CROSS ROADS
It was reasonably mild weather on this desultory afternoon. Around 24 degrees with only a few clouds against the backdrop of the otherwise clear blue sky and searing sun. Suhail, my son who had just completed his graduation in Commerce was driving our second-hand white Maruti Alto which we had bought eight months ago while I was sitting in the passenger seat.I couldn’t drive a car and had no license, and after years of commuting on a scooter, I still had to get used to traveling in a car, even as a passenger.
It had been over decades that I had traveled this road, which had changed drastically. We were traveling back from the funeral of Basit in Shogapora, a former colleague and friend of mine who had passed away due to a heart-attack. Despite my reluctance to meet other colleagues from my past life at his funeral, I decided to go and offer my condolences. It was more out of courtesy than anything else.
Passing Dangerpora I was reminded of the old days when I was part of the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) along with Basit, Muzaffar, Riyaz and Fayaz. Thinking about how we, at this very place, occupied 20 Kanals of GhaasCharaey land on gunpoint which eventually grew into a total plot area of 33 Kanals for the Jamaat-e-Islami.
It took me back decades. To my lost youth.
Suhail had sensed my pensive mood and slowed down the car. He stopped at a small tea-stall on the Srinagar-Budgam road and said, “Baba, Chai here is very good. Let’s have a cup”. The tea was indeed good and the onion pakoras accompanying it, made it even better. I was so drowned in my thoughts that I didn’t even notice that the tea had sugar in it, while I don’t take tea with sugar because of having diabetes. Suhail asked, “Are you feeling ok, Baba? Since we have returned from the funeral, you seemvery tensed”.
“Perhaps a little bit, Beta”, I said. “The funeral and the travel reminded me of my past and made me realize how foolish I have been”.Suhail looked at me, his face harbouring a melting pot of emotions. “Why do you say that? You are not foolish, Baba. You have done so much for us. Even after being jailed and harassed”.
I stared at him and only blinked when the young boy working at the tea-stall replaced my cup of tea with another one without sugar. Suhail knew that in the past, long before he was born, I was a HM Commander in Srinagar and had also spent around seven years in jail. Even today, I couldn’t get a passport for performing Umrah or a loan from the bank because of my past. Even Suhail or his mother couldn’t get a passport. My family and I are still enduring punishments for the choices I made as a teenager.
Yet, today, as an old greying man, I have reconciled with my harsh reality. HM was a militant outfit with guns and bombs. And I, was a member of HM.
Naturally, I had to pay a price.
I sipped on my freshly brought, hot, sugarless tea and looked at Suhail, “Beta, I have reconciled with my past and present. Like Basit and many others of the HM. The thing which eats me up is that, miraculously, HM’s mother, the Jamaat-e-Islami, went scot-free. The Jamaat was the real culprit. We were just marionettes”.
Suhail looked confused. “What do you mean, Baba? Wasn’t the HM and Jamaat one and the same? I don’t understand”.
“No, Suhail. Jamaat was very different. It was much smarter than the HM. Don’t you see how members of the Jamaat are now again joining electoral politics, hobnobbing with bureaucrats, businessmen and even policemen, while wearing the cloak of eminent members of society? Even after the organizationgot banned. People like me cannot get a loan or a passport, while they are enjoying the loots of conflict. Jamaat found a way. It always does”.
Suhail was quiet. He didn’t say anything, which gave me a few minutes to contemplate whether my son was old enough to hear my story and understand it. A few thoughts were troubling me. Would he consider me stupid? Would he still look up to me? Respect me? Or perhaps, just pity me and my half-witted, wasted youth?
Suhail’s touch woke me out of my spinning thoughts when he put his hand on my knee and said, “Baba, tell me. I want to learn about it”.
“Let’s then order another cup of tea”, I said, before I started to tell him a bit about the marriage between the Jamaat and HM.
A marriage of convenience for the Jamaat and one of compulsion for the HM.
The Jamaat was a poor and modest organization until the advent of terrorism in Kashmir in the early nineties. It opposed Kashmir’s Sufi traditions and mainly stressed the religious identity of Kashmir while trying to restructure and construct its own preferred Muslim identity for the Kashmiris. It was running a few schools and somewhere at the end of 1960’s also started to take part in electoral politics.
But when violence began in Kashmir, the Jamaat changed its ambitions and objectives.
I said, “Look Suhail, I was part of the HM and HM was created by the Jamaat”, before continuing, with how the Jamaat controlled the HM and used it for its nefarious designs to only enrich itself. “Every HM Commanderin Kashmir was controlled by a District Administrator who had to be a Rukn-e-Jamaat. This person himself was not a gunman”.
“What is a Rukn-e-Jamaat”, Sohail asked before answering himself, “Oh, I know it’s a member of the Jamaat”. “Not quite”, I said. “A Rukn-e-Jamaat is a senior member of the Jamaat. Someone who has spent at least 15 years as an ordinary member. Members who are Rukn-e-Jamaat are considered the most loyal and trustworthy peopleby the organization”.
I continued and explained a bit about the money trail of the Jamaat; “Money used to be received by this District Administrator, who after taking his own cut of usually 30% and giving the Jamaat its share of around 50%, would give the rest to the HM Commander. In the early 90’s, a HM boy would receive around Rs.50 per week. In 1994, this was raised to Rs.2,000 per month and in 1998 it increased to about Rs.6,000 per month”.
“50 Rupees a week!”, Suhail gasped. “That’s not even a plate of pakoras”, he said out loudly. “And where did the money come from, Baba?”
I laughed. “Their method was ingenious”, I replied while laughing even harder.
“An NGO by the name of Dar-ul-Gaas, I guess it was called, was created. Jamaat membersin Saudi Arabia would collect donations in the name of Kashmir Jihad from affluent Saudis and other well-wishers, and this was also done in the US, UK and Europe. This money would then go through Hawala channels, travel through Dubai and Pakistan and reach the District Administrators of Jamaat in Kashmir, the guy who was a Rukn-e-Jamaat, but not a gunman himself and who controlled the HM Commander. In Pakistan, Jamaat also collected donations in the name of Jihad-e-Kashmir. Around 90% of these funds used to be grabbed by Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan and the rest would be sent to the Jamaat in Kashmir. A big chunk of the funds would also be provided by Pakistani intelligence agencies directly to the Jamaat. It was a hugeenterprise. Pure business”.
I took another sip of my tea and continued, “But the ingenuity wasn’t in the money trail alone. It was mainly how the Jamaat, through controlling the HM kept itself out of the line of fire. With the money the Jamaat received, it used the HM as its private militia to enforce its agenda. All the time while staying out of the fray itself. The Jamaat started creating assets. It bought huge plots of lands, shops and other properties. Today, the Jamaat has dozens, if not hundreds of Kanals of land in each and every village and city of Kashmir. It owns properties and shops in every city and village in Kashmir. All owned and run by its members or sympathisers”.
Suhail’s mouth fell open as he kept looking at me with amazement.
It was starting to get dark as the sun was beginning to set. I didn’t want Suhail to drive when it was too dark and subconsciously was also wary of continuing this conversation in the open at a tea-stall. Perhaps a trait from my days in the HM, however one can never be too careful. “Let’s pay and continue in the car. It’s getting dark”, I said to Suhail.
I continued while telling Suhail not to drive too fast as it was slowly getting darker and the road was not very well lit. “One such Rukn-e-Jamaat from Soibugh who would directly receive funds from across the border and was the main Hawala person of the Jamaat in Kashmir used to be a timber smuggler before he became a financier of Jihad. He had a fantastic tale to tell when investigations started against him in the mid-nineties regarding 2 Crore Rupees”. I had to control my laughter before continuing this absurd, yet very true story. “This person told the police that he had hidden all the money in rolls of paddy straw, which were set on fire by some miscreants, and as such all the money was lost in the fire”.
“Was that true, Baba”, Suhail asked.
“Of course not”, I said.
“Today, he owns a huge hotel in Paraypora Srinagar near a CRPF camp which is leased to the Tata Group. His son has a petrol pump in Budgam. His daughter is married to the son of the very financier across the border who used to send him money. His son-in-law, the son of the financier, who is a Pakistani, is currently, even todayin August 2025, despite all hue and cry about bans and scrutiny, illegally living in Srinagar under the protection of an ex-Hurriyat leader. Can you believe that”?
I continued, “The Naib-e-Amir of the Jamaat, originally from Nowshera won the elections in 1972.Then went to Pakistan in the nineties and was one the biggest collectors of donations. He used to send money to his colleague of the Jamaat who was also the father-in-law of his son. Another Rukn-e-Jamaat from Wanabal, Nowgam who was the District Administrator of Srinagar until the mid-nineties, made huge amounts of money, has dozens of properties and his daughter is currently a Tehsildar in Budgam. This guy has never been arrested and did not spend a single day in jail”.
Suhail looked at me. I snapped at him and told him to keep looking at the road. He fixed his eyes again on the road and asked, “So the people of Jamaat and their relatives also used to get government jobs. How is that possible”?
“Suhail, you are so naïve”, I said, while remembering that at his age, even though I was a member of the HM, I was even more naïve. “Jamaat had a long-term and carefully planned strategy. Using HM’s gun, it inducted its members, relatives and sympathisers into the government, police and bureaucracy. Thousands of teachers are Jamaatis and they teach our children in schools. The process of crafty and silent indoctrination is stillhappening at the very grass-root level. Jamaat is everywhere. In every department.It always knew it had to have its own people in the power corridors and administration of Kashmir. Therefore, it penetrated, very subtly, every level of society”.
Suhail was beginning to understand it a bit. While keeping his eyes firmly on the road and reducing his speed, he said, “So Baba, if I understand correctly, the Jamaat used to control the money.Members of the Jamaat were not gunmen. But because it controlled the money, it controlled the HM and used it as its own little army to arm-twist, exploit, threaten and kill. This process ensured that Kashmir kept boiling, more widows and orphans were born and as a consequence, the Jamaat would keep receiving more funds with which it kept increasing its assets and expand its influence. And if anyone would get caught or killed, it would be the HM boys and not the Jamaatis because they never picked up the gun. And today they have infiltrated every section of society and are enjoying”.
“Exactly”! I yelled, while punching the dashboard of the car because of which the glove compartment suddenly opened involuntarily which I hastily closed back.
“But, Baba, what about the ban on Jamaat and the news that their properties were seized”, Suhail asked.
“What about it”, I said. “They have properties worth thousands of Crores. A few properties being seized does not matter to them. Many of these properties are in the name of others which is impossible to trace. They are now trying to enter electoral politics again. Why do you think that is? Because of a change of heart? Or is it because they want to safeguard their black wealth? What needs to be checked is how the Jamaat increased so much in wealth since the beginning of the nineties and where all that money came from”.
“But HM also gained Baba, didn’t it”, Suhail said as if making a statement instead of asking a question.
“Suhail, only the big shots. People like your father were just sacrificial lambs”, I replied.
“Indeed, the Chief of the HM remarried a lady half his age from Nowporaa decade ago. She had no issues getting a passport and traveling to her bridegroom across the border. And yes, his son is a government doctor in Srinagar and the administration even helped transferring his medical seat from Jammu to Srinagar. This doctor’s father-in-law also has no issues in getting a passport and returned just six months ago from a sojourn in Pakistan and the USA. Before becoming a relative of the Chief of HM whom he also met on his recent trip, he used to have a tiny clothing store in Nawakadaland did not even have the funds to travel to Jammu”.
I sighed.
“Only I and the likes of me lost. Thousands of us”, I murmured.
Suhail kept his eyes sternly on the road. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he kept himself strong and did not let the tears drop.
He whispered something which I couldn’t hear.
I wanted to ask him what he said but decided not to.
Perhaps some things are better left unsaid.
Just like this tale about the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
(Author is the Director of European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) and can be reached at: [email protected])
