Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume
6, Number 1. May 2023. ISSN: 2581-7094
Every Wall of My Nation
Has a Story: Reading Violence and the Need for Peace in Selected Kashmiri Poems
--- Sreetanwi Chakraborty
Keywords:
Violence,
Peace, Kashmir, Kashmir Poems, Indian English Poetry
Introduction:
Peace and violence are
not two abstract entities that have become the sites of contestation all across
the globe. In the larger arena of global politics, with rampant violence
undertaking the saneness of the human mind, it has become mandatory for art,
artists, cultural patterns, and artifacts to speak in favour of the restoration
of peace. The socio-political, religious, and cultural layers of Kashmir have
experienced a tectonic shift in the post-independence phase. Jammu and Kashmir
were allotted special status under the provisions of Article 370, and thereafter,
there have been manifold complications that the valley has witnessed, with
regard to the power structure, class, and caste hierarchy, political rigmarole
and social dispute. Bal Krishna Pandita, in his fiery book of poems Walking
in Flames highlights poetic resurrection through a topsy-turvy worldview,
one that would reestablish the concept of peace and serene beauty in Kashmir.
In the poem Kashmir 1990, his realistic portrayal of the futility of
existence makes one pray for peace even more:
“We
walk in this great vale
With
a smile loaded on our faces
Where
life is on the tip of the sword
The
foreheads sweat as we walk…” (Pandita 10)
The bygone days of peace
are over by the time we encounter the futility of any life in Kashmir. The 1990s
indicated Kashmir besieged with terror, uncertainty, and an era of unfree
freedom. From the dazzling daylight, there is no ray of hope that can provide
an anodyne to the bruised soul. However, despite Kashmir being besieged with
various types of atrocities, the poem is still optimistic, and he observes one
day there will be the peace of light:
“The
day may break to end darkness
To
let us walk in light.” (Pandita 10)
In this connection, it would
be appropriate to refer to what the percipient commentator Tapan K. Bose has
analyzed about the situation in Kashmir after the rise of militancy in the
chapter titled ‘Building Peace in Kashmir’ as part of the book Peace
Studies: An Introduction To the Concept, Scope, and Themes. He explains
that along with diversified language structure, forces of militancy, and
government plans that compete with one another, there are also instances where
Kashmir as a palpable reality has its own, deep, dark fissures that do not make
the policy of peacemaking an easy one:
“Reconciliation and unity among various religious and
ethnic groups is necessary for a secular democratic solution. Since 1947, there
has been no attempt to evolve a consensus on forging unity among the different
entities in Kashmir. Till 1947, the Valley people complained of suppression by
the Maharaja. After 1947, people of Jammu started to make similar complaint
against the government in the valley.” (Bose 336)
In the latest development
of peace and conflict studies, a consummate understanding and implementation of
peace are of paramount importance. Options to rule the minorities are always
available with those in power. The levels of disorder might vary but disorder
in some form or another prevails in the long run. Kashmir’s political
volatility and strategic position on the global map have been important factors
that have contributed to numerous armed conflicts and complicated
religiopolitical disorders. For instance, in the poem They Call in Jehad,
Pandita shows how the concept of the spiritual struggle in oneself against sin
is distorted most of the time, which results in the nefarious acts of
manslaughter in the name of attaining freedom:
“And
then in the name of Jehad
Innocent
children, women and men
Were
threatened and butchered
As
a herd of lions takes on baboons.” (Pandita 11)
The poem shows the rifts
and the irreparable fissures in the understanding of peace, nation, and soil by
the inhabitants. The group of armed, rebellious men does not hesitate to render
people homeless; they destroy property and plunder a woman’s body. Violence in
any form is justified in the name of freedom. A relevant question arises as to
whose freedom is lost. Does Jehad ensure complete freedom for a certain group
of individuals or the entire community? It is worthwhile to remember in this
direction that there are certain universal parameters that confirm peace for
the benefit of a certain section of the population. There are ideas about
altruism, retention of social peace, and a contemplative outlook on historical
records to ensure peace at all levels. If there are general standards of peace,
they are ensured by those who exercise power and placate international bodies
through power relations. Pandita’s poem The Tale of Two Friends is a
succinct presentation of two friends who are dead, and discussing their fate,
home, and exile as one’s body is carried to the crematory and another’s to the
grave:
“God
had been kind to us, I said
But
we showed to respect, no regard
Now
we are bereft of his grace, he said
Look
at the kind of ‘freedom’ I got.” (Pandita 19)
The poem has a reticent
voice of its own, it is impregnated with subtle sarcasm and also delves
satirically into how futile human life of violence can be. There is a constant
form of lamentation that we find in the poem, where the dead individual is
conscious of how he has been bereft of any Godly grace. The idea of freedom at
the cost of lives and compromising with peace is never articulated positively.
As far as the overall moral autonomy of an individual is concerned, inner peace
and stability can only be sustained if an individual retains his or her morally
autonomous character. In the logical coherence to what Immanuel Kant has
enumerated in the concept of human ‘will’ that should restrain all kinds of
unnatural desires; it can be argued that peace can only be restored when there
is less conflict within the self-interest and desire paradigms.
In another collection of poems Hues of Pain: The Broken
Valley- the Bruised Paradise poet Unisa Sania recollects the battered state
of Kashmir when flames of destruction ravage the entire valley. In the poem The
Nights, the Utopian concept of peace is glamourized, with a placid
contemplation upon the world that remains beyond human comprehension:
“For
the world beyond mine
Nature
is beautiful with its dark skin,
Moon
with special freckles,
Incessant
stars of freedom
having
no horizons.” (Sania 1)
The demons of the night
offer the inhabitants of the valley nothing but calamity and extreme
misfortune, the nights do not bring any relief, they are demonic, and they devastate
only to take recourse to more poisonous ways of creating dead narratives for
the valley. Hence, the concept of true peace always eludes the inhabitants.
What is peace all about? The philosophical dimensions that enhance the learning
about one’s self, the resurrection of the peaceful chambers within one’s mind
and soul, or a deeper, more profound meditative contemplation into the realms
of the subconscious? What does peace signify? Peace and nonviolence cannot be on
a synonymous plane with passivity, nor does it essentially verge upon the
abstruse principles of detachment. Understanding the binaries of the world and
recognizing the layers of compassion for others is an integral part of this
understanding. In his book Creating True Peace: Ending conflict in yourself,
your community and the world, the author Thich Nhat Hanh says:
“Peace is not simply the absence of violence; it is the
cultivation of understanding, insight, and compassion, combined with action.
Peace is the practice of mindfulness, the practice of being aware of our
thoughts, our actions, and the consequences of our actions.” (Hanh 5)
Peace slowly seeps into
those poems of Kashmir that condemn violence, blocks of power, casteism, and
race hierarchy in the most bitter terms. In the very short, imagistic portrayal
of how bunkers are created to obfuscate freedom in every possible way, the poet
Unisa Sania laments how something as paltry as a bag of sand would deprive the
people of Kashmir of their independence. In the poem Bunker, she writes:
“Filled
the sacks of sand,
Stacked
them one on the other,
I
never thought of a bag of sand
Would
deprive us of our freedom.” (Sania 3)
Kashmir has a unique
ethnography, cultural paradigm, and heritage of its own. The roots of the conflict
go back to the distance that had been created for a long among the ruling
families of the Hindu elite, and the large community of Muslim subjects. Most
of the accounts of the late nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries
also point out the vast sense of loss triggered by an inefficient regime that
bred much violence in the valley. In his book Kashmir: Roots of Conflict,
Paths to Peace, the author and critic Sumantra Bose analyzes:
“The overwhelming majority of the people of Jammu and
Kashmir desperately wants peace. The sovereignty issue remains, as in 1947-48
and 1989-1990, the heart of the matter. A peace process based on a framework
capable of addressing the multiple but interrelated local and international dimensions
that make up this conflict is a critical, urgent necessity.” (Bose 200)
What signifies the lack
of peace? An inherent sense of discrimination that deters people from realizing
the determinants of peace. In one of the mind-boggling strangeness and silence
of the night, Kashmiri poet Saba Shafi writes in the poem Tonight, I pine
for pines and conifers:
“My
Chinar blazes no more- its dried up, withered leaves fall
Landscapes
change- her vacillating heart and you
A
mausoleum of surrendered memories stands now,
Where
gardens had once bloomed
Deserted…Dilapidated…Doomed.”
(Shafi 8)
The individualistic
practice of understanding the plight of the valley corresponds to the collective
suffering through the poetic prism. The poet tries to recognize both the light
and the darkness in her soul, along with the light and darkness surrounding her
and the entire valley of Kashmir. In the short passages that occur at the
beginning of each of her poems, the poet describes her personal experience in
Kashmir, the flora, fauna, Kashmiri Kahwa, humour at the oddities of life, and
how she yearns to take a spoonful of this Kashmir life wherever she goes. With
an intense urge to return to peace and a serene, uncomplaining tone in
accepting what death and separation have allowed her to have in her own
Kashmir, the poet weaves a magical, sorrowful, elegiac yarn in the poem Speak
not of sadness tonight:
“Home
and heart
Now
thrown miles apart
Cold
icy sighs exhaled,
Still
linger on as they depart
Resonating
between the mountains and the lake
As
exile upon exile is imposed.” (Shafi 18)
There is a strange sense
of stillness in the poem, a surrealistic night vision that accepts the
frigidity of death and the stillness of the night as two of the major ideas
that are vital for an individual’s existence. Scattered pieces of sight, sound,
light, memories, and loss keep on haunting the poet, like broken shards. There
is a tendency to ponder upon both a sense of longing and detachment from the
soil.
Conclusion:
With the modern,
contemporary poets who have taken to the loss and nostalgia as an irrevocable
part of their existence, Kashmir appears not just as a changing landscape but a
dynamic entity that will enforce newer living circumstances for them. A study
of peace and violence in the land of Kashmir is a study of sentimentalism,
uprootedness, alienation, discomfiture, loss, vision, and hope that one day the
world will change. The faint, glimmering rays of the poetic sun will inculcate
a new sense of existence and identity in the inhabitants, an identity decorated
with frills of love, laughter, and peace. It will be appropriate to mention a few
lines from the poem The Light through the woods, where the poet Maharaj
Kaul writes:
“Here
in the kingdom of filtered light
Trees
bend with fluid grace, leaves fall with solemn dignity.
Human
footsteps are an intrusion in the music of eternity,
But
the rustling of leaves with wind adds to the music of silence.
Every
movement is electric, every thought seems to be burgeoning for
the
first time,
Every tree and every
blade of grass seems unique, every hue resplendent.”
(Kaul 3)
The strange sense of utopian
peace remains a distant dream in the poems of Kashmir. And perhaps therein lies
the sublime satisfaction in the poems.
References:
Afrin, Rakshanda.
"Meet 5 Contemporary Kashmiri Poets Who Put Emotion into
Measure." Kashmir Observer, 3 June 2020, kashmirobserver.net/2020/06/03/meet-5-contemporary-kashmiri-poets-who-put-emotion-into-measure/.
Bose, Sumantra. Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to
Peace. Harvard UP, 2009.
Hanh, Thich N. Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in
Yourself, Your Family,
Your Community, and the
World. Simon & Schuster, 2004.
Ikeda, Daisaku. Journey of Life Selected Poems of
Daisaku Ikeda. Bloomsbury
Publishing, 2014.
Kaul, Maharaj. The Light Through the Woods: Dreams of
Survival of Human Soul
in the Age of Technology. iUniverse, 2010.
Pandita, Bal K. Walking in flames: Poetry. Uttkarsh
Prakashan, 2016.
Samaddar, Ranabir. Peace Studies: An Introduction To the
Concept, Scope, and
Themes. SAGE Publications India, 2004.
Sania, Unisa. Hues of Pain: The Broken Valley – the
Bruised Paradise. Partridge
Publishing Singapore, 2020.
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