Word: kashmir
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...jobs. (Government officials at their most legalistic say Christians don't have castes.) The Parsis of Bombay, descendants of refugees from Iran and one of India's most influential business communities, were also incensed that their Zoroastrian religion was not listed on the census form. And in insurgency-plagued Kashmir to the northwest and Assam to the northeast the census provoked a new battle over language and religion. Kashmir didn't want its status as a Muslim majority state undermined. In Assam the native Assamese wanted to ensure their numbers were not overtaken by immigrants from Bangladesh and West Bengal...
There was a boy in Kashmir who befriended me. He followed me about, offering to show me the sights, find me a houseboat, take me shopping. Irritated, I asked for a militant. It was worth a shot. In the old days, the "boys"?Kashmiri freedom fighters?would seek out journalists. All you had to do was spread the word that you were around. The militants in the early 1990s were idealistic and nationalistic. They wanted you to believe they were peaceful people who had been forced into violence because of injustices they had faced from India. But those boys...
Over the past 12 years more than 30,000 people?soldiers, civilians, rebels, militants, terrorists?have died in Kashmir. Why? I asked a sad, tired father in Gandherbal, 30 km from Srinagar, whose son had disappeared one night to go to Pakistan and never returned. What did you talk about at meals 20 years ago, I asked him? Did you discuss freedom and armed struggle? I managed to draw a smile. He said they had talked about college education, perhaps getting a doctor in the family. "No son asked his father before he joined," he sighed. "How do I know...
...heard the tale of another boy martyr from friends in the Kashmiri police. He was a teen from Sialkot, in Pakistan's Kashmir, who was enamored of Shahrukh Khan, an Indian matinee idol. Khan's latest movie was playing, but only across the border. So the teenager agreed to smuggle explosives into India to catch the show. He succeeded in his mission, and even saw the film. But leaving the theater, he got lost and was picked up by cops. They asked for a bribe; he obliged, handing over a 500 rupee note. Unfortunately, the note was counterfeit...
When I returned to Kashmir, my young friend had vanished. "He has gone to the other side," some said. Others assumed he was one of the "disappeared," meaning someone picked up for questioning by Indian security troops. In either case, he is probably dead. Back in the old days before he became a jihad warrior, he had also been a fan of the actor Shahrukh Khan. "Does Khan know how to use all those guns?" he once asked me. I had no idea, but I answered anyway. "Rubbish," I said. "Toys. All make believe." Whatever his fate, he surely found...