Salman Rushdie Midnight's children Salman Rushdie Midnight's ...

ageing of pregnant Amina Sinai… all these terrible conditions were to be c
ured as a result of the adoption, by the Government, of my dream of visitin
g Kashmir. In the meantime, the flinty refusals of my sister to countenance
my love had driven me into a deeply fatalistic frame of mind; in the grip
of my new carelessness about my future I told Uncle Puffs that I was willin
g to marry any one of the Puffias he chose for me. (By doing so, I doomed t
hem all; everyone who attempts to forge ties with our household ends up by
sharing our fate.)
I am trying to stop being mystifying. Important to concentrate on good hard
facts. But which facts? One week before my eighteenth birthday, on August 8t
h, did Pakistani troops in civilian clothing cross the cease fire line in Ka
shmir and infiltrate the Indian sector, or did they not? In Delhi, Prime Min
ister Shastri announced 'massive infiltration… to subvert the state'; but he
re is Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, with his riposte: 'W
e categorically deny any involvement in the rising against tyranny by the in
digenous people of Kashmir.'
If it happened, what were the motives? Again, a rash of possible explanatio
ns: the continuing anger which had been stirred up by the Rann of Kutch; th
e desire to settle, once and for all, the old issue of who should possess t
he Perfect Valley?… Or one which didn't get into the papers: the pressures
of internal political troubles in Pakistan Ayub's government was tottering,
and a war works wonders at such times. This reason or that or the other? T
o simplify matters, I present two of my own: the war happened because I dre
amed Kashmir into the fantasies of our rulers; furthermore, I remained impu
re, and the war was to separate me from my sins.
Jehad, Padma! Holy war!
But who attacked? Who defended? On my eighteenth birthday, reality took ano
ther terrible beating. From the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, an India
n prime minister (not the same one who wrote me a long ago letter) sent me
this birthday greeting: 'We promise that force will be met with force, and
aggression against us will never be allowed to succeed!' While jeeps with l
oud hailers saluted me in Guru Mandir, reassuring me: 'The Indian aggressor
s will be utterly overthrown! We are a race of warriors! One Pathan; one Pu
njabi Muslim is worth ten of those babus in arms!'
Jamila Singer was called north, to serenade our worth ten jawans. A servant
paints blackout on the windows; at night, my father, in the stupidity of his
second childhood, opens the windows and turns on the lights. Bricks and sto
nes fly through the apertures: my eighteenth birthday presents. And still ev
ents grow more and more confused: on August soth, did Indian troops cross th
e cease fire line near Uri to 'chase out the Pakistan raiders' or to initiat
e an attack? When, on September 1st, our ten times better soldiers crossed t
he line at Chhamb, were they aggressors or were they not?