The Independence Rebels

The visit

The long June twilight faded into night. Kashmir lay enveloped in darkness but for the feeble light of the moon that cast a pale light over the streets. I watched the sky grow darker for a while, allowing my brain to be empty, content to exist, and be. The reason I was here was that my father had some business to deal with and he couldn't leave me alone since my mother passed away. I like Kashmir as it is a place of beautiful and pristine natural beauty. But the decade of war between Pakistan and India for this place has turned it into a battleground.

Few people had been able to visit Kashmir since the blockade was imposed last November. Still, the government kept promising that everything was "normal." As I sat on the bed, I started to look around the room. The hotel room was spacious and carpeted, with ornate wooden furniture in the Kashmiri way. I walked over to the window. Police vans equipped with public-address systems rumbled up and down the streets of Kashmir declaring a curfew. This was not unusual. In Kashmir, curfews are frequently imposed to keep people from protesting. My face was red with suppressed rage and my teeth gritted from the effort to remain silent. As a girl, I was expected to be obedient and submissive. As an Indian girl, I was raised to become voiceless and silent. But now there is a wind howling like a swirling storm inside me that I cannot keep in. At this very moment, I rose like a phoenix from the ashes - the perfect girl is gone! For eighteen years I have loved my father but I have lost all respect for him as his ways are wrong. 

My father, Haseeb was a fourth-generation Kashmiri leader and a loyal supporter of the Indian government— India's government has recently revoked part of the constitution that prompted fears of unrest in Kashmir. India and Pakistan fought several conflicts over Kashmir. During that time, I have seen awful things. The many conflicts saw fathers and brothers fighting to their last breath and the corrupted police officers firing without mercy. The dead lay thickly over the ground and the wounded baked under an unrelenting sun. As a little girl, I thought my dad was my hero, now, I see him as a father who kills so many innocent fathers while leaving the children as orphans and the wives as widows.

Something has to be done. My father needed to be stopped. I was the only one who could do it. While I changed out of my abaya into a sheer black jumpsuit, a sense of insecurity and shame overpowered my body. I have always abided by the modest Muslim fashion and stepping out of my comfort zone was hard. Being modern is more intimidating than expected. But that was the only way to go around unnoticed in the guarded streets of Kashmir. I took the route of Lal Chock, which led me to Commander Kashif, the first person on my list I needed to see. As every woman born and raised in India, I needed a strong man to back me up and advance my plans. The city looked different from my 5-star resort, it was devoid of the warmth and life. It is a collection of buildings, roads laid like a carpet for a queen that will never come.