URI (Baramulla): Between the eastern edge of the Pir Panjal and the south of the Greater Himalayas, where the river Jhelum snakes its way through the mighty mountains, presenting a breathtaking view, an eerie silence prevails on the empty streets in the town of Uri and surrounding villages.
Beyond the roads and by-lanes, where there are now only faint signs of life, people are huddled in their homes, preparing for the worst.
Since the escalation of tensions between two nuclear neighbours - India and Pakistan - following the Pahalgam killings, fear and panic here are palpable.
Irtiza, Faiza, and Rumana are peeling a container full of peas as they sit on the verandah of their home in Tillawari village of Uri. They don’t usually have one type of vegetable in such bulk, but the current atmosphere has pushed the families to adopt long-term survival strategies.
“Living here is terrible,” says 28-year-old Shameema as she emerges from inside, holding her toddler.
Shameema is a new member of the family since her marriage in December 2021 - the year when the two countries signed a ceasefire agreement. The place has witnessed relative peace since then.
“But now I am scared,” she says, as she clutches her toddler even tighter.
Despite fear, women keep continuing the daily chores, but on survival mode. And there is a lot of difference between doing something normally and doing something in survival mode, explains psychologist Uzma Zaffar.
Zaffar, who is also a member of American Psychological Association says that overtime this lifestyle can lead to different mental health issues like burnout, anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and depression.
Zaffar, who is also a member of American Psychological Association says that overtime this lifestyle can lead to different mental health issues like burnout, anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and depression.
Besides tit-for-tat diplomatic actions including suspension of Indus Water Treaty and threat to suspend 1972 Simla agreement, India and Pakistan have threatened each other with military actions. Amidst calls for revenge for the Pahalgam killings, for which India blames Pakistan, a dominant media and social media posts are pushing India into a war frenzy.
Since the attack, social media in both the countries is abuzz with war cries or sharing of often unverified videos of army movement, old videos of firing, and other related visuals.
Along the LoC, a de-facto border in Kashmir, Poonch and Rajouri and part of Akhnoor in Jammu, armies of both the countries have been exchanging small arms fire intermittently for about a week now.
Amidst the war mongering, on ground zero, where the two armies are drawn into an eyeball-to-eyeball contact, the local villagers are waiting with bated breath and there are fears of a hot war between the two sides, the burden of which falls on them the most.
The escalating tensions and the low intensity exchange of firing at the borders have brought back haunting memories of the past, creating uneasiness on both sides of the Line of Control.
Past Memories Have Started to Haunt
Since the ceasefire violation from last week, 72-year-old Mohammad Younis Parray has been fearful, with memories of the past keeping him awake during the night.
“I have seen it all. During the conflict of 1999 and 2000, I saw several members of one family die. I have picked up bodies, buried them. I have witnessed it all through my eyes,” said Parray, a resident of Balkote village in Uri.
“There must be no war,” he insists.
53-year-old Rukiya Begum sits on a hilltop overseeing several villages on both sides of the LoC, she recalls the incidents from 1999-2000 and then between 2018 and 2020 - mortar shells falling, hitting homes, destroying some and razing some.
“Some lost limbs, some lives,” she says.
“I have seen shells falling in front of us. We used to duck and try to dodge the incoming fire,” she says, as she points to the other side of Kashmir and bends a little as she recalls the past horror.
For 33-year-old Shakoor Ahmad Parray, the death of his neighbours is hard to forget.
Shakoor, who was a young boy in 1999, had climbed up a mulberry tree when the two countries started bombarding each other during the Kargil War. The limited war did not only impact Kargil but low-intensity flare-ups were routine along the Line of Control and International Border in Jammu and Kashmir.
As he heard the loud bangs, Shakoor quickly descended the tree. A bunch of mulberry still in his mouth, he hid behind a rock in his village of Balkote.
“While I was there, I counted six shells falling around, the seventh hit the house of our neighbour and killed three family members. A toddler, his father and his mother,” he says, a distant gaze in his eyes turning to dilated pupils.
Renewed Fear of Modern Warfare
Earlier when the two countries traded heavy fire, they bombarded each other for an hour and then paused. This window gave the people here a chance to relocate the injured and collect the bodies.
But today if they start a war, given the technological advancements in their military capabilities, they can continue for hours or even days without a pause, says Mohammad Younis. “Nothing will be left, there will be ruins everywhere,” he fears.
Besides the frontline villages like Tillawari, Churunda, Sillikote, Kamalkote, the U-shaped Balkote village is also heavily impacted during the cross-border shelling, its residents say.
“We have Pakistan on three sides, standing on even taller mountains than us. If they go berserk, they will start shelling from all the sides and that too with the latest bombs. We will die even if we are inside the bunkers,” said over a dozen residents the Kashmir Times spoke to.
Most men have stopped stepping out of their homes. Those who have bunkers are cleaning them up.
Rather than wishing for a beautiful life, they wish to die together. “This entire thing about conflict is so traumatic that it reduces your wishes and dreams to mere survival. To dream seems impossible,” explains Zaffar.
“When fear becomes routine, hope goes out of range,” she adds.
While the two countries will fight fire with fire, the residents of Uri living along the firing line will be the ones absorbing the blow.
Bunkers and Cotton Balls
Rouf, who only wanted to be identified by his first name, was sweeping his private bunker located through the plinth of his home.
With the uncertainty that has been overwhelming the villagers for the last 10-days, people here who have private bunkers in their homes have started to clean them.
“Amid the tensions, we thought it is better to do what little we can to save ourselves, especially our children,” he says, as he sweeps the dust and insects off the concrete bunker straight out the 3-foot rust-coloured gate.
Almost all the residents here grow their own vegetables, “but there is still much that one needs to buy from the market,” says 38-year-old Sabeena Mushtaq.
Stocking supplies means spending money and like many daily wagers here, Sabeena’s husband hasn’t had any work for about two weeks now.
“How will we stock up?” asks the mother of three as she breaks into a cold sweat.
The women of conflict are emotionally isolated, and this isolation grows when husbands stay at home in fear or perhaps they lose their jobs.
Men are often seen as protectors and providers, but in situations like this, they are powerless, psychologist Zaffar says.
“It is mentally exhausting for women, it is like living in a loop of uncertainty,” says Zaffar.
"It impacts the men too. This helplessness of staying at home because of fear," Zaffar explains, “eats away their sense of purpose, and sense of being a man.”
Two kilometres away on the opposite side of Sabeena’s village, Nazia Shareef flattens the pieces of cotton and rolls them into tiny and slim balls.
“These are for children,” she says, her voice as gentle as the cotton she works on.
Shareef, a 31-year-old mother of two, learned it from her elders. When cross-border shelling took place, their elders used to put these cotton balls into her and her brother’s ear when they were young.
“This will slightly help my kids, or else, the sound of the explosions will kill them,” she explains.
Some of the villagers who are considered well off here, locals say, have visited the town to stock up supplies.
“But not all of us can afford to do that,” say locals.
The locals of many villages here also store gauze, antiseptic liquid, and pain killers because there is only one hospital in the entire area and that is in the Uri town.
“Reaching there takes a lot of time in normal circumstances, and in the times of shelling, it takes longer than usual,” they say.
Children Most Vulnerable
The people living in the villages on the frontline are concerned more about their children than for themselves.
“We have witnessed much bloodshed and destruction, but our children know nothing about it. They will die hearing the very first artillery fire,” says Mohammad Younis Parray of Balkote village.
“Everybody is saying war will happen. We are scared, not for ourselves, but for our children. If anything happens to them in front of us, what will we do?” asks Rukiya Begum of Thajwal village.
While school going children are being told to walk in groups when leaving school and head straight back to home, children and their parents that Kashmir Times spoke to said there is no training provided in schools about what to do when confrontations take place between the two countries.
Children who are too young to remember past shelling, are finding themselves overwhelmed with new fear of a new war. “A loud bang might not mean thunder, but straight away death,” says Zaffar.
Giving the example of Gaza, Zaffar says we see children of Gaza sitting and a sound which is not necessarily of a military action, scares them and sends them fleeing.
“They feel the bombers are coming.”
Even if children are going to school, socially they may withdraw, act out or feel different,” she says.
Please talk instead of fighting
Being well acquainted with war and violent conflict, people of Uri have requested both India and Pakistan to solve the matter by talking and avoid fighting.
Notwithstanding the issue, people can always solve the problem by talking instead of killing each other. There is no going back or solution if the war happens, Abdul Wahid says – words of profound wisdom.
The villagers say that while people far away are giving war cries, they don’t know the reality of war because they don’t see it in their everyday lives.
Inside his home there is no network coverage, so he stays out, sitting on mountain tops and following the social media and news on his mobile. “This, even, though it instills more fear,” says Shakoor Ahmad Parray talking about the irony.
“Those calling for war must be brought to this place,” says Shakoor, angry after watching volumes of videos and newsreels that egg India to go for a full-fledged war.
“If the warmongers are so patriotic, I challenge them to just stay here for an hour or for just ten-minutes during the ceasefire violation. I will commend them if they stay here. It is then they will realise what it means to live here amid the fighting,” Parray asserts.
“War should not take place. Peace is a good thing,” says Rukiya Begum as she waits on the hilltop for her livestock to finish grazing.
“If war erupts, no one will survive……the whole world will die.”
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