'Nostalgia is never an innocent thing'

India, June 18 -- Summer, they say, is a great time to visit Kashmir. The bone-chilling winters are long gone and the breeze is fragrant. Summer 2010 was all that till a stone was thrown and bullets were fired in return. In a new anthology of Kashmiri writing from that ill-fated summer, journalists, social activists, a graphic artist and a rapper, chronicle the moments that altered the course of turbulence once again. Sanjay Kak, the editor of Until My Freedom Has Come: The New Intifada in Kashmir, speaks to Karuna John about why this book is both for policy wonks and university students.

Sanjay Kak, 53 Filmmaker

Photo: Aditya

Until My Freedom Has Come Sanjay Kak, Ed. Penguin 328 pp; Rs 299

Why did you want such varied works?

An anthology is not just a collection of writing. It also tries to editorialise. What I was interested in was drawing attention to a kind of clarity of craft and intelligence. I did not want the reader to walk the old, tired pathways through which Kashmir is always represented. Where it is about the poor Kashmiri getting squeezed between the army's boot and the militant's gun, between India and Pakistan. That argument was a satisfactory explanation for anything 10 years ago.

How do you rescue that argument?

That is when you turn to good writing. But I did keep an eye out for reportage because it was not insignificant to me. I have picked two news reports that appeared in international publications. Even there, you can see the shift in how Kashmir is represented.

The book shuns nostalgia. Was that deliberate?

Nostalgia is never an innocent thing. Particularly nostalgia that is thrown at you by the mainstream media is often a means of covering up the present-day reality. To me, the kind of clarity that some of the younger writers are bringing, whether it is through short fiction, rap, essays or journalistic writing or even a graphic novel, does several things. It tells a story but it is also imaginative. The book represents a kind of optimism, it believes that ideas and clarity matter.

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'My son is 13, but his faculties are that of a six-month-old'

'I found her too heavy to swim with. My body was tiring my spirit'

'Glass of beer in hand, he interviewed each girl to be hired for his house'

Why was there so much independent writing from Kashmir in summer 2010?

When the youth came onto the streets, a kind of threshold had been crossed. They made a statement - that they have had enough of being humiliated and pushed around. Writers had also reached that space. They knew they could write and be read, and then someone else would follow up. It's like on the street, one person pelts a stone, then someone else follows and takes the lead. On the Internet, hundreds of writers are reading each other, commenting and being supportive. This is how the volume can be read. It is not just Kashmir 2010. Even the young middle-class kid is cutting loose. When I started going back to Kashmir in 2003, I realised how smart the young people were and how unexpressed. There was a lot of fear then. Armed militancy was making it easy for the State to come down heavily on the people.

'Kashmiris are usually represented as squeezed between the army's boots and the militant's gun'

What changed?

Sometime in September last year, it was becoming clear to me that there was something happening in the writing [from Kashmir]. I realised that we can't forget what happened in 2010. For me, this book is a political act of remembrance. It is optimistic political reading. The pieces were selected because I believe that by putting these pieces together, there is an argument that we are constructing. The chapter, Summers of Unrest, is a description about what happened that summer, Captive City is a meta narrative, and eventually in the last section, A Place of Blood and Memory, to me is a hopeful section, an alternative way of thinking about Kashmir that does not come from politicians. It is just people imagining what Kashmir could be. A place of hope and not just for Kashmiris.

Karuna John is the Deputy Editor of Time Out Delhi

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Tehelka.

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