The Generation of Rage in Kashmir
David Devadas is no stranger to anyone interested in Kashmir. He has researched and written about Kashmir as a journalist and an author for more than 30 years. He was formerly political editor at Business Standard. An expert on politics and geopolitics, his analyses and predictions about Kashmir since 1988 have been consistently accurate. He has researched Kashmir as Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, India, as Visiting Professor at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India, and as an Erasmus Mundus scholar at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. His books `In Search of a Future, the Story of Kashmir,’ and `The Generation of Rage in Kashmir’ have been bestsellers. In this interview with IAR he discusses his intimate connection with Kashmir and the message he hopes to convey through his books.
What would you say is different in your book ‘The Generation of Rage in Kashmir’ from all the other books that have been written about Kashmir, militarization and militancy?
`The Generation of Rage in Kashmir’ is the only book that analyses generational, socioeconomic, geographical, and other differences within the larger context of the violence in Kashmir. It is also the only book that focuses specifically on the decade from 2007 to 2017, describing how rapidly and radically things have changed during this decade.
It is also different to other books in that each chapter presents a different aspect of the very complex situation during this decade. For example, the chapter titled `conflict economy’ is a unique and very valuable contribution to the literature on areas of conflict. It describes how a range of powerful forces develop vested interests in the continuation of a conflict situation. I believe this chapter is relevant to other conflict situations, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By seeking to explain the experience, motives, and aspirations of two generations, which have been born in a time of violence, this book examines the situation in Kashmir from a human perspective, but focuses on the big picture while doing so. Unnoticed, the generations that have been born amid violence now comprise almost 70 per cent of the population of the Kashmir Valley. I have divided these into two broad generations—those born around 1990 and millennials. I have described the striking differences between their experiences, actions, and aspirations. A study of the millennial generation born in a place and time of violence is of great significance in the contemporary world.
I have also explored the roles of social media through internet telephony, of the `global war on terror,’ narratives about global oppression of Muslims, and of televangelism on shaping the millennial generation. In young minds, these have plugged into narratives about the current situation within Kashmir, which have been vigorously spread since 2008.
In one chapter, I have described the extent to which polarised narratives and perspectives have contributed to promoting violence and entrenching conflict. I have analysed how the same sorts of two-dimensional descriptions and discourses are deployed from opposite ends of the polarised debate, each reinforcing the other. In another chapter, I have described the extent to which perspectives and opinions of young Kashmiris are actually varied and nuanced. For this, I have analysed data from a survey of more than 6,000 Kashmiri students.
In the last chapter, I have analysed reasons for the failure of government efforts at job creation, and entrepreneurship development. These schemes are flawed. Further, I have highlighted how little value the careers that such schemes promote have for the teenagers and children who have taken the forefront of agitation, and even militancy, in Kashmir.
Can you shed some light on the extensive field work you undertook for this book, and how it equipped you with a unique perspective?
This is the result of years—in fact, more than a decade—of hard work in the field. It’s been the participant observer method of research taken to an extreme. Most researchers live with the subjects of their research for a few weeks or months. I have lived in Kashmiri homes for long periods over the past 23 years. These have included rural, urban, suburban, small town, and mountain locations.
When I researched my previous book, wide-ranging interviews with Hurriyat leaders, former militants, police officers, academics, journalists, and sections of civil society had already given me immense insights. Involvement with a prominent Kashmiri daily deepened these.
I shifted to Kashmir bag and baggage in 2007, when I worked for a few months at the newly established university at Awantipora in south Kashmir. I was shifting my things out thereafter but, at the requests of several students, I left some things in Srinagar, and went back in 2008 too. So I was there when the place rang out with huge protests that summer over the land transfer to the Sri Amarnath Shrine Board. I got intense insights that summer, and again in winter, when I made a documentary film on the assembly elections in the Valley.
I was appointed an outstation Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in 2009, and so was able to base myself in Srinagar, and travel across the state. I daresay I have traveled more extensively than anyone, and have stayed for periods in places as remote as Padar, Bani, Mendhar, and Tuleil, among many others.
When the Valley exploded in agitations and protests again in 2010, I realised that the entire range of erstwhile `leaders’ were becoming irrelevant. Youth had collectively taken over the leadership. This was going to be extremely challenging for policymakers to grapple with. I realised it was also a challenge for a researcher who’s primary method has been one-on-one interviews.
In 2011, I undertook an extensive survey of schools, colleges and a few madrasahs, right across the Valley. My assistants and I visited close to 60 educational institutions, and interacted intensively with more than 6,000 students. A large number of them filled out a lengthy qualitative survey. Since we left each question open-ended, leaving space for answers, we got tremendous insights into the minds, hearts, understanding, aspirations, and frustrations of young people across the Valley.
In 2010, I was invited to do research at Humboldt University in Berlin. So, I spent some time in Europe from 2011 to 2016, but insisted on returning to Kashmir for a few months each year, since the situation was changing fast and my work is contemporary. In 2016, just four days after I had returned to Kashmir to celebrate Eid with friends, the militant commander of Burhan Wani was killed. I wrote on a daily basis thereafter, analysing the situation and the reasons for it.
The 2016 agitations were most intense in Kupwara, Pulwama, and Kulgam districts. I travelled through Baramulla and Kupwara districts in the north at the height of the unrest in August 2016, and also went to Tral in the south to interview Burhan’s father and other associates, and see the situation there. It was an extremely dangerous situation by then, but I continued my interactions with students. I had classroom interactions in April and December 2016 and again in the spring and summer of 2017, living with friends in some of the villages that were most strongly affected by agitations and violence, villages that have been hotbeds of the new militancy—places like Newa, Shopian, and Tarigam in south Kashmir. It is in places like these that the new militancy and the accompanying radical ideas have taken deepest root.
You have just had another book published – ‘The story of Kashmir.’ Can you tell us what this book is about? What new light does it throw on Kashmir and his does it differ from the previous one?
`The Story of Kashmir’ is a comprehensive account of the geopolitics, politics, and social and cultural changes in Kashmir since 1930. Written in the narrative style of a story, it intertwines the biographies of three very different Kashmiris into the main narrative.
Every last bit of it is fact, researched over several years, mainly through interviews with prime actors in the story, ranging from prime ministers, ministers, governors, and administrators, to militant commanders and separatist leaders. I must have interviewed Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the Mirwaiz a dozen times each, apart from a host of other leaders from right across the spectrum.
This book expands and completes `In Search of a Future, the Story of Kashmir,’ which was published in 2008. It includes much of that content, along with much more. I have given a detailed account of the Kashmiri uprising against the Dogras in 1931, and compared that uprising with those of the past decade. In that sense, it covers a cycle of history.
The book gives a blow-by-blow account of several of the most important events of the past 90 years, including what led up to the assassinations of the previous Mirwaiz and Mr Abdul Ghani Lone, and what was discussed when Bob Gates met the prime ministers of Pakistan and India—the `Gates mission’ in 1990. It reveals what Gen Zia-ul Haq told the man who set up the JKLF militant operation in Kashmir in 1988. It gives a detailed account of how Sheikh Abdullah reached out to not only Nehru but also Jinnah in the years before independence.
Those who know Kashmir well have appreciated its wealth of valuable detail.
Having observed Kashmir for so long, where do you see Kashmir going from here?
I’m afraid the geopolitical scenario is not good. So violence may come up again, even though the security forces have had a run of amazing success over the past seven months. A large number of Pakistani infiltrators are billeted in the Valley, and more have entered in the past few months. The US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan might spin off increased violence in Kahsmir, just as the end of the Afghan war in April 1992 resulted in Kashmir becoming a proxy war, fought by Pakistanis and Afghans more than by Kashmiris. And China will surely focus on consolidating the Sino-Pak hold on Gilgit to facilitate the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
