Paradise Lost

Desire and Dissent in Contemporary Art from Kashmir

Old School – Leiden

May 4 to 27

Azaan Shah | Insha Muzafar | Maria Shahmiri | Masood Hussein | Mir Suhail | Mujtaba Rizvi | Suhail
Naqshbandi | Uzma Falak | Zainab Mufti | Zuhaib Mohammad Khan

Depicted as either a “paradise on earth” with its breathtaking natural beauty, or as a bone of
contention between India and Pakistan, the Himalayan valley of Kashmir is barely ever talked about
outside the trope of a disputed territory desired by both nation-states. The voices of the population
living in the contested area caught between the two countries and their territorial and political
ambitions have been largely ignored.

This exhibition sheds light on Kashmiri narratives by focusing on how artists engage with the history
of the region and how they imagine and represent Indian administered Kashmir, one of the world's
most heavily militarised areas. It explores the role of creatives practices in a conflict area, and how art
can challenge dominant discourses and offer alternative responses to political disputes.

By displaying the works of painters, photographers, poets and cartoonists from different generations
this exhibition examines how Kashmiris use art as a medium of dissent and as a way to bear witness
and deal with political uncertainty in the Himalayan valley.

Paradise on earth?

“If there is a paradise on earth”, the Mughal emperor Jehangir is said to have exclaimed “it is here, it
is here, it is here”. With its snow capped-mountains, scenic lakes and beautiful gardens, the
Himalayan valley of Kashmir is often sold to tourists as an idyllic destination. In these representations
of Kashmir as paradise the people who live in the valley have been rendered invisible. Behind the
image of a desired “paradise on earth” are stories of injustice, tragedy and human suffering that have
often been silenced.

In classical Bollywood movies, for instance, Kashmir is represented as an idyllic landscape but
Kashmiris are largely absent or reduced to minor or stereotypical characters. The imagination of
Kashmir as a beautiful and desired landscape erases the history of its people and is connected to loss
of sovereignty over their land. Kashmir was a paradise mostly for its foreign rulers: from the 16 th
century Mughal emperors who declared it to be “paradise on earth”, to the Afghans, the Sikhs and the
Dogras. The British sold the valley of Kashmir to the notoriously brutal maharaja Gulab Singh, and
with the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, Kashmir was claimed by both India and
Pakistan, and divided between the two nation-states. In Indian administered Kashmir, the mostly
Muslim population is currently ruled by a predominantly Hindu (and increasingly 'Hinduized')
government.

The works of Kashmiri artists challenge the established tropes around Kashmir as a beautiful
landscape by documenting life in the valley with all the contradictions: its beauty and violence, its
colours and darkness, its pain and joy, its injustice and defiance.
Military presence

Kashmir has been a source of dispute for decades, but in 1989 an armed uprising erupted against
Indian rule in the Muslim-majority region. An Indian military crackdown on separatist rebels turned
the valley into one of the world's most densely militarised areas, where roughly 500,000 soldiers are
believed to be deployed. About 70,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the uprising and
ensuing military crackdown.

Militancy in the late 1980s increased communal tensions, and the small but influential Hindu
community was terrorised into leaving Kashmir. Militant groups targeted Hindus by committing
massacres and destroying their property. About 250 000 Kashmiri Pandits, almost the entire Hindu
population of the valley, was forced to leave Kashmir. Many still live in poverty in refugee camps in
Jammu, a Hindu-majority region south of the Kashmir valley.

“When I uploaded the images of the sketches I had an unspoken thought in my mind – to create a
space, however virtual and fleeting, where Kashmiris, Muslims and Hindus, could recognise familiar
landmarks and through them revive the memories of connectedness that was once a way of life in the
Valley. I wondered if the images would give rise to tentative conversations across a chasm that had
widened in more than two decades of political turmoil. The response was overwhelming, especially
from Kashmiri Pandits from across the world, many of whom identified places connected to their
childhood. Some said their houses had been burnt down; others made poetry the voice of their sorrow.
(...) Many conversations were tinged with bitterness and anger as well, which is understandable. To
this I would add that we are all dispossessed – has anybody emerged unscathed by the grim realities
of Kashmir? The ordinary Kashmiri Muslim living a claustrophobic existence has also been
dispossessed of the riches of a shared culture.”
- Masood Hussein

Human rights organisations attribute a series of human rights violations to the Indian government,
which include extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence and illegal
detentions in Kashmir. Although militants have also targeted civilians and committed human rights
violations, reports point out that the largest scale of abuse was committed by the armed forces. Indian
leaders blame the violence in the state of Jammu and Kashmir on militancy, accusing Pakistan of
contributing with arms, training and fighters to the insurgency. However, activists, academics and
independent commissions have repeatedly denounced the lack of accountability of the Indian armed
forces and the serious human rights violations committed over the last decades.

The Indian state has systematically failed to hold perpetrators accountable by granting immunity to
members of the armed forces from prosecution for alleged human rights violations. According to
Amnesty International reports, the army has dismissed more than 96% of all allegations of human
rights violations in Kashmir as “false” or “baseless”.

Enforced Disappearances

It is estimated that more than 8000 people have been “disappeared” in Kashmir, most after being
taken away by government forces. Parveena Ahangar, whose teenage son disappeared in the custody
of the Indian army in 1990, founded the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) to
provide support and mobilise family members of missing people. Parveena's relentless fight for justice
made her known as the “Iron Lady” of Kashmir and a symbol of resistance.
Members of APDP have been holding sit-in protests in Srinagar for the past 24 years. In the
demonstrations women hold pictures of their missing sons, husbands and fathers and demand to know
what happened to their loved ones. 'Half-widows', women whose husbands have disappeared but are
not declared deceased, are in particularly vulnerable situations since they are not officially recognised
as widows and are left in a limbo.

“I am trying to re-discover mothers who gave birth to

revolutionaries, or mothers whose dead or disappeared
children became faces of the resistance movement in
Kashmir. Women - less celebrated and less remembered -
who are perceived as backbone of movements that uphold
the ideas of human values, resistance, national identity,
and ideas that claim to reject unjust occupations.”
- Mujtaba Rizvi

Portrait of Parveena Ahanger by Mujtaba Rizvi (2018)

Kunan and Poshpora

On a winter night in February 1991, an Indian army unit entered the two villages of Kunan and
Poshpora in the north of Kashmir on a counter-insurgency mission. The army allegedly cordoned off
the villages, took the men away at gunpoint and gang-raped the women. Human rights organisations
estimate that at least 30 women were sexually assaulted by soldiers, while men were tortured.
The Indian army denied the accusations and in a delayed investigation of the incident declared the
allegations 'baseless'. The book “Do you remember Kunan Poshpora?” (2015) collects the victims'
testimonies and denounces the systematic use of sexual violence by the armed forces. It argues that
the case was followed by a massive cover-up by the Indian state and shows that reprisal rapes, along
with torture, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings, were used against the population of
Kashmir as collective punishment for the armed uprising.

In 2014, during a hearing of the Kunan-Poshpora case, the army counsel called the statements of
victims “recorded rotten stereo sounds that play rape all over again”. Human Rights Watch accused
the Indian government of failing to ensure that human rights violations were properly investigated and
that those responsible were held to account. The organisation's reports showed that sexual violence
was systematically used by Indian security forces in Kashmir, and that no one was prosecuted for the
crimes.
“Memory is an inscription on our bodies and landscapes, sky and earth.
Memory is made of loss. Body is a memory of a thousand selves –
tortured, maimed, denied, raped, mutilated, frisked, humiliated.
Struggling. Resisting.
Memory is not a victim. Memory is a survivor,
an insurgent.”

From the poem “Recorded Rotten Stereo Sounds, A Rape Survivor’s Testimonial” by Uzma Falak
In the exhibition this poem was placed, among others, inside hand-painted papier-maché boxes. These
traditional crafts are a reference to the fact that that in Kashmir messages are enclosed, hidden. The
structures of violence and repression are largely invisible outside Kashmir. Like Kashmir's
landscapes, papier-maché boxes have been 'fetishised' and mass-produced for tourist consumption.
These handicrafts are made by turning waste pulp into delicate objects hand-painted with floral
patterns. Craftsmen often use old newspapers, filled with the grim headlines Kashmiris have grown
accustomed to, transforming them into beautifully hand-painted boxes. The ugliness of newspapers
announcing deaths, curfews and violence is thus hidden, transformed into a colourful souvenir. The
aim of placing the poems inside the boxes is to reinscribe the pain that has been hidden by layers of
paint. The Kashmiri poets whose work is featured in the exhibition take the pain of Kashmir, but
unlike the papier-maché boxes, they do not conceal it. They expose Kashmir's pain and scars but also
its defiance and resilience.

Protests

By the early 2000s, armed militancy in Kashmir was substantially crushed by the Indian army. Non-
violent forms of resistance became more widespread. In 2008, a campaign of civil disobedience
spread around the valley as hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris joined rallies and marches against
Indian authority. Stone-throwing became a common form of protest, but many Kashmiris also turned
increasingly to art as a medium of dissent. “Hum kya chahte? Aazadi” What do we want? Freedom!”
became a common slogan in demonstrations.

Protests are often suppressed with violence. Human rights groups have repeatedly condemned the
excessive use of force by the Indian army against protesters. Pellet guns started to be used by the
Indian army during the protests of the summer of 2010, when more than 120 people were killed. Since
then, pellet guns have killed, blinded and severely injured hundreds of people in Kashmir. Pellet
shotguns fire hundreds of skin-piercing metal pellets that can cause severe damage, especially to the
eyes.

By digitally adding eye bandages to famous paintings, the artist Mir Suhail hoped to draw attention to
the use of pellet guns, which have blinded hundreds of people in Kashmir.

Digital collage by Mir Suhail (2016)

Art in absentia?

This exhibition relies on a paradox: it exists to display something which isn’t there. There are no
originals in the exhibition, all works are reproductions printed in the Netherlands. This is to be
expected for the work of the photographers Zuhaib Mohammad Khan, Zainab Mufti and Azaan Shah,
whose art is defined by mechanical reproduction. Not so for the drawings, cartoons, paintings and
collages. The theme of absence pervades these works on more than one level. Many of them are
absent in a very literal sense; they no longer exist. Many of Masood Hussein’s watercolours were
destroyed during the disastrous 2014 floods in the region.

Others are absent because, while they physically exist, they were shunned by the government or other
interest groups. Gallerie One – the first of its kind art
gallery and cultural centre – was vandalised by Tourism
officials, putting artworks at great risk, and crushing
artistic expression. The experience is symptomatic of a
larger occurrence, that sees Kashmir narratives nipped in
the bud. Mujtaba Rizvi, founder of Gallerie One, has
commented on this situation in an interview on the first
Srinagar Biennial in 2016. As he suggests, on some
level, Srinagar is disconnected, making travel and
funding stumbling blocks that are difficult to overcome.
Indeed, travel is made difficult for both artists and
artworks, and in turn it is difficult to attract international artists to Kashmir, leaving the art scene
somewhat separated.

The photograph of Rizvi in his studio, whilst taken in the context of a documentary by Mumbai based
filmmakers, in our exhibition it functions as a metaphor for the absence of the artists and the works.
Mujtaba, like many artists, and activists, could not make it to Leiden for the occasion. The work
shown in his studio, Parveena Ahanger is represented in the exhibition by a print, but physically
absent. Like Mujtaba’s Gallerie One, the effort of the exhibition at Old School is to make Kashmir
visible through its art. To denounce the silencing and erasure of Kashmiri people and their struggle.
But absence goes beyond its literal meaning, as many artworks paradoxically represent absence. The
painting Look Behind the Canvas, together with images depicting mothers waiting, are about absence;
families remembering those who are missing, whose absence is impregnated in portraits that they are
holding, but also in the people they leave behind.

“Look Behind the Canvas” by Masood Hussein (2011)

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the artists for trusting us with their work, and professor Showkat Katju for
giving us the idea to organise this exhibition over tea at the University of Kashmir. Warm thanks to
Roos-Marijn Kinkel and Gideon Roggeveen at Old School, who went above and beyond for this
exhibition, offering their tireless support and patience. We would also like to thank Inge Reisberman
and Michiel Keller for their help getting this project off the ground, and guiding us through the Leiden
art scene. Our sincere thanks to Paul Bouter for lending logistical support to the show. We gratefully
acknowledge the funding support of Asian Modernities and Traditions and the Modern South Asia
Seminar.

References

Amnesty International. “Denied: Failures in accountability for human rights violations by security force personnel in Jammu
and Kashmir” Amnesty International. 2015
https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ASA2018742015ENGLISH.PDF

Amnesty International. “Losing Sight in Kashmir: the impact of pellet-firing shotguns”. Amnesty International. 2016
https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/losing-sight-in-kashmir-the-impact-of-pellet-firing-shotguns/

A.R., ‘Floods in India and Pakistan: Predictable Tragedy’, The Economist, Sep. 9th 2014, Source:
https://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/09/floods-india-and-pakistan

Batool, E; Butt, I; Mushtaq, S; Rashid, M; Rather, N. Do you remember Kunan Poshpora. New Delhi: Zubaan, 2016

Human Rights Watch. “Rape in Kashmir: a crime of war”. Human Rights Watch. 1993
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/INDIA935.PDF

Kabir, Ananya J. Territory of Desire : Representing the Valley of Kashmir. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009

Kak, Sanjay. Witness: Kashmir 1986-2016 /Nine Photographers. New Delhi: Yaarbal Books, 2017

Rai, Mridu. Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects : Islam, Rights and the History of Kashmir. London: Hurst, 2004.