In Secrets of the Kashmir Valley, Farhana Qazi provides an eye-opening account of the situation in Kashmir, particularly focusing on the role played by women in the conflict as mothers of martyrs, political activists, protestors, martyrs, and wives of militants. Farhana views the story of Kashmir as a story of love, loss, and courage for women. Divided into three parts, the book presents the individual experiences of women in the Kashmir’s conflict that has lasted for over seventy years. In the first chapter, Farhana describes her mother, Nargis Perveen, and her service in the Pakistan Army. Nargis’ story shed light on the beginnings of the conflict in the late 1940s shortly after India and Pakistan gained independence. Chapter 2 features the memories of Farhana’s grandmother nicknamed Nano. Farhana visited Nano’s house and during their conversations, she learned about her family history as well as the protests of the 1980s and 1990s in Kashmir. Chapter 3 focused on the militarization of the Kashmir Valley, where Indian security forces victimize unarmed civilians all the time. An activist named Sunny was the one who took Farhana around Srinagar City while telling her how the militarization had changed people’s lives in Kashmir. In the middle chapters of the book, Farhana visited Mughli, the mother of a missing son, who had disappeared eighteen years earlier. Chapter 5 describes Farhana’s encounter with Amina, the mother of a martyr called Hilal Beig. Hilal was the leader of the National Liberation Front (NLF) before he died in an Indian prison. In Chapter 6, Farhana met Sadia, the bomb girl, who had once volunteered to wear a bomb. Luckily, the operation did not go through and so she was still alive. Chapter 7 describes the work of Yasmine Raja in leading the Muslim’s Women Group. The group organized protests to condemn the sexual harassment of women in Kashmir that was being perpetrated by Indian security officers. The remaining chapters describe a protest in the city led by women, the work of a political activist called Ajum Habib, and the story of a radical Muslim woman called Asiya Andrabi, who spent most of her life in and out of prison in Kashmir and India. Farhana winds up the discussion by describing how in the recent past, the Indian state has imposed restrictions on communication and carried out demolitions of buildings owned by Muslims in Kashmir.
One of the things I liked about the book is that the author reveals the facts, statistics, and history of the conflict in tidbits in every chapter. For you to know more about Kashmir, you have to read one chapter after the other because the stories were told in different time periods and by different people. Another remarkable thing about the book is that Farhana was quick to analyze the looks of the women that she interviewed, the places they lived, and their individual experiences with the conflict in Kashmir. Through the lens of these women’s intimate stories, Farhana is able to implore readers to start caring about the welfare of Kashmiris, especially women. Additionally, Farhana skillfully connects the stories of the women to depict how Kashmir is the place where beauty meets tragedy. The themes of love, loss, and courage are strikingly clear in each chapter. Also, the stories told by the women in the book are compelling enough for readers to start caring about Kashmir. They reveal what it takes for one to survive in a militarized zone that is often marred with unpredictable events such as curfews, lockdowns, and protests among others. Lastly, I liked how Farhana puzzled herself with questions in the book either based on her previous research or the raw emotions of the women she met. The search for answers to these questions definitely set the course of the discussion in the entire book.
The only negative aspect of the book is the presence of grammar and spelling mistakes. However, most of the errors appear to be purely unintentional and can easily be corrected.
By considering that the book has more positive aspects than negative aspects, I think it would be reasonable to give this book a rating of 4 out of 5 stars. I deducted one point because of the grammar mistakes that are evident in the book. For the most part, however, the book was professionally edited.
I would recommend this book to people who are interested in knowing what is happening in the Kashmir Valley. This may include human rights activists, lawmakers, female politicians, media reporters, scholars in the field of security studies and women studies, and government security agencies among others. It is my belief that when they read this book, they will learn the hard facts about the conflict in Kashmir and spread the word to the world.
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