The conflict in Kashmir
India 🇮🇳 “Lockdowns are very normal in Kashmir. They happen very often. Generally there are protests, shootings, pellet firings and stuff like that. In the lockdown times, we had no internet, ever, so the frustration is even more at that time. When you don’t have the internet and you are not allowed to go out and there are people dying and protests happening around you, it becomes worse.
The last lockdown happened overnight, I was here. It was the 4th of August 2019, I knew something was going to happen. We saw planes going overhead and armed forces. There was a huge influx of armed forces. There was one huge protest, then it was discredited all over the media. We had no connectivity. I didn’t know anything that was going on more then about like 500 metres from my home. I heard there was another protest in the centre of the city. The roads were blocked. Even the bylanes were blocked at that time. You couldn’t go out. I wasn’t able to go to the hospital once. My grandmother had an accident, she was sick and I didn’t know about it, I got to know about it a few months later. We didn’t know what was happening anywhere.
“I read, I sketch and I spend time with my family. But because of all the previous lockdowns, I have not been able to get a regular education….”
This (COVID-19) lockdown I feel more responsible because I know there is a responsibility, every person’s responsibility is to stay home. I read, I sketch and I spend time with my family. But because of all the previous lockdowns, I have not been able to get a regular education, for 20 years I guess, and the way it has been on our minds constantly has been devastating. I do not get fired at but there are people who get fired at, younger than me, who spend time in the jails, or have been pellet gun victims, I personally know those people. This lockdown where there is a natural death possible here, that fear is totally different. This fear is still natural that we die of something very natural like a virus, but not a bullet or a pellet.”
