“What do you tell a small child who asks where her father is and why he can’t come home even for Eid? Can you really speak truth?”
“I kept feeding lies to my grandfather, who was dying as he repeatedly asked when his son, my father, would come visit him.”
Evasions. Absences, silences, erasure. Varied connotations of these are not new in Kashmir, where waiting has been the fate of the wives and children of the 8,000, who were forcibly disappeared in the nineties.
‘Political Prisoners’
Waiting can now be extended to another phenomenon - “political incarceration.” Whilst Kashmir has a long history of imprisonment for expressing political dissent, since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, there has been an incremental increase in the manner in which “counter-terrorism” legislation and Constitutional exceptionalism is being deployed to effectively rein in people. Such “lawfare” along with restrictions on movement, increasing surveillance, book bans and curbs on academic research, is the strategy now deployed instead of traditional means to “control the popular imagination” as was evocatively expressed by Professor Ather Zia in a panel talk “Life of Kashmiri Political Prisoners, Gender and the Carceral State".
What is this political carceral system of Kashmir? Who are political prisoners or prisoners of conscience? How does this lawfare operate?
Legal circles explain that “prisoners of conscience” is a term used by Amnesty International, which doesn’t have legal consequences but enables advocacy and the ability to campaign for the concerned prisoners. And, whilst the term political prisoners doesn’t exist in Indian law, it did form part of colonial rule in Bengal.
Interestingly, one of the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, poet and writer Varavara Rao, has mentioned he was treated as a political prisoner during imprisonment in Hyderabad jail. In general, though, this is not the accepted rule.
An Overwhelming Scale
Whilst most Kashmiri political dissenters used to be held under the Public Safety Act, the law that permitted preventive detention, over the past two years - the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act - is increasingly being used. UAPA vests the Central government with extraordinary powers to designate organisations as terrorist entities and to classify even individuals as terrorists. Consequently, Kashmiri UAPA prisoners are provided with less access than others, not more, as would have been the case with political prisoners.
It is the sheer numbers, the manner in which UAPA is deployed and the sweeping way in which almost all forms of normal democratic activity can be criminalized that one realizes how lawfare is now a strategy replacing other traditional methods of war against the Kashmiri people. It is being used as a mode of governance to induce huge fear and act as a deterrence.
Figures submitted to the Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai showed Jammu and Kashmir accounted for the highest number of arrests between 2019 to 2023 at 3,662, though it had only 23 convictions during that period.
In 2023 alone, some 42% of national UAPA arrests were made in J&K, the highest from any state or Union Territory.
The rate of convictions is startlingly revelatory of the carceral scenario. Two Supreme Court judges, Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, whilst granting bail to an undertrial from Kupwara for a narco-terrorism case quoted statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau NCRB) to show that for all-India figures there are 2 to 6% convictions in UAPA cases. This means that there is a 94 per cent to 98 per cent acquittal in such cases in the country. As far as the Union territory of J&K is concerned, the annual rate of conviction rate is always less than 1%. It means that there is a 99% possibility of acquittal.
It is a grim reflection on how Kashmiris are detained for years on end under UAPA’s sweeping powers and how loose and vague definitions of activity are classified as terror before their acquittal. The grounds for arrest are varied.
A Fuzzy Label Called OGW
A blanket First Information Report (FIR) was registered in 2020 against those who attempted to access social media during the internet shutdown by using a VPN or Virtual Private Network. UAPA was deployed in April 2022 to arrest a student pursuing a doctorate for having written a “highly provocative and seditious essay” intended to create unrest, way back in 2010. An essay that was in fact not online at all. Cases can be slapped on publishers of books, as happened recently, or on those accused of being part of a “cross-border conspiracy” to originate and implement a covert attack by hybrid terrorists. It can make attending a funeral an unlawful act. One former prisoner revealed how an inmate had been labelled an Over Ground Worker (OGW) and arrested because, as a mobile phone service provider, he had done the recharge for a suspect.
Among those arrested under UAPA are human rights defenders, journalists, researchers and members of political parties. Sheikh Abdul Rashid, better known as Engineer Rashid, founder of the Jammu and Kashmir Awami Ittehad Party, has been in jail for nearly seven years. He won the Baramulla seat, defeating Omar Abdullah in the Lok Sabha election of 2024, and is facing trial for allegedly financing terrorist groups. Given temporary bail after his father’s death in June this year, he had also sought modification of an order asking him to deposit Rs four lakhs with the jail authorities to attend Parliament whilst in custody. With a split verdict, the matter will now be placed before the Chief Justice, fuelling debate on the political rights of prisoners.
The term ‘Over Ground Worker’, which appears to have origins in Kashmir’s counter-insurgency lexicon, has also found its way into the chargesheets and investigations by the NIA and J&K police. It has facilitated the arrests of a large number of members of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the socio-political, religious outfit which was banned in 2019. There have also been multiple raids on premises linked with the association.
According to security terminology, an OGW is an individual who assists terrorists with logistical support, cash, shelter, and other infrastructure with which armed groups and insurgency movements operate in Kashmir.
A police official has interpreted an OGW as a militant on the threshold of using the “gun against the security forces and innocent civilian… a hardcore OGW lives supporting the gun and finally dies wielding it.”
The problem, say legal experts, is less in the use of such a term than in the way it is weaponised. The definitions under UAPA (section 38/39 for “association”, support or then section 18 with “facilitate” are vague and amorphous. Courts have not done much to fight back for clarity. It is in such a situation that the investigating agency can and does run amok with this category.
In September 2025, the Jammu and Kashmir Police detained as many as 200 suspected Over Ground Workers (OGWs) of terror outfits as part of a massive crackdown in the valley.
The carceral net is exacerbated because of UAPA’s own stringent bail conditions as well as court proceedings. Lawyer Mirza Saeed Beg says that the court is seen to accommodate executive necessity rather than the rule. He gives the example of the NIA versus Zahoor Ahmed Watali, whereby the Supreme Court mandated that the prosecution documents must be accepted as prima facie true until they are contradicted by other evidence, which is most often only at the trial stage.
Bail becomes exceedingly difficult, and the justice system can take away half a decade or more of a person’s years before innocence is proved. There is no accountability, no compensation, no consequences whatsoever for those who have fabricated cases or evidence.
Socio-psychological Burden Outside Jails
Ironically, it is the innocent victims who must carry the profound consequences of such fabrications. Imprisonment often shapes a family’s life with irreversible social and psychological effects. Who can compensate for the trauma of separation? Of the ways people are robbed of precious time spent together.
The image of Ali Mohammad Bhat, who was acquitted after 23 years, lying prostrate before his father’s grave after his release, is seared in memory. His mother, on her deathbed and in poor mental health, screamed out his name. She had been waiting in vain for his release.
Then there are the violent ruptures in social bonds - marriages postponed or cancelled, and chances of proposals for even the extended family remain bleak.
Children, too, the most vulnerable members, must bear this mental anguish. A woman whose husband has been jailed speaks of this and the necessity of shielding her young daughter from the truth. The girl, aged six, keeps asking about her father. “Obviously I cannot tell the truth. I have to lie because a child can’t analyse facts. She doesn’t have that level of understanding.”
As for the son, a boy in his teens, coping with the challenges of adolescence has become more difficult because the support of one parent is missing.
“The burden of parenting falls on the single parent who has suddenly found this thrust upon one. It is tough because you are totally unprepared; it is not one out of choice. There is literally no time for one’s own well-being. You function like a machine.”
Noisy Mulaqats and Silences
The mulaqats or meetings in jail are structured in a manner that does not allow for ease of communication. A glass window separates the prisoner from the visitor. One speaks through the phone and the sound may not always be audible, especially as the room is crowded with several visitors waiting for their turn.
As the vast majority of Kashmiri political prisoners have been lodged outside Kashmir, mulaqats pose a physical and financial burden. The sister of a prisoner explained how she would have to take leave from her duties and travel overnight to the Kot Bhalwal jail in Jammu to visit her brother, in addition to handling all the legal responsibilities.
The other recourse, that of writing letters, has its own challenges. Anything that is seen as being too political will not be allowed by the warder. The letter must be in English and even certain lines or phrases from poems and songs may be deemed unfit.
For a newly married woman, the sudden separation after the arrest of her husband brought many emotional and practical challenges. She says, “The limited time of mobile calls allowed twice a week creates constraints. Sometimes, I hold back my worries because I don’t want to burden him and there isn’t always enough time to discuss everything properly. We try to make the most of the conversations we have, focusing on supporting and reassuring each other.”
The mulaqats, for her, evoke mixed feelings. “It’s hard seeing someone you love right in front of you and not be able to touch them or hold their hand. The noise and lack of privacy make it difficult to have a meaningful conversation, yet we try to share updates, offer reassurance and make an emotional connection, all the time aware of the limited time. It leaves one grateful to have seen each other and deeply sad because of the barriers and leaving the person behind.”
In a recent touching interview in Frontline, Engineer Rashid’s brother Sheikh Rashid and his son Abrar spoke movingly about the weight of carrying silence.
“We kept many things hidden,” said Sheikh Rashid in the digital interview. The news of his younger son’s illness was not told to the father behind bars. And in turn, the distressing news of Engineer’s illness in jail had to be kept away from his parents.
The Days Went By
Abrar spoke of how he had to keep feeding lies to his grandfather during his last days, when he repeatedly asked for his son. He could not speak, so he would write on a board with a marker pen and among his last poignant communication was “Yeh bolte bolte din guzar gaye…”
The days went by… Angela Davis, imprisoned in the seventies in the USA and now a vocal advocate for prison abolition, wrote that wait times are strategies of the powerful to maintain the status quo of power relations in the social order.
But can waiting also acquire a philosophical dimension? Jason Farman, in his book, "Delayed Response: The art of waiting from the Ancient to the Instant World", refers to Samuel Beckett’s play, "Waiting for Godot". He says Godot represents the promise of what might come on the other side of our waiting.
The Arabic word Sabr, standing for patience and steadfastness, has become the coping mechanism and political tool for prisoners of conscience, especially in Palestine, where the collective trauma is emphasized.
Significantly, Sheikh Rashid speaks of how the family’s suffering is that of every household in Kashmir; they undergo some form of trauma every day.
The growing list of prison memoirs is a reflection of this politics of waiting, of how incarceration becomes a potent symbol of resilience, of how the notion of freedom grows and grows behind caged walls and bars.
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