Brig. Pramathesh Raina (retd)

This was a period of great unrest, characterised by massive demonstrations, violent protests, open and virulent exhibition of anti-India sentiment and occasional firing on security forces by armed insurgents. Kidnappings and abductions became common. Following the abduction of the Vice Chancellor of Kashmir University, the Governor decided to adopt a tough approach and imposed an indefinite curfew in the city. Tough measures against miscreants are acceptable, but collective action on an entire city for the transgressions of a few is inadvisable and would prove counterproductive as subsequently proved. The gains of the collective curfew were few, if any, but the loss! All the goodwill and reputation earned by Mr Jagmohan in his previous avatar as Governor evaporated in those two weeks and he became a hated figure and all the ills were laid at his doorstep, most of them unfairly. But such is the nature of politics worldwide—you need a whipping boy on whom to vent out all your frustrations and grievances, and who better than the chief representative of the oppressor—Jagmohan.

Civil liberties were curtailed. Traffic check posts were set up all over the city. Ordinary citizens were made to undergo considerable difficulty in proceeding with their daily lives. Frisking and checking private vehicles became the order of the day. A person could not proceed a furlong without being checked at least once. The reason was the fact that the dress worn universally is the pheran, a loose fitting overgarment under which a weapon could easily be concealed. In this atmosphere of distrust every person was treated as anti-national. The common citizens felt that they were being collectively punished for the actions of a misguided few. Naturally, they resented the restrictions imposed on them and blamed it all on the Governor for running an insensitive government.

This cat and mouse game continued for the entire fortnight. The citizens were restive. It was a challenge to keep them confined to their houses. Children needed an outlet to expend their boundless energy. Within my sectors I allowed people to walk about as long as they confined themselves to the lanes and stayed clear of the main road. Some of us were not so understanding and thereby hangs a tale. For some days residents of a locality had been requesting that sweepers should be permitted to clean their toilets. Rigid implementation of the curfew resulted in the request being denied and the olfactory organs of those enforcing the curfew paid a price. As I have mentioned earlier, the sanitation was of the dry type which meant that the night soil had to be removed every other day, if not daily. The prevalent practice in the old city was that toilets were constructed with an opening in the rear wall facing the lane outside. The scavenger did not need to enter the house and could pull out the receptacle (known locally as a ‘dagga’) from the lane and empty it into his wheelbarrow. The daggas were full by now and when the request to clean up was ignored, the citizens decided to protest in a novel way. All the daggas were emptied of their contents in the lanes. What was earlier a foul smell confined to the respective toilets, was now an awful stink spread all over the entire locality. With hours of this tremendous sensory assault, the cleaning services were pressed into service. I would like to believe that such incidents convinced the Governor to rethink, and the curfew was relaxed. Every incident had the potential to escalate into a disaster. The importance of dealing with the ordinary population with the required degree of understanding of the actual ground realities is brought out in the form of three incidents which took place during this period.