Afghans then take any assistance from America to fight the Soviets”?
Ghulam Nabi thought for half a minute or so and then in his soft-spoken way said, “Bhaijaan, but then the Americans would only be helping you because they would like to occupy the whole of your country and snatch away your freedom”.
I stood up from my rather comfortable lying position and in total anger and disbelief, slapped Ghulam Nabi’s right cheek with my mighty left hand. “Padar lanat, now you understand? Don’t you see that Pakistan wants the same by helping you against India”?
The psyche of my Kashmiri brethren is very strange. Perhaps too strange for me to comprehend.
The Kashmiri himself will inform on the Mujahid whom he is sheltering, say that violence has ruined everything in Kashmir and that it used to be paradise before the damned Pakistani gun was brought, but thousands of people will also join the funeral procession of the same Pakistani Mujahid. They will curse India but accept funds from it. They will abuse the Indian Army, but 20.000 Kashmiris will also line up to join the Indian Army when there are only 500 vacancies. They will wave flags of Pakistan and ask for ‘Azaadi’. They will vote in elections, line up for government jobs, flourish by doing business in India and then blame the same elections, the government and their business partners for their division and miseries.
We Afghans knew what we were fighting for and we were happy to sacrifice anything for our ultimate goal as we had nothing to lose.
The ruins of our cities still bear witness to this fact.
The Kashmiris on the other hand, had everything to lose and in addition, they were struggling with three fundamental problems. Firstly, they did not know what they actually want. Secondly, because of the fact that their ultimate aim was not defined, they were scattered and thus were being used and abused. Thirdly, everyone seemed to want something, but no one was willing to leave the comforts of life and make sacrifices for whatever they seem to want.
This, like in any place, and Kashmir is no different, means that eventually the poor makes the largest sacrifices, while the affluent reap the fruits of conflict.
I am an Afghan and a man of my word. I came here to fight to defend the Muslims of Kashmir, because I was told that they were facing what we Afghans faced at the hands of the Soviets.
But none of that was true.
Kashmiris were not like us Afghans. Their culture is different. They detest violence. They are not a martial race or warriors by any stretch of imagination. The Pakistani ISI while indoctrinating and training young adolescent Kashmiri boys in trainings camps in Muzaffarabad, used to taunt and humiliate them by telling them, “tapsi tey thus karsi”.
Kashmiris are innocent people who were being used by the same country which was culpable of turning Afghanistan into rubble.
Fear had choked their voice. The poor were tired of losing their young sons without knowing for what they had lost them. They were worn by the deafening cries of the numerous widows and orphans. The common Kashmiri was longing for a dignified path, leading to peace. He was longing for liberation from this proxy war between two giants on his soil.
Ghulam Nabi also wanted peace.
He had been harbouring me because of his many compulsions. Although he tried to hide it, but I could see the relief on his face when I told him that I was going back to Afghanistan.
Before leaving, I looked in his frightened, moist eyes and put my hand on his frail shoulder.
“Ghulam Nabi, what you need is real peace. This Afghan only knows the peace of a graveyard”.
“That is not what I wanted for Afghanistan, and it is not what I wish for Kashmir”.
“Har chata khpal watan Kashmir de…”
“Khudai Paman”.
( The Author is the Director of European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) and can be reached at j.qureshi@efsas.org)
