Anthropologist Haripriya Soibam writes a commentary on Ather Zia's recent ethnography of activism around “disappearances” in Kashmir. Following this commentary, we showcase an excerpt from Chapter 6, Archiving and embodying the Disappeared, of Resisting Disappearance as an invitation to delve into the book.

I. Commentary by Haripriya Soibam

Amitav Ghosh stated that his book In an Antique Land (1992) is regarded as fiction because of its form and not due to its content. In doing so, he put forth the idea that both fiction and nonfiction—the historical and anthropological—offer themselves for experimentation.

Along a similar experimental vein lies Ather Zia’s Resisting Disappearance, an ethnography of activists from the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP). The work pushes the boundary of ethnographic writing by recovering the aesthetics of poetry in the context of doing fieldwork in violent sites. It draws our attention to the genre of poetry in ethnographic writing, something that has not received as much attention as “Anthropology and Fiction”. This experimentation with poetry is not a call for anthropologists to start writing poetry in lieu of fieldnotes, or to replace prose with poetry in ethnographic writing. Rather, it is aimed at partially recuperating that which escapes ethnographic prose, by using metaphors of poetry when concepts fail to capture the field.

Resisting Disappearance is an attempt to make disappearance visible, where disappearance is a word that “operates as a verb”. The book provides a gendered understanding of military occupation wherein women employ the repertoire of available cultural tropes to make visible the state-enforced “disappearance” of their sons and husbands. This includes the trope of motherhood as well as that of the good half-widow, a term marking the liminal status of women whose husbands had been disappeared—not surely dead nor quite alive—in the ongoing occupation of Kashmir. Half-widows take extreme care to dress appropriately to their bereaved status in an attempt to de-sexualize themselves while drawing attention to their activism to forge “the appearance of an asal zanan—one ‘not seen.’”.

The tasks of the women and the book coincide in making present the felt absence, “to make the disappeared men appear”. The invisibility of the conditions of occupation structures the everyday of Kashmiri subjectivity, alongside the paradoxical and simultaneous hypervisibility of the “deviant” Muslim subject and the Kashmiri “other”. This situation enables torture, disappearance, and other such extrajudicial abuses to continue with impunity. The book is an important contribution towards a nuanced ethnography of political grief-work. Grief-work, as employed in psychology, refers to the transformation of emotions in the aftermath of a death or breaking ties with the deceased. In this case, the lack of closure means that the task of seeking out the disappeared is the political grief-work that kins are involved in.

Kashmiri subjectivities are important. By making the choice of opening with a poem-song of Habbeh Khotoon—the sixteenth century peasant-queen of Kashmir—Zia gives us a history erased in the conventional framing of Kashmir as relevant only as the bone of contention in an India-Pakistan dispute or a proxy war. Indeed, Kashmir should be understood in its own terms. Through making present the intricate words of those from the past, or those living under military occupation, Resisting Disappearance becomes an important intervention. This is even more important as such an occupation through the martial law, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, extinguishes any form of civil space.  

Resisting Disappearance premised on ethnographic poetry has a strong affinity with Suvir Kaul’s Of Gardens and Graves (2017) which employs photographs, poetry, and essays. He writes that “In every context, I know, and certainly in contemporary Kashmir, poetry offers a rich archive of heightened feelings and desires. Simply put, poems have something important to tell us about lives lived in the face of extraordinary political disruptions and violence”. For Zia, the poet-academic, poetry is not just an archive but also a method, a genre of scholarly knowledge production. She argues,

Ethnographic poetry is a moment of surfeit as well as a catharsis of the excesses we as ethnographers have chosen to poke, dissect, and understand. The role of an ethnographer-poet is akin to holding a wound—a wound that is simultaneously in the body of the other and reflected in yours. Thus you will understand the pain without much pain, and doubly so. The few poems included in this ethnography, at the outset of each chapter, give a sense of this process.  

Drawing from Renato Rosaldo’s thoughts on “verse informed by ethnographic sensibility,” the genre of ethnographic poetry calls for a particular tenor that suggests a thick description of the social without losing out on the emotions and affect comprising the social. In Zia’s case, poems and photographs form an interlude between the chapters of the book. This draws attention to the affects brought forth by mourning sans closure. However, a description of the social cannot be adequately gauged from the poems. While the task of holding the collective Kashmiri wound is done through poetry, thick description is conveyed via ethnographic writing. Yet, given that the book premised on ethnographic poetry as a device that links the ethnographic prose and the anthropologist-poet along with Zia’s argument for the “ethnographic poem” as “datum,” the resultant space dedicated to poetry is limiting.

Zia’s poetry is also interspersed with photographs. She discusses in detail the use of photographs of the disappeared by APDP activists, its affective impact, and the ways in which the activists control the gaze directed at them. However, her own use of images in the text is not addressed. Working in violent sites calls for the ambiguity of partial disclosures, and such images and poetry are apt to think through what can and cannot be revealed. There is an ambiguity, perhaps by design, on how the photographs used along with poems extend into each other and exceed each other: the image exceeds the poem and vice versa. Rosaldo characterizes ethnographic poetry through metaphor derived from photography—“depth of field”. This seems to be a suggestion that what he attempts in his poetry is to capture loss and grief in its various shades and become a witness not just to the event of a disaster but its continuous aftermath. Thus, the image and poetry together stand as witnesses to loss that cannot be captured in ethnographic prose.  

In addition to provoking the reader to think about disappearance in Kashmir, Resisting Disappearance also calls our attention the work of the anthropologist and questions of naming. For instance, acceptable fieldwork terminologies such as informants and collaborators are fraught, in a climate of fear and suspicion. This is because informants and collaborators mark those Kashmiris who are compelled to side with the Indian state against other Kashmiris in this militarized context. Yet, one wishes for a more detailed treatment of such interventions in the book.  

Another issue left unaddressed is that of insider-outsider research. Zia claims: “I do not profess to be taking on the mantle of native anthropologist,” which to me, goes with a questioning of the argument that the native anthropologist, whatever that may mean, has certain access to worldviews of their ‘culture’ inaccessible to the outsider anthropologist. Yet, Zia immediately follows this with the following lines: “Taking a cue from Radcliffe Brown, I describe myself as a trained anthropologist, herself a Kashmiri’”. These are words that Radcliffe Brown used to describe his famous student M.N Srinivas, who worked on India as a “trained anthropologist, himself an Indian”. What is entailed when Zia uses this conferral as a self-description? As more and more scholars explicitly think through their pasts or the places they come from, questions of representation, self-description, and positionality acquire an urgent relevance. Such slippages—rejection of the mantle of native anthropologist versus “a trained anthropologist, herself a Kashmiri”—need to be addressed.

II. Excerpt from Resisting Disappearance

Chapter 6, “Archiving and Embodying the Disappeared,” (p. 170-180)

My first visit to Jabbar’s home in South Kashmir was in late December. A few days’ worth of fallen snow stood in hardened heaps, creating roadblocks that would become muddy puddles once the sun decided to shine. Jabbar, an extremely hospitable man, poured warm cups of salt tea for me and a few friends who had introduced us. His eyes glistened against a deeply tanned face; his big, black hair blended into his abundant, well-groomed beard. Jabbar covered us all with huge blankets and gave each of us a kanger (hot coal brazier), and the low-ceilinged room grew cozier as we listened in rapt attention.

Jabbar’s brother Mohsin disappeared after he was arrested in a crack-down along with three other boys from the neighborhood, who were later released. When I initially approached Jabbar’s mother, Posheh, the plaintiff in the case for Mohsin’s disappearance, for an interview, she declined. Throughout my fieldwork I was never able to meet her due to her precarious health. I finally gave up my idea of contacting her and resorted to talking only with Jabbar. As the eldest son, he had taken the responsibility of accompanying his mother when she went out to search for Mohsin. During my meeting with Jabbar, Posheh lay sick in an adjacent room. Jabbar worried constantly if she overheard our conversation that it would worsen her condition. He had lied to his mother, telling her we were colleagues from his office who had come to discuss his promotion. He said that this “little white lie had made her smile after a long time.”

Jabbar’s rendition of Mohsin’s disappearance is included here for two reasons. First, it is a consummate treatise on a process of archivization that has been cobbled together to bolster the idea that a search is going on and the disappeared man might be found alive in detention. Second, the narrative locates the existence of nonhegemonic masculinities within Kashmir’s dense militarization. The narrative centers on the disappearance of another man, and Jabbar, hapless, feeling emasculated, is on the brink of madness. Jabbar begins with the struggle that he and his mother have waged by insisting that Mohsin has been “incarcerated” for nineteen years and is not dead. According to Jabbar, he began accompanying his mother in the search for Mohsin because “she had not ever ventured into the outside world alone, and the only outing she knew was back and forth from their paddy fields.” Jabbar’s account is reproduced verbatim below, interspersed only with customary affirmative guttural sounds on my part, which in Kashmir is a sign of respectful, active listening. Jabbar needed little direction and even less nudging to go on.

Jabbar put a massive sheaf of papers before us, documents collected over the years which have become, as he called it, “Mohsin’s zabardast file” (Mohsin’s forceful/powerful file). Jabbar’s narrative underscores many dilemmas that a disappearance produces, where documents act as propellers, not of justice as much as an undying hope. I fear that meddling with the narrative would constrain the paths Jabbar traverses, which are important for readers to assimilate on their own. The narrative as reproduced verbatim here is a haunting that allows for entering the depths of mourning, melancholia, agency, memory making, and resistance. It is centered around the figure of the mother: her physical absence, struggle, and precarious mental health reveal how agency and resistance come together in the utterly repressive environment of Kashmir, which has become a de facto penal colony. It is also illustrative of the powerlessness that Kashmiri men face and how they attempt to overcome the challenges a militarized government poses to their traditional “protector” status.

Jabbar’s Account

Praise be to the Lord, we have been able to make a file that every afsar [official] is amazed. It has taken years, but with the help of the invisible, supreme divine, we have found success. We proved everyone wrong—my brother is alive and well. As you know, Mohsin had made friends with a young teacher; they used to play cricket together a lot. This teacher later became a Mujahid. Mohsin was arrested because of this connection; otherwise, he was begunah [innocent] and his file proves it.

After Mohsin disappeared in custody, we tried to file an FIR, which was not accepted by the police. After almost nineteen years, my mother was able to finally lodge a complaint with the police. People who know us well, they respect our struggle and dedication to find my brother. Mohsin’s file is formidable, and it can put the army and bureaucrats in jail forever. My mother is over ninety now and in fragile health. We have done what we needed to do to make this file. Now we are waiting. My mother said this morning that she feels Mohsin will return this year. If the divine unseen wills it, yes, why not?

When we show our file to the army officers, they are wonderstruck. They ask us, “How did you make a file like this?” In the beginning, as I said, we did not even have an FIR, but we pieced our record together. We have ensured that several copies of this file stay in safe places. There is always the fear that they [the government agencies] will disappear the file as well.

When Mohsin was forcibly disappeared, my mother and I searched for him everywhere, but to no avail. My mother’s health diminished. She went into a depression after the other boys [who had been arrested with Mohsin] were released. She thought Mohsin might be dead. She got so sick sometimes that we would recite the kalima on her. It was of utmost importance to me that she become convinced that Mohsin was in a jail and would return one day. I knew that type of hope would help her live. As her eldest son, I had the responsibility to preserve her life and sanity. I had to; I had to do something to assure her that Mohsin would return, and that would prolong her life. I did not know what I could do, but the invisible divine paved the way.

I know this for certain, for I saw it with my own two eyes. In the first three years after Mohsin was arrested, I saw him approximately twelve times. I would bribe a policeman or a soldier here or there and sneak into army camps. Initially, Mohsin was kept in camps around our village. My regret is that all the times I saw Mohsin, Mother would not be with me. But she trusted what I saw inside the army camp. A guy who had been held in the same jail as Mohsin came to meet us after he was released. He told us that Mohsin was alive and well. Inside the jail, Mohsin was well respected by other prisoners, and he was also leading the prayers. We came to know our little Mohsin had grown a long beard and was reading big books on religion. Mother would always be happy to receive such news. For the first three years, we got news of his well-being from other prisoners who were released, but after that we heard nothing.

Our biggest breakthrough happened one day when a superintendent of police [SP], whose door we had been hounding for months, agreed to meet us. My mother cried a sea in front of the SP, her tears falling as big as hailstones. She told the SP how I had seen Mohsin many times and how we had received news of his well-being inside the jail often, but we had never formally received permission to meet him. When he asked us where Mohsin was currently detained, we told him we did not know for sure, but had heard a rumor that he was in an army camp in the neighboring village. The SP was saddened to see our sorry state. He wrote a parchi [short notes, pieces of paper] to the commanding army officer of the camp requesting that we be allowed to meet Mohsin. This parchi was the first document written by a person of authority to support our plea. It supported our claim that Mohsin was incarcerated and not dead. Mother was joyous. It was a miracle that the SP had written the parchi for us. She saw it as proof that Mohsin was with the authorities and alive. You tell me, when a big afsar [officer] writes that his family be allowed to meet Mohsin, what is he admitting to? That Mohsin had not been killed but was in detention.

When we took the parchi to the army officer, he told us he would arrange a meeting and told us to come back after a week. My mother cooked a chicken. She went to the market, bought new fabric to stitch a new kurta-pajama [tunic-trousers] for Mohsin. During these years, whenever our hopes of meeting Mohsin rose, Mother’s vigor would return. She attained a positive state of mind. These events, I am sure, lengthened her life. It made me happy.

After an agonizing week passed, we went to the army officer, but he had no information for us, and we went back to the SP. The SP was very respectful. He asked Mother to move from the uncomfortable chair in front of his desk to the plush sofa at the side of the room. He ordered tea for us while he made calls. Later, he asked me for the parchi he had previously given. He then took his pen, gazed at the note, deep in thought, and then added “with compliments.” He gave us the name of another army officer and told us to meet him. As we left, mother was feeling pensive. But I told her not to worry, since writing “with compliments” was a good sign; isn’t it? After we met the army officer, he suggested we visit jails outside the Valley. And we did, many times, but nothing came of it.

One day, I saw the army officer who was head of the regiment that I knew had Mohsin in its custody. He was buying incense, probably for his puja [Hindi word for Hindu worship ritual]. He was in his bulletproof jeep, and I ran to greet him. He knew all about Mohsin’s case. He once told me that he had read Mohsin’s dossier carefully. He told me to be patient and that I should not talk to many people about our case. He would ask me to visit him in the camp many times, promising to give information about Mohsin. My friends became worried for me. They would tell me frequently, going inside the army camp could raise suspicions that Mother and I had become army informers. But we did not care; we wanted to give it [the search] all we had.

Soon after, Mother fell ill again. She could hardly get out of bed. She was depressed and cried all the time. Over the years, she began losing her eyesight. I was also in the midst of a divorce. My wife was frustrated with me. I was exhausted with her endless complaining about my mother and me being obsessive about Mohsin’s case. I agree that our continuous search for Mohsin contributed to the stress in our marriage. Many people had begun calling me motth [crazy, also has spiritual intonation], dewaneh [crazed], and pagal [often used to refer to being medically insane]. I agree. Be chuss mout, dewana [I am crazy/crazed]. To be searching like we have been, we had to be, but I am not pagal. Our type of struggle needs faith. My wife also thought I had lost mental balance. When I insisted that I had seen Mohsin twelve times, she said I was just hallucinating and that Mohsin had been killed during the first few days in custody. She said the whole world knew and that only Mother and I did not want to accept the fact. This made me furious; I told her not to tell this to Mother, because she could die if she heard this. My friends would gently hint that I see a psychiatrist, but trust me, my dear hamsheera [sister], they did not know what I knew. They did not see the power of the parchi we had. Mohsin was coming alive in the documents, even if we did not see or meet him. He was resurrected.

The boys who were arrested with Mohsin confirmed to us that he was alive when they were released. They said the army had killed two men inside the camp (whose bodies were later found), but Mohsin had been spared. The other ones arrested that day in the region, if not released, were also in jails. I tell you, all the boys are alive. All the disappeared boys, I tell you, they are safe in jails till a solution to Kashmir is found. Hindustaen Samraj [the Indian empire] is holding them as ransom or something like that. I told my mother this, and I tell you the same with confidence.

Till now, we have found nothing about Mohsin through the government officials or the military. But tell you what: we have had a strong divine intervention, a miracle from the Unseen [God]. One day, when I was very worried for my mother’s health, I met a mystic, who became my pir [spiritual guide]. I finally decided that the time had come to take our application for Mohsin to greater offices that are located in the mystical dimensions. My pir is a bigger king—bigger than the president of India. My pir assured me Mohsin was okay and gave me a little chunk of soil. I gave the soil to Mother for safekeeping. I told her of my new strategy for finding Mohsin. She was on board. She has aqueedat [belief] in our Kashmiri spiritual traditions more than me. The very next day, I met a mysterious man who gave me a clue about Mohsin’s whereabouts in a nearby camp, and it led to success. Mother became ecstatic to get this news. She got out of bed and began making preparations for a prayer ceremony for Mohsin. The man told me to show Mohsin’s photograph to some boys who were often forced into begaar [forced unpaid labor] by the army and who knew the inmates inside the camp. One boy confirmed that Mohsin was in that very camp. It was a miracle done by my pir. Even if we were not able to meet Mohsin face-to-face, Mother got better after hearing this news.

The army would force the detainees to become “cats” [informers], who would identify people supporting armed struggle or the militants in identification parades. I came to know that they were using Mohsin as a cat, and I also heard that Mohsin was not helping catch anyone. After this news, I tried to bribe my way around the camp to see when they would bring Mohsin out, in the hope that we could wait and maybe Mother could sneak a glance somehow. Even though my little brother was proven 100 percent innocent, the army treated him as if he was a big militant. We have all the documents that prove he had nothing to do with militancy. The documents from his college, his principal, even the character certificates from the state’s own officers prove he was just a college-going young man. But the army was bent on making Mohsin an informer. The boys forced to do begaar [forced labor] told me that Mohsin was not agreeing to become an army informer. He was being beaten and tortured more and more. I would tell Mother only the news of his sightings, but not of the torture.

As the spring season approached, the boys told me that the prisoners were being given lunch out in the open. They told me to find a way to get into the camp during lunchtime and see Mohsin for myself. One day, my mother and I sat at the camp’s gate from dawn prayers onward. Finally, after much pleading with the sentry, only I was allowed inside, and that too, on the pretext of meeting the commanding officer. I sneaked toward the ground before entering the office and saw the prisoners in a long queue. They were very, very far from me, but I saw Mohsin holding his plate. It was not easy to discern if it was really him. But I am sure; I have raised him since he was a young child. I can make out his profile even if he is on the moon. When I told my mother I had seen him, it was enough to bring her back from the dead. She regained her health. My pir had assured me that we would meet with success, and we did. I had hoped after this I would surely meet Mohsin, but it turned out to be the last sighting.

Soon after, another phase began. The army officer began threatening us, so we would withdraw our case against them. The soldiers would frequently raid our house. We would all be beaten, including my children, and I would be detained for days. I did not tell my mother, but the army would send ikhwanees to harass me at work. And she herself many times had to face the soldiers and ikhawanees alone when she was in the paddy field. They would come to threaten her to give up pursuing the case. But listen, we are not weak people; my pir had our back. One day, my mother and I were at the civil secretariat, and what can I say . . . a letter came from above. The clerk blurted out that something had arrived in the mail pertaining to Mohsin’s case. I had a hunch that another miracle had already happened. I pleaded with the clerk to show us the letter. My mother wept, her tears falling like huge hailstones, in front of the officer. I pleaded that we be allowed to copy the letter. I did not know what was written in the letter, but I knew it was something that would help Mother to get her health back.

The sympathetic clerk let me copy the letter, in which one top government official was supporting the police officer who had initially written the parchi for us. This was again a miracle. Someone so high up, the administration had supported that we be allowed to meet Mohsin, which implied that he was not dead. This letter made Mother happy. But like always, we had a paper trail but no clue of where Mohsin actually was. But don’t you think this letter was enough to silence those who said I was pagal? I had pleaded with a local politician to help in having this letter issued. He told me to wait and “stay quiet.” He assured me that Mohsin would be released one day as suddenly as he had been disappeared. He appreciated the file we were building in defense of Mohsin. But as you already know, nothing more happened, and years passed. My mother was devastated.

After nine years of searching, another miracle happened. The district commissioner [DC], whom we were pursuing for help, gave us a document, which became “dangerous” evidence against the army officers. Even the brigadier of the army was unnerved and contacted me secretly. He told me that he would help us look for Mohsin discreetly and to give up the court case. When I told this to the DC, who was very respectful of Mother, he held our file in his hands. He read and reread it in silence for a solid half-hour. Imagine such a big officer spending so much time on our file. He kept sighing. After a long silence, he looked me in the eye and said that we had built a very strong file and that we should not withdraw the case from the court. The DC was a God-fearing man; I tell you, there are not many officers like him. He gave us a letter addressed to the brigadier, in which he strongly insisted that we be allowed to meet Mohsin, and that he had discussed the case with us. After this strong proof that indicated Mohsin was incarcerated, what more proof did we need to show he was alive and innocent? I did not have Mohsin to show to people, but we had documentary proof. Mother decided to celebrate this news at home with a big prayer gathering, followed by a feast, inviting all the relatives and neighbors. We hosted such events many times when we had a breakthrough in the case, and as I said, it made Mother happy and hopeful of Mohsin’s return.

Sadly, after writing this strong letter, the DC was called by the governor. Then I heard though the grapevine that the DC had been almost fired for issuing such an order and meddling in the army’s affairs. When I met him to apologize, he was as humble as ever. He told me not to worry and to make sure Mother regained her health. He once again appreciated how hard we had worked on Mohsin’s file. He told me, “This kind of file is made once in a lifetime.” He also said that he was very sure that the army had no intention of releasing Mohsin, because they alleged he was a high-level operative. I told him that was a lie. He said he knew that, and that the army was known to play such games where they framed civilians to show that they were successful in catching the top militants and earn awards and promotions. Many times, these army officers have made me do foolish things. Once they asked me to help in catching the same Mujahid that Mohsin was friends with. They promised that if I helped catch him, they would deliver Mohsin to our doorstep. When I expressed my inability to do so, the army man told me, “When you can make such a strong file, how is it that you can’t find a militant? Even God can’t see your brother at this moment, but if you help us, we will deliver your brother to you.”

Once the army detained me for many days, threatening so we would quit searching for Mohsin. By this time I was unafraid for my life. I openly told the soldiers that Mohsin was not dead and that I had tricked them by sneaking into their camp and sighted him many times. They laughed at me, calling me crazy. When they patrolled our neighborhood, I would shout at them. Sometimes they called me bad names, and some just beat me. I was unafraid. People gave me up for mad, saying I would be killed any day. And once they almost did. I barely survived after the soldiers tried to shoot me.

Once the soldiers told me they were detaining me frequently because I was their entertainment. They said that my preposterous stories kept them from getting bored. My perseverance in searching for Mohsin was such that a soldier once told me that I had become their stalker. This had never happened before. I know very well that I became a big thorn in the army’s side. A clerk in the police station that I had befriended told me the army had me on their hit list. They would kill me. But no one knew the power of my pir, who is my divine navigator. I knew what to do in order to safeguard my life. I made sure I constantly remained on the radar of top bureaucrats and politicians. They knew all about my case. I would go to meet them and plead my case and tell them what was happening to our family. Over the years they came to know my mother and me very well. If the soldiers killed me, I am sure there would be some noise. Not that the soldiers would be punished, they never are, but it would become news and people would protest. What kind of stupid government will let that happen? But then, India is pagal and so is Kashmir’s chief minister.

My spiritual guide has protected my mother and me. My pir might not have a huge office in the secretariat, and even if he will sit on the roadside gutter, he will perform bigger miracles that these government slaves in big offices will not even start to understand. The ilm [knowledge] of the spiritual-ists is different from the one possessed by the slaves of the material world [bureaucrats/army/politicians]. My pir does not need to sit on a throne to show he is the king; he can move mountains without lifting a finger.

After that strong letter from the DC yielded nothing, we realized that the legal or the administrative route was not for us. Everything that had happened so far had been a miracle of my pir and the Unseen. The success in preserving my mother’s life was a miracle of God and that of my pir. Do you think we or you or these officers run the world? No one runs the order of this world except the invisible divine. We had already sought the spiritual intervention of our pir, and he was pursuing Mohsin’s application in God’s divine court. The earthly courts, the SHRC [State Human Rights Commission], these government offices are all subordinate to the divine invisible power. Our spiritual guide is a conduit for God, and he is capable of all miracles. Ever since following him, we have found success; we built a strong file. Our records are proof of our Mohsin’s life and innocence. The survival of my mother and brother is his miracle. People often think that I am mad. I do not blame them, for they do not see what I see; they do not know what a strong file we have. The day this file begins talking, not only Mohsin but every other Kashmiri prisoner will also be released.

What is this game of safeguarding our human rights that the government plays with us? They don’t think of us as human. What comes of them saying we have rights? Lip service. Who are these politicians who run the administration? All turbans on a stick. In Kashmir every little order comes from Delhi, and these puppets in Kashmir just nod. They shit only after Delhi gives them permission. I have lost faith in everything—everything that I see, that I touch. One day, my spiritual guide took me to meet another man of elevated mystic status. He said to me and my mother, “Be happy. There is no reason to be unhappy.” I remind my mother often that we have no reason to be unhappy. See how many intelligent and accomplished men—like the director general of police, additional secretary of home, and the district magistrate—endorsed the fact that we be allowed to meet Mohsin. It all points to the fact that Mohsin is alive. Our worst fear, that he was killed, was disproven, and that is all that matters; this little fact has helped in keeping my mother alive. See, the jail authorities are now indebted to care for my brother’s life. Even if I do not see him anymore, I keep tabs on his welfare wherever he is detained. I have come to know through my sources that he gets weekly medical checkups and is not physically tortured much now. A boy from another village, who was detained in the same jail as Mohsin, told me this. Earlier, he said Mohsin had been offered a briefcase full of money in lieu of any information about his Mujahid friend, but he refused. That someone had seen Mohsin and had been with him made Mother very happy, but I did not tell her that he had received solitary confinement as punishment for refusing to divulge information.

As we speak today, I know in my heart and through my belief in the spiritual divine that Mohsin is safe and in a better place. Now we have stopped going to officers for any help. I know nothing worldly will get him released and only dua [prayer] will work. My mother and I have only one thing to be indebted to for our success in having such a strong case, and that is our pir’s support. We cannot ever repay him. If we can’t kiss our spiritual guide’s feet to show our gratitude when we meet, we feel empty. We follow his ilm. This worldly knowledge, laws, human rights is trash. It yields nothing. People need to know there is another world, and without spiritual guidance, we cannot survive. It gives you better ways of waging worldly battles and becoming successful against tyranny.

The army and the civil officers told my mother to apply for ex gratia relief. She refused to receive any money. We said, if we even piss on that kind of money, it is our piss that will get dirty. We Kashmiris have been turned into a nation that is lost. We are forced into becoming hypocrites—hide our true feelings, which is not our natural trait. We are forced by India to turn against our own, but we are majboor [coerced], and even God will forgive us our trespasses, which people do in desperation to survive.

People call me crazy, but I will be redeemed when Mohsin returns. But I am also prepared that the world will have turned into ashes till truth appears. I have kept the file in many places, and even if the army or the administration disappears it, I have made sure there are enough copies left. As a safeguard, I maintain a correspondence about Mohsin’s file with everyone in the administration. I have written to every prime minister of India, chief minister of Kashmir, presidents of political parties, and politicians. I used to send my letters by post and never get any acknowledgment or a receipt. Then I had an idea to send them by courier, and that way, I have proof of sending them. I am weaving a web of records; I am like a patient spider waiting to catch a fly. This file will come in handy the day India is taken to task. I think of the day when I will sit with my file smiling, and Indian lawmakers will be standing in kath-heri [a witness box] awaiting punishment. I might not live to see it, and people may think I am crazy, but not just my brother but all the disappeared are safe; they are in custody, and their release is connected to the final solution of Kashmir.

Soibam Haripriya is presently an FWO Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University, Belgium. Her forthcoming edited volume Homeward (2021) is published by Zubaan, New Delhi.

Ather Zia is a poet and a political anthropologist who teaches Anthropology and Gender Studies at the University of Northern Colorado Greeley.

Commissioned by Rishav Thakur and produced with editorial assistance from Tara Giangrande.