Underpaid, Overworked: The Story of the Artisans Who Make Durga Idols

This piece was first published in The Live Wire on October 22, 2019.

By Sheikh Saqib

At Chittaranjan Park’s Kali Mandir in South Delhi – the hub of Bengali community in the national capital – a group of eleven artisans are sitting on a worn-out bedding inside a shabby tent built out of cloth and iron-poles.

The artisans are rejoicing as their three-month-long hard work is finally on display: a huge idol of goddess Durga.

Every year, a handful of artisans come to Delhi, from Kolkata, at least three months before Durga puja to make these clay figurines. Durga Puja is one of India’s most popular Hindu festivals which is celebrated with great enthusiasm. The devotees worship the idol for five days and later immerse her in the river Yamuna.

But amid celebrations, the artisans behind these life-sized Durga idols are often treated as regular labourers.

Housed in a tent, forty-eight-year old Govind Nath, who came here form Kolkata with his group comprising ten other artisans, says that the tent provides him shelter and a place to work and sleep. “I live here with my wife and kids, including other artists. We sleep, cook and work here; all at the same place,” says Govind, while others start turning to work in order to give a final touch to some of the freshly made idols.

Govind and his men have experience of over thirty years. They migrated to Delhi three months before Durga puja. “We came here three months back. Since then we are working night and day. Initially, we would start our work at around 8 in the morning till two in the evening. Then we would rest till six and from then work till 1 in the night. But as the puja came closer, we would hardly sleep,” said 38-year-old Narayan Bhatachariya, another artist who works under Govind.

Bhatachariya earns Rs 15,000 per month, which, he says, is sufficient to sustain but still less to fulfil the family’s desires. “I am proud that I do something which makes people happy. The smile on their faces when they see the newly built idols gives me immense pleasure and satisfaction. But you can’t eat satisfaction. You have to earn enough to satisfy your family which is very hard in this profession,” Bhatachariya said.

Bhattachariya has started working on a new contract of making idols which his boss and co-worker, Govind, got a few days ago. He says that the government should look into the state of artists like him.

“The kids of this generation are not ready to do this kind of job because there is more hard work and less money. We can only expect a shift in the coming times, only if the government starts investing in us,” he said adding, “If the Chittaranjan Park committee had not built this shed-like structure for accommodation, we could have been living in a much worst condition.”

The other co-workers said that a lot of people came to visit them and distributed sweets to applaud their hard work.

“Many people came and shared sweets with us just to compliment us. Most of them were young people, in their early twenties, and were shocked to see us living in a shed. They probably thought that we’d be enjoying our time in some concrete air-conditioned building,” one co-worker said.

The young people, artisans say, sat with them and praised their work.

“I could sense their empathy towards us which felt good because there is hardly anyone who cares,” another artist said.

As Bhatachariya and his co-workers settle on the dust-ridden floor to work on the new idols, Bhatachariya talks about the hard work that goes behind making Durga Idols.

“As the tradition goes, the priest of the Durga Puja has to get soil from a prostitute’s house. Some claim that the soil is considered to be the purest as men while visiting them leave their purity and virtue at her place. This symbolises the importance of woman power,” while adding: “When all these formalities are done, we then build the figurines out of straw, chaff, and clay and place them in the sun to dry.”

However, making idols of such importance, he says, in a dusty shed only to be underpaid is very disappointing.

“Sometimes, when I wake up from sleep after work, I feel like my whole body is broken, and I think of changing my profession,” Bhatachariya said while stressing how much he works hard for a small amount of money, “But then, I can only make ideals and that’s the only skill I have.”

According to official figures, artisans are the backbone of the non-farm rural Indian economy, with an estimated seven million artisans and upto 200 million artisans engaged in craft production to earn a livelihood.

According to the UN, over the past 30 years, the number of Indian artists has decreased by 30%. In a research report, Crafting a Livelihood, released by Dasra, a leading philanthropic foundation, 50% of household heads of craft producing families have no education with 90% of the women in these families being completely uneducated. It states that craft is a family activity as 76% of them attribute their professions to tradition and legacy.

The report further states, “Propelled by loss of markets, declining skills and difficulty catering to new markets, a large number of artisans have moved to urban centres in search of a low, unskilled unemployment in the industry. The Indian government, private sector and non-profits are each involved in the sector but their roles have evolved in silos with little
specialisation and much duplication.”

The fear of Being Caged and Cut off from the Rest of the World

The piece first appeared in The Inverse Journal on October 13, 2019.

By Sheikh Saqib

On the bus, I could hear an old lady imploring out loud to God, “Ya Allah Asi Pyeath Kar Raham” (Dear God, please have mercy on us). I was riding back home after spending an entire day at my college, at around 8 PM on August 3^rd. Kashmir Valley was yet again entrapped between confusion and anxiety, balancing between fear and uncertainty while holding on strong to hope and prayer. The last time I had witnessed such a situation was in the immediate aftermath of the February 14th Pulwama attack when a local rebel—what natives in Kashmir call them—rammed his explosive-filled XUV car into a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), resulting in an attack where more than 40 Indian CRPF personnel, including the rebel himself, lost their lives.

On August 3rd, the developments were vastly different. The fear of abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A and a full-scale war between the two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, had been giving sleepless nights to the indigenous Kashmiri population.

The central government, earlier that week, had deployed 10,000 additional armed forces into Kashmir. Later, 25,000 more troops were stationed in the Valley (while according to new reports in the media, the exact number of troops pressed into action lately was said to be 1,80,000 exactly). This was in addition to the already 7,00,000 soldiers parked in the Valley, notoriously making Kashmir one of the world’s most militarized territories over the last three decades.

That entire day at school, before the bus ride home, when this sudden disturbance had engulfed the Valley, I was in center number 39 of Amar Singh College, glued to my seat, waiting for the question paper of my first semester examination. For the next two and half hours, I was to focus on my paper, while all sorts of big and mysterious events transpired around me and around everyone else in our community.

As I set my focus on the question paper before me, barely after an hour or so into the exam, a cavalcade of trucks and jeeps started ringing their horns in a loud and unpleasant manner from outside the examination hall. From the proximity of the sound that their horns and running engines were making, I could sense them within the college campus. It made me anxious and edgy as I was already aware of the growing uncertainty across Kashmir, particularly from Srinagar, the summer capital where news about the latest developments tended to disperse towards other districts. From the sound of the bustling engines, I knew these were armed soldiers barging in to occupy our college and our spaces of learning. The invigilators inside the classroom started exchanging whispers, and gesticulating. For a minute I forgot about my paper and started imagining the chaotic scenes that would be prevailing in the streets of the Valley while armed troopers made their way into our spaces of study. As a sudden anxiety-laced adrenaline kicked in, I panicked into thinking that I wished not to die in that confined structure of a dull exam hall, but rather on the streets of Kashmir, with everybody else.

After turning in my exam paper amid the psychological war that coursing through my brain, I hurried towards the corridor of the building and grabbed my bag in order to take out my phone and check every single notification that had been popping up on my mobile screen from the last few hours. Initially, I feared that the Internet had been shutdown, but it was still active and functional at that point. The first news item my eyes affixed onto was the advisory issued by Shaleen Kabra, the Principal Secretary (from the Home Department), to Amarnath pilgrims and tourists ordering them to curtail their stay in Kashmir and go back home immediately.

The communique stated, “Keeping in view the latest intelligence inputs of terror threats, with specific targeting of the Amarnath Yatra, and given the prevailing security situation in the Kashmir Valley, in the interest of safety and security of the tourists and Amarnath Yatris, it is advised that they may curtail their stay in the Valley immediately and take necessary measures to return as soon as possible.”

As I kept surfing the Internet for more details, whilst ambling down the way towards the main gate of the college, I could see armed soldiers with guns latched onto their shoulders, manning several doors of the college buildings. I could see them parking their vehicles, loaded with guns and other ammunition, in front of the college library. The sight sent a chill throughout my body. I tried to comprehend the whole situation, but just felt as if the war was next door and had come knocking ferociously, with armed troopers and military vehicles in close proximity, immediately on the campus of the college where I was enrolled along with hundreds of students.

Parents, relatives and close associates started calling in to advise all of us to return to our home early. “No one knows what is going to happen. It’s safer to go home early today,” one of my school teachers told me. “Take the first bus and reach home as soon as you can,” my worried mother nervously demanded over the phone, calling several times over to ensure I was on my way to her doorstep.

As I kept walking towards the bus stop, I could see the chaos spreading everywhere on roads. People, fearing a long lock-down, were by now out on streets to buy petrol, medicines, groceries and other daily essentials. I could see the disorder and stress in the streets manifest in the hectic civilian traffic and in the haste with which people were trying to gather essentials, surely preparing for, and expecting, the worst yet to come. In one of the alleys, which is on my route to the bus stop, a 16-year-old boy jokingly told his friend while both of them were saying farewell to each other, “Download everything you want to, today, there might be a month’s long Internet blockade. You can’t trust India. They can do whatever they want.”

At that time, I thought to myself, how good it is for a Kashmiri to die than to survive such extremely terrible situations. On the one hand the grownups running up and down the streets from shop to store, buying essentials and stocking up quickly as if a nuclear conflict were to unfold within hours, while an unfazed youth schemed to download entire series of TV shows and films to watch offline locked within his house, in case the state did what it had done before, disconnect the Internet and leave Kashmiris out of touch with the rest of the world. The besiegement that Kashmiris felt was a daily routine by now, and previously entire months had transpired with internet disconnection, continued curfew and a general lock-down with newspapers suspended from circulation, particularly in 2016 when the rebel leader Burhan Muzaffar Wani was killed. This new situation, exhibited the previous policy measures by the state, but also was eerily reminiscent of the 90s, when almost overnight troop deployment and brutal counter-insurgency tactics resulted in massacres ingrained in peoples’ memories ever since. This was perhaps the reason why the abounding fear had engulfed people Valley-wide while many were rushing about to stock up on petrol, food essentials and medical supplies.

In the bus when I recounted the particular incident of the boys (preparing to download TV shows and films in bulk) to an old man, he told me, “Kashmir is a prison and we don’t even have the right to proper communication, like everyone else.”

The bus was mostly filled with members of the older generation. The memories of 1990’s were being refreshed. “They did the same in nineties when Jagmohan took over as the governor of the state,” Touath explained—in Kashmir, young kids would address the eldest man in the family as Touath. This was considered a mark of respect in the use of such affectionate nicknames, a practice that has now almost vanished in the Valley. The use of such appellations, though, still continues in some households.

“Jagmohan was the key player in evacuating Kashmiri Pandits in 1990’s. He told the Pandit community that he had plans of killing half a million Kashmiri Muslims in order to overcome the uprising against New Delhi. Pandits were assured that they would be looked after well, and would be provided free relief, jobs and free accommodation. They were assured that once the massacre of the Kashmiri Muslim population was done and the movement was crushed, they would be sent back to the valley. This is how the Pandits left. And I am sensing a similar situation in the books right now,” Touath told his audience on the bus. The ones in the front seat had, by now, turned their heads over in order to catch the glimpse of the person who was sharing some credible knowledge, with which everyone seemed familiar.

I had encountered a similar kind of retelling of history in a Daaba while heading back home. I don’t know whether this was a coincidence or people were sharing a collective history with each other as there seemed to be a semblance between what transpired during 1989 and 1990 and the government’s response through mysterious policies being implemented at ground-level within a 24-hour span, all of which, in their summation, had seemed suspicious and sketchy to the local population.

“Today we are blamed for throwing out the Pandits when all of that was organized by the central government and now after another twenty to thirty odd years, our children will be blamed for throwing out tourists and Yatris, even when all of this is being done at the behest of the central government,” Touath added.

As Touath kept sharing oral history and giving predictions for the future, I reached my locality and deboarded the bus at my stop.

At home, everyone was tense and waiting for further developments on this new and unprecedented situation. The developments—a code-name for anything implemented by the government that severely impacted quotidian life in Kashmir—a day later on August 4th arrived as a major disappointment. With a telecommunications and an Internet blockade in effect, the whole state of Jammu and Kashmir was put under indefinite lock-down, which continues till today, entering its 3^rd month, and having begun with the arrest of various pro-India and pro-freedom leaders and their associates.

The next day, the fear of the people became an untamable reality. On August 5^th, the ruling Indian party, the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) revoked Article 370 and Article 35A from the Indian constitution that guaranteed autonomy to the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, through what several political commentators have called illegal and unconstitutional means, resulting in the split of the state into two union territories, namely Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh.

That night, amid the havoc and disorderliness, news of increasing military presence on both sides of the Line of Control (between India and Pakistan administered Kashmir), catalysed a new wave of madness and strain felt across the Valley’s homes, businesses and places of public gathering. Today, as the Valley continues to face the lock-down and communications blackout, we live in panic, terror and alarm, in a state of continued besiegement. Most of our schools and colleges are occupied by Indian armed soldiers, campuses are filled with AK-47s and war arsenal, and the economy has worsened exponentially. Food, produce, medical supplies and basic essentials, including petrol, are hard to get to during the normal work hours from early morning till late evenings. The harvest, dry fruits and nuts, grain and agricultural sectors overall have suffered severe damages. There is no access to healthcare even for newborn babies, and people who were generating employment for youth three months earlier are left with no option but to migrate and seek employment outside Kashmir. People from rural villages are seen hitchhiking on the highway trying to get to city hospitals and specialty clinics for treatment that they cannot get in their own areas. All this while there is heavy circulation of military vehicles on the roads, with troopers placed on every major intersection as drones habitually fly over villages and city areas.

The situation, presently, is worse than ever. Around eight million people are caged in the world’s most beautiful prison, Kashmir. Their crime is that they have never failed to show resistance towards those who try to overpower them by coercive and undemocratic means.

Inside the murky world of doctors, where MRs buy bread and build houses

They come across as urbane and upbeat young professionals carrying bags full of freebies around health centres. But behind their sophisticated vocation, many medical representatives admit doing ‘dirty jobs’ for doctors to secure big pharmaceutical deals.

This story first appeared in Free Press Kashmir on August 9, 2018.

By Sheikh Saqib


Before spitting and lighting up another cigarette in rage, he gave a mouthful to a reluctant doctor avoiding his phone calls for last three days. After a month-long toil, the young medical representative (MR) was finally supposed to secure the much-awaited medicinal deal with a well-known doctor in the summer capital, Srinagar.

But even after bearing the cost of the doctor’s entire family’s monthly bills, the MR began to understand: The doctor wants more.

While his phone kept ringing, another fresh-faced, immaculately-dressed young man showed up at the door of a doctor in Srinagar’s SMHS. His entry turned the doctor with a stethoscope around his neck attentive.

The young MR introduced himself as Aabid, who had come to make a deal for the medicine company he works for. But before he could strike a deal, the doctor tells him, “I’ve already signed a contract with another medical firm for the next six months! I’m booked.”

The debonair young professional makes a face and walks out with a bagful of ‘gifts’ he had brought for the doctor.

Aabid’s growing class often make their presence felt around the health centres across Kashmir. They appear to be well-groomed, gifted with good personalities. Usually in their 20s, they routinely carry a bagful of personal ‘gifts’ and other promotional tools for doctors for prescribing the chosen medication to the patients.



While doctors struggle to make a choice, these MRs make the business moretempting by increasing the doctors’ price and producing convincing ‘gifts’ to let them prescribe the medicines confidently.

And sometimes, it even happens as the patient is present, inside clinics or wards. The patients believe it is a deal which might pave way for cheaper medicines for their treatment.

“But it’s always not so easy,” says Imran Shah, a Srinagar-based MR, working for a prominent Indian pharmaceutical company. “At times, we’ve to literally beg before doctors to secure business.”

As a greenhorn, some four years ago, when he was oblivious of the ugly nuances involved in his job, he saw some of his colleagues holding their chins and pleading before doctors inside their clinics: “Sir, please! Make it happen. Otherwise, I’ll lose my job.”

Shah says, being a successful MR is to be a shrewd salesman, who has to go the extra mile to woo the best doctors in town for big business.

“At the end of the day,” he says, “it doesn’t matter how ethically you do this job. What matters is business. And to get that, we often have to appease the doctors with different items and gifts.”

When teenager Rayan got an iPhone after passing his Class 10, he was surprised that his doctor father had gifted him an expensive smartphone out of his hard-earned money.

“But I returned the phone when my father told me about the deal with a certain MR,” says Rayan, who later successfully convinced his father to give up this wheeling and dealing in the name of the sacred profession. “I realized that everything I get on special occasions, be it festivals or functions was a gift that my father received in pushing some pharmaceutical products down the gullet of ailing and poor patients.”



Many see the MR-doctor nexus behind Kashmir’s growing pharmaceutical industry. This rampant trade-off itself betrays the 2017 Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines, stressing on putting in place a legal framework to ensure that the doctors prescribe low cost generic medicines to patients.

But doctors in Kashmir think that government is trying to hoodwink the masses about ‘generic’.

“Just writing generic won’t help,” says Sajid Bhat, a general physician from Srinagar. “The patient will go to the chemist who will again provide the drug from a particular company. Now the centre of sales of a particular drug will change from doctor to the chemist, who will be thronged by MRs to provide drugs from their respective companies for the generic written by the doctor.”

But as the exchange in the name of medicines continues, many MRs whine that they do “dirty jobs” for doctors to secure the deals.

“I’m usually assigned to get my mother’s car’s fuel tank filled to capacity every weekend,” says Haneef, who travels 10 kilometers every weekend to get his mother’s commission home. The bill is later given to one of the MRs to get the money in cash. Besides fuelling tanks, other favours like buying bread on festivities are expected from these MRs.

On his sister’s marriage, Haneef says, the MRs from one of the companies were made to work by his doctor father. It was quite a scene when young, suave-faced MRs became labourers for the day.



“I still feel sorry for the poor chaps,” he says. “They were literally, Begani Shadi Mein Abdullah Dewana (Someone foolishly gets excited at someone else’s wedding).”

Given their huge chain, Haneef’s family found it hard to serve such a huge gathering of guests. “So,” he said, “my father grabbed the opportunity and asked some of the MRs to show their presence in the marriage in order to serve the guests only if they want him to prescribe their medication in the hospital he works in. The next day, the whole department was here.”

But the dirty nexus does not end there.

Many doctors, says Shabir, another MR, who instead of buying clothes and other materials from their own money acquire such things from MRs of different companies.

“Lately,” he said, “we had to even build a house for one of the doctors, who didn’t get convinced with gifts like phones and other electronic devices. He is one of the famous doctors around. Later we also offered him and his family a trip to Dubai.”

The commoners who crowd the clinics for a medical checkup might not have inkling of this nexus, but the murky world that exists behind the suave faces and the sacred service makes one wonder over the sorry state of affairs plaguing the vitals of the society.

The man fighting the dark world

He was born blind in a family where his father trained him to face the larger indifferent world around him. Years later, this grooming would make Haneef Malik a fighter of his and that of his tribe’s rights.

The story first appeared in The Indus Post Magazine on March 15, 2019.

By Sheikh Saqib

With his family of four, Mohammad Haneef Malik lives in a two-storey house, in Baramulla’s non-decrepit parish. The second flight of his house is convincingly incomplete, with no windows and floor covering. But the twenty three year old, battling darkness, hopes to get it done once he acquires what he calls a ‘secure and stable’ job.

Inside his house, he sits against one of the unwashed walls of his bedroom where he’s often seen fiddling with electronic gadgets. He also fixes electronic stuff like torches, mobile phones, heater etc, and sometimes manages to play with sophisticated electronic devices.

Haneef is born blind and currently works as a contractual instructor to people like him in Volunteer Medical Society (VMS) – an institute rehabilitating specially-abled persons across Jammu and Kashmir – in Srinagar’s Bemina area. Unlike others at his workplace, Haneef is the only specially-abled teacher.

Born to a government teacher, Saif-u-din Malik and homemaker Mehtaba Begum in early 1990s, Haneef credits his father for whatever he’s able to do today.

“My father never failed me,” Haneef says with a smile. “He knew that life can never be lived with the help of others so he taught me something which helped me live independently.”

His father used to take out two different coins from his pheran pocket, only to drop them one after another on the uncovered floor, before asking Haneef: Which one I just plunged on the cemented floor?

“Initially I hated this tiring activity but soon after my father died, I realized its importance in my life,” the proud son says. “It vastly improved my listening capacity and helped me judge things by hearing the noise they cause when knocked with a walking stick.”

To train him further, his father would also throw coins in different directions and ask him to look and search for them. And today, he says, he’s able to distinguish the sound of a cup and plate when they go down and can make out the fallen one without seeing it.

Years before, with the assistance of his classmates and teachers, Haneef completed his schooling with normal kids in Andergham Government High School. His classmates would read for him, so that he could write that in Braille and revise at home.

“I had done an adjustment course which also includes Braille during the winter vacation of my 6^th standard in Delhi’s All India Blind Congregation Center,” he says. 

“Learning Braille became a way out for me. But at school I had to face problems because they had no facilities for blind persons to write in Braille and every time during my examinations, I was provided with a scribe who would write my exam on my behalf.”

But the idea of scribe didn’t always work for him and he had to bear the brunt for being blind. “In my Class 12,” he says, “I was even denied a scribe which is making me suffer till date.”

Haneef blames State Board of School Education (BOSE) for denying help to him, despite knowing about his blindness.

“I went from one office to another in order to plead them of providing me a scribe whom I could dictate my answers so that he could write but they just didn’t allow it,” he turns grim. “And when the exams finally came, I had to make several fold on my paper as an alternate to the lines on which one writes, keeping in mind the space within which one is allowed to write. I made folds, wrote on them with guess. But I cannot deny the up down of line and length in my paper I must have caused.”

When the results came out, he was declared fail in one subject. “I went to the then General Secretary BOSE, Ali Mohammad Naqash Sahab, who gave me a patient hearing and asked me to come on the next day so that he could take my exam in front of him,” Haneef recalls.

“The next day he asked me two questions in order to check my ability. I answered him with utmost confidence. He then passed me, without making any addition in my report card.”

His dismal 37% mark percentage since then has proved to be the “biggest curse” of his life, he says.

“I’ve suffered so much because of this,” Haneef laments. “I’m not able to acquire a decent job because of my 12^th class percentage. It’s like ‘Lamhoo ne khata ki tou sadyoon ne saza paayi’.”

In the middle of all this chaos in his life, Haneef managed to marry a girl who proposed to him soon after he completed his 10^th class exam.

“After my 10^th examination, I went to do my diploma in Rashtriya Computers, where a counselor proposed me for marriage. I took some time because I was in the middle of nothing, thinking of how my future would be. I also asked her to take her time and keep in view my blindness and my limitations but to my surprise she kept on insisting and then we married after some time,” Haneef recalls the ‘happy moment’ of his life with a shy smile.

After marriage and subsequently passing Class 12, Haneef decided to pursue his career in Music. He applied for admission in Fine Arts Music College Srinagar, but soon realized that he wasn’t welcomed there.

“I remember my professors ignoring me and giving more attention to normal students,” he rues. “Three months later, I realized that this place is not for me. So I left and went into depression for the next four years. I would think that no one wants to help me and encourage me to stay up and fight for things. People turned me down which added to the pain.”

It was then, one Dr. Maqbool Mir, ENT specialist and the co-founder of VMS, came to his rescue. He helped Haneef to come out of depression and assisted him in availing a scholarship in Delhi University’s Sham Lal College for his graduation.

“For the next four years, I lived in Delhi on that scholarship with ease and gained immense knowledge in the field of Humanities,” Haneef says.

Studying in Delhi made him realize that he’s not the only blind person in the world and that there’re many others, doing good in their lives. “When I learned how a disabled girl from Karnataka against all her odds went on to become an IAS officer, it encouraged me to work on my skills,” he says.

But after coming back to Kashmir, Haneef again faced difficulties, this time, in getting a job for living.

“During that tough period, I kept remembering my father’s words: ‘Ek na ek din manzil saamne aahe Jayegi’, and kept slogging,” he says.

And then, the ‘manzil’ came.

One fine day when he was waiting for a public transport to travel back home from Srinagar, he was given a lift by a person named Mudasir.

“He was a state coordinator with Handicap International. After getting my introduction, he asked me if I can join his next project with VMS and work for visually impaired. I could not believe it, and immediately agreed to work,” Haneef recalls his cherished moment.

Haneef was shortly called for an interview at VMS. He qualified and soon joined the eight-month-long project on a salary of Rs 14,000 per month.

“During that project we rehabilitated near about sixty blind persons. I introduced adjustment courses there which include Activities of Daily Life (ADL), Braille, mobility etc,” Haneef says. “This proved very helpful. After my eight-month-long contract ended, the VMS retained me as their instructor, with monthly salary of Rs 7,000.”

Even though Haneef gets paid for what he does at VMS but these days he’s finding it hard to meet the ends. He invests Rs 4,000 alone in his bus fare to and fro per month. The rest goes to his children’s education and daily essentials.

“My son is often thrown out of school because most of the times I am not able to pay for his education,” says Haneef, sitting beside his 12-year-old son, Faizan. “People might judge me for wearing decent clothes and think I am doing fine in my life but only Allah knows my plight.”

His repeated pleas for official help based on his qualification have so far fallen on deaf ears. “I approached advisor to governor, who referred my file to Secretary social welfare, Dr. Farooq. Then he transferred the file to Commissioner Disability, Iqbal Lone. The file was finally sent to Jammu and Kashmir Bank chairman, Parvez Ahmad. Since then I don’t know what happened to it,” Haneef says.

He wants to visit Jammu to plead for his case, but lacks travel expenses.

“We don’t have a system in place here otherwise things could have been easy for people like me,” he says. “Some ten years back, Composed Regional Center promised to set up a school for disabled persons in the valley, but it’s still nowhere. Whenever some minister visits the place where it was to be set up, they call us and tell us to register ourselves. This has been going for since a long but nothing is happening. They limit everything to papers and never want to work practically. They have got the funds but no one knows where those funds have gone.”

Fighting for the welfare of his tribe in Kashmir, Haneef says that there should be at least a school in every district for specially-abled persons, so that they can continue their education and achieve their desired goals. “Also,” he asserts, “there should be workshops where people like us can enhance our skills and work for ourselves and earn a decent living.”

For his sheer ability to fight the dark world, rather than becoming its victim, Haneef Malik has today become an embodiment of courage and hope. Fighting darkness is what he calls the guiding light of his life.

The Day a Snooker Club in Srinagar Turned Into Debate Central

This commentary piece first appeared in The Wire's Live Wire on March 12, 2019.

https://livewire.thewire.in/personal/the-day-a-snooker-club-in-srinagar-turned-into-debate-central/

By Sheikh Saqib

People in Kashmir often say: “Better to die once and for all.”

The phrase is a sobering reminder of what ordinary people in Kashmir Valley underwent – and continue to – in the aftermath of the February 14 Pulwama attack in which more than 40 Indian CRPF soldiers lost their lives.

Amidst the additional deployment of thousands of soldiers in the Valley, the arrest of more than 150 Jamaat-e-Islami and other separatists, the authorities ordering hospitals to stock up with medicines and for immediately rationing petroleum products, a palpable sense of dread and confusion pervaded in Kashmir for weeks following the attack.

Was India preparing to go to war with Pakistan, or were they both just playing mind games?

Nobody was quite sure.

One day, at a nondescript snooker club on the outskirts of Srinagar, more than 20 of us gathered to share the latest information we’d come across on our WhatsApp and Telegram groups.

Gripped by panic, we settled down to discuss the recent developments taking shape in Kashmir and what the future could hold.

The snooker club transformed into a debate club that day.

Some of us sat on a long wooden table, some leaned against window sills, while others simply stood. The snooker balls lay scattered on the table in front of us. Nobody wanted to play.

The club – which is usually a raucous affair – wore an unusually quiet look.

A friend started off, saying, “Jets have been flying over us ever since last night; even thunderclaps sound like them! I think India and Pakistan will go to war.”

Disagreeing, another boy sitting next to me retorted, “They’re just creating war hysteria; they can’t go to war during the election season. It’s all about politics in Kashmir.”

“But whatever they’re doing, it’s stripping us of our sanity,” he added.

The seriousness in the hall precluded any frivolity. No one could help but think about the worsening situation around.

Suddenly, the door flew open and Faisal entered. Having just returned from a tuition class, he proceeded to inform us that the shops in town were closing down in protest against the spree of arrests carried out the night before.

More so, a huge caravan of busses had assembled at the city centre, leading to further confusion and half-baked presumptions.

“See? I told you something big is going down. It must be war!” exclaimed one of the boys.

“What’s going to happen now? Are we the next Afghanistan in the making?” remarked another boy standing in the back of the room.

“Yes, but why even bother panicking? Let them finish us once and for all; we’re fed up of dealing with the daily mental and physical violence. Let them bomb us all! Better dead than to live with haunted memories every day,” snapped the most calm and composed member of the group uncharacteristically.

“What kind of life is this? We’ve grown up burying coffins, seeing tears, bloodshed and violence. I wish I’d been born elsewhere – someplace peaceful. Is this the beauty they talk about? Don’t we have the right to live a peaceful life? To hell with those in the seats of power who are unwilling to initiate dialogue and make any effort towards resolving the dispute here,” he said.

Everyone in the room nodded their heads in agreement while listening intently.

“Every day is about cordon, search operations and houses being razed to the ground. This is worse than hell,” he continued. “We’re neither safe in our homes nor anywhere else,” he said, referring to the recent harassment of Kashmiri students in different parts of the country.

That day, I saw my compatriots willing to die rather than to live in what everyone else, barring them, calls ‘paradise on Earth’.

Following a short pause, Faisal’s phone rang. He picked it up with utmost conventionality.

“Every time it’s the same: ‘come home soon’,” said Faisal, defeatedly responding to his mother’s call of concern.

“It’s the same with all of us,” shot back another youngster who sat upon the wooden table.

“See, the government has to understand that politics is not all about the rituals of elections, political campaigning and trumpeting its own successes to score points. There should be an environment of debate, discussion and dialogue in a peaceful setting, yet here they are: bulldozing our right to think or have ideas different than theirs. They don’t understand the value of human life and are clearly more concerned about cattle and their sheds,” Faisal said.

“Look at students our age outside Kashmir. They’re passionate about what they do and aspire to do something with their lives. What do we have? Internet shutdowns, power cuts and water cuts… What wrong have we done to deserve this?”

Another boy chimed in: “We are trapped in a cycle where they [regional and national politicians] do their dirty politics at the expense of innocent lives. Have a look around – we’re so inescapably chained to this game of politics. Schools, universities, marriage functions, picnic spots and other events and locations have all been co-opted as spaces of political deliberation. I see kids no older than 12-years-old discussing India, Pakistan and Kashmir in my school. Where are we heading? We even have people turning to drugs as a result of being constantly stressed about the political situation.”

Before we could just carry on the discussion, the sky outside had already turned dark. It was already close to seven in the evening, and time to make our way home.

As we stood to leave, Faisal offered a few last words: “It’s an achievement itself that we’re still sensible and maintain ourselves with dignity even after being constantly stressed – stressed about yesterday, today and tomorrow.”

The cue sticks would have to wait for another day to be picked up again.

Interview with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq: ‘I’m personally working to bridge gap with youth’

The interview first appeared in The Indus Post on Feb 5, 2018.

By Sheikh Saqib and Khawar Achakzai

Inside his office adjacent to his guarded mansion at Srinagar’s Nigeen, Kashmir’s chief cleric and Hurriyat Conference (M) chairman has put up a thoughtful composure in the face of the renewed Indo-Pak war of words. Behind the latest blitz was the call that rang up Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s office on 29 January 2019.

“The Foreign Minister briefed him on the efforts of the government of Pakistan to highlight the gross human rights violations being perpetrated by the Indian occupation forces in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” Pakistan Foreign Ministry Office said in a statement.

Summoning Pakistan’s envoy Sohail Mahmood a day after, Indian foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale termed Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s telephonic conversation with Mirwaiz a “brazen attempt to subvert India’s unity and violate its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

“If such action by Pakistan … is repeated, it will have consequences,” Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar warned.

But Islamabad dismissed India’s protest as “nothing new”: “We would like to reiterate that Kashmir is an outstanding dispute between India and Pakistan, and acknowledged as such through UN Security Council resolutions as well as numerous Pakistan-India documents, including the Simla Agreement and Lahore Declaration,” it said, rejecting India’s objections to the conversation.

Inside his Nigeen residence, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq terms New Delhi’s protest as an attempt to rake up the “normal” call in the run-up to Lok Sabha elections in India.

“One can only understand why so much noise is being made over it in the election season,” he says. Even in his press conference held in backdrop of the call controversy, Mirwaiz said, “My conversation with the foreign minister should not irk India if it believes in dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue.”

Amid the renewed bilateral blitz, Mirwaiz is a busy man in office, trying to address political as well as social issues.

At 17, he rose to political prominence and became the youngest Mirwaiz of Kashmir after his father Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq’s assassination on May 21, 1990. “I had just passed my matriculation and wanted to pursue my career in software engineering and had even applied for the same,” he told Rediff in an interview.

After assuming the mantle of Mirwaiz, he was soon presiding over the conglomerate of (then) above 30 political parties, under the banner of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) in February 1993.

In an interview with The Indus Post, the 45-year-old Mirwaiz advocating Kashmir’s freedom from Indian rule and an end to repression in the valley spoke about many issues. Edited excerpts:

Q: New Delhi has warned Islamabad of “consequences” if they repeat any attempt, like calling you again. What was the call about?

It was simple call from Pakistan foreign office reiterating Islamabad’s traditional support to Kashmir issue. In fact, Mr. Shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke about Pakistan effort in raising Kashmir issue on global front. He even talked about how relentless peace talks offer from Prime Minister Imran Khan was turned down by Narendra Modi government.

Q: But did you expect that the call would soon trigger a war of words between India and Pakistan?

Well, I am not able to rationalize New Delhi’s miffed response over it. Both countries have been talking about Kashmir since many decades now. There is a clear roadmap on it. Also, we should not forget that Pakistan is a party to the Kashmir dispute. In past, even Hurriyat Conference met various Pakistani delegations in New Delhi. Even the former NDA prime minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee batted for the dialogue. But now, it’s quite ironic when much noise is being made over a call.

Q: Since New Delhi justifies its dominant political posturing citing Islamabad’s “insincerity” to the peace initiatives in past, do you think new dispensation is ready to walk extra mile on Kashmir?

Well, my last interaction with Imran Khan makes me believe that he is extremely sincere on Kashmir issue. And he has already said it that he is ready to walk the extra mile on resolving the issue.

Q: Talking about the recent Jamia Masjid pulpit desecration incident, how serious was it?

What happened was unfortunate. But I think we need to look at a broader picture here.

The fact is that this conflict has affected our youth in a humongous way. There is this sense of disillusionment among the younger generation that nothing is moving forward, that there is an inexplicable stagnancy that they think we’ve reached.

On one end of the spectrum our youth are losing their lives every day and on the other end, apparently, everything is normal—life is moving on, people are involved in their daily errands, business, other activities and things.

There’s a sense of severance amongst our youth while trying to balance the complex nature of our struggle.

About the incident that happened, we’ve gone into the detail of it. As far as ‘Daesh’ is concerned, it does not have any solid backing in the valley. Yes, to some extent, young boys might be getting swayed by some online videos and speeches, but that is due to the ramifications of the social media and the age of easy access that we live in. The easy dissemination of every kind of ideology and whatever is happening on global level, with regards to Islamic societies right or wrong, can sometimes influence the thinking and thought of a few.

Having said that, it’s very important not to lose sight of our cause. The ideology of ISIS and our struggle are polar opposites and do not represent the aspirations that our cause represents. And it will not in any way take us forward.

I personally think that the Jamia Masjid incident was more of an act of bravado, to garner attention. Such elements thrive on media attention.

Q: So you think there is no ISIS presence in the valley?

Definitely not! I don’t even think that there is a very deep-rooted conspiracy behind this.

See, we have to understand that people nowadays see a youtube video, listen to some lectures and start giving their opinions without understanding the fundamentals. Some of our youth, who unfortunately are yet to channelise their strengths and talents, listen to one or two religious videos and get incited to talk about Khilafa.

We as an Ummah are proud of our faith and all that it stands for. But we have to learn to take a stand against what does not fall in line with our religious teachings.

The space for unfortunate incidents like that of Jama Masjid also stems from the fact that leadership has been imprisoned either in their houses or put behind the bars and not able to communicate with the youth. While it has led to frustration and disappointment among youth, it has also emboldened certain elements, who are trying to infuriate and propagate misinformation and misbelief in the garb of a concocted definition of ‘Islamic State’.

But now, we are trying at every level to connect with youth who are more into religious practices so that we can familiarise ourselves with their thought process and accordingly work to guide them ahead in the right direction.

The senseless noise at times on social media needs to be curtailed and we have to put ourselves in a better position as well to educate our youth about Kashmir and its history of struggle.

Q: But do you think that Hurriyat has somewhere failed to address and educate youth?

See, as I said, our activities have been choked by the establishment from the last many years now.

Geelani Sahab, Yasin Sahab and I are mostly under house arrests or put behind the bars. Whenever we started a dialogue process with people and try to carry out our activities, India, which swears on its democratic fabric, suppressed our voice, at the drop of hat.

And this has unfortunately created a gap between our leadership and the youth, who have high expectations from us. This has also led to a certain amount of alienation among our youth with regards to the leadership for not doing anything to address their aspirations.

But now, I am working personally to start our activities again and bridge this gap. And I am very optimistic we will succeed. I am getting inputs from people, going out to interact with youth. It is helping me to draw a map on how to go ahead.

I will also be going to my downtown office Rajouri Kadal once or twice a week, so that people can come and put forth their opinions, give suggestions and hopefully make it a productive deliberation. Meeting our youth – the boys and girls, is one of my top priorities.

Q: You have also organized such programs earlier where you had asked people to share their views. What happened to that?

Yes, we had organized such events a number of times but as I said Indian state always muzzled our activities whenever we tried to do something new.

Earlier we had asked people of all sections of the society to send their views and ideas to us but we could not follow it because the 2014 flood brought everything to a halt.

Then, we launched another such event and again 2016 uprising happened and we were put in jails and barred from meeting anyone.

But yes, we’re deliberating on the letters sent to us. Some of the suggestions are very good. These things take time, but we are on it and trying to see how best we can implement those suggestions.

Q: Did you get any alternative strategy for Hartal in your letters?

I’d be lying, if I tell you that I am not aware of the fact that how people seek new strategy to Hartal calls.

But the fact is that government is not allowing any space for peaceful protests. Seminars are banned. Meetings are not allowed. Student activities have been barred. So hartal, at times, remains the only option for us to protest. But, we are looking at alternatives.

We have suggested to traders to look into the possibility of shutting down their shops for one or two hours. We discussed with transport organizations to look into the possibility of blocking roads for half an hour to highlight issues and to students to hold candlelight marches in their campuses.

But I guess, it will take more oraganised effort to make it workable. Besides, I am also getting inputs that our young boys are taking drugs which is very unfortunate. 

Drugs?

There are forces who are working to deviate our youth. But we want to give them a message that we won’t let you crush our movement, no matter how nefarious your means are.

We are already losing our youth to bullets; we cannot afford losing them to this menace.

We are trying to rehabilitate those kids who have unfortunately fallen into this trap. Our entire movement is shouldered by the energy of our youth and the experience of our old. We are trying our best to help these things culminate in tipping the balance in our struggle.

Q: How do you see the younger generation of Kashmir?

I am in my forties but I started when I was a teenager. So, I know that our children are blessed with great qualities, of learning and struggling to meet the desired ends. They should study the history of their land, read about the narratives, construct them and deconstruct the myths and counter narratives denigrating our cause.

https://theinduspost.com/?p=642

(The Indus Post Online Team contributed for this interview.)