by PETER BACH
The journey from Islamabad to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, is a memorable one. Mine was made over 17 years ago when most folk were fixated on Al Qaeda, though Kashmiri militant group Ansar ur-Tawhid wal Jihad in Kashmir would later support Al Qaeda. As it happened, I was just as interested in the concept of Kashmir belonging to the Kashmiris—not to India, not to Pakistan. Something former Pakistan cricket captain Shahid Afridi also later argued for. Wishing a pear to fall from the ceiling is an old Kashmiri proverb. It means vain hope. Was it really in vain to believe in an independent Kashmir?
I remember winding through the hills of Murree. At Lower Topa, the road becomes Bhurban Road, also called Khakan Abbasi Road, leading to Kohala. From there, you trace the Jhelum River to Muzaffarabad. ‘Kashmir has always been more than a mere place,’ wrote the wonderful journalist, travel writer and historian Jan Morris. ‘It has the quality of an experience, or a state of mind, or perhaps an ideal.’ I recall snowy glaciers. Surprisingly dense forests. A child walking with a raised chair over its head to shelter from the rain. (I filmed this.) Verdant meadows. A loya jirga. (I filmed that too.) Valleys. Gorgeous gorges. Fluent rivers. It was all so beautiful. Lyrical. Not Led Zeppelin lyrical—their song Kashmir was weak by comparison.
I had also wanted to visit Abbottabad south of Kashmir in the Orash Valley but my Pakistani companion had said nothing ever happens there. Of course, Abbottabad was about to become famous not just for its 1850s founder James Abbott of the Bengal Army, who once blew all his money elsewhere on a three-day party with local Hazaras, but as the oddly public hideout of Osama bin Laden—until 14 years ago, almost to the day.
But let’s be clear: it was the British not Al Qaeda who carved out the lines of conflict and violence that still bleed into Kashmir today. Many Kashmiri Brits still tell us this. They also say that unless properly acknowledged, even now, there can be no path to redress.
While India and Pakistan have been ‘trying’ not to nuke each other these past few weeks, I’ve been scouring news on this. Even after the ceasefire and return of villagers to their homes, journalist Yashraj Sharma had noted continued violations by Indian forces along the famous Line of Control (LoC). Pakistani drones were also reportedly abuzz above Srinagar.
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