Everyone likes pure Kashmir. But with a spirit of compromise we are content with a mixture. India and Pakistan are well aware that the percentage of Kashmir is slaughtered by 70 years.
From Srinagar, the summer capital, we arrive at Uri, a remote village in the hot border area. We are over the 1500 meters; let it be warm makes you smile: the highest border in the world passes in Kashmir. Further north, on the Karakorum road between China and Pakistan, one reaches almost 5000 meters.
Every now and then the echo of the cannon between India and Pakistan comes downstream, sometimes not. The clashes are latent and the tension flows with cadenced rhythms. The last heavy exchange is dated August 2015 with mortars from 120 between Sialkot, Harpal and Sucheetgarh.
Not a day goes by i Rangers Pakistani and the Border Security Force Indian do not open fire. In November, 2015 was India to count two dead soldiers. The patrols of the Indian regiment Rajuputana Rifles they are often attacked by Pak (as Islamabad soldiers are called) in the Poonch area, but Pakistanis say the opposite.
Every day the respective propaganda speak in threatening tones. The Indian drums still beat with emphasis on the conflict for the Siachen Glacier, finished in the 2003. It was the most "high" battle in history. It is the pride of the Northern Command, the most eclectic of the Indian army, forced to live thealways in combat for decades in unique weather conditions. The General Hooda, who takes orders directly from the General Staff in Delhi, commands him. It has 5 infantry divisions, two mountain divisions and an autonomous artillery brigade. Plus all the special departments and border forces of the BSF. The whole state of Jammu and Kashmir is in a state of war: discreet but still war.
The signs indicate Muzaffarabad, name urdu and Islamic because it ends in abad, but nowhere is Pakistan cited. For India it does not exist. Beyond the check point the military does not pass. It is already so much to get here. The only land connection between India and Pakistan is in Wagah, 500 km below. It is a very high voltage area. In November 2014 an attack made 50 dead. The daily closing ceremony of the gates was famous.
Between mountains and endless curves on the Jelhum river you get used to the goats of the Pashtuns, the transverse ethnicity that reaches as far as Afghanistan. You get used to toothless men, glassless trucks, dull roads, people with nothing.
From here Pakistan is a rib of India. A series of mountains nearby, hostile, full of shadows.
When the English left, Pakistan had to be the land of the Muslims and India that of the Hindus. Easy to say, less easy to do.
Islam also proliferated in northern India and southeast, in Bengal. Until the 71 it was called Eastern Pakistan. It took the war with India to get to today: Pakistan on the left and Bangladesh on the right, both muslim, every year more riotous; in the middle of New Delhi. We are talking about a total block of one billion 600 million people ...
For some Pakistan is an acronym, for others it means "purity"; but the majority don't care. Here in the end everything is uncertain except for three things:
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since the end of the Musharaf era, Pakistan is even more ambiguous;
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to prevent a general war there are the 100 nuclear warheads of the Pak Fauj (the Islamabad army);
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for India Kashmir is Indian and there are no reasons.
Yet to see it seems calm and all the same. From above the peaks the tangle of interests and alliances that surrounds us seems far away.
To the non-ideological balances of the Cold War (USA with Pakistan and Russians with India) a thousand other nodes are added. China, a friend of the Pakistanis (the development of the atomic was possible thanks to Beijing), an enemy of the Americans and a friend of the Nepalese Maoist rebels; the Nepal cousin of India but also a friend of the Americans themselves little friends of India; Pakistan is a friend of the Taliban, enemies of the USA, but a fake enemy of Islamists, their enemies.
The pun is lost in the bitter and humid cold that makes you forget everything. With the darkness that comes early, the white of the snow illuminated peaks and the gray-green of the 25 vehicles remaina Indian division.
The war can come suddenly, with the Asian fatalism of those who expect nothing. But also no. We return to Srinagar, where we continue to live.
[teacher]
(photo: author / web)
