Rumour Has Us…

SHEIKH ABID

HAVE you ever heard the Kashmiri proverb – ‘Gayi Ho Gayi Ho Zaine Kadle thokh’ – depicting our age-old obsession with rumours and the aftermath of it.

Well according to legend, in the olden days, it is said that a foreigner had visited Kashmir. He wanted to learn about the inhabitants of Kashmir & know about their common behavioural responses. What he did was he rambled around the city & stood at the Zaina Kadal bridge. He spat into the river & then looked at the spot where his spittle had fallen, and said, “Where has it gone? Where has it gone?” The passers-by asked the meaning of this. He did not reply, but continued saying, “Where has it gone?” More & more people crowded around him. It grew into a large assembly of people. He got apprehensive that the wooden bridge (that time, all bridges were wooden) may break which would put lives of all the people around him in great danger. He didn’t want that to happen. So, he told the crowd: “Look I spat into the river & was checking where my spittle had gone”. On hearing this, the crowd scattered & when he returned to his country, he called his friends and told them how stupid the people of Kashmir were!

So since that time, we have the proverb “Zain e Kaddaleh Pethe Gayi Thokh Hoyo or Gayi Ho Gayi Ho Zaine Kadle” used quite often in spoken Kashmiri.

• The reputation

Walter Lawrence, in his book ‘The Valley of Kashmir’ mentions: “In the past, in the city of Srinagar, there was an evil system among Kashmiris, of disseminating false rumours. Srinagar’s Zaina Kadal, the fourth bridge then, and the sixth bridge now, in a sequence of bridges spanned over the Jhelum by Sultans of Kashmir, used to be the hub where false rumours were hatched. But then the newsmakers moved to Amira Kadal, the sixth bridge, wherefrom they further passed it on to others who would take it to villages & towns as Afwah -Dali of Shehar. Though the wise knew that news from Zaina Kadal, which was locally called Khabar-e-Zain-e-Kadal-e-Chi, was false, ‘the majority were not that wise’.”

• Rumours, a part of our life

Kashmir, from the very ancient historic times to recent times, and even with the new-age communication tools, has remained geographically cut off from the rest of the world. Which makes its populace vulnerable to varied illogical and laughable rumours and canards. Besides, the area had been engulfed in decades-long conflict with frequent communication blockades, press and media gags, and bans on various print publications since the middle 1950s, giving enough room for the proliferation of word-of-mouth information and the resultant contamination of it with every person forwarding it to next.

These incidents of rumour-based fear psychosis touched its peak in the 1990s insurgency and the deadly phase it brought with it along with a toll on Kashmiris’ mental health which is testimony to the fact that everyone in five Kashmiris is suffering from mental health related issues – with PTSD on top.

There is an interesting anecdote about Kashmir that even if one sneezes loudly at Lal Chowk, downtown or Maisuma – by the time it reaches the interiors of towns and villages, chances are this sneeze would have taken the form of a bomb blast. Such is the level of fake canards in the Valley. And then, modern day pseudo journalists (read churn-alists), self declared social media influencers and v-loggers have made the situation worse with each passing day.

Therefore, it is no surprise that with every fear-triggering rumour, Kashmiris throng markets to collect essential items. And petrol is always on top of the list.

• Rumour-mongering and obsession with petrol

Be it the war in Ukraine or the prime ministerial elections in Pakistan, be it the news of a border dispute in Dokhlam or the sinking of a fishing boat in the Arabian sea; the people in Kashmir, within no time, find themselves jumbled up at petrol and diesel filling stations. I still wonder if a rumour of the Third World War happening or the world coming to an end with the apocalypse were to spread in Kashmir, would the Kashmiris still line up at petrol pump stations!? I mean, what will they do with extra petrol if the world were coming to an end! Or do they think they can escape to another planet?

Just a few days back, Indian truck drivers and bus operators in some states had protested against provisions in the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita for hit-and-run cases. Under the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), which replaced the colonial era’s Indian Penal Code, drivers, who cause a serious road accident by negligent driving and run away without informing the police or any official from the administration, can face punishment of up to 10 years and a fine of Rs 7 lakh. Many transporter and farmer organisations strongly criticised the new law and demanded its immediate repeal.

While the law was still being discussed and a light response from truck drivers hinted at a strike call, Kashmiris, as usual, trooped out of their houses in the bone-chilling subzero temperatures, all set to get their vehicles, cans, bottles, even polybags & the famous Kashmiri dikchi (Kashmiri copper utensil used to prepare wazwan curry) filled with petrol! What astonished me the most is the fact that let’s suppose the alleged strike and chakka jaam call by the truckers was serious, what should have been our priority? Stocking up on important life saving medicines, food items, winter stocks or petrol? I mean, don’t we queue up at the wrong places in times like that? While succumbing to fear-triggering rumours, we ourselves disturb the demand-supply ratio, creating a shortage ourselves.

But yes, let’s also mention that this is Kashmir and everything & anything is possible here. The past has shown us that sometimes the craziest of rumours have turned out to be a reality later. It is often said about Kashmir that everything you hear here is false except the rumours which come true in the end. The drama before August 5, 2019 serves as the perfect example of this & we have been witness to the denial of abrogation by the top bureaucratic machinery along with the former state heads till the special status was washed away under the carpet of silence, denial & darkness.

Still the infamous proverb ‘Zain e Kaddaleh Pethe Gayi Thokh Hoyo or Gayi Ho Gayi Ho Zaine Kadle’ is relevant as much as the popular saying – ‘Only the rumours are true here, rest is all fake news and promises’’.

We leave the ball in your court to decide what you agree with!

(Reference point: M J Aslam’s article titled ‘Deconstructing rumour mongering in Kashmir’)