Review: Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer

There is something deeply Naipaulean about Basharat Peer's work. There is honesty, understanding and compassion. But unlike Naipaul, Peer combines his compassion with a sympathetic and personalized portrayal of his subject. Curfewed Night is a memoir and a personal history of Kashmir. The story of Kashmir is painted with love, care and most importantly a sense of balance.

As a young teenager he saw the explosion of militancy in the Valley. The teenage Basharat refuses to sing the Indian national anthem, fantasizes about dressing like militants, crossing the border for a training camp and fighting for Azadi. His parents send him to Aligarh to study, away from the violence. In Delhi he becomes reporter where his world is broader and feels a need to tell the the Kashmir story. For him, "India was grotesque and fascinating".

In his own words, "People from every conflict zone had told their stories: Palestinians, Israelis, Bosnians, Kurds,.......". Peer sets out to tell the story of his homeland. In Aligarh, "I heard echoes of Kashmir in the pages of Hemingway, Orwell, Dostoyevsky and Turgenev.....I wondered if one could write like that about Kashmir...". Mr.Peer I haven't read Turgenev but you have done something very important for India. You have told the truth and you did it with a Kashmiri voice.

The nation-state of India, so often bungling, over-bearing and petty, is portrayed as an oppressive and vindictive military power. The central government manipulates local elections, the army militarises every town and village, the free media refuses to give a Kashmiri perspective. In one word, India is the "hegemon".

The freedoms we take for granted are denied under a quasi-militaristic rule. Atrocities that would make us livid happen with ghastly frequency. A bride who is raped on her wedding day, a mother whose son is killed by the military, the militant tortured to near death, the innocent teenager caught in cross-fire, each of them symbolise a land in turmoil. Kashmir, where the snow has turned red. Where countless young men, both the Indian army and the militants, are reduced to statistics and names on grave stones.

In many ways the tale of Kashmir, is the story of how the idea of India is constrained by the Indian state. India has denied democracy and militarised Kashmir for the sake of its own nationalism. Pakistan has fuelled militancy and played chimerical games to deflect questions of its own legitemacy. But what of Kashmir, its people, their identity and their rights.

Peer's tale is not so much a call of freedom, as it is a wail for peace and normalcy.