History as fiction

IT succeeds as an interesting, readable melange, but fails both as history as well as fiction. And it is certainly not a thriller in the accepted form of the term. The narrative is neither an "exciting or sensational story" nor is it one "involving crime and espionage", though loosely it seems to have both, if militancy is a crime and hatching a conspiracy of sorts is really espionage. Even the catchy title is misleading because there is nothing like a "Srinagar conspiracy" in the narrative. And if at all there is one, it is hatched "several hundred kilometers north-west" of New Delhi, "on the outskirts of the Markaz-ul-Dawa complex at Muridke" in Lahore in the presence of a bin Laden look-alike presiding deity.

The language is more journalistic than literary, and the structure loose, and unwieldy. Yet the debutant author succeeds in making the narrative absorbing by using his material systematically and in an effortless manner. What has been happening in Kashmir in the past decade is the major concern of the book which otherwise has no story really and the real and imaginary characters thrown in serve mainly as tools to carry forward the narrative. In fact, fictional characters have been used to fill in gaps in the narrative that suddenly becomes terribly hurried towards the end.

The author starts on an ambitious and promising note. The prologue does set the tone for the making of a possible thriller but the author suddenly seems to get so enmeshed in the maze of information, that the television journalist overpowers the storyteller in Vikram Chandra. In fact, there is hardly a tangible storyline. Even the intended clash between childhood friends turned foes of a different variety gets mitigated by other constraints even while the two confront one another. But there is an inherent story, with several traversing streams in fact, in the torrid, sordid epic of militancy. The realisation by the no-longer-so-young first batch of militants that their methodology was wrong. Their dreams and aspirations were mis- directed. That the war cry of jihad was a blunder. But the realisation seems to have come rather too late in the day, and after the rivers of blood have flown down from the enchanting waterfalls. Chasme Shahi is no longer a convenient rendezvous for lovers.

But if the prematurely drooping shoulders of the disillusioned Kashmiri Muslims tell a sorry tale, the role of the Central Government in containing militancy is a pathetic story of misadventure. Vikram Chandra often seeks to bring this out to demand an explanation. Two reflective passages need to be quoted to answer the two pointers. First, "Habib is still in Maisuma. No one pays too much attention to him any more, everyone is too busy trying to survive. The security forces are still running wild, often picking up innocent people and killing them. A great way to win over the people of the state. I don't know why the government doesn't just send all the soldiers to the Line of Control. Let them plug the LoC to prevent all these foreign militants from coming through and leave all of us civilians alone." A lot of people have continued to silently ask that question from successive governments but without any convincing reply.

And the second, how easy it is for an unlawful entry into the country from any border. Sample this one: "It never failed to amaze him how porous the border really was. Though the Indians had realised a long time back that infiltration from Pakistan was the main reason why the insurgency in Kashmir still survived, they hadn't yet been able to figure out a way to systematically plug the frontier. In the higher mountainous stretches near Kapwara or Baramulla, the problem was the altitude and terrain that didn't allow any fences to be erected. But even here, in the plains, there was little barbed wire, no trenches, no landmines, just a vague imaginary line running along a river bed."

Vikran Chandra knows his ground and material very well and has put together a narrative that will serve as instant account of the continuing insurgency in Kashmir, what brought it about, and what the government ought to do to find an amicable solution. Perhaps the policy planners in the Home Ministry will relearn some home truths about the Kashmir problem.

SURESH KOHLI

The Srinagar Conspiracy: A Novel, Vikram A. Chandra, Penguin, Rs. 250.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Rich literary treat
Next     : Mirror of democracy