"My Life": Kashmiri Woman Speaks Out - by Fatima Sultan Syed

My own childhood in the Indian-administered Kashmir could be called idyllic. I attended a prestigious school in a town frequented by foreigners (even George Harrison of the Beatles spent time living in the famous houseboats along the water), and there was a quiet urbanity about my early life. My family took long strolls along the scenic boulevards; we ate ice cream cones (nicknamed ‘softies') in the evenings. In the enchantment of growing up, I was unaware of the political realities of my homeland.

But in the confines of closed social gatherings there were banging fists, frowned brows, pursed lips, and sharp inhalations punctuated by jargon I could not understand. I heard terms like azaadi (Independence) and haq-e-khudiradiyat (self-determination) whispered in the barbershop, in the baker's and the doctor's waiting rooms, in the market. These strange words intrigued me; they hung in the air like big question marks, mysterious and unexplained for years, since my parents and other

Today, the solution for Kashmir's conflict lies in addressing the long-term implications of conflict. While it is important to address the immediate needs of those who have been maimed, raped, molested, and psychologically impaired, it is equally important to address the political imbroglio that bred this large-scale human rights crisis in the first place. We must go to the heart of the issue and address Kashmir not as the "problem of India and Pakistan," but "Pakistan and India" as the problem of Kashmir.