Haider

Two weeks ago the Asian American Writer’s Workshop put out an excellent podcast titled
“Occupied Kashmir: Poetry and Disappearance,” outlining the legacy of Agha Shahid Ali as well as
the censorship of contemporary Kashmiri literature and voices, so this paper is set on the context of
that podcast and the articles given. 
Haider was made based off of two original texts: Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Basharat Peer’s political
memoir Curfewed Night, which was a narrative recounting what exactly happened in Kashmir during
the 1990s.

Originally, Curfewed Night is exactly the opposite of what is recounted in the “Occupied

Kashmir” podcast; the poets and researchers discuss how in India, Kashmir is openly hemorrhaging,
but the mainstream Indian narrative says let it bleed. This attitude is what puts a gag on the act of
execution; legitimate Kashmiri narratives are suppressed, jailed, or merely disappear because of this. 

In order to make Haider, I believe it was necessary to have the combination

of Hamlet and Curfewed Night to bypass censorship and reach an international audience. By
including a familiar Western spearhead—Shakespeare—in the influences, it opens another layer of
understanding and sympathy for international (specifically Westernized) audiences.

Then, in regards to the communications blackouts in Kashmir—it’s disheartening to see that

when Agha Shahid Ali published The Country Without a Post Office in 1997, the same exact issues
are just being modernized. His title poem, “Kashmir without a Post Office,” recounts Kashmir’s post
office forcibly being closed and how the speaker opens letters piling up at the remains of the post
office. Lines such as “I light lamps, send my answers, Calls to Prayer / to deaf worlds across
continents. And my lament / is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent / to this world whose end
was near, always near” offer this sense of hopelessness that no one is truly listening or even reading
those letters.

And, even in Ali’s era, this sense of hopelessness extended abroad, which is still true today.
Radicalization occurs when events like revoking Article 370 occurs, when the communications
blackout occurred. None of my friends thought we were going to be cut off from our two friends in
Kashmir, but it did happen. I knew some of my friends called landlines every single day trying to
reach them and cried when they finally could. Yet, at the same time, when Modi comes to visit
Texas, and entire stadium chants their approval of him. That is a slap in the face to the Kashmiris. 

This is not protecting a nation, that is a denial of human rights, and it does not affect national
security, it affects international security in the opposite of what was intended. Because India revoked
Article 370, we had protests even here in New York City. Imagine if that turned violent. Who is the
perpetrator? Are the perpetrators truly at fault or is it India? This echo chamber of “we hate Pakistan,
Kashmir must be ours, the Muslims must die” does not even have a meaning to most people besides
it is what they are told to do.

When the Indian government revoked Article 370, it showed how quickly and relentlessly
freedom can be stripped away from an entire population of people. There was no regard to the lives
that were impacted, especially when the communications blackout occurred, whether they were
Kashmiri or even the diasporic audience. 

And even to this day, the hopes of young Kashmiri poets and writers rely on the diasporic
audience to get the message across. When the incident first started happening, the online poetry
community was being rallied around Pakistani-Kashmiri-American poet Fatimah Asghar, who’s
gained an immense presence in the poetry community, raising awareness of what was happening. Not
once when I watched the news in my hometown did I see what was happening in Kashmir being
reported upon. It was always Hong Kong’s situation being aired, which, in another way, is
suppressing the plight of the Kashmiris. 

Perhaps this is why poets like Ali gained such a cult status among Kashmir writers. The
Kashmir writers I know personally are obsessed with him, have his words memorized or even
tattooed on them. Then, on the film side, this is why films like Haider are so essential to capture
what is truly happening. We live in a golden age of globalization in cinema—this film even won
prizes at international film festivals, which is a testament to this globalization. Haider forces you to
remember what happened, gives you a face (despite the individual the face belongs to being a
fictional character) to remember when you might not have had one to associate with Kashmir. We are
forced to acknowledge that the actions of the Indian government led to these tragic betrayals.

I’m going to reference an article my friend published on Scroll India, not because it was
about this past summer, but because something she wrote in it really resonated with me. 

“Two of our friends – both politically active students living in Kashmir – sent us panic-
stricken messages informing us that they suspected Article 370 and 35A would be revoked.
They told us to take care of ourselves and said they loved us. A day later, they disappeared.
All at once, the conflicts of our subcontinent became more personal than they ever were
before. Our friends were severed from us. People in Kashmir were no longer faceless crowds
I felt empathy and wanted to advocate for, they were people I knew and loved. They were
people I watched Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and went to book readings with, the people I
swapped stories with at 2 am” (Nagpal). 

When I first read this part of her article, it forced me to truly think about how we navigate
this world politically, and how cruel we are to those we consider outsiders. This can even be seen
in Haider as the need for power transcends the sacred familial bond. Empathy truly is dying, which
can be seen as a consequence of globalization, but if people stopped to think from the other side and
truly cared, we wouldn’t have conflicts like these. 

The world is transitioning into a place ruled by fear and hate. And, unfortunately, the places
that are seeing the biggest consequences are the ones that transitioned from colonial societies. Most
of my research tends to fall on the impacts of colonialism, trauma, and war in South Korea and South
Korea right now is having a terrible time in the postcolonial phase, just like India. They might’ve
gotten rid of their president who was in a cult and extremely corrupt, but gender discrimination,
workplace discrimination, and rising anti-Japanese tensions are reaching a boiling point.

I remember during my very first State Department program in 2018, some fully funded
program to go live in Korea for a month and a half to learn Korean, I was one of ten picked, out of
my cohort of fifty, to go to a peace camp called Korea-Japan English Camp over at the US Embassy
in Seoul. I will never forget that day, because despite the purpose of the camp, we went on a river
cruise on the Han River and everyone immediately broke off into groups from their own countries
and didn’t interact with ones they dubbed “foreigners.” As much as we tout about meeting Kashmiris
and humanizing the people behind the conflict, the truth of it is some people just do not care to seek
out the perspectives that are different from them. 

And, once again, this was demonstrated in Haider. These betrayals committed were by
people who grew up knowing each other. However, as the wise Anam Zakaria said, “We will always
fight if we don’t see the people on the other side.” The world could just become such a nicer place if
we all listened to each other and did not lie or actively practiced empathy. But if we are continued to
be conditioned to not question what is being taught to us, we are only going to see these situations
worsen. 

Look at the current state of my hometown. I am from Baltimore County, Maryland. My entire
life I lived with my conservative family telling me it was ghetto, it was the poor people’s fault that
they are in the condition they are in, that if you stepped into the city you were going to get shot.
These very same family members voted for Trump because this is what they were told their entire
lives. It is disgusting to live in such a spoon-fed and shallow perspective, but this unfortunately is
how the Kashmir situation is playing out as well.
 
 
External Sources: 
Podcast Mentioned (“Occupied Kashmir: Poetry and Disappearance”): https://aaww.org/occupied-
kashmir/
Nagpal, Payal. “How a Writing Programme in Iowa Taught Me to Feel for People (and Learn to
Become a Better Writer).” Scroll.in, Scroll.in, 22 Sept. 2019, scroll.in/article/938040/how-a-writing-
programme-in-iowa-taught-me-to-feel-for-people-and-learn-to-become-a-better-writer.
“'The Country Without a Post Office': Read Agha Shahid Ali's Poem on Kashmir That Stirred JNU
Row.” ‘The Country Without a Post Office’: Read Agha Shahid Ali’s Poem on Kashmir That Stirred
JNU Row, 25 Feb. 2016, indiaresists.com/kashmir-poem-agha-shahid-ali-jnu-row/.