Poets soak in Kashmir’s long lament, some cling to hope Bashir Dada has stopped writing since August 5, Rumuz has been rendered ‘memory-less’, Pandit is dealing with a ‘knot in my chest’

| Srinagar | Published 04.01.20, 12:34 PM

Kashmir’s poets haven’t been completely silenced by the siege. While sharing the sense of hurt and humiliation felt by Kashmiris after the unilateral abrogation of Article 370 and the subsequent lockdown and communications shutdown imposed in the valley by the government, they’ve spoke out through their poetry filled with rage and lament, but also hope. Huzaifa Pandit, a 31-year-old Kashmiri poet and research scholar, who published his first poetry collection “Green is the Colour of Memory” (Hawakal Publishers, Calcutta) last year, is no stranger to the military siege, having lived all his life in Kashmir. On August 5, when he heard that Article 370 had been scrapped, he felt a sense of resignation and disbelief. Confined to his home in Srinagar, he spent the first day of the curfew in resigned silence, staring at the walls. Within days he got used to the imposed silence of the curfew amid the communications shutdown. “I felt a knot in my chest that expanded to the throat as every direction appeared barricaded,” he says. For the first few weeks post August 5, Pandit would eagerly huddle around the radio, hoping for some positive news. Disappointed, he would spend the rest of the day reading, or writing poems just to distract his mind.


“First I thought of writing a diary of events as I experienced them post August 5, but I found myself unable to express anything in prose. Then I turned to poetry and wrote a few poems in response to the lockdown in Kashmir,” says Pandit, who has recently submitted his Ph.D. thesis on “Poetics of resistance: Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Agha Shahid Ali and Mahmoud Darwish” at the University of Kashmir. Pandit has written two poems reflecting on the siege in Kashmir. The first, “Here is a Present”, plays around the idea of a gift from New Delhi announced for the besieged, dispossessed people in Kashmir – the creation of 50,000 jobs announced by the BJP government for the youth of Jammu and Kashmir soon after the abrogation of Article 370. ‘Here is a present

which plunges into the pit of strange words

to draw out curses for our forefathers.

The paper worms spit out the silver hearts

of maps we smuggled through detained windows.

Perhaps they remember when we stormed out

of the barricaded gates like the west wind

and tore the pavements to pieces. Here is a present

On which the resigned soldiers sling their rifles

And prepare a hasty dinner

from fires mounted on armored rakshaks.

Perhaps we too will be fed

once the sparrows bite our famished mouths.’ (Excerpted Huzaifa Pandit’s poem ‘Here is a present’)

The second poem, “Notes for a Stranger”, is addressed to an Indian citizen who wants to buy land, make a house, and settle down in Kashmir following the revocation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the state into union territories. ‘Stranger, greet us in the middle of sun dried

rain, and doze with us in the mustard

of songs sown by the blind singer.

Meet us midway in the night as long

as sudden death.

We are afraid of your breath…’ Stranger, ask the butterfly

of the snow over the masjid dome

and the hunter’s tent in ripe summer

of apple orchards. Pour our honey

over these empty bruises in the grass.

We are afraid of the siege…’ (Excerpted from the poem ‘Notes for a Stranger’) “My pen is down” For Kashmir’s legendary poet, playwright and songwriter Bashir Dada, who writes in Urdu and Kashmiri, the abrogation of Article 370 by the BJP government at the Centre felt like a dragger drawn at the heart of India’s 70-year-old commitment to the people of Kashmir. “Article 370 was a commitment with the people of Jammu and Kashmir. By removing it, the ruling dispensation has shown that it doesn’t care about ethics and promises, but only about the exercise of brute power,” says Dada. He said people in Kashmir were feeling the slap; there was a sense of humiliation being felt by all, including writers and poets of Kashmir. After August 5, Dada has not penned down a single verse. “I’ve stopped writing after August 5. My pen is down. Even the writer’s voice inside me is silent in protest,” he says, adding that writers and poets are also feeling besieged in Kashmir. “We also feel a sense of hurt and humiliation over the treatment meted out to our people.” Hence, a writer or a poet, supposed to be the voice of the voiceless, has also been rendered silent. Dada believes the absence of widespread protests by the people since August 5 should not be read as a sign of normalcy in Kashmir. “Kashmiris will not forget this humiliation. People might be silent because they are deeply hurt but there will be a reaction,” he says in a voice tinged with anger and hurt. “People in Kashmir know that hatred for petty political gains is used against them as a weapon to further suppress them.”