An immature propagandist narrative veiled very thinly by descriptions of beauty of Kashmir, but unable to hide the ugliness of the local politics dictated from across the border, with false talks of freedom or faith but in reality aimed at massacring non muslims, and generally at grabbing land and property thereof.
The author, Basharat, talks much of freedom, and one wonders how much of that is a calculation to evoke world sympathy, especially in US - does he know about the Civil War of confederate states with the same slogans of freedom and self determination, squashed so very thoughroughly under the yankee boot just post British doing the same to India?
Funnily enough he gives another clue to his mindset, and perhaps there is calculation there of impressing a racist people too, with repeated mentions of light colours of eyes, skin et al, of
people of Kashmir - which is highly amusing, since such light eyes and even hair is far from unknown through India, even as far south as the southern provinces, but not particularly given importance in India as a factor of beauty, much less of any other criteria. As such he is exposing a racist mindset inculcated in pak, and far less subtly than he thinks at that.
One has to wonder if youth brought up on lies and misguided into glorifying death, murders, massacres et al, with scanty excuse of faith or however the ideological garb is thrown on it all to dress up what is naked lust of killing, ever quite grow up and see the scales fall from their mind's eyes, or whether they hold on to the blinders with desperation of fear of seeing light.
Basharat here is frank about his early teen years of idolosing weapon toting jihadi terrorists, wanting to join them, desperation to cross border into pak for training so he could return and kill before dying young, and being not quite dissuaded by his concerned family who persuaded him to first grow up and keep up with education. Funnily enough he mentions his parents being deliberately targeted with mine blast by terrorists, with a narrow escape due to the terrorists' mistake of calculation, but still regards them as righteous and the military that protects people of Kashmir as perpetrators of horrors. Such contradictions abound in the narrative.
Basharat professes pride in independence and freedom of women of his state, in education and achievements of academic nature, but fails to see that if it were not for India protecting those parts of Kashmir that he lived in, the women he is happy to see free might have been shot in head and worse, like women of Kashmir occupied by pak since '48, as Malala was in the northern parts of the state, or worse, like what Afghan women went through during decades of terrorists' rule sponsored by pak.
He mentions "migration" of non muslims out of Kashmir, mostly Hindu, with disdain about their being scared because a "few hundred were killed"; then he is genuine in recounting tale of a night when terrorists attacked the military near his village and the whole village fled across fields to another village from fear of reprisals! Reality is, Hindu Kashmiris and other non muslims of the state were explicitly ordered to leave if they wished to survive without converting, and also informed they could not take any of their belongings with them, including women. Thousands were in fact massacred, and other thousands had their women kidnapped to be taken across border as objects for use of pak terrorists.
That muslims of Kashmir allowed this to happen to their neighbours, and did not defend them against the terrorists from across the border, is easy for someone like him to not see, or excuse. That the military has to defend the nation, including from terrorists and those sympathising with them, can only make sense to those that do not wish to see the nation destroyed.
But Basharat is like the typical teen that regards his own fear, life, pain etc as very important, while discounting those of others, and calling them cowards. His talk of "migration" of Hindus is not unlike that of some Germans talking of Jews fleeing Germany, rather than admit the truth of camps and holocaust.
And of course he fails to see that Kashmir would never be independent, as Baluchistan isn't - in fact they both were until pak attacked each in turn, and while India was able to protect Kashmir at least in parts, those parts of either that India could not protect are since going through horrendous massacres.
He describes military torturing locals while he fails to see or describe, much less compare, the horrors of terrorists raping thousands and killing several times that many, mostly non muslims. Perhaps that is why it matters not at all to him.
Another such contradiction is his inability to see that celebrating pak independence and a black day for independence of India is as asinine as it gets - pak was a piece tourniquetted off the land of India, and without independence of India there would be no pak at all. What's more, independence of India was fought for by those that would rather see the nation whole, while muslim league which wrested a piece for intolerance played no role in the independence struggle, other than collaborating with british rulers and blocking freedom struggle.
That the land given to pak belonged mostly to provinces, with exception of Bengal, that voted against joining pak, but were forced anyway to separate from India, is another such contradiction - and there are many more, in pak official lies, in the pak propaganda of decades since partition, and more.
Basharat should really have a talk with those that know better, such as Tarek Fateh - he might come to see the hideousness of hero worship of a killer sent to murder the descendants of the prophet of his faith, while disdaining the people who gave refuge to the said descendants. There is much more, but it is more or less along the same lines.
Small mistake in book, he mentions "Mahaakaala" being "literally, God of Death" - he is wrong, and he should know that much, having lived in Delhi. Kaala is Time, and death is merely one aspect of the Divine that is associated with Time. Which, also he ought to know, has no finality as such in India, life being but one of many a soul lives through. As such even interpretation of the name as God of Death has only the finality of a curtain ringing down, for the act or for the evening - there is always another performance, another play of Divine, another day, another Dawn. And so the Deity he mentions is merely clearing what needs to be cleared so Creation can continue.
