Shades of Kashmir, a book by photojournalist Shome Basu, highlights the lives of people caught between security forces and militants.
Basu’s first visit to the state was on a regular assignment with India Today, where he was working at the time. He kept returning at every opportunity he got, most often between 2007 and 2012.
“It was almost a relocation for me,” he said. “I went there for every vacation I took, four or five times a years.”
Under guard
What emerges from his stories is a vivid picture of life lived on the edge.
“The political sphere has changed a lot, but nothing changed at the ground level,” he said. “Every morning for years and years I saw the same thing out on the streets.”
"Kashmir needs demilitarisation, as the honour of its citizens is constantly in question," he said. "The gross negligence towards human dignity by forces pointing guns and questioning them hampers human dignity, especially of people who have no connection with militancy."
An ex-militant poses for a picture. Bhatt was with a militant group called Hizbul Mujahideen with its head, Yusuf Shah alias Salauddin, operating from Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. After surrendering to the authorities Bhatt now runs a construction business, but along with other surrendered militants, he has to report to the army camp every week to mark attendance, to make sure he does not stray back into militancy. Photo credit: Shome Basu
The constant militarisation has taken a toll on people's mental health.
“Each and every family I met has someone suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder,” Basu said. “If you ask doctors, they will say there is a huge increase in psychiatric patients and in hypertension.”
Even chemists told him that they were selling more psychiatric drugs. In hospitals, the largest departments are surgery and psychiatry.
“If there is an incident of stone pelting, mothers and wives get worried,” he said. “They do not know if their children or husbands are caught in between.”
In Nowhatta, an old woman looks from her broken window, waiting for her only son who has been missing since morning. A protest had been brewing on the streets below and she worries her son may have been involved and arrested by the police. Photo credit: Shome Basu.
A striking feature of Basu’s book is the profusion of images of women.
“Whatever conflict I have shot, whether in Afghanistan or other places, women and kids are to me the most important because they are caught most in the turmoil,” he said. “Their pain is often more than others and I try to capture that.”
One of the most remarkable women he met, he said, was Moguli Begum, whose son is one of thousands missing in the state. Moguli Begum protested alone for 22 years, until she died in 2011.
Moguli Begam is no more. She died in 2011. Some say she was over 90 years of age. In the year 1992 her son went out to work. He was a chemistry teacher. The day he left he had promised to take his mother to an ophthalmologist after work. That never happened. He just disappeared. His mother waited for 20 years, hoping her son would come back. It is suspected that her son must have been taken away by the security forces on suspicion of being a militant and killed thereafter, without leaving a trail. Photo credit: Shome Basu
But photographing women was not easy, without the trust of the community. For instance, he was once shooting school girls playing cricket in a school near Sopore, with the permission of the principal. Minutes after he began, the principal came out and asked him to stop.
“The head of the village and the families of the girls got to know about it,” he said. “They told the principal to please not let their girls get photographed.”
At a school in Sopore, girls wearing headscarves play cricket during recess. The conservative Sunni Muslim society does not allow them to be photographed. Photo credit: Shome Basu
Another time in Baramulla, he was visiting the house of Hanifa, a half-widow. He had just taken out his camera when she suddenly came in and began to read the Koran. He took one photo of her and then her brother entered and requested him politely to leave the room. He was only allowed to return 20 minutes later, after she had finished her reading.
Hanifa's husband has been missing for a while and it is suspected that he may have been killed by the security forces or may have fled to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Living in uncertainty, she spends her time alone at her home in Baramulla in north Kashmir, reading the Koran and leading a religious life. These women are called half-widows. Photo credit: Shome Basu
Gaining the trust of people on the streets was difficult, said Basu. Several photographers take photos at protests and show them to the police station afterwards. By evening, several boys might be picked up. At protests now, people attempt to break cameras. The conflict has now gone to such a level, Basu said, that every stone-thrower and police official tries to cover their faces to avoid being identified.
A policeman needs to cover his face sometimes to keep his identity secret from the local people, especially if he is a resident of that area. It is also a protection against the noxious fumes of the tear gas. Photo credit: Shome Basu
In 2010, Basu sustained a severe head injury while taking pictures of a protest. Somehow he managed to photograph the boy who threw the stone at him. That evening, a senior superintendent of police who was also his friend visited him and offered to have the boy picked up if Basu showed him the boy’s photo. Basu declined.
“I told him there is no use in this,” he said. “The more venom I spit, the more venom they will spit.”
Father of a slain militant, Kabir Sheik is now a gravedigger for martyrs. The first grave he dug was for his son Hamid, a militant who was killed by the Indian Army. Photo credit: Shome Basu