Table Of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 …………………………………………. The Collaborator: Living Amidst Conflict

Chapter 2 …………………………. Curfewed Nights: Recounting the horrors of Insurgency

Chapter 3…………………………………………… The Half Mother: Psychological Trauma

Conclusion

Bibliography
 Title of the dissertation

Writing Resistance:

A Study of Mirza Waheed, Basharat Peer and Shahnaz Bashir Select Fiction

A Dissertation

Submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the

degree of

Master of Arts in English

Submitted by: Supervised by:

Department of English Language and Literature

Islamic University Science and technology

Awantipora-Pulwama (J&K) 2017

 Certificate

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of the requirements for the award of Master of Arts in English is an independent and
original piece of research carried out under my supervision. This research work has not
been submitted, in part or in full, to any University/Institute for any degree/diploma. The
candidate has fulfilled all the statutory requirements for the submission of this dissertation.

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 Declaration
I hereby declare that the dissertation titled “ “ submitted to the
Department of English language and Literature is an original work done by me under the
guidance of
I will be personally responsible for any plagiarism that might be detected in this study.

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 Introduction

One of the important aspects of any movement is the documentation of its events, phases,

sufferings and ups and downs. The conflict in and over Kashmir long been dominated by

divergent narratives with foreign authors, journalist and historians writing about it.Of late

Kashmiris have starting writing about themselves, telling their stories to the world through

fiction and non- fiction. This quite significant as it has introduced a local narrative into the

discourse, reflecting the way Kashmiris themselves perceive their problem. Over the years,

however, we have seen some marvelous attempts by some young Kashmir’s to reframe the

human costs of the conflict through art works, caricatures, writings and most importantly through

the fiction. Among the new realms of resistance, fiction emerges as the most sophisticated tool of

narrating the painful stories that the conflict leaves behind in its aggressive intrusion into the

human life. The names which immediately strikes one’s mind are Mirza Waheed, Basharat Peer,

Siddhartha Gigoo, Natasha Koul, Zamrooda Habib and many others. These creative writers used

fiction to narrate the onset of war and tale of conflicting lives leaving behind by the brutality of

the war.

The long pending conflict of Kashmir has now entered into its third generation and had affected

the lives of entire valley. As Kashmir has always been of interest to writers and the unending

conflict has evoked the writers to expound the reality in the form of literature. The discourse on

Kashmir, and its standing conflict, has evoked a whole spectrum of writing- literary and non-
literary. Owing to many contending discourses, most of these writing have come up with their

own subjective perspectives regarding the conflict, especially in terms of experience and reality.

Written from various positions, both hegemonic and participatory, these writings are preoccupied

with rhetoric that results in the non-rendering of many significant aspects of lived experiences.

However, with the emergence of many indigenous voices now, we are witnessing fresh

perspectives as these voices aim to portray their lived experiences of the conflict, and hence offer

a break from the previous narrratives.In the light of the analysis of the novel The Collaborator

by Mirza Waheed,Curfewed Night: The frontline memoir of life, love and war in Kashmir by

Basharat Peer, Half-Mother by Shahnaz Bashir and his Scattered Souls. I argue that how an

indigenous voices endeavors to portray the many shades of this conflict. I am to examine how

these novels fall within the ambit of” Resistance Literature” as it tries foreground many complex

issues like identity, justice, struggle, drepression,and oppression which are usually absent in the

mainstream Narratives on/of Kashmir. In doing so, I draw the attention to the fact that how the

novels follows in the domain of resistance literature and highlighted the conflict of Kashmir and

counter insurgency of the Indian brazen forces. How these novels present the reality of the

conflict. These novels also tend to show the political narratives of the New Delhi about Kashmir.

an alternative and heterogeneous account of the history and experience related to the conflict.

Chapter 1:
In the political discourse of Kashmir, 1990s was a watershed period, which set as under the

concept of Kashmir as a “Pirvear” by torn apart centuries old social fabric and put in place

folded order of permanent disturbance. It was a period, when the conflict started entering on the

lives of ordinary Kashmiri, fracturing their idea of home and punctuating their days and nights

with curfews.in the decade since the beginning of the elusive peace, the memories of 1990s are

so intense and so difficult to forget that every single uprising of the yesteryears began terrifying

the Kashmiri’s the way it does in that darkest period.

The historical, social, cultural, and political perception of the Kashmir conflict has raised

countless responses and endeavors of exploration in literary and non- literary realms. Since the

violent conflict in Kashmir, among many other factors, has its roots in political factors, any

political approach to the event gives rise to the possibilities of partisanship and partiality.

Therefore, any purely political interpretation or approach to the experience of the conflict might

fall in the line within these contending parameters. The vast majority of the writing on Kashmir,

written from these positions, come up with their own monolithic projections regarding the

realities of the conflict. However, we are now witnessing the emergence of many indigenous

voices which endeavors to portray the many shades of experience of this conflict. Prominent

among these voices/writers are Mirza Waheed, Basharat Peer, Shafi Ahmad.Rahul Pandita,and

Siddhartha Gigoo,all of whom write in English

.In the recent past, Kashmir have begun to reflect on the conflict in which they have been

engulfed since 1989 in a variety of literary narratives that include poetry, novels, and short

stories. Written in Kashmiri, Urdu, and English, these literary narrative struggle to give voice to

the individual and social suffering caused by the conflict. I decided to revisit some of the novels
in English about/from Kashmir that have emerged in the decades, with a particular eye to how

they present the traumas of the recent past and loss of identity.

This chapter tries to argue, in the light of analysis of novel The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed

,how it offers a fresh perspective on the reality of the conflict through literary imagination by

attempting to foreground the humane and profound aspects which are absent in the mainstream

narratives.

Born and brought up in Srinagar of the 1980s and 1990s, Miza Waheed witnessed the transition

of Kashmir from calm to calamity. This experience in his home state, along with his perceptions

of it’s as a journalist, sensitized him to the sordid, subtle realities of life in Kashmir. The

Collaborator is his debut novel. This novel is set in the Kashmir in the early 1990s,in the village

of Nowgam, near the Line of Control (LOC).The Protagonist is a young and nameless ,17 year

old narrator. ,who is Kashmiri Gujjar, the son of village sarpanch .This young boy has four close

friends –Hussain ,Gul,Mohammad and Ashfaq.In the relatively peaceful times preceding

militancy, the narrator spends an enjoyable childhood with these friends ,playing cricket on lush

green fields and swimming in fresh waters. They don’t have care in the world. With the armed

uprising , the narrators friends, like other Kashmiri youth, cross into the Pakistan for armed

training imparted by various militant organisations.Their aim is to return as trained fighters and

join the insurgency against Indian rule. The narrator is a solitary figure left behind who recounts

past memories of the times spent with his friends. As militancy gains momentum, and the Indian

army intensifies its operations against militants, arrest and encounters become routine for

Nowgam’s inhabitant .in confrontation the army arrests, torchers and kills two residence of

Nowgam for their suspected links with militants. Fearing reprisal and persecution by the soldiers,

almost all the families in the village flee to the places outside the valley .The narrator can only
dwell sadly upon the isolation of his family and the novelists brings out the joyful past and the

desolate present. The physical beauty of the landscape .This recounts what Edward said says at

the very beginnings of culture and imperialism:

Appeals to the past are among the commonst of strategies in interpretations of the present … the

main idea is the that even as we must fully comprehend the pastness of the past, there is no just

way in which the past can be quarantined from the present. Past and the present inform each

other, each implies the other and ,in the totally ideal sense, each co-exists with the other.(1-2)

This becomes apparent in the novel when he goes down the valley to identify the militants killed

by the Indian army, and describes the present scene around as that of “almost inhuman postures

and a grotesque intermingling of broken limbs…Bare wounds, holes, dark and visceral, and

limbless, armless, even headless, torsos… with “Wretched human remains (lying)on the green

grass like cracked toys”(8)

Waheed tends to use the protagonist’s perceptions and his persona to convey the larger picture

of contemporary reality. The anonymity of the narrator makes him the representative image for

his people ,and it is through him that waheed depicts the brutal realities of the conflict. The

young narrator’s anonymity and isolation foreground the loss of the personal and social identity

in a situation of military oppression. Once we have established our self identity at a very young

age, it seems as if nothing can destroy its perminance.However, our identity is not as secure as

we think, and there are events that can fracture it, and some cases, even cause us to lose our

identity altogether.

In gothic literature, the psychological act of repression is an important concept. Repression

occurs when when the mind experiences a traumatic event; in order to reduce anxiety, the
memories are hidden deep in the crevices of the conscious These repressed memories create a

fragmented self , and the only way to make one’ identity whole again is to confront them.

Compelled by circumstances to stay on in the deserted village, he left with no choice but to enter

into collaboration with the very force that has oppressed others into fleeing from their roots.

Living in Nowgam at his father’s insistence, the narrator’s life of complete isolation and

estrangement from the world is highlighted in the stark image of “militarized wilderness”(11).It

is the reflection of Kashmir’s rural hinterland in the early 1990s when the military intruded into

and controlled people’s lives during its anti-insurgency operations.

The Collaborator vehemently rejects the Indian and Pakistan nationalists’ discourses on Kashmir

as it brings out the diffuseness of trauma for those whose lives are destroyed by these

nationalists’ narratives. As the protagonist silently screams at the end of the novel,”to hell with

the Indians…to hell with Pakistanis, to hell with the Line of Control…to hell with the jihad, and

to hell with to burning, smoldering hell with everything.”

Incomprehension of trauma, which often descends into madness, runs through these novels.

The ruthless captain Kadian in the figure created by the novelist to highlight this intrusion and

control He approaches the narrators’ father, asking for son to work for the army. It is an offer he

dare not decline:”I knew , and my father knew ,too ,in that very first moment, in that very

meeting with the captain, that we had to do exactly what we were told .We just

knew”(256).Survival was more important than resistance as the narrator became the reluctant

collaborator. They know that army controls them not protects them. They have to obey there

rules, created by them. The army can do anything. They can harass our women, they can pick our

children. They can bardage our homes without our permission. Because we are occupied state

and they can play with us like we are playing with TV remote. They can suppressed and crush
our claims, feelings, and emotions and as well as they can curtail our liberty. Because in

occupied state one lose his self-identity. In occupied state we become suppressed subjects. They

can treat us like slaves, because our identity is fractured

His job was to identify militants killed by the army as they tried to cross into Kashmir over the

LOC and also fears the possibility of coming across his friends dead bodies. It is this tragic irony

that the title symbolically reflects.

Ambiguities and contradictions mark the narrator’s character and actions. For one , he constantly

wavers between filial responsibility and desire to join the militants; his mind alternates between

a questionable loyalty to the Indian army and his undimished love for his friends-turned-

militants. While at his frightening work involving dismembered corpses, his thoughts vacillate

between macabre present and idyllic past. On one hand, his employer, captain kadian, as one

who “has sinned, and done horrible, horrible wrong”, but on the other ,he is jolted by the

knowledge that kadian “ may have killed hundreds , thousands of us, this man who makes people

disappear, this man who cannot do anything but kill”.(287)though he is a witness to horror, he is

helpless in resisting a complex situation that summed up the dilemma of Kashmir’s populace in

those days.

As the narrator grows up in his frontier village, he gradually comes to terms with the idea that

the border dividing Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK) and Jammu and Kashmir is not really a

border in the conventional sense; it is an arbitrary demarcation which has not only divided the

state between India and Pakistan, but has also been a scene of terrible confrontation between the

two countries in the form of three wars. The arbitrariness of this defacto border, as perceived by

the Kashmiris, is reflected in the novel in the novel in the words of an elderly man named

Shaban,who speaks of the land as one terrority ,one place, one landscape that opened up to all its
inhabitants, and which now stood inexplicably fragmented, a space that two nations vie for

occupation. His thoughts are reminiscent of an episode in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

where Tai marches to the border where India and Pakistan are fighting over Kashmir, and

asserts”Kashmir for Kashmir’(36).Before getting killed in the battle,Tai decries this forcible

initiation of Kashmir into a seemingly irreversible imbroglio and becomes a symbolic martyre

in the cause of resisting intervention in his identity.in an almost ironic reversal of Ta’s situation

,The Collaborator’s protagonist ,however, is caught in a situation where he has completely lost

the scene of his identity and suffering from psychological scars. Claire Chambers observes that

the novel is ‘a dark take on the Bildungsroman’s “the novel charts the boy’s ‘progress’ from

shock and revulsion at the dead bodies , to communing with the dead people , even lying beside

them ;to not really noticing them as he becomes inured to the work’(11)

The novel transcends the narrator’s story by fictionally re-creating people’s lives under the

shadow of insurgency and oppression . The story is as much about the narrator as about himself

as the space /place he occupies. His tale becomes the story of his people ,his voice echoes their

voices , his descriptions resound the perspectives of both the oppressor and the oppressed .Thus

,every character can be seen as a participant in a regional and political history .Kashmir’s armed

conflict also brought in its wake tremendous changes in the socio-cultural life, especially human

relations .Kashmir cultural ethos has always placed a premium on deference to the elders .The

narrator is shown to be caught in a dilemma .His life has run its course on three distinct and

markedly different levels. One is his existence of living through the uncertainties and the terror

of militancy; another concern is that his family life is marked by the father-son tussle; the third

is his fascination for the militants who have chosen to confront oppression. He has to reconcile

all three as the reality of his existence, ,which symbolizes the larger political and social conflict
that has overwhelmed Kashmiri society .Instrumental in this situation are the political and

military pressures brought about by the armed conflict. It is the narrator ‘s father who

disapprove of the violent resistance of the militants: ‘I have seen this before, son seen it all,

nothing happens in the end, you know, nothing’(27)His words bring out generational difference

and also outlook, and points to how the older generation inducing politicians ,tends to be more

conciliatory, more willing to endeavor within peaceful and democratic channels ;this is in stark

contrast to the attitudes shown by the young men who are draw drawn towards violence and see

it as a quick solution to the problem. This position expressed by the protagonist’s father

represents the large section of Kashmir ‘s older generation which is lost in the veneration of

Sheikh Abdullah, and tend to most pacifist in its attitude .The elders traditional values ,like

difference and consensus ,had served as symbol of social change authority that sustained and

perpetuated the sense of community solidarity. It underlined a social structure primary based on

filiation where a regard for shared social relations. In the conflict however, such traditional

structures of authority were radically modified by the prevailing circumstances of the gun

culture. The younger generation had attained a political awareness and orientation that was far

more affirmative and confrontational. The novel contains father son duo who symbolize this

dichotomy. The father Iftikar Ali Karra is described as an old “Congress Wallah”.Who

constantly disapproves of militancy because of his political inclination towards India. The son,

Zulfikar Ali despite his father’s disapproval of his father and prospects of a luxurious life,

becomes a top militant, only to be killed into a fake encounter. This is after being lured into

surrender, a common trap by the army to do away with militants. In this episode the gun attains a

symbolic significance as it is the shared weapon of both militant and the state in the armed

conflict besides its palpable utility as a weapon. It was the political struggle for the common goal
and possession of the gun which now brought a sense of solidarity based on the bounds of

affiliation. When the narrator says that ‘Everyone carries gun nowadays’ (72).It points how the

armed conflict enables an alteration in the traditional hierarchical structures of Kashmiri society.

Many significant events which happened in the early 1990s during the peak of the militancy are

referred to in the novel with an aim to reinscribe and represent them because in official records

they have either been distorted or inadequately described .Notable among these events are the

incident of mass –rape in Poshpora, the massacres of Gaw Kadal and Sopore ,the fake encounters

on the LOC,or the issue of mass graveyards. The incident of Gaw Kadal ,the narrator speaks of

nearly50 people being killed by the Central reserve police force(CRPF) in broad daylight when

the newspaper headline ‘The river of blood ‘said ‘young and old ,men and children, dead on a

bridge’.(117)Tragically, the government version given of the same incident in the text downplays

the entire event: “there was a breakdown in the law and order situation and the police were

forced to open fire on the out- of –control mob ;as a result thirty-five people were killed”(117).In

one of the incident described in the novel ,farooq Khan of Nowgam is first tortured and then

brutally beheaded for being an associate of militants. During another search operation in

Nowgam ,Khadim Hussain is killed by the for allegedly helping the militants .The mass burials

of the people killed by the captain kadian’s army unit on the LOC are closely associated with the

enforced disappearances .Waheed is alluding to a recurring case in Kashmir –issues of enforced

disappearances and custodial killings. This gruesome reality is reflected in the formation of the

APDP (Association of parents of Disappeared Persons)which puts the number enforced

disappearances in Kashmir between 1989 and 2009 to be 8000- 10000 people.

In the novel the description in the media about the conflict are keenly scrutinised.The captain’s

various references to media, in his conversations with the narrator, serve to establish the
dichotomy between the actual happenings on the ground and the reportage in media.The

language of propaganda in the media about the conflict subtly satirized. The narrator’s father

dismisses Doordarshan news India’s national broadcasting agency, as “all lies ,sarasar bakwas,

and utter nonsense (112).Whenever the army clashes with militants, many deaths result, and the

narrator describes how such episodes are trivialized as ‘an encounter ‘or a ; skirmish”(5).Almost

as if nothing has happened. There is also the description of fake encounter which are usually

staged –managed and reported through media partisanship or indifference. When some

journalists come from dehli to cover the situation on the border,captainKadian brags about the

skills of stage –managing the operations when he tells narrator: I can make any moderchod look

like an Afghan. The dead don’t speak, remember, and I still have plenty of old photos and

clothes”(9)The other notable scene of stage- managing things through media occurs towards the

end of the novel when the governor visits the Nowgam on the occasion of the indain republic

day. He is to address the people on whom he had ordered a crackdown. It is the intense mountain

cold of January that the old and theinfirm,theb women and the children ,had to listen his words

after having endured earlier three days of curfew incarnation. A menstruating women weeps,

having faced that incarnation, but the irony is that the media persons accompanying the governor

give coverage only to his address and his distribution of his gifts to the people.what goes totally

unnoticed, and therefore remains unreported is the fact of the people’s agony and privations

during a long curfew when they were housebound. The idealized reportage does not notice their

agony under curfew.

Women in Kashmir have been the worst hit due to conflict. They are often the worst victims in

any conflict because of their vulnerable position in the society. The worst kind of violence is

committed on their bodies during violent times. The history of the unending suffering of
Kashmiris dates back to the year 1989, when insurgency started in Kashmir Kashmir conflict has

wreaked havoc with all people of the valley and women folk have suffered the most. The

dimensions of the conflict have been many and has been difficult, due to research in these

sensitive areas, to get holistic ideas about the problems faced by the women. Their problem have

multiplied over time. As the conflict raged on far more than twenty years ,it has left them

physically,socially,psychologically and economically distressed. They are the worst suffers of

the conflict and thus are the real victims.

In all types of conflict women have been exploited physically and in Kashmir they have met the

same fate. Many actors have been involved in sexual and physically exploitation of

women.However,since these actions are politically and socially sensitive many cases of abuses

have not come to light The state women’s commission have documented many abuses and

NGO’s have documented even more heinous crimes against the daughters of eve in Kashmir.

It is not that Kashmiri women have not come forward to make themselves visible in the society.

They have treaded much success. There are many Kashmiri women who have qualified

prestigious national competitive exams since the very outset of the insurgency ,Kashmiri women

have been killed In cross firing ,blown up in grenade explosions shot dead or killed in tear gas

shelling .Women always feel insecure in the present environment of the conflict.

Violence to Kashmiri women take different forms: they are bruised, beaten, tortured, maimed,

mutilated, molested, and sexually abused. Even most of them have been jailed for years. The

Kunan poshpora mass gang rape and the shopian gang rape and murder cases are undeniably

the worst examples. Psychiatric disorders have been seen mounting since insurgency with these

killings .More and more women are admitted in Kashmir’s only Psychiatric Disease hospital

,Rainwari.
The Kashmir women have undergone terrible shocks ,gifted to them by the conflict. Their sons

have been killed ,their children orphaned, husbands disappeared, and thus are welcomed .Very

sparingly the term “Half- Widow “is applicable only to women in Kashmir as their husbands

have been subjected to ‘enforced disappearance ‘ and there has been no evidence of them since

their missing; thus their become ‘half –orphan’s a term again used for Kashmiri children alone.

Sexual assault like rape, which have frequently been used as a weapon of war and tool of

political repression. The novel, Waheed has created the character of dasrat singh ,who invariably

accompanies captain kadian during the latter’s dreaded session of interrogation .While on the

look out for for militants in search operations,Dasrath Singh ferociously kicks a pregnant woman

in her belly.Consquently, this hapless woman gives birth to a baby with fractured limbs .the

captain reserves high praise for singh, whose ranking as low subordinate makes the captain

lightly dismiss the man’s brutality as a ’as procedural error(265).In the Kunan Poshpora village

,mass rape incident in Kupwara, north Kashmir,40 women were raped by the indain army’s 4 th

Rajputana Rifles .this was done while holding the village men captive in a field while search

operation for militants were being carried out.Numberous national and international rights

organizations have investigated and verified the gruesome incident. The Indian government,

however has denied that any such incident took place.in reflection on this incident ,waheed

narrator sarcastically remarks: ’A brand new minister for Kashmir affairs from Delhi was also

quoted as saying that no place by the name of poshpora ever existed on the map’.(26).To add the

irony of these words ,the novelist creates a group of women, hailing from poshpora ,they were

looking very pathetic and miserable and they all gathered in front of the Noor Khan’s shop most

of them were weeping, crying ,screaming with hunger .They were withered and some of them

were consoling .These milk beggars came as a reason to get milk in Srinagar for feeding their
young babies because they were about dying if they don’t get milk. They only want milk and no

other edible things for eating. They only want to get milk for their babies. They insisted locale

people don’t return us empty hands. Having been under curfew for more than three months, these

young mothers arrive in Nowgam searching for milk to satisfy the hunger of their hungry babies.

They symbolize the state of utter desperation and helplessness of mothers who are so starved by

weeks of curfew. In the novel this oppression of women is manifested in the perpetual state of

silence in which they find themselves as their ‘stories dried up some time ago’(113).These milk

beggars were vey feeble in physically and voice was shrill. Their bosom were barren and they

were unable make milk because scarcity of food. For them milk is everything.

Waheed also traces a differential history of the armed struggle by reflecting on its underlying

contradictions. These contradictions are the role of Pakistan and the act of oppression

committed by the militants while they claim to be the liberators of their oppressed people. The

role Pakistan in fomenting the armed struggle against India cannot be denied; it aims to engage

India by means of a proxy war. If the novel is blunt and scathing in portraying the brutality of the

Indian state, it also takes the critical and sarcastic view of Pakistan and the militants. Pakistan is

described as ‘that goddamn country a few kilometers across the border which is never at rest and

will never let anyone else rest in peace either’(152).It is described as the place from were the

militants come with arms training to fight against Indian authority in Kashmir. Pakistan is said to

view Kashmir as a conflict that can be resolved only through the prism of jihad and securing

territory from IndiaWaheed’s novel foregrounds the contradictions within the armed struggle.

This offers multiple perspectives which serve both to contest the dominant versions of

mainstream writings and also to give voice to the people who have long been deprived of the

right to speak for themselves. Militants claimed to be the liberators of the people are shown to
be engaged in brutalities themselves .This earns them the ire and derision of many Kashmiri, one

of whom is the .narrator’s father who often condemns them for their violent methods. In one

such instance, when Reman khan narrates the brutality of the militants, the narrator’s father

indulges in a tirade against militants, who according to him, are bereft of any “religion “and

whom he regards as a “ slur on islam”as they have no principles208)

In the novel, Kashmir militants groups are denounced for their role in the atrocities. An example

.is the narrator’s description of the tongue of shaban khatana’s wife being cut out and her son,

Raman’s arm being disfigured because both are seen to have betrayed the cause of the movement

for azadi as well as the militants.Intrestingly reman is shown as a former guide who used to scot

for recruits to whisk across the LOC into Pakistan .Militants in the novel are shown issuing

threats to those who are seen as betraying the cause. A real life incident, like the kidnapping of

Rubaiyya Saeed, the daughter of a prominent politician in Kashmir, is also referred to in the

novel. Extremist militant group, seeking to enforce an Islamic code of behavior, launched violent

attacks on women. In an oblique reference, the narrator once says:

I can’t help thinking of this new group, Allah Tigers, who broke video rental shops and touched

cinemas in the city and dragged frightened little girls out of school buses and checked their hands

for any signs of nail polish and sent them back home to wear floor-length burqas.(90)

Besides the Indian army, militants are also shown to be guilty of committing human rights

violations several times. Waheed is blunt in reiterating his political stances while writing The

Collaborator. He is of the view that “fiction should agitate people, make them sit up and

think,”(Silverman 2011).This is corroborated by the notes, acknowledgements and the dedication

contained in the novel. In the latter Waheed writes, “for the people of Kashmir.”. In the

afterword, he quotes figures of “70000 killed in Kashmir since 1989 as well as the number of
people disappeared, orphaned, and imprisoned” while also noting that “the government of India

disputes these figures”(305).In a fictional rubric, Waheed’s novel has a distinctiveness and

specificity that underlines the fact that he, to quote Harlow, has considered “ it necessary to wrest

that expropriated historicity back”(50),through a process where “one requires taking

sides”(Harlow 40).In this context ,the novel can also be seen as manifesting a struggle for the

historical and political record as it contests the distorted official versions and biased media

reportage. The fictional narrative becomes the microcosm of the Kashmir of 1990s.It is

representation that merges event, idea and arena of conflict. The text insists on historical reality

that can be the ground of fictional depiction. In seeking to do this, the narrative brings to the light

the silent or marginalized aspect of armed conflict and its experience from the victims’

perspective and point of view. Many hitherto untold stories and aspects are brought to light

through the differential history of the conflict by using the literary imagination as the mode of

expression. In giving voice to oppression through fictional voices and situations, The

Collaborator aims to delineate itself from the path of characteristic rhetoric of Indian and

Pakistan narratives on Kashmir. By offering a discontinuity from the dominant discourses of

India and Pakistan, the novel can be said to reflect Salman Rushdie’s view on how literature can

contest the contorted truths of power structures in the contemporary world:

It seems to me imperative that literature enter such arguments, because what is being disputed is

nothing less than what the case, what is truth is and what untruth. If writers leave the business of

making pictures of the world to politicians, it will be one of the history’s great and most abject

abdications…there is a genuine need for political fiction, for books that draw new and better

maps of reality, and make new languages with which we can understand the world.(Rushdie 5).
The novel brings to fore the voices and aspirations of a people numbed into silence by a brutal

conflict.
 Chapter 2

Curfewed Night is the memoir of young Kashmiri journalist Basharat peer, recounting his youth

in a drown-trodden valley of Kashmir during the 80s and 90s Born and raised in war-torn region,

Basharat peer brings this little unknown part of the world to life in haunting vivid detail. He was

born in Kashmir in 1977.He studied political science at Aligarh Muslim University and journalist

at Columbia university. He has worked as a reporter at Redcliff and Tehelka and has written for

various publications including the guardian, financial times, new statesman and foreign affairs

where he was Assistant Editor. He is currently based in New york.

Curfewed Night starting with haunting cover picture, the picture is for a girl looking through the

fence at a funeral as a body of a boy is taken away.Curfewed Night is a candid account of life in

Kashmir, the peace and calm of before 90s and fear and harrow of after 90s.This novel is a

harrowing read and it is a story not to be forgetting. As Khushwant Singh says, “Beautifully

written, brutally honest and deeply hurtful”. And another writer Ahmad Rashid, ”The story of

Kashmir has never been told before so evocatively and profoundly .peer writes with skill of a

novelist, the insight of a journalist, and the evocative power of a poet.”.Pankaj Mishra says

about this novel, “Challenges our most cherished beliefs…everyone should read it”. “A

passionate and important book-a brave and brilliant report from a conflict the world has chosen

to ignore. “Salman Rushdie. Curfewed Night is packed with facts and emotions. Its subject

matter is most apt and appropriate. The novel describes what the heaven it Kashmir was and

what a hell it is now. It is emotional tale of man “love for his land, the pain of leaving home and

ultimately the joy of return.

Curfewed Night is the memoir of young Kashmiri journalist Basharat peer, recounting his youth

in a drown-trodden valley of Kashmir during the 80s and 90s .The narrator tells his own

childhood story with his own brother Wajahat.How they made homemade ice creams and

snowman. They were playing on frozen snow and slide down the slope of the hill, and they were

always rebuked or beaten by the grandfather, the school master. Our Grandfather always

expressed his preference of textbooks over cricket. And always told them “ You good for

nothing”. By his familiar bark the cricket players would scatter in all directions and disappear.

Everyone was busy in his own work in a peaceful climate ( means peaceful Kashmir).There was

no murder, no crime, no agitation, no bondage, no mass rapes like Kunan poshpora and

Shopian.Everyone was feeling ease and comfort, there was no place of inconvenience, there was

no showing of identity cards, no crackdowns and parade. Everything was working smoothly and

peacefully. In those days the greatest fear was, untimely rain ,as it could spoil the crops. If they

saw steaks of scarlet in the sky, they said, “There has been a murder somewhere. When a man is

killed, the sky turns red”(3).Murder was surprise for Kashmiri people in those days.

Curfewed Night is a brave and unforgettable piece of literary reporting that reveals the personal

stories behind one of the most brutal conflict in modern times.Curfewed Night is nothing if not

personal.

Peer’s book is lyrical, intensely partisan and cynical in varied proportions. Most Indians think

they have a fair understanding of the conflict in Kashmir .Peer’s excellent book makes the reader

realize how little we know about what is going on in one of the most beautiful states in our

country. The amount of research put in by the author Basharat peer has added the crucial element

of authenticity and authority. Peer’s writing takes the reader on a journey that not many outside

Kashmir have been though.

 But the misery started in 1989, when the Indian army started counter-insugency.It tore Kashmir

into parts over the last 30 years. The Kashmiri have sense of alienation towards Indian rule. They

did not relate to the symbols of Indian nationalism-the flag, the national anthem, the cricket

team. We followed every cricket match India and Pakistan played but we never cheered for the

Indian team. If India played with the England, they supported England.

Beginning in the years before the struggle, Curfewed Night invites the reader into a beautiful,

peaceful mountain paradise where the regular, slow rhythms of village life make up one’s

existence. Peer lives a happy, uneventful childhood, surrounded by a loving family and tight knit

community. But this serenity, as it turns out, is merely the glassy surface, hiding a quagmire

beneath. The shadow of Kashmir turbulent history and unresolved conflicts never quite goes

away, even in peer’s happy childhood, he knows that his home is one struggling for an identity.

Kashmir, he tells us, is defined negatively, in terms what its residents do not want it to be. That

is, Kashmiris are certain that they do not want their home to be swallowed up by a larger Indian

that has failed to give them the autonomy, rights and the self-respect that they expected at the

time of independence. Kashmir has become the purgatory of the ghosts of partition. Curfewed

Night takes readers on a journey exploring the hopes, aspirations and frustrations of the Muslims

of Kashmir, focusing especially on the youth and the path of armed struggle that these youth

took to throw the yoke of Indian hegemony.. Peer shows us through the deeply touching stories

of others, through mothers, sons, poets and militants, the complexities that are inevitably

involved, refraining from presenting a Manichean picture of Muslims versus Hindus, Islamic

fundamentalists versus secularists. No, he insists ,the Kashmiri Muslims were never orthodox,

and they lived the under the influence of such Sufi saints as Nuruddin Rishi, the valley’s patron.

The initial movement for independence, led by JKLF, began as a struggle for an independent,
secular Kashmir, neither part of India nor Pakistan.It was also partly a class struggle; the

majority of its members came from the lower middle and peasant classes. It was the struggle of

a people who had over the years felt alienated from mainstream India, neglected and taken for

granted. The problem, Peer argues, really begin after the Indian government brutally sought to

crush the independence movement, when it was taken over by fundamentaaalists.

Curfwed Night is neither purely political analysis nor journalistic vignettes. It tells the stories of

ordinary people caught in politics. But, importantly, these stories are not journalistic”facts” they

are lived experiences.

Indeed, Peer tells the story of all kashmiris, whether Muslim or Hindu. He tells us about the

misery and grief caused to human beings, regardless of their religion and class. He brutally

presents the brutalities of the indian army and paramilitary, but also does not fail to show the

brutality of the militants. The complacency of the bureaucracy, whether of the Indian state or the

Kashmir state ;the discrepancy between the leadership of the militants and political leaders;

and the rending of ordinary lives due military and militants alike are all touched upon in

curfewed Night. And the change in the mental landscape of a people now ruled by uncertainty

and fear is reflected in the besieged landscape of this valley, once legendary for its beauty.As

Peer writes,”The poet lied about its being paradise”

This is the story of an agonized people whose lives have been torn as under by factors beyond

their control.These are people who have been fighting for their legitimate rights and have been

crushed by an iron hand, indiscriminating and unrelenting.For Pakistanis. Battling strife within

their borders due to various armed struggle,terrorist attacks and state aggression, the story told by

Peer surely will provide insight into our own troubles.It takes us beyond media reportage to the

people to their homes , schools, colleges and universities, inside their daily lives, their festivals
and funerals to an existence that is not very different from yours and mine. Curfewed Night

reveals the connections between what is happening in Kashmir. The terrain changes but the story

can be stretched into countless homes.

The author said when outbreak of Kashmir Insurgency commenced, his war of adolescent

started. It is a war that hasn’t yet ended, though it has changed shape considerably in the last 20

years.

One of the strongest sections describes how it felt to be a young teenager swept up by a

movement with “ Freedom” as its cry. Peer writes of how all the embarrassments and failures of

adolescence fall away when you join in a procession and feel yourself part of something larger,

how the militants who crossed into Pakistan- controlled part of Kashmir guerrilla training would

return as heroes; how “like almost every boy, I wanted to join them. “Fighting and dying for

freedom was as desired as the first kiss on adolescent lips”.Peer’s fascination with the militants

was shattered when his whole family objected to his idea of joining the insurgents. The young

Basharat Peer came to an agreement with his father that he would wait for a few years before

deciding whether or not to sign up, in the meantime he would study. In order to save him from

taking a rash decision and rushing into dangerous terrain, he was sent away from Kashmir.

Peer tells how a series of horrific rapes and atrocities by Indian troops radicalized the population

who were vaguely pro-Pakistan, but whose activism had previously never gone beyond. It is

Peer’s systematic torture by India of its Kashmiri citizens that reflects most badly on the world’s

largest democracy. In Kashmir, India responded to the insurgency by setting up two medivak

torture chambers, Papa 1 and Papa 2,into which large number of local people, as well as the

occasional captured foreign jihadi, would “disappear’. Their bodies would later be found, if at all
flowing down rivers, bruised, covered in cigarette burns, missing fingers or even limbs. Peer

describes how many of his generation of Kashmiri were rendered impotent by their cruel tortures

The consists of fifteen chapters. Chapters one to eight describes the author’s early life up to the

period when he is all to set to leave the valley for the plains to make a successful career.The

second half of the book follows Peer’s active attempt to understand what was happening in

Kashmir. Chapter twelve has an anecdote about a mother’s courage attempt to save her son.A

mother runs towards a battleground where the army was going to use her two sons Bilal and

Shafti as human bombs. She sees Bilal about to be sent into the militant’s house with a mine in

his hand. She throws herself at Bilal, removes the mine from his hand and holds her in his arms.

The soldiers let them go.

He searches for victims of the conflict who have their own individual stories to tell. Physical

injuries, depression and “no hopes for the future” are the norm for many young man in the

locality; torture by Indian forces has particularly sinister conquences and Peer meets victims,

both male and female. One woman was raped by Indian soldiers within hours of her marriage,

after the bridal party was ordered off the wedding party bus. He meets Maqbool, a paramedic in

the city of Srinagar who tells him about five bodies which were brought to the hospital following

the grenade blast in the suburbs. The paramedic notices an arm, “I pulled him out he was young

and he was alive’, he tells Peer.

Peer tells about the shattering of dreams. Hindu women walked to Muslim shrines to seek

blessings of a saint. The religious divide visible only on the day India and Pakistan played

cricket. Along with killing hundreds of Muslims pro-India political activists and suspected

informers the militant killed the few hundred Pandits on similar grounds without any reason.
Peer says he was nervous at the prospect of seeing his pandit teacher and his childhood friends as

refugees.

Peer gives an invaluable, authentic picture of the emergence of jihadist from Pakistan equipped

with laptops and satellite phones ready to unleash terror, where the random victims are not

necessary military targets. Peer sensitively portrays the misery of a hapless population caught in

the cross fire. They can do nothing but grieve over the loss of a generation. Peer excels when he

brings out journalistic gems like the story of the Ikhwans,turncoat militants, who became the part

of the Indian counter insurgency movement.peeer’s style is very uneven and varies between the

raw and the sophisticated. It is possible that the account has been written over a long period of

time during which the writer himself has evolved. Peer completely omits the Kargil war and his

similarly silent about the indo- pak peace.Yatra date strated with Lahore bus trip by Atal Behari

Vajpayee.

Peer often fails in maintaining distance and some circumspection regarding his own emotions

and concerns. He exhibits the casual disdain for the changes that occurring in India.Curfewed

Night is not a pro-azadi polemic, or the report and recommendations of a government inquiry.It

is Peer’s attempt to present the facts what he has see, heard and experienced, including but not

limited to his own emotional response, and leaves all the room possible for readers to from their

own opinion.

It provides hope for that those who read it will hereafter think not of the rebellious uprising AND

anti India sentiment when they hear the word ‘Kashmir’ but of million whose lives have been

forever altered by bloodshed and conflict .it isa that remarkably taut and work that enriches

contempory .indian history and reviles an unexplored fact of life in turbulent Jammu and

Kashmir .barshast peer,,s non fictional narrative of life in Kashmir is unique because it is one of
the very few books that have emerged from a strike torn land the plight of the ordinary people

and their daily struggle for existence reminds us that Kashmir is a land yearning for peace and

normality.

The author tells us about the mass exodus of Kashmiri pandits from land of their birth. The

author went to attend his village school one fine morning. He found no Kashmiri Pandit teacher

present in the school as all of them had fled the valley. Of course, he felt very sad and puzzled.”

The murders sent a wave of fear through the community and more than a hundred thousand

Pandits left Kashmiri after March 1990. The affluent moved to houses in Jammu, Delhi and

various Indian cities. But a vast majority could find shelter only in the squalor of refuge amps

and rented rooms in Jammu and Delhi (p.184)

The author also talks about secular and harmonious atmosphere prevailing in the valley prior to

1989.”The practice of Islam in Kashmir borrowed elements from the Hindu and the Buddhist

past, the Hindu in turn were influenced by Muslim practies.In my childhood nobody raised an

eyebrow if Hindu woman went to Muslim shrine to seek a blessings a saint. The religious divide

was visible only on the days India and Pakistan played cricket. Muslims supported the Pakistani

cricket and the pandits were for India”(p.15).

He describes valley’s corrupt bureaucracy. Even bureaucrats demand huge bribes for sanctioning

monetary relief.” The files do not move by itself from one table to another. Out of the relief

money of one lakh, the applicant has to spend one lakh, the applicant has to spend 25 percent to

thirty thousand rupees.Othewise he will waste years visiting offices. Once he pays that, we

ensure that his name in the compensation job list goes up and things move fast”( p.164).

After the insurgency gun was considering the main weapon. It was a time when insurgency was

its peak. And everyone was seduced by it.Every Kashmiri was wishing, to carry a gun. Even
children carry their cricket bats inside their pherans in imitation and preparation. It was the

magical Kalashnikov. Made in Russia, a gift from Pakistan, it was known to have powers greater

than Aladdin’s lamp. It is as small as a hand and shoots two hundred bullets. Author’s brother

touched a Kalashnikov; he said it is very light. He told the mother he wants to become a militant

With the passage of time gun culture vanished and it was replaced by stone pelting Just like gun

culture vanished stone pelting will end too.

Chapter 3

“The greatest sufferings bring the greatest hopes, the greatest miseries greatest patience, and the

greatest uncertainties lead to the greatest quests” ,writes Shahnaz Bashir in his The Half Mother

Shahnaz Bashir was born and brought up in Kashmir.He is an Assistant Professor of Media
Studies at the Central University of Kashmir.His Memoir,an account of “A Crackdown in

Natipora” has been anthologized in of Occuption and Resistance-Writings from

Kashmir(Westland) 2013.The Half Mother, his debut work was published by Hachette. Widely

lauded in literary circles for its bold new voice, the book found a mention in Forbes

Magazine.Shahnaz Bashir has made good attempt to address the psychological condition of the

people, based on his own experience and memories. Physical injuries are visible to everyone but

mental psyche often go unacknowledged.

Haleema, the protagonist of the novel, lost her son in the ongoing conflict and despite the trauma

and agony of being a mother; she made every effort to search out her lost son, till her last breath.

This chapter bring out the mental agony which the protagonist undergoes.

In The Half Mother, his debut novel, Shahnaz Bashir has attempted to address the issue of

involuntary disappearances in Kashmir, which has been engulfed by the violent since the late

1990s,The book focuses on the courage Haleema , a mother, a daughter and a woman full of

hope and the energy to fight against her suffering.The Half Mother, brings to us a tale of

ordinary civilians under attack, in a war they neither want, nor support, and the tenacious

struggle of a lone women for her right to dignity and life.Haleema, separated from her husband

after just a few months of matrimony, lives with her aging father Ghulam Rasool joo, whom she

calls Ab jaan, and her teenage son,Imran.They are simple people, who have nothing to do with

the unrest breaking out around them. There are, of course, the boys next door who have grown

up with Imran, who cross the border to join the insurgents.

The insurgency in Kashmir, is a conflict between various Kashmiri separatists and government

of India .Few groups favour Kashmiri accession to Pakistan, while others seek Kashmir’s

complete independence. The conflict in Kashmir has the strong islamist elements among the

insurgents. The roots of the conflict between the Kashmiri insurgents and the Indian government
are tied to dispute over local autonomy. This insurgency was changed into armed insurgency .In

july 1988,a series of demonstrations, strikes and attacks on the indian government began the

Kashmir insurgency, which during the 1990s escalated into the most important internal security

issue in India.

Thousands of people have died during fighting between insurgents and the government as well as

thousands of civilians who have died as a result of being targeted by the various armed groups.

The inter .service intelligence of Pakistan has accused by India supporting and training

mujahedeen to fight in Kashmir. By this insurgency and according to official figure released ,

there were 3400 disappearance cases and the conflict has left more than47000 people dead which

also includes 7000 police personnel as of july 2009.And after that its increase mounting.

However, the number of insurgency-related deaths in the state have fallen sharply since the start

of a slow-moving peace process between India and Pakistan.Begining in 2004, Pakistan began to

end its support for insurgents in Kashmir. This happened because terrorist groups linked to

twice tried to assassinate Pakistani president General parvez Musharaf.The present situation of

Kashmir insurgency is , according to the Reuters only few people is joining now in insurgency.

When counter-insurgency started in Kashmir valley, because of above reasons in late 1980s,

Indian troops entered in Kashmir valley to control the insurgency.

Haleema’s son Imran was not insurgent, he was not joined any organization and any groups. He

was innocent ,but he was slain by the hands of Indian troops.When the military men come to

their gates, searching for hidden insurgents.Ab jaan’s becomes the first death in the neighbor
hood of Natipora, a portent of times to come .One day, Imran is picked up by the army on a

flimsy excuse, and just disappears, beginning a nightmare for Haleema, of days of searching all

avenues for son devoting into each other.

Though the language sounds heavy and clunky in parts (suggestive of translation from thought

processes in the writer’s native language, Kashmiri words and verses used in many places), the

narrative is captivating enough with details of real places and incidents- fictionalized for the

story, to hold the reader’s attention.

The arrogance of the army officers, the dread in the minds of the ordinary people, the horror of

the torture camps. The helplessness, yet single mindedness of a mother searching for her

innocent son, the nurturing of hope against all odds. The not knowing of a loved one’s fate was

the most wrenching thing. Hence ‘Half mother’: the term widow’ had been coined persons, for

the wife of a man missing ,yet not known if dead or alive. The backdrop is author’s homeland

Kashmir , which has been an incongruent zone since author’s birthland the settings and

characters of the novel expound the same.Shahnaz Bashir is depicting a heart breaking story of

one of the thousands grieving mothers. Who had their children in ongoing conflict, whose

children disappeared and are not located till date. These mothers are in dilemma that, are their

children still alive or dead, are they still mothers are not, so these mothers are termed as Half

Mothers by Shahnaz Bashir.

Bashir has portrayed a character of Haleema as a mother and transforms her into a tragic figure,

which is torn apart between the roles of nurturing mother to a suffering wanderer. From the

beginning of the novel she has been portrayed as a woman of great resilience. Haleema also

experienced the psychic trauma and always relies on herself to get back on her feet.
The story of the novel round a female character Haleema, who has been suffering in all respects

of life .Haleema who was the apple of her parent’s eye, lost her mother at the age of eight, which

forced her to left the schooling and to take care of household chores. Haleema was married to a

medical assistant, after the marriage Haleema discovered that her husband has an extra martial

affair. It was excruciating for her and she became reticent, and unchained bound her husband

from the sacred knot. Haleema ended her marriage which lasted only for three months by

divorcing her husband. After a period of time Haleema , who was much disappointed, gave birth

to baby boy who brought her smile back after the tragedy of divorce, Abjaan, the father of

Haleema and she was very much attracted to the baby boy who was named as Imran

But the tradedy does not end up here, rest of more panic. Chapter five of the book has been

named as tempest , which is quite ironical. It expounds the situation of 1990, when the conflict

Was its peak. The year in real sense tempest for valley for her Haleema too.Haleema’s innocent

father, Abjaan was slaughtered by troopers one night leaving Haleema broke into jolt. Now

Imran, her was only bread winner and lone support for her who was taken by troopers, and he

never returned back home, leaving Haleema shattered , who lived her rest of life as a Half

mother.

As the days were passing there was no sign of Imran.Haleema was very much attached to his

son Imran and his loss affected both her physical and mental health. As observed loss of the

child is generally most awful angst, and is considered the foremost root of a prolonged misery.

As it has been noticed that when [parents lose their child a part of them dies. Imran was a symbol

of future for Haleema and by losing him she lost both her dreams and hope.It was one of the

worst traumatizing experience by Haleema despite the misery she has to look for her son all

alone whom she was never able to locate;’The emotional blow associated with child loss can
lead to wide range of psychological problems including depression ,anxiety ,cognitive and

physical symptons. …”(when a parent loses child ( p.1)

Haleema is now an inevitable victim of circumstances and she ultimately becomes

schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is frequently linked with major psychological disability and

seclusion. The symptoms of psychosis were now clear in Haleema. She was shocked and often

confused, and there were many changes in her behavior too. She was now absolutely devastated

and often having misconceptions.AS: “Psychosis simply means that a person has sensory

experiences may include delusions, hallucination and disordered thoughts “Environment

influences like socio economic status, family atmosphere and substance abuse are actually the

potential contributors to the disorder. The ambience around Haleema and her isolation were the

main causes of schizoprehenia.Losing her husband, father than her only son were the main

events that sparked of the ”schizophrenia “is caused by a combination of factors;… but stressful

life-events or experiences could triggers the onset of symptoms” (sane, p.2)

The night, when Abjaan was slaughtered by troopers, everybody around was crying and

weeping. But Haleema was in total shook, not believing that Abjaan is dead, no tears in her eyes.

Her hair was loose, laughing like a mad and beating herself: “She was conscious now and in

shock. She wanted the women and tell her Abjaan was still alive.Isn’s he? Isn’t he? He is alive.

Why are you all crying?”(The Half Mother, p.50). The author is successful in portraying an

Archetypal Mother consciousness in depicting Haleema, who at some places has been

represented as Fairy Mother, which directs and guides her child.

After Imran was taken, she was bare footed, bare headed, wailing like anything else. She was

now having delusions, imaging troops beating her son, and he crying for help. That was most

devastating night in the life of Haleema; she cried throughout the night and was not able to sleep
for a fraction of second. She was now completely lost. She was looking weary, not covering hair;

face was looking pale a non- living and clothes she had worn were inside out. Her health

condition was now going from bad to worse and was she now talking help inhaler. She was

frustrated by life and bursting in tears and crying intensely.Haleema was now having auditory

hallucinations, and believing that things around her are talking to her, when she felt alone:

She began talking to herself or to walls. Sometimes, she would talk to the things that belonged to

Imran, crying and waling alternatively. She would open the dented heirloom trunk and take his

notebooks. She would slowly run her fingers over his scribbles and feel the letters…( The Half

Mother, p.69).

Haleema was not able to sort out the things relevant to the circumstances. Her thoughts were

illogical, fragmented and disorganized. People suffering schizophrenia frequently display flat or

blunted affect.Haleema was now showing severe reduction in her emotional expressiveness, and

her facial expressions seemed to subside now.Haleema was entirely isolated from the happenings

of the day life. She has lost the tally of the days that were turning by. Time seemed to be stopped

up for her: “She had grown habitually Insomniac now,”( Half Mother, p.84).Shahnaz Bashir has

juxtaposed two facets of women’s character of a woman, who was not able to cope up with the

situation because all the parents in the world who lost their children doesn’t became

schizophrenia but they are able make out and manage their regular life. On the other side

Haleema doesn’t left any stone unturned in order to search for her missing son. She is having a

type of rebellios nature of achieving her goal.

She was often having psychotic beliefs and dissimulations of having Imran around her >Once

she passed through market, She was desperately looking around her:
…Surveying here and there, hoping by chance she would find him walking down a footpath.

What if I spot his face in the crowd? A boy with as thin a haircut as Imran, with the same height

and stance, walked across her. Let me turn around and see…Oh! It was not him; just a mere

pedestrian at Dalgate. (The Half Mother,p.85)

People with Schizophrenia are often withdrawn and wish to be left alone. Suicide is a somber

threat in the lives of people who have schizophrenia. People having the disease have the higher

rate than other population.Haleema too had the problem: “She was feeling thirsty, hungry and

suicidal. Yet each time she thought death, she felt strictly accountable to life.”(The Half Mother,

p.87).Haleema has been depicted as a formidable mother, possessing many worthy virtues.

Despite suffering from few faults and weaknesses, she has been able to put mingled impression

on the reader.

The remedy of the disease of schizophrenia Haleema could have been the return of Imran,

who never returned. Haleema was now petrified and crestfallen; it was affecting her health,

because untreated Schizphrenia can lead to severe emotional behavior and major health

problems. It creates anxieties and phobia, inability to work, depression and social isolation. In

the memory of his son, Haleema had actually forgetton herself and her age;” she discovered

creases on her face and neck in the fragment of a mirror. She kept near her pillow.I am an old

woman now, she thought , touching her sagging cheeks.”( The Half Mother,p.102). The

optimum trait of Haleema’s character is his self-sacrificing nature. Her love for Imran is

boundless for which she sacrificed every means of her own survival.

Haleema was now often baffled, vacillating and perturbing. Her mind was now occupied by

noises and gloomy thoughts. She was now having illusions and day dreams:
 Some wet patches on the dry cement surface of the bathroom had morphed into ghostly

shapes, creating and optical illusion. She studied them with awe. A ghostly figure with a wide-

open mouth seemingly shouted back at her. She poured a mug of water and spoiled them all.(

The Half Mother,p.106)

The novel has emerged in the tenacious exertion of Haleema a lonely woman for her right to

dignity and survival and has also given voices to many mothers to endeavors , crusade and don’t

check up the sponge .At the end she was a complete tragic figure because of her misfortune and

heroic endurances .She died uttering her words “Imransabha? Aawkha. Imran have you come ?

(The Half Mother p.178) women usually used to be a silent sufferers but Haleema deserves our

admiration because of her rebellious attitude and manner of endurance. The author has made a

good attempt to plow the involuntary disappearances subject in Kashmir. Shahnaz Bashir has

illustrated the invisible scars of conflict which are not visible like physical wounds.The

physiological wounds like that often go unacknowledged and unrecognized. The people are still

poor in understanding and addressing such traumatic brain injuries. Parents have to accept the

loss and should adopt the fresh life. Sometimes grief may be stiff and nerve-wrecking, but we

must not forget that human resilience is more powerfull. Ernest Heminway defines human power

as; “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”(The Old Man and the sea’ p.107).
Introduction

Jammu and Kashmir is one of the crowns of Asia. It is often termed as “the paradise on earth”. A

beautiful mountain states with clear rivers, evergreen forests and one of the highest death rates in

the world. It is at center of an old-aged dispute between Pakistan and India that has dragged on

from the independence of both nations over fifty years ago to the present time, with no resolution

in sight. The combined population of the two nation totals over a billion, so no conflict between

them is of passing importance, especially when nuclear weapons are involved. Pakistan and India

share a common heritage, language, and tradition, yet the subject of Kashmir can push them to

the brink of annihilation. Fifty years of animosity have built up as a result. A proxy war still

brews in Kashmir, claiming dozens of lives every day,running up a causality total over time into

the hundred thousand. Kashmir have suffered untold horrors and Kashmir has the notorious

reputation of being one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints. Pakistan and India both

believe they have valid claims of Kashmir. Pakistan and its leaders have referred to Kashmir as

the “jugular vein” of Pakistan. A fact reported on the Indian embassy’s note on Kashmir. This

refers to the major river originating in the Kashmir valley on which Pakistan critically

dependent. India claims to Kashmir as “integral part of India”.

In July 6, 1951. Jawaharlal Nehru said, “People seem to forget that Kashmir is not a commodity

for sale or to be bartered. It has an individual existence and its people must be the final arbiters

of their future”. If we start the recounting the history, where the roots of the conflict lie. We must

go through the history of India, as India is massive nation made up of several states, ruled by the

British. A long and difficult struggle culminated with the brutish choosing to leave India in
August 1947.The Muslims of the land decided that instead of just a free India, they would create

a free Pakistan for themselves as well.

Today Kashmir refers to a larger area that includes the Indian-administered regions of Kashmir

valley, Jammu and ladakh, the Pakistani administered regions northern areas and Azad Kashmiri,

and the chinse administered region of aksai chin.At present, Jammu and Kashmir state came into

being as a single political and geographical entity following the Treaty of Amritsar following

between the British government and Gulab singh signed on ,march 16,1846.The treaty handed

over the control of the Kashmir state to the dogra rular of jammu who had earlier annexed

ladakh. Now the new state comprising three district regions of jammu, Kashmir and ladakh was

formed by Maharaja Gulab singh as its founder ruler. Kashmir was originally an important centre

of hindusim and later of Buddhism. Half way through the 14th century ad, shah mirza became the

first muslim ruler of Kashmir and started the line salatin-i- Kashmir. For the next five centuries

Kashmir had muslim rulers, which included satan zain- ul-abidin (budshah), who became the

ruler in 1420, the Mughals, whose rule lasted until 1751, and the Afghan Durranis, who ruled

Kashmir from 1752 until 1820. That year, the Sikhs under Rangit Singh, annexed Kashmir, and

held it untill 1846.

The upsurge of militancy and political movements has impacted the economy of the state greatly.

The crown of india as it is popularly known for its beauty and the geographical location with

respect to the country’s other states has been a victim of terrorism.

All sectors of the economy, which agriculture is the pre-dominant have been affected by the

frequent turbulences and failed to provide food and life security to the population of the

valley.Tourism revenue has been lost to extent of billions of dollars owing to dormant industry

and large scale displacement of pandits, Sikhs and muslims due to frequent riots have resulted in
enormous sufferings of human resources. Significant migration from the valley moved other

parts of the country in search of beeter job and work opportunites. As tourism industry was given

a special status as it was a means to livehood to many and also source of revenue for the

government.

The decades of turmoil also hampered the peace and stability even which was not possible to

achieve without meeting the basic needs of people in the absence of economic growth. The state

is still far behind other states in economic growth at national level.Huge impact on public and

private properties resulted from conflicts and insurgenies that prevailed. The hopes must be kept

high that no dismal years of economic, political, social and developmentat stagnation revists the

valley to set backl the clock for the progressive people and prospering state of Kashmir.If peace

prevails, much of what has been lostcan be regained and revived.

Kashmiri’s young rebel poets and writers who are breaking barriers, challenging stereotypes and

busting many a myth by writing about womanhood, violence , resistance , resilience, and

romance. They also write about bullets and blood, pellets and blindness, militarization, custodial

disappearances, mass graves, rapes, eve teasing etc. On most things under the sun. Even the sun

itself. These writers have endeavored to raise voices and write narratives of mourning and

suffering of Kashmiri people and ask questioning the indian occupation in Kashmir.Their

narrative offer authoritative accounts of the Kashmiri victims who have faced brutal mutilation at

the hands of Indian security forces in a tumultuous and blistering atmosphere.The narratives also

demonstrate chronicles of an ending and offensive abuse of human rights in Kashmir.These

Kashmiri writers put the Kashmiri literature in global focus and have shown the world that

Kashmir is the synonym ous in the blood shed, oppression, violence and depravation.
Shahnaz Baashir has emerged a shining star in the literary anon of Kashmiri fiction English. He

won the Muse India Young Writers Award 2015for his debut novel The Half Mother. Scattered

Souls, his second book is a collection of thirteen short stories mostly set in 1990s’s. Both

Kashmiri men and women have suffered endlessly fron the massive and devasting conflict and

Bashir in hais collection has succeefully and aptly turned these men and women into life- sized

charactyers in the book scattered souls.In this book Shahnaz Bashir has portrayed many pathetic

characters , who suffered with the advent of insurgency and enforced dis appearances.

One latest addition to the collection is Shahnaz Bashir’s,”Scattered Souls”. Scattered Souls is an

anthropology of 13 stories written in the perspective of the Kashmir conflict.Starting with 1990s,

when militancy had just emerged and was quite popular among the masses,particularly the youth

, it dwells on the infamous Ikwan Era and the stone pelting phase of the stuggle.Different facets

of tragedy that has befallen Kashmiris during the course of the conflict and scenes and situations

which became part of the lives of the people have been depicted.

Sahanaz Bashir has made ues of a simple narrative and has let a very literal streak of the truth

pervade thought the book and literally painted the mornfukl condition of kashmir’’s through the

characters in the collection of heart- rendering stories.the book depicts how the unending

conflicy made life of people in the 1990s miserable and suffaocated with curfew and

encounters.Things like powerlessness, moral crises, depravity and doubt are recurring motifs

almost in every story.The book describes how the bitter conflict, draconian laws and huge

militarization have wreaked havoc in the lives of ordinary Kashmiri people.The first story

“Transistor” delineates how ignorant people in Daddgaam village paid heed to rumors which

claimed the death at the hands of militants, of innocent Mohammad Yousaf Dar,Who was loyal

and great supporter of revolution and insurgency.When bullets pumped into him,his great
memories flashed through his mindHe remembers all his faithfulness and obedience of the

conflict.He remembers thundering out word Azaadi… smoking cigrattes and cracking jokes with

insurgents… marching beside them in processions….hiding the during crackdowns…helping

them transport their weapons under his pheran…risking himself by shielding them during army

raids on the village.But instead of that, he was killed by insurgents as a rumor as his walkie-

talkie “to spy on the freedom movement in the village”.

Insurgency is a curse of Kashmiri people which is running through generation to generation and

increase the death rates day- by- day. He was listening BBc radio instead of government news

because he did not thrust the government reports on the conflict of Kashmir,it was his

displeasure and resistance. In those days there was chaos and confusion prevailing in the

Kashmir. In 1990s army descended upon Kashmir to quell a massive armed rebellion against

Indian rule. They entered not just the land, but also the lives of its people, fracturing their idea of

home and punctuating their days and nights with curfews. These stories tell us Indian

government and insurgency destroys the lives of Kashmiri people.

When a pen in hand, they are rewriting Kashmir’s literary history with creativity, courage and conviction.

Some writers write their mother tongue, Kashmiri, and Urdu. These writings are about resistance,

conflict, rebellion, romance, feminism and existentialism. Pain too, and innovative. AS shahnaz Bashir’s

The half Mother , mainly focused on burning issue of custodial disappearances of Kashmir’s youth since

the eruption of the popular armed struggle in 1989.Kashmiri youth are living in draconian laws,

blistering atmosphere, hustle and bustle circumstances and heart- wrenching situations. Everyday is day

of deaths. What happens in Kashmir nobody knows. The main unpleasant and hideous law is Armed

Forces Special Powers Act, for this Kashmir have been agitating of its withdrawal. It gives the army
impunity to cross the barrier of laws and conventions into violations of human rights. By this draconian

law Kashmiri people have suffered lot, this raised the figure of enforced disappearance in mounting.

Human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized the culture of forced disappearances in

Kashmir, maintaining that a majority of those killed were targeted in “fake encounters”.

Stories of disappearances, encounters, death and violence characterizes every day life in kashmir.

Here are personal accounts from Kashmir.

A 13 year old youth, He had gone to the neighbouring village to see a profreedom demonstration

when indian forces opened fire to break peaceful protests.Later his brother receivd a phone call

from the hospital informing him that he was wounded. A moment later his brother received

another phone call, this time to tell us that he had been killed. The doctors said that his brother

was dragged from the bed and shot twice the neck and back by the military inside tha

hospital.There are other pathetic and melancholy stories too.Which are very unusual and hard to

hear and bear.Clampdown, is a familiar word in the valley with curfew routine in Kashmiri

lives.Protests, firing, ,arrests snapping of mobile and internet services.The new generation

remain alienated, with frustration and anger now defining emotions.

 Chapter 4

The Scattered Souls is a collection of 13 stories and its focal point is a time when the Indian

army quashes a mass rebellion, changing forever the lives of the residents in the valley. The

mother battles with feelings of anger towards her child born of rape. The 13 stories in this

collection are interconnected. A peripheral character in one story is likely to emerge as the lead

protagonist in another. The book explores the effects of the prolonged violence and unrest on the

human mind. The stories are an assortment of portraits; in most, a benign beginning leads the

unsuspecting reader to an unexpected revelation or conclusion. Not all the stories work as well as

the others, but together, they form a brilliant narrative. Throwing light on the region’s conflicts-

within-large –conflict, gender, class, age .They stand out for the fact that they are nuanced and

provide deep insights into the plight of the people.

With its focus on personal tragedy in times of political conflict, Bashir’s writing bears shades of

Manto.The stories are laced with irony and the reader is confronted. The book leaves the reader

with a sense of despair and hopelessness. There are no beautiful sunsets here; the sun ‘slumps’

behind buildings, instead.

In the “Gravestone”, the author skillfully describes how an individual relinquishes his self

respect to the enormous pressures of economic and psychological needs. Mohammad Sultan, a

talented carpenter and persistent adherent of freedom struggle had to finally his self respect and

apply for a monetary compensation for his martyred son, Mushtaq Ahmad Najar to bring the

medicines for his ailing pneumonia affected granddaughter. The third story”The Ex-militant”

lays bare the problems of injustices , torture and viciousness to which the surrendered militants

were pushed even after leaving the path of violence and militancy. The author vividly depicts the
physical, social and psychological predicament of Ghulam Mohiuddeen, an ex- militant and the

effect of his past on his present life, “Psychosis” demonstrates author’s admirable attempt to

address the psychological and traumatic condition of sakeena, who after the mysterious

disappearance of her husband, is told to offer an amount of one lack rupee and even herself in

bed by the police forces if she needs to know about her disappeared husband’s whereabouts.

Later she gang raped by the Indian troops which results in the deterioration of her mental health,

ending up in her getting admitted to the government ‘Psychiatric Diseases’ Hospital,where she is

nicely treated by Dr. Imtayaz.The story “Theft” outlines Insha’s ( Ghulam Mohi-u-deen’s and

Sakeena’s daughter) struggle to find herself a place in the society where she faces humiliation

and is exposed to certain dirty jobs and accused of stealing in a cosmetics shop where she was

working as a sales girl, thus demonstrating the degrading effect of turmoil on the children of

those ever involved in militancy. The story “ A Photo with Barack Obama” relevantly focuses

on the silence of influential countries especially America on the Kashmir issue.This is

exemplified by Obama’s visit to India during which he discusses everything ( Indian leadership,

economy, heritage in his speech in his speech in the Indian parliament) but desists from

mentioning Kashmir.The story also depicts sakeena’s agony and anguish towards her son,Bilal

born of rape by the indian army and how he is kicked and thrashed by the policemen and often

called “haramuk” by people and shoaib Akther for being a famous stone pelter in Batamaloo by

other stone pelters.”Oil and Roses” demonstrates how Gul Bhagwaan, the gardner was yearning

for personal contentment after the death of his adopted son who was killed spontaneously by the

army men when a tyre suddenly blasted.It shows the touching reply of Gul to the American lady

that in Kashmiri people have roses but not oil and all they want is only a bit of attention.”

Country Capital” is a satirical story which proves the ignorance and credulity of rural school
children who even do not know the name of the capital of the place they live in and only know

the names of India, Pakistan and America due to the conflict and also describes the involvement

of the sarpanche and other collaborators joining hands with army for their petty personal gains.

The story “Shabaan Kaak’s Death” portrays the bitter reality of how even the burial of the deadf

becomes problematic in cuwfew striken valley and the innumerable problems which the family,

relatives and neighbours have to face the in such a situation.Shaban Kaak, an eminent person in

Hawal had dreamt of a grand burial for himself and expected some ten thousand mourners in his

funeral proceesion but actually only twenty two men could attend his funeral that too in the

absence in the professional gravedigger.” The House” an unchangeable reality substantiating

how conflicts in conflict zone areas are responsible for fracturing firmly constructed homes and

unbreakable relations and bonds.It exibits what havoc befell Farooq Ahmad Mir after his wife

Zareena was killed in the indiscriminate firing by the security forces and himself got injured

when the two militants escaped through their compound to disappear in the dense

neighbourhood after attacking an army patrol.In “ Some Small Things I Couldn’t Tell you”, an

ailing father writes a letter to his son advising which things he should take recourse to and which

ones to despise and confess to him that he broke all his toys gifted to him by his maternal DSP

uncle out of evil love.” The Silent Bullet” is penetrating story of Mohammad Ameen, a

philosopher and teacher who dreams of Heaven where his conscious mind makes him question

many things. Army in Natipora after kidnapping two young boys fired aerial shots to disperse the

huge crowd which got assembled there and shockingly a silent bullet pierced and sank into the

back of the teacher touching his spine. The last story” The Woman Who Became Her Own

Husband” is a heart touching story of a loving ideal couple Ayesha and Tariq Zargar in which

their ecstasy is shattered when Tariq gets ruthlessly killed in the Army firing. The author
portrays the psychological condition of Ayesha who loses her mental balance and ends up

copying her husband’s activities and routine after his death, thus becoming her own husband.

The human toll of the conflict was been very heavy and left thousands dead, wounded and

maimed for life,widows and orphans.In many cases, the sole bread winners of families have been

killed.It was the duty of the society and the countless organisations who collect donations in the

name of the conflict to support them and ameliorate their conditions.But unfortunately they were

left to fend for themselves and suffer terribly and how their abject poverty and distress forces

them to take extreme steps has been amply shown in the “Scattered souls”

One of the essential qualities of agood fiction writer is that he/she compels a reader to actualize

and visualize the scenes, talking him along with the story.Shahnaz succeeds in doing this.While

reading the stories, the reader finds himself as one of the silent characters of the story itself.The

beauty of the narration is such that the reader literally feels himself holding a Kalashnikov or a

stone in his hands.One feels the impulse to try to stop the torture of the sakeena,empathize with

farooq, and stop Tariq from going to the bank that fateful day or to stop Ayesha from being her

own husband and convince her that her husband is no more.

There appears to be one shortcoming in the book.There is no story on the pandit exodus and

misery and distress that the poor among them undergo in the migrant camps of jammu.Otherwise

the book is well balanced and there is no doubt in fact that the stories are inspired by real life

events.It is a story of souls scattered by the conflict in Kashmir.

One of the defining features of the book is that all the thirteen stories are interrelated.Most of the

characters recur in the book and only their significance changes as they are related to each other

one way or other. The reader gets curious regarding the stories till the very end.The book
possess such coherence that one feels as if one is reading a novel of interconnected stories which

reveal Bashir a very skilled storyteller.

Conclusion

Much has been written about Kashmir in prose and poems. Hundreds of brochures has been

published, thousands of theories punched, tens of thousands of blogs written, at individual and

institutional capacities. It is said that the last time Kashmir was free, was under the rule of

Yousaf Shah Chak in the 1500sEver since ,the valley has been under an influence of countless

cultures and inquisitions in the form of religious doctrines and foreign invasions.

“Conflict creates art”. Someone said .Over the previous hundreds of years, countless writers,

poets, reseachers,priests, artists, deeply influenced by the “Kashmiri struggle” have written

countless accounts, fictitious and non-fictitious, of the raging spirit of its inhabitants.

The Kashmiri writers have attempted to expound and explain the conflict in its multilayered

complexity and controversy issues. Kashmir is a nuclear flashpoint and the world’s most

militarized zone. The body of work jotted by outsiders and Kashmiri writers, the Kashmir

conflict has now become the global issue. No single volume can explain the dispute in its

multilayered complexity but here is a list of books that attempts to open a window of

understanding into one of South Asia’s most intricate political conflicts.

Peer’s Memoir does a great deal to bring the Kashmir conflict out of the realm of political

rhetoric between India and Pakistan and into the lives of Kashmiris. In his moving Memoir,

Basharat Peer provides the fullest account that I have read of the Gowkadal bridge massacre,

among many other tragic tales. His book Curfewed Night is an extraordinary book, a minor

masterpiece of autobiography and reportage that will surely become the classic account of the

conflict. This narrative takes the reader into 1990s when almost the whole of Kashmir valley was

overtaken very badly by pak-sponsored militancy. It give us detailed description of insurgency

and its consequences in Kashmir valley. It gives fair detail of torture, enforced disappearance,

custodial killings, encounters and armed conflict.

The Moorhead’s novel ‘The Rage of the Vulture”, is a fictional account of Kashmir in 1947,this

little known novel by Alan Moorhead has the greatest historical intrest.Moorehead’s novel is a

‘observer’ in the final quarter of 1947.His novel appeared promptly in the following year. The

novel’s focus is on the cantankerous and embattled British community in Srinagar-their sense of

apprehension as the Pathan attackers advance, and their reluctance to be evacuated.

Shalimar, the Clown is Rushdie’s most engaging book since Midnight’s Children. It is a lament.

It is a revenge story. The story portrays the paradise that once was Kashmir, and how the politics

of the sub-continent ripped apart the lives of those caught in the middle of the battleground.
 Literature Review

As a young student in Delhi, Basharat Peer used to feel a sense of shame each time he walked

into a bookshops. There were books written by people from almost every conflict zone of the

age, but where were the stories of his own homeland of Kashmir? Some could be found in the

work of the great poet Agha Shahid Ali, but in terms of prose narrative there was nothing in

English but “the unwritten books of Kashmir experience”.

Peer’s Curfewed Night is an extraordinary memoir that does a great deal to bring the Kashmir

conflict out of the realm of political rhetoric between India and Pakistan and into the lives of

Kashmiris. One of the great achievements of Curfewed Night is its seamless mingling of memoir

and reportage. It is the book of Basharat Peer’s experiences, yes, but those experiences include

returning to Kashmir and seeking out the stories of others affected by the conflict.

It is a formidable challenge to tell the stories of Kashmir’s suffering without numbing the

reader’s senses, and that peer is able to do so is testament to his gifts and sensitivity as a writer.

The chapter Papa-2 discusses the notorious torture center of that name which was eventually shut

down and turned into the residence of high ranking government official.

In his moving Memoir, Basharat Peer provides the fullest account that I have read of the

Gowkadal bridge massacre, among many other tragic tales.

The book is written in Memoir style. The book gives the powerful description of Kashmir and

viewed detail of the conflict. The language is super easy, simple and lucid. One can read this

book in pace. However, some pages are written in such pain that you need to take a pause to

overcome yourself.
After reading this book I realize that our entire generation is suffering in the war between pro-

Pakistan militants and the Indian government.

The Scattered Souls. It is a collection of 13 interlinked stories which makes it a novel as well.

The connections between the stories have been determined by the interdependent diversity in

suffering that run through disparate, scattered individuals as a thread, enabling each character a

full role in relation to the other.Shahnaz Bashir is a fond of experimenting with diverse formats.

He also likes to punctuate the narration with real elements. He does not tight climax-plots but

loose-ended plots to his stories with a multi-plot embedded throughout. He likes a matter-of-fact,

poetic, stream-of-consciousness, compact narration generally and above all. He does not like too

much aesthetic that fails to torture the language and holds it back from telling the latent truth.

He is influenced by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Tolstoy for the spirituality, plotting, characterial

diversity and universality; Dostoevsky, for plotting, darkness of the human psyche and

existential philosophy.

The book depicts the different facets of the tragedy that have befallen Kashmiris during the

course of the conflict.

The characters in these 13 stories are drawn from a cross section of society: a half widow and

rape survivor struggling with PTSD; an impoverished artisan forced to choose between honoring

his dead son’s memory and arranging medicines for his sick grandchild; a homemaker who loses

her mind after her husband is killed in cross-firing; a government official who gets off his high

horse after his wife is accidently killed in an anti-insurgency operation; an innocent orchard

owner murdered by rumors’ teacher paralyzed by a stray bullet; a doctor, who after years of
treating the scarred,traumatised people around him, turns into a philanthropist at personal cost; a

former militant living in the shadow of fear and suspicion while trying to get on with life.

Bullets are a recurring motif. They fly thick and fast through these stories, scarring the living,

and pointing to the fear, Claustrophobia and fragility of life in a conflict zone.

Bashir who teaches narrative journalism and conflict reporting at the Central University of

Kashmir in Srinagar focuses on the inner lives of his protagonist.

Facts can be distorted, suppressed or muted but stories that highlight the universality of human

experience and suffering cut through political propaganda, censorship and the jingoist filters

through which you receive news. They open spaces for dialogue and understanding.

The Collaborator depicts the fall of paradise to something worse than hell and the innocence of

childhood spent amidst such idyllic scapes.Soon after, the scene dissolves to gruesome torture, to

disappearances and death. His tale begins with one Captain Kadian of the Indian Army, he brings

destruction, death, and despicability.

The Collaborator forces obvious comparisons with Basharat Peer’s2008 memoir,Curfewed

Night. In terms of genre, The Collaborator is ostensibly fiction. But it is impossible to read it,

treat it as that. This is its greatest falling. The telling is much too literal and is too much of

reportage too fly as great fiction.

And this is really the nub of the issue. Should we treat books coming out of Kashmir as accounts

of victimhood, documentaries, or should we look at them first as literature? The first option reeks

of a misplaced sense of pity, an act of charity, and most patronizing. And taking this approach

would do great injustice to Kashmir artists and their art.

We are happy because, our long suppressed voices coming out through these novels, we lived for

the past two decades.

 Table Of Contents

Chapter 1 …………………………………………. The Collaborator: Living Amidst Conflict

Chapter 2 …………………………. Curfewed Nights: Recounting the horrors of Insurgency

Chapter 3…………………………………………… The Half Mother: Psychological Trauma

Conclusion

Bibliography
This Dissertation examines how these novels depict various themes relating the Kashmir

conflict and also the rise of insurgency in the Kashmir and its aftermath effects in the

valley. This Dissertation will also highlight the sufferings and tortures of Kashmiri people

under the Indian occupation. The first Chapter reveals the themes of enforced

disappearances and psychological trauma of the character Haleema and seeking of her lost

son Imran. It will also portray the endurance and courage of Haleema even being a woman

.The second chapter site a bloody conflict that has ebbed and flowed for decades and the

theme of collaborator and simple glimpse of Kashmir history. And the narrator’s joining

with the Indian army and work against the insurgents. It will also portray the survival and

his resistance in the oppressive occupation of India. The third chapter is a autobiographical

account of Kashmir conflict, and aspects of main incidents and events which are not

present in the mainstream narratives. It highlights the unknown incidents, which has not

raised before the novels. It also depicts the rise of armed conflict in the so-called paradise.

It gives the fair look of the conflict of Kashmir and history of insurgency and their groups.

The fourth chapter is a collection of 13 stories and its focal point is a time when the Indian

army quashes a mass rebellion, changing forever the lives of the residents in the valley. The

mother battles with feelings of anger towards her child born of rape. The 13 stories in this

collection are interconnected. The book explores the effects of the prolonged violence and unrest

on the human mind. I choose five stories and explore the human suppression and misery under

the draconian sky of Indian forces.

 Bibliography

 Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons. Facts Underground: Facts-finding

Mission on Nameless Graves In Uri Area. Srinagar: Association of Parents of

Disappeared persons, 2008.Print.

 Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.Print

 Waheed, Mirza.The Collaborator. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2011.Print.

 Bashir, Shahnaz.The Half Mother. Noida: Hachette, 2014.Print

 www.ijellh.com

 www.thecreativelauncher.com

 www.countercurrents.org

 Peer, Basharat.Curfewed Night.London:Harper,2010.Print.

 Title of the dissertation

Writing Resistance:

A Study of Mirza Waheed, Basharat Peer and Shahnaz Bashir Select Fiction

A Dissertation

Submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the

degree of

Master of Arts in English

Submitted by: Supervised by:

Department of English Language and Literature

Islamic University Science and technology

Awantipora-Pulwama (J&K) 2017

 Certificate

This dissertation titled submitted by in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the award of Master of Arts in English is an independent and
original piece of research carried out under my supervision. This research work has not
been submitted, in part or in full, to any University/Institute for any degree/diploma. The
candidate has fulfilled all the statutory requirements for the submission of this dissertation.

( )
Supervisor
 Declaration
I hereby declare that the dissertation titled “ “ submitted to the
Department of English language and Literature is an original work done by me under the
guidance of
I will be personally responsible for any plagiarism that might be detected in this study.

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