Prof. Nutan K Resutra
Well friends to tell you frankly, I did not see Baramulla! Baramulla is one of the new releases on the popular OTT Netflix. I saw the poster that describes the movie as horror, thriller movie. Since now I do not like to watch horror movies or series, I dropped the idea of even having a glance of it. But then something unexpected happened that gave a new twist to my thinking and made me pen down this write- up.
I am not a tech -savvy person. And I have very little love for whatts app messages; and the least for Instagram. Yesterday, I was waiting for a friend of mine and to kill time, I started scrolling through the messages. My eyes got stuck up at an article sent in a group that had the caption: I watched Baramulla yesterday;and it didn’t let me sleep”written by one Mr. I Ahmed; for some e paper that I had come across for the first time. As curiosity pushed me, I just glanced at it with intent to skip. But then I got glued to it, and made up my mind to share with my own readers the thought process of a Kashmiri Muslim who had been a mute witness to the Kashmiri Pandits’ genocide of the nineties.
He starts by writing “I Watched Baramulla last night. Not as a film critic. Not as a Kashmiri Muslim with a political stance. But as a man who has carried silence like a stone in his chest for thirty-five years.”He dwells upon his upbringing in a house with the head of the family being not conservative, but abroad- minded person; that ‘believed in progress and not pulpits.’ To quote him: “My father read the Quran, Rumi, Azad and Mehjoor under the apple trees while the mosque loudspeakers called for prayers. He was a regular Namazi, a man who would often call the azan himself”. Mr. Ahmed further talks about his own ideology that did not go well with the ones who would wear religion on their political sleeves.
And then he goes on to describe the movie that has imaginary happenings of children vanishing and ghosts whispering. The film Baramulla shows a Muslim Family being haunted by ghosts in a house that once belonged to a Kashmiri Pandit family. I am constrained to quote Mr. Ahmed again when he writes the naked truth: “I believe the dead don’t rest when justice is denied. The Kashmiri Pandits who were killed, raped, looted and driven out in 1989 and 1990; their souls are still here.Not as vengeful spirits with bleeding eyes, but as questions.” He goes on to add that those spirits of the genocide are still haunting the Valley and beyond, in the shapes of empty doorways of Kashmiri Pandits’ houses, in broken bells of Valley temples and also, as mothers in migrant Camps of Jammu; who still cook roghan josh the way their grandmothers did, in vessels that have never seen Kashmir again!
I vividly recall when The Kashmir Files was released, there was a great hue and cry from certain quarters. Even some of my progressive friends had expressed their displeasure by saying that the BJP Government at the Centre wants to draw a wedge between Muslims of Kashmir and others in the country by propagating such movies! Well said. But there is no denying the fact that it was this movie, The Kashmir Files, that made people accept the hard fact that it was not migration, but genocide of the Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley with sole purpose to wipe out the entire community from the Valley. An ethnic cleansing had been undertaken by the militants to instil fear among Kashmiri Pandit Community to make them leave Kashmir for ever. The terrible truth of atrocities committed upon men, children, women and girls was brought on silver screen for the first time. I can never forget the horror of gang-rape of Girija Tikoo who was cut into two with a mechanical saw while she was still alive! And what was the perception of the majority community in those turbulent days? Definitely, everyone did not think the same; has now been bravely put down by Mr. I Ahmed.
Mr. Ahmed makes no excuses in admitting that the atrocities of militants upon Kashmiri Pandits were although committed by the gun-wielding goons, yet equally responsible was the silence of the majority who were the neighbours, friends, students of the Pandit Community. They did not have the courage to raise their voice, none could say no: don’t kill him, don’t rape her, don’t banish them from their homes and our neighbourhood! It is this weight of silence that is still heavy on their chests even after more than three decades.
I am very selfish to quote him again. For, he has been so honest in admitting those facts that no one ever did! He writes:
“My father was silent when the Shrikant Pandit, Maharaj Krishan left. When Babli (Kamla Devi) packed one suitcase and walked into the night. When the Rainas’ house in Anantnag was set on fire. He didn’t cheer. He didn’t participate. He just looked away. That silence had a voice. And it said: “Go. You don’t belong.”
And he chillingly admits that this silence has followed them for decades; always stopping short when they tell story of Kashmir to their children. Now, they do not want to pass on excuses to the coming generations.
From top to bottom, everyone talks of coming back of Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley. But he believes that it is not possible unless theyadmit that the great exodus was not just a tragedy, but a moral collapse on the part of the majority. Their return should not be as refugees or confined to some restricted colonies only, but it should be as owners of memory. “Let them walk through their homes without needing police protection….Let their children play cricket where their fathers once did.”
The thoughts of Mr. I Ahmed have stirred me up. I wish my write up ignites minds of all those also who are in a position to decide and to act in the betterment of the ethos and Culture of the Jannat, called Kashmir!
