Shopkeepers gave them cash. Mothers made them sandwiches. To New Delhi, this was a threat to its nationhood, to Islamabad an opportunity to wage war by proxy. India has since tried to stamp out the revolt with all the fury of an enraged elephant, while Pakistan has tried to provoke the uprising further and arm it and bend it to its will. Today, what is left in the valley is a populace stunned with confusion and sorrow, unwilling to give up the dream of independence and yet unprepared to endure more killing.
People feel betwixt and between, their fate out of their hands.
A common complaint is that India and Pakistan seem pitted against each other in a fight to the death of the last Kashmiri. Life seems forever transformed. A valley whose culture was once identified with the gentle teachings of Sufi mystics is now overwhelmed by the culture of the gun and the morality of the mercenary. Insurgency and counterinsurgency have bled into one another. Kashmir has become a place of double-crosses and extortion and vaporous truths.