The story of Harud

Talking to young Kashmiri writers

By Nawaz Gul Qanungo

Srinagar, October 1

To be or not to be:

Is that the only question?

These words open one of Huzaifa Pandit’s poems that he had decided to read at the Harud Literary Festival. The event was to be held in Srinagar in late September. “I was going to take part in two events. One was on the role of blogging in literature and another on emerging local writers. I was going to read some of my ghazals too,” he says in excitement. “Taqdeer mein nahi tha, so nahin mila,” he says pensively, “It wasn’t going to be, so it didn’t happen.”

Harud met strong criticism from writers from within and outside Kashmir. These included perhaps the two biggest names of Kashmiri writers writing in English currently – Basharat Peer and Mirza Waheed. While Basharat, author of Curfewed Night, opened a window to the violence of life in conflict in the valley in his non-fiction book, Waheed shot to international fame earlier this year with his debut novel, The Collaborator, a novel set, again, in the midst of Kashmir conflict.

The bone of contention, among other things, was the statement by the organisers that the event was going to be “apolitical”. If that were not enough, Kashmiris took offence to yet another statement that the event was to allow “India’s multi cultural ethos to resonate across the world”. Majority of Kashmiris support a future outside the Indian union.

Says Sameer Bhat, “It simply makes one reflect, if only in self-amusement, how does one de-link art and literature from politics? And how do you hyphenate the two in a space as political as Kashmir?” Sameer is perhaps the most popular Kashmiri blogger, and has a great following for his short satire. Earlier with Financial Times of London, he is now based in Dubai. Just turned 30, he is currently working on his first fiction novel set in Kashmir.

He adds: “It is astonishing to note that while the organizers scramble about to provide a platform to writers, they choose to either forgo or overpass the silenced tragedy of Kashmir. Is this an effort to mock at the muffled dissent that is so commonplace in Kashmir? When Kashmiris, by and large, cannot express themselves freely, how can a literary fest engage them in a meaningful way?”

Arif Parrey, one of Kashmir’s more promising young writers, has a different take. “I found Harud’s assertion of Kashmiri and Urdu literature in its proposed event a bit problematic.” Writers in English who have established their names have found a certain safety in their recognition in the rest of the world, he says. “People who are based in the valley, especially those who write in the vernacular, do not enjoy that safety as they remain unknown outside the valley,” he says. Vernacular writings have thus essentially been far less political than what is being written in English, he adds. “Suddenly, you have Harud talking about the Kashmiri vernacular literature and one is forced to be sceptical.”

But then, wouldn’t calling such vernacular writers to an event like Harud by itself provide that “safety”? “Harud is just a show window. The world doesn’t get to see what is happening within the store behind that window,” he says. Harud will come and go, he adds. “It could help if it were a sustained effort, but that’s not what it was,” he says. Arif’s writings have appeared in at least two recent anthologies – by Penguin and Harper Collins – on Kashmir. He has a law degree and is a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction.

Tahir Firaz, in his mid-20s, taught in a local school after doing a master’s in peace and conflict studies. He writes short stories and poetry in English and Urdu, something that has won him praise in local events. “I would have loved to be part of the audience. As a writer, you can not miss such events,” he says. “However, the criticism that Harud faced dissuaded large sections of aspiring writers from attending the event,” he adds, “and I think that happened for the better.”

He reasons: “It seemed like another programme in the list of what the government has been doing of late – creation of youth clubs, cricket and football tournaments held every other day… They are simply trying to channel youth anger to ‘harmless’ activities.”

Kashmir has seen some of its strongest anti-India protests, led especially by the youth, in the previous three years. The government and the security establishment this year responded by an extended line-up of sports activities for youth, like T-20 cricket tournaments. Interestingly, Delhi Public School outside Srinagar which was supposed to be the major venue for the Harud Litfest was also the venue for one such cricket tournament organised by the Indian army.

Talking about the larger goal of the army, Lt. Gen. Syed Ata Hasnain, the Indian army’s chief in Kashmir, told the media earlier this year, “What we are trying to do is to make extra efforts to reach out to the people… To use the heart as a weapon, this is the doctrine.” The security establishment has been proactively trying to “engage” the youth in different activities in order to keep them away from protests and demonstrations. “This is invented normalcy,” quips Sameer.

The other Harud venue was Kashmir University, a place where political expression is hardly given space. “Even our research proposals are rejected if they are remotely connected to Kashmir’s history and politics in a manner that questions the state narrative,” says Irfan Bashir (name changed), a research scholar in Kashmir University. He adds, “What does freedom of expression mean in such a place?” The small office of the university students union was razed by the authorities here in the middle of the night a couple of years ago, he quips. Students unions are banned in the university since long now.

“An impression is being created that dissent is allowed in Kashmir, when actually it is not,” says Jasir Haqqani, one of the young Kashmiris who signed an open letter critiquing the event and its organisers. Jasir studied economics in Jamia Millia in Delhi and is now doing his masters in School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “Young people are being pushed to the wall,” he says. I signed the letter expecting the organisers will clarify their position, Jasir adds. “We never meant that the event be cancelled. It wasn’t even a boycott call.”

Owais Andrabi (name changed), a PhD student at Kashmir University, says, “Rahul Gandhi recently came to the university. Students were called from colleges outside the university to attend and people were asked to pose pre-drafted questions to Gandhi.” Private colleges have no choice but to send their students when the authorities demand, he says. “Those who wanted to pose questions on their own were not allowed to reach the mic,” he says. Recently, the Congress party was apparently on a recruitment drive in the university.

Huzaifa, who had been preparing for Harud, argues: “There were sections in the event which were to be devoted completely to politics, like the one on prison diaries.” But I felt the organisers were a confused lot, he says. “Their homework on Kashmir was lacking.” He adds: “The organisers ought to have understood that sensibilities in Kashmir differ from the outside world. Words here have particular nuances, generated by years of conflict and strife, attached to them. Add to that their lax approach in refuting the media speculation that Salman Rushdie might attend. Whatever Rushdie’s literary abilities, in Kashmir he is widely seen as a blasphemer, though most people don’t know the grounds on which their claim rests.”

“On Facebook,” he says, “in a group protesting against Rushdie, I tried to defend the festival by saying that Rushdie had not been invited. But group members smacked the media reports in my face! My claim that in the provisional itinerary, which the Harud organisers had framed, had no mention of Rushdie failed to hold credence.”

I couldn’t understand why the organisers allowed the Rushdie affair to fester until it snowballed into a major controversy, he says. He sighs in disappointment: “It was a combination of blunders and it so grieved me to see the event being cancelled. I had great hopes from it.” It would have been a lovely experience for people like me who cannot travel outside the valley to interact with reputed names and to learn from them, he says. “I so wanted to meet Rehman Rahi and Gulzar!”

Separate versions appear in the Tamil Dinamalar and Yuva.