B.L. Saraf
The enchanting physical and spiritual ambience of Kashmir may have stoked the poetic sense of Emperor, Jehangir to describe it thus: “If ever there is Paradise on the earth, it is here.”
The concept remained within the Royal confines for a long period, till the ingenuity of the Kashmir trader and the government promoted the ” Paradise on Earth ” to the hilt for the economic purposes. However, alongside, the Paradise had to contend with a covetous eye of a neighbour across the LOC who, nefariously, ensured that it does not retain that character unblemished. We leave that part to the other time. Come September floods and the paradise story gets a new tale. Conditions turn upside down.
With a slight improvement in the conditions, the compulsive travellers and the ‘honey mooning’ couples have started to trickle down to the Kashmir Valley. Of the multiple impressions they carry back, the loss of “Paradise” is in higher in their minds. They observe, with great pain and anguish, the transformation of paradise into a hell-what the Valley has turned into thanks to the recent floods. They bemoan the plight of the residents who, in nature’s one stroke, got transhipped into a hellish state from a heavenly dwelling. That is our lamentation, too. But, have we lost the Paradise now, or has the feeling of loss dawned on us too late? Was it necessary for the September floods to remind us about this loss? Well, they are the questions posed to none but to us all. We have to find answers to them. It is imperative, if ever we think of regaining our “Paradise.”
English poet, Milton, wrote epic Paradise Lost with the purpose of projecting the dealings of God with the human beings. It is “about fall of a man.” The scope of the theme is about the universe itself . Such a subject – meaning of evil in the universe-applies to the human race also. Adam and Eve tasted a forbidden fruit and committed a sin, which entailed their expulsion from the Paradise.
What would a paradise look like if dignity of its dwellers is violated? Here, reference to the epic may not be quite inappropriate, as we, too, are the sinners.
We committed the first sin in 1990, when a caring nurse was sawn to the pieces, a well meaning septuagenarian poet-thinker hanged from the tree with eyes gouged; religious leaders, the Mirwiaz and a grand mufti of south Kashmir gunned down in cold blood; hundreds of thousands banished from their homes. A situation got created where death reigned supreme and fear replaced mutual trust. Kashmiris ceased to deserve Paradise when they smothered the rainbow settings and plucked out all flowers from a colourful bouquet and painted the Valley with one dull drab colour. We didn’t honour chastity of the virgins and, in a highly perverted belief, bartered female modesty in lieu of ” freedom fighter’s” valour to deliver “us ” to the ‘ gods own country.’ Adam was banished from Kashmir in 1990.
We committed the second sin when we mercilessly felled the majestic Chinnar, caused deforestation, vandalised environment and built on the water bodies. The vandilization was condoned in the name of “freedom struggle.” The process of loss was not sudden . It began in late eighties when the communities, in Kashmir, were made to lose one another in a slow but systematic manner.
A choice has to be made. It must be known of which Kashmir Jehangir waxed eloquent, in a poetic ecstasy. Was it the Kashmir known for its pristine snow-clad mountains , luxurious forests flowing streams of fresh water (elixir of life), lush green meadows, and above all a place where non-discriminating spirituality filled the hearts of every resident. Has that Kashmir been restricted to its present geographic dimensions, or goes beyond Pir Panchal in the south and extends up to Karakorum mountains in the far north. There is a need to demarcate Kashmir, both, in geographical and spiritual terms, and then define it in celestial terms like Paradise etc.
The devastation caused by the September floods can be recompensed. But who can salvage us from the self inflicted moral degradation ?
Milton tells us, in the epic, that before their exit from the Paradise, Adam and Eve went to God for His mercy. He ordered angel Michael to open appen till the “Great Flood”. Could, then, we take the September flood as “the Great Flood” and introspect seriously as to what went wrong with our Paradise, in the hope that things would fall in a proper place for the restoration. Has everything happened that had to happen for us? But then God’s ways are inscrutable. So are of us Kashmiris, in no less measure. Let us, for a change, allow this time Almighty His way-which, undoubtedly, is Benevolent and Beneficent and do the restoration work Himself. Amen!
(The author is Former Principal District & Sessions Judge)
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