Kashmir. Wait & See
It is the story of the discovery of a region. An imagined Orient, praised for the splendor of its peaks. Lands coveted for their resources and geography by empires and then by countries. A territory once trodden by cavalries, later struck by missiles.
Since the hasty partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, Kashmir has become one of the most militarized regions in the world and the stage for multiple wars between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers, with the control of a mountainous territory at the heart of a geopolitical knot at stake. This conflict is among the oldest disputes managed bythe United Nations. The contested territory is divided into three regions: Jammu and Kashmir administered by India, Azad Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan administered by Pakistan.
At the spring equinox of 2017, I arrived in Srinagar, on the Indian side. To see, feel, and listen. More than a borderconflict, I discovered a struggle that was political, identitybased, and human. Nothing indicated to me then that it would occupy me until the autumn of 2024.
From the first day, I met Khuraam Parvez, a lawyer and human rights defender. He immediately made it clear that mycomings and goings would likely be monitored. We would meet again later in Brussels, and I would propose that he write a text for this book. But in November 2021, Khurram was arrested; he is still arbitrarily detained today in a highsecurityprison, silenced.
As the days passed, through the alleys traversed by motorcycle, clashes, and funerals, I met local photographers, who were often young students. They explained their choice to replace throwing stones at Indian security forces withphotography. I thought of the young people I had met during the second Intifada in Ramallah, who preferred to train asmedics to care for the wounded shebab rather than throw stones and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli army.
In Jammu and Kashmir, others, older, worked for wire agencies and took me with them to remote villages. During the curfew, they all took care of me and insisted on the responsibility that should be mine: to make this story, theirs, known. Above all, they warned me: if I wanted to return, I should not publish my work.
I returned. On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the independence of the two enemy brothers. A digital blackout had been imposed to try to stifle the resurgence of the rebellion initiated a year earlier via social networks. Later, I went toAzad Kashmir, in Pakistan. In the villages scattered along the Line of Control—this unrecognized border that crosses the Himalayas for 740 kilometers— the partition is not just a cartographic detail. It separates families, wounds, and kills civilians.
Finally, I traveled to Gilgit-Baltistan, historically known as the Northern Territories, where the micro-princely statesnestled between the peaks were, for the imperial powers of the 19th century, true arenas. By channeling the water fromthe glaciers, the women and men there cultivate and tame the elements, immersed in landscapes of fabulous beauty,bearing the traces of the ancient Silk Roads. In this vast space, a mosaic of mountain peoples with rare hospitalityremains attached to their lands, traditions, and beliefs.
It is the story of an attempt, as generation after generation continues to wait for a plebiscite to be implemented, to determine the final status of their territory and, thereby, the future of their existence.
As in any modern dispute of such scale, the parties involved have used all available means, including photography and its archives, to construct political and historical narratives. The region’s contested status, coupled with complex economic, geographic, religious, and cultural factors, has seen diverse uses of photography, in particular after the Resistance Movement in Jammu and Kashmir that began in the late 1980s.
— Sultan Ali in the book Kashmir. Wait & See
The exceptional strategic position of Jammu and Kashmir arouse the ambitions of both India and Pakistan. New Delhi and Karachi, Pakistan’s first capital, were already considering the projection of their regional and international power. Moreover, Indian and Pakistani independence leaders sought to demonstrate the validity of their founding ideologies in order to persuade the people of the principality to join their own nation. Their legitimacy had been severely undermined by the tragic conditions of the British withdrawal.
— Nathalène Reynolds in the book Kashmir. Wait & See
