Doda Has Tale to Tell

Z.G. MUHAMMAD

Tell me!  Who is going to tell an honest story of Doda?  For over two decades, it has been story of deaths, destructions, barbarities, brutalities, and mayhems- remembering them freezes blood in my veins even today. Did you or any other valley-based writer or historian ever dare to tell macabre tales of life in the Chenab Valley?
I was confronted with these question two days earlier, when I engaged   in a discussions   with a friend from the Chenab Valley on some recent happenings in the erstwhile Doda district.  These included the killing of four persons in a small hamlet in the Gool and recent communal disturbances in Kishtwar and role of the VDCs. Continuous dangerous vibes coming from Kishtwar and other two districts. News reports about migration of    around 200 Muslim families from Kajai and its adjoining habitations of Paddar tehsil to Kishtwar fearing attacks from VDC members.  Fears of attacks and persecutions lurking in the minds of Muslim minorities living in some remote areas of newly carved three districts of the hilly region. Moreover, if the shadows of communalism are going to get darker during the forthcoming elections. Much before, I could seek more information to know about the ground realities from my friend    I found myself in the dock along with host of fellow columnists and writers, who blacken reams of paper by writing from fad and fancies of leaders to realpolitik but have hardly ever endeavored to document happenings in the erstwhile Doda district.
No major exclusive work or documentation on the situation as obtained in the hilly areas of the Doda since past twenty-three years has been done by the valley based writers or human rights organization.  If there are any reports on the subject these have been published by researchers and scholars from outside the state.   These do not tell the whole story but provide sufficient leads that would enable writers to tell the complete story of past twenty two  of the Chenab valley – the valley that historically has played important role right from 1931 in all major political movements whether these emanated from Srinagar or any other town of the state.    It is true it was Jammu, Mirpur and Poonch from Jammu province that remained major centers of resistance against the feudal autocracy in earlier years of the movement. And in 1947, Poonch and its peripheries rose in armed rebellion against the Maharaja Hari Singh’s brutal tax system and discriminatory policies and defeated his army but the sacrifices offered by people of Muslims of Jammu and Doda added many more carmine pages to the history of Kashmir.   The Doda district which constitutes huge part of Jammu land area  11, 500 of 29,293 Square kilometers    to quote Sumantra Bose  ‘ having a Muslim majority of Kashmiri speakers and ethno-cultural and political  spillover from the Kashmir Valley’ after 1947 emerged as centre of movement for right to self-determination.  The Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front born 1955 struck roots in the region. It not only provide some top leaders like Maulana Attaullah Suhrawardey, Sheikh Ghulam Muhammad Badawari, Abdul Gani Mastfardi and Bashir Ahmed Kitchloo and whole range of committed political workers to the organization but emerged as bastion  of  the Plebiscite Front. These leaders from Doda in fact largely filled up the political vacuum caused in Jammu province due to migration or exile of the Muslim Conference leaders like Chaudary Ghulam Abbas and Allah Rakha Sagar to AJK. Most of these leaders were recognized as voices of dissent until 1975- when Sheikh Abdullah buried the twenty-two years history of sacrifices of thousands of political workers and callously wrote on its epitaph “Years of wilderness”.
Even after the death of the Plebiscite Front, the people of the hilly region continued to identify themselves ideologically with overwhelming majority of the Kashmir province. In the electoral battles, it went along the people of Kashmir. In 1977 Assembly election that was very cleverly projected by the erstwhile Plebiscite Front nee National Conference leaders  as battle between ‘Muslim Kashmir’ and ‘Hindu India’ by displaying rock salt (Pakistan noon) and green handkerchief symbolizing having closer affinity with Pakistan  the people of the hilly areas voted like people of Kashmir voted for Sheikh Abdullah. So is true about 1983, election that was seen as battle between Indira Gandhi and Kashmir, the people of erstwhile Doda like people of Kashmir  overwhelmingly voted for the National Conference.
I am not here going to debate changing patterns of electoral politics in the belt.  Nevertheless, historical reality is that in 1990s to quote Sumantra Bose, “the guerilla movement made its first inroads into Jammu in the Doda district…and embraced the valleys cry for self-determination.’ True, ‘the vast area and rugged forbidding terrain, through which the Chenab river runs a meandering course makes it an ideal base for guerilla war, to quote Bose, “But demographic and political factors rather than merely topography and geography, made , made one of the toughest zones of guerilla warfare in 1992.”  Some of works like that of Yoginder Sikand and Sumantra Bose do provide some insight into the sufferings of people of Doda but what has been most disappointing that these hilly areas failed to get a genuine political voice. In 1993, when the APHC was born its leadership failed to look beyond the confines of pockets of their influence.  Instead of coming up as statewide organization it became fiefdom of some Kashmir valley based leaders. This organization could not even match the Plebiscite Front, that in its executive council had top leaders from Kargil, Poonch, Rajouri and Doda but it has   miserably failed to reach to people in these areas to balm their wounds.
In the grievance and anger of my friend against Srinagar based writers not telling tales about the region and Kashmir leaders not concerned about the plight of people, I did find a lot of justification. However, immediate cause of   worry is lurking fears in the minds of the majority community about the role played by the members of the VDCs and the migration of some Muslims out of fear from some Paddar villages. These  development presaging  a dangerous situations not only calls for attention scribe but also leaders of all shade.

Published in Greater Kashmir on 9 Sept 2013