The man with the slouch cap

Fortunately, it was second time lucky. This time I managed to meet him, albeit in the most incongruous surroundings 8212; a desolate, half-shelled school building in an idyllic north Kashmir hamlet. The school8217;s teachers, though, had been replaced by armed militants. I squatted awkwardly on the floor near Salahuddin, while his gun-toting men lined the walls around him, gazing at him with awe. I was served neem chai and roti, the frugal repast he was nibbling at himself. He was to march to his next halt after our talk. For the next hour, I quizzed him on a variety of subjects.

I was surprised to learn that the childhood ambition of this man, born in 1946, was to become one who heals rather than maims 8212; a doctor. 8220;I wished to serve mankind as best I could,8221; he recalled, rather wistfully. Destiny willed otherwise and he eventually became both politician and religious preacher, whom his supporters believe had supernatural powers of healing.

So why the radical shift to violence? 8220;As I grew up, I was irked by the fact that Kashmiris had been deprived of the basic right of self-determination. They were treated as slaves.8221; He contested elections in Kashmir on the plank of the Muslim United Front MUF thrice. The shift to militancy came after 1987, when there was mass rigging at the Illiyapora constituency from where he was contesting. At that time, according to him, 8220;the entire population of Kashmir rejected the Congress and the National Conference and the Rajiv-Abdullah accord8230;But other parties involved in electioneering, were subjected to brutal, third degree torture.8221; He himself was arrested from the counting hall at the medical college hostel in Bemina and detained at Hiranagar for nine months. This, he said, marked the turning point in his life.8220;I realised that Kashmiris had no vote in India8217;s so-called democratic set-up.8221; After getting affiliated to the Jamaat-e-Islami, he travelled to Khoos in Afghanistan for militarytraining.

He also spoke, in his accented English peppered with Urdu, about how he sorely missed his large brood of six children 8211;8220;it is human instinct8221;, he said. He went on to surprise me further. Questioned about the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the valley, he declared with a trace of emotion,8220;I8217;m sorry that our Hindu brethren have forgotten our traditional brotherhood. We did not compel them to migrate from here. Since 1947, 36,000 communal riots have taken place in India, but Kashmir is the only paradise where not a single communal riot has taken place.8221;

In the eight years that have elapsed since that interview, is it too much to hope that these ideologues of Hizbul Mujahideen have realised the futility of endless violence? Violence, after all, only begets more violence. Have they perceived that those they set out to help, their fellow Kashmiris, have suffered the most from this endless cycle of violence? For them it has been a night without end.