Aditya Sinha: Death of dreams, rebirth of disorder

Two readers asked me last week where to find my book Death of Dreams A Terrorists Tale published by HarperCollins India in 2000 which also recently published The Spy Chronicles RAW ISI and the Illusion of Peace cowritten by me and former spy chiefs AS Dulat of India and Asad Durrani of Pakistan One youngster on Twitter said that Amazon no longer had Death of Dreams in stock and on Saturday a gentleman approached me after a writers workshop that I addressed on interviews and on interviewing spymasters to ask where he could get a hold of an ebook at leastI was at a loss for Death of Dreams was published before ebooks had become commonplace and the unsolds were pulped by the publisher who took over HarperCollins after mine I wrote to the current publisher to see whether Death of Dreams could be revived from the dead but Im not optimisticLast weeks column spoke of the BJP taking Kashmir back by 25 years to the early 1990s Then on June 19 the party withdrew from the coalition government led by the PDPs Mehbooba Mufti Jammu and Kashmir came under Governors Rule and this time it looks to be a long absence of an elected government as it happened in the 1990s when Governors Rule lasted six years only to be broken by the 1996 assembly election Suddenly Death of Dreams a book that hasnt come to mind for many years became relevant its the story of a Kashmiri militant active in the early 1990s who dreamt of independenceBabar Badr his nom de guerre headed the Muslim Jaanbaaz Force MJF named after a proposal by the late General Ziaul Haq and became notorious for kidnapping Swedish engineers from the Uri power project in 1991 Little surprise that he was on the most wanted list and soon enough the army caught him After the usual humiliations he was thrown into solitary confinement He languished for a while until one day he asked for something to readThe colonel of the battalion where he was prisoner was farsighted He allowed Babar Badr access to his units library and realised there was something different about this militant Gradually he met his prisoner and held discussions on India the twonation theory Pakistan Kashmir Afghanistan azaadi and other politics He and his Major engaged their prisoner in discussion The two sides hostility melted away It was an eyeopener for Babar BadrBabar was transferred to a civilian jail where he stayed for a couple of years before he got bail and fled to Pakistan He spent 1994 meeting a variety of people in several Pakistani cities from various walks of life He discovered two things The Kashmiris who were settled in Pakistan some of them wellsettled advised him not to stick around At first he thought they were jealous and wanted him out of the scene but he soon realised they were merely wellwishers He also had several long interactions with the ISI men overseeing the Kashmir operation from Pakistan Brigadiers Fahd and Faisal possibly cover namesThese ISI brigadiers were different from the Indian army colonel and major They according to Babar were merely interested in giving him weaponry and a list of targets in India When Babar tried to start a conversation with them about the twonation theory or their slogan Kashmir banega Pakistan they looked bored and listless They did not engage him intellectually cutting him short to tell him to focus on his important work in India For Babar it was a snub and another eyeopener So when he did return to India in 1996 he decided after long discussions with associates and fellow travellers to surrender to the government of India and renounce militancyToday Babar Badr is a middleaged family man who uses his real name continuing an intellectual journey of exploration that was sparked by two Indian army officers and raising a family where he wants his children to focus on their studies and be immune to the despair and conflict in their native Valley His greatest fear is that his son will read Death of DreamsBabars is a microcosm of Kashmirs story in the 1990s of how its people of their own choosing spurned the choice offered by Pakistan and ultimately reconciled to life in India All those gains from the turmoil and heavy violence of the 1990s have been undone by Prime Minister Narendra Modis muscular policy We are back to square one The past two years of Delhis deafness and brutal repression have filled Babar with despair We are only waiting for the ultimate destruction he said to me the day after the assassination of Rising Kashmir Editor Shujaat Bukhari The dreams that were shattered once by Pakistan have been shattered again this time by IndiaAdityas latest book The Spy Chronicles RAW ISI and the Illusion of Peace cowritten with AS Dulat and Asad Durrani is now available He tweets autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get 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