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Mark Tully has redeemed himself by writing Hindutva, sex & adventures and highlighting the
complexity of the kashmir problem (see extract of Hindutva, Sex & Adventures below). For we
remember when he was covering the Valley of Kashmir in the eighties and early nineties as BBC
correspondent, that he only reported on so-called army abuses and hardly ever mentionned the
FACT that 400.000 Hindus were chased out of their ancestral homeland by rape, death and
torture. We also remember that he spent a lot of energy 'rescuing' his stringer Yussuf Jameel
from the army who wanted to interrogate him, whereas it was learnt later, Jameel was indeed in
contact with militants and probably fed them information. IN truth, 'Sir' Mark Tully did
incalculable damage to the reputation of the Government of India by his very partial reporting in
Kashmir

....After a few more  features, he was told that he had become a full reporter for his radio
and felt slightly dazed when he realized that he had to cover an area bigger than Europe,
from the waters of Sri Lanka to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan. Kashmir was already
heating-up in the late eighties: a group of separatists, the JKLF, who demanded conducting
a plebiscite in the state, had taken-up arms. His radio sent him there for the first of many
trips to the valley of Kashmir

  The plane landed at the deserted Srinagar airport. The summer capital of Kashmir was already
under a curfew that would be enforced on and off for the next fifteen years. To reach his hotel,
Andrew had to use a military bus flanked by armoured cars. At each crossroads, he noticed
bunkers manned by Indian soldiers and the city wore a deserted look, like a ghost town. He
reached the Broadway Hotel that used to be crammed with tourists. But he was the only guest in
the company of some Indian bureaucrats; the swimming pool was empty and a week before the
militants had fired a bazooka at a room which was just above his.

  The first thing that he did was to obtain a pass from the Police Department’s office (which, a
few months later, was blown up along with its Director General). It was immediately put to good
use, because, the same afternoon, the number two in the JKLF was killed by the Indian army. He
accompanied the soldiers who went to deliver the body to his family. It was a scene that would
happen more and more in the Muslim world, in Palestine, in Bosnia or in Chechnya: old women
howled, beating their chest, ripping their clothes, men wept like babies; pretty girls, half
unveiled, some with striking blue eyes, struggled to approach the body, to touch it…

  Then the mood changed: the men raised their fists to express their anger, the body was placed
in a coffin draped in the Islamic green flag and, borne high, was carried from one street to
another, like a macabre exhibit, like the symbol of revolt. At some point, the crowd came up
against a military roadblock. The young Indian soldiers were extremely nervous, fingers
clenched around the triggers, fear on their faces and one moment, as they were about to be
overrun, Andrew, who was right in the middle, thought they would fire. But to his great relief,
the voice of a mullah was heard over the loudspeaker: this was the time of prayer for the dead
and the crowd rushed into the inner courtyard of the parent’s house. Phew, Andrew had already
started doing his last prayers (to Jesus Christ) !
   The next morning, he accompanied the crowd that was going to bury the separatist leader in
the “martyr’s cemetery”. It was a vast flat and bare waste land, on the edge of Srinagar, which
looked more like a huge cricket ground than a graveyard. Mourners, sympathizers and men, who
looked more like militants than ordinary citizens, had already gathered in one corner of the land
where graves, some marked, some unmarked, were littering the ground.  . Within minutes,
hundreds of soldiers arrived and surrounded the  area to prevent any gathering of people which
could degenerate into a riot.  Immediately tension rose again: men started shouting – ‘Allah O
Akbar, Allah O Akbar’ – women began wailing from neighbouring houses, young girls , seen
from afar, started chanting something that sounded like a war cry and,., he was once more a
witness to the same scenes of hysterical grief. Finally, after having kissed the corpse (which was
starting to smell badly) on the forehead for the last time, the coffin was slid into the tomb and
was covered with earth. Andrew, whose sympathies went as a principle more to the Muslims
than to Hindus, understood the anger of these Kashmiris, whom he had heard, had been badly
exploited by the Pandits (Brahmins) of Kashmir. But at the same time, he felt vaguely uneasy,
not understanding yet why. He noticed that one of the mourners, a bearded man, was watching
him closely. At the end of the burial the man approached Andrew and said

-                would you like to meet some boys ?

Andrew knew that ‘boys’ meant militants and he immediately said :

  - Sure

- Someone will pick you up from your hotel at 6.30 am, the man said before disappearing in the
crowd.

- How do they know which hotel I am staying, thought Andrew, slightly alarmed…

  At 6.25 AM, the reception rung-up him up in his room to say that his taxi had come. Andrew
was ready. His driver’s name was Afzal and he did not speak much except to tell him he was
taking him to Kupwara. Andrew knew that it was not far from Pakistani Kashmir and kept quiet,
admiring the majestic chinar trees bordering the road, the small carts drawn by horses where
entire families sat, children playing in ponds, men smoking their hookahs on their door steps,
women bent in fields… What a peaceful scenery he thought, so far away from war. At Kupwara,
he changed cars and was taken on small roads, which slowly started climbing and he soon lost
all sense of direction. After about one hour, the car stopped abruptly in front of a small meadow,
at the end of which stood a forlorn wooden cabin. Four men, with machine guns, emerged from
it and Andrew’s heart beat a little faster. But there was nothing to fear: the boys knew all about
his radio and wanted to show him ‘something’. They opened the cabin, and there, lying on an
improvised bed, lay a dead man, who obviously had been terribly tortured: he had cigarette
burns all over the body, every one of his bones had been broken, sometimes piercing the skin at
odd angles and there was a bullet wound in his head. Andrew felt uncomfortable: he had never
seen a body in such a bad condition, in fact, he had never seen a dead body except for his
grandfather. Nevertheless, he prepared his Nagra.
The army has just handed-over back the body of our friend – and look in what condition he is,
said the leader of the group, who spoke some English.

-       Oh, God, said Andrew, in spite of himself, what have they done to him?

-       - As you can see, wailed the militants’ leader, he has been tortured for days, his bones
were broken one by one, he was burnt in multiple places of his body and wracked till he
died.

-       But what had he done, asked Andrew, shocked beyond himself?

-       - Nothing, answered, the militant, he was only an innocent shopkeeper!

Andrew stared at him in disbelief: in spite of his dislike of the army – of any army – he could
not bring himself to believe that a man would be tortured to death for no reason. And he said
so to the leader, which seemed to infuriate him, as he began to recite a whole litany against
India and another one on the just aspirations of the people of Kashmir. Finally, as they went
outside, the four militants raised their AK 47 and shot in the air while shouting ‘Allah O
Akbar’. It was the first time that Andrew heard the very peculiar sound that a hail of bullets
fired by an AK-47 does -  and he would never forget it - which one day would save his life.
He got back safely to Srinagar, after the militants made him photograph the body, edited his
sound bites and interviews and sent them over the telephone line using his portable
transmitter.

  He had an interview the next morning with the Governor of Kashmir, a retired army general,
who had immediately agreed on the meeting, hearing the name of his radio. He took a car from
his hotel and was unchallenged till he came to the road that branched out from the Dal lake and
went uphill towards the governor’s residence, which was guarded like a fortress. Once he had
cleared four check posts, each manned by a different unit, he was admitted in a waiting room of
an old building that once belonged to the maharaja of Kashmir. The view on the lake was
stunning and the place was like an oasis of peace in the midst of chaos. Finally, General Kao
entered and gave Andrew a manly army handshake and a sonorous British :

-                Hello, there !

Around a welcome cup of tea and muffins, Andrew, who had already prepared his Nagra, put his
earphones on and tested the sound. He then asked his questions:

-                What is the problem in Kashmir ?

General Krao must have answered this query a hundred times:

- To begin with, let us look at the demographic pattern in Kashmir. We have 40% Kashmiri
Muslims, 20% non-Kashmiri Muslims who do not speak the language and a small percentage of
Shias near Kargil-Dras. The rest 40% are Hindus, Buddhists or Sikhs. As far as Hindus,
Buddhists or Sikhs are concerned, there is no question for them of having pro-Pakistan feelings
or wanting to break away from India. In the remaining 60%,, 20% are living in the mountains,
like the Gujjars, the Paharis, and have not been affected by religious fundamentalism to the
same extent. They are economically very poor, backward and by and large quite friendly
towards India.

-                Why then do the Muslims of Kashmir revolt against you ?

Again, the governor did not hesitate for a second :

- Terrorism in Kashmir is an ideological struggle with a specific fundamentalist and communal

Agenda. Terrorist violence aims at the disengagement of the state of Jammu and Kashmir from
India and its annexation to Pakistan. It is a continuation of the Islamic fundamentalist struggle.

- But were not the Muslims exploited by the Hindus of Kashmir for many centuries, interrupted
Andrew?

- That’s not true, answers vehemently the General. I must emphasize that the – The Kashmiri
Pandit community never tried to rule Kashmir, snapped the Governor, they were only the babus,
the secretaries, the teachers; there might have been some exploitation here and there, but on the
whole they lived peacefully with the  Muslims.

- Then why should the Muslims revolt, asks again Andrew ?

 - It is true, acknowledges Krao, the Kashmiri Muslims have genuine grievances: the Congress once
rigged elections in their State, toppled their elected government, bought their leaders. But the story
is the same everywhere in India. In fact, Kashmir is and has always been a privileged and pampered
place. Indians are not allowed to buy land in Kashmir, but Kashmiris, who are very good
businessmen, have had no qualms about investing in India and setting up flourishing business all
over the country. The Indian Government keeps pouring billions of rupees into Kashmir. But if these
people really want their independence, shouldn't they be straightforward about it and stop using
Indian money and utilizing the Government of India's services to export their carpets?

The Governor pauses for a minute, sis his tea pensively, and then says:

 - But the real problem here is that these complaints are linked with Islamic fundamentalism
supported by Pakistan. Hence, the major dimension of terrorist violence in Kashmir is the terrorists'
commitment to the extermination and subjugation of the Hindus in the state because Hindus do not
subscribe to the idea of separation from India, nor do will they allow governance by the tenets of
Islam. Kashmiri Pandits have always been in the forefront of the struggle against secessionism,
communalism and fundamentalism. Consequently, this peace-loving minority with a progressive
outlook is more and more targeted by the KLF and the emerging Islamic groups such as the Hizbul
Mujahideen (who progressively will marginalize the JKLF).

- What about the human rights abuses in Kashmir, says Andrew, without mentioning the tortured
body he saw yesterday ?

- Why should India feel guilty about retaining what has been hers for 5000 years? Kashmiris have
only themselves to blame for their misery: you do not fight a counter insurgency movement with
flowers and polite talk, shot back Krao. Kashmir is a border State which has been attacked three
times by Pakistan and one time by China.

There was tension in the air and Andrew, who had not been convinced at all by the general’s
arguments, felt it was time to terminate the interview. He had got the governor on the edge and
made him snap at him, which would sound lively on the radio. That was the art of a good interview,
he thought, as he shook hands with the Governor, whose parting was much colder this time.

Back in the hotel, he edited the interview and managed to send it on a bad line. Pretty grim he
thought: how far away from the glamorous world of the maharajas! Nevertheless, as he was one
of the first western journalists to cover the insurrection in Kashmir and because of his stint with
the militants in Kupwara, he was interviewed by many Indian newspapers upon his return to the
capital, and in turn by foreign correspondents and television and radio channels, including his
own network. He tried to play it cool: “it just happened he said, it was because of my radio’s
fame, I was scared as anybody else, I was lucky’... But nothing doing !  Newspapers, both
British and Indian, asked him to write articles recounting his experiences - and within a month
of his return to  Delhi, he was already a hero: his name had become synonymous with hard and
fair journalism. And in time, every single western correspondent started to hook-up with the
‘boys’ in Kashmir, to be taken to their commandant, or to be whisked to their hideout. He was
copied by all....

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