Joining Hands & Mending Hearts

PHOTO COURTESY: ADHIK KADAM

We bring you someone who has gifted smiles to orphans in Kashmir. Amit Roy, Moderator, The Sip of Life talks to Adhik Kadam whose undying spirit is worth appreciating as till date he has been kidnapped by militants in Kashmir 19 times, survived a bomb blast and faced guns on a number of occasions. Setting up an NGO is not easy there but despite all odds he carries on with his endeavour to make a difference in the lives of the people in the troubled state of India.

ADHIK KADAM

SOL: Share with us how and when it all started? How did you make Valley your second home?

ADHIK:This has been and still is a spiritual journey for me. It began when I was in college in Pune. I was a student of Political Science. I became extremely curious about Act 370 in the constitution- Why does India give special status to article 370 which deals with Kashmir? I began to study the subject more closely. Gradually, we were able to understand the political and conflict situation in Kashmir. In college, I had both Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Hindu friends. Their fights, further fuelled our desire to make a physical visit to Kashmir, to see the situations with our own eyes. So, in 1997, we made our first trip to Jammu for a study visit, but were stopped at Patni Top, a location of particular strategic advantage due to its height. We were not allowed to go beyond this point. So, we observed and interacted with the Kashmiri pundits in the Hindu migrant camps in Jammu, and made a report on what we saw.

After this first trip, we increased our interactions with the Kashmiri Pandit community, becoming more interested in their life and activity. In 1998, I got to know few more friends, including Bharati Mamani who is a co-founder of Borderless World Foundation (BWF), who too got interested in the issue. Other organisations also got involved in the process. We took out a peace march in different towns of Jammu and Kashmir to bring the two communities together. To organise this march, we had to make several visits to the state. Thus our interactions with the local community, villagers, army officers etc gradually increased. Bharati and I got deeply involved in the management of these events. Then, we began working on a self-commisioned, self-funded project on model village. We began touring the the interior villages of the valley such as Baramulla, Anantnag, Pulwama, Kupwara and other border districts, staying in the villages at people’s homes, talking to them, trying to understand their problems, etc. Initially people received us with a lot of surprise and shock. The situation here in those days, I am talking about the period between late 1990s- early 2000, was extremely tense and unsparing. Militancy was at its height, there was very little trust even between people in the valley. So, some people received us with warmth and surprise, while others were extremely cautious, at times even distrustful, thinking us to be informers from either side. Army doubted us to be militant informers, and the “other” camp thought us to be army informer.

The day I felt deep love for the people and community of Kashmir, that very moment it became my second home. I can’t point at a single moment in time when it happened, but it just happened.

SOL: What made you set up a home for the orphaned children during militancy?

ADHIK: We came here to study, but after our interactions and experiences over the course of four years, we gave up our study, and decided to take a practical step. After the completion of the UNICEF project, we delved deeper into the issue of orphans in the valley. What we learned was shocking. For one there were more than 24, 000 orphans in Kupwara district alone!

These were the kids who were turning to drugs, militancy, violence due to lack of any proper guidance, and due to the chaos and breakdown of all civic administration at the time. There were no facilities for the male kids, leave alone for the girls, who were in the most despicable and vulnerable situation. There was no place girls could go for safety or their overall growth. We had seen girls as young as 14 who had been married off, or had been sexually abused, and were either pregnant or already nursing babies in their arms.

In a society where the male and female energy is not in a balance, that society will never prosper. That’s when we decided to start a home for orphan girl children. We started our first home in Kupwara in 2002, to provide not only shelter but an opportunity for a dignified and contributive life to as many girl children as we could.

SOL: What is Borderless World Foundation (BWF) all about? Do you have any financial support?

ADHIK: The Borderless World Foundation (BWF) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit, registered organization based at Pune, Maharashtra. Established in March 2002, BWF aims to provide a ‘Humane Touch’ to the border areas of India and beyond. BWF receives its financial support from its friends, well-wishers and all those who understand its mission and think beyond the man-made barriers such as caste, religion, state, language.

This spirit is the realization of oneness between oneself and others, of transcending the borders that exist within our own heart and mind. It is people who live with this borderless spirit, who comprise our friends, supporters and those who work here. And it is with this spirit that our friends have been coming forward to support us in all manners possible.

SOL: How did you manage setting it up, especially Kashmir being a troubled state?

ADHIK: Being a Hindu, working in a Muslim society for Muslim girls was not easy. People were very suspicious about us in the beginning.

When we started our first home in 2002 in Kupwara, we faced a lot of opposition from the locals here. On several occasions fatwas were issued against us by the local maulavis, even as we continued to receive threats from the militants. I was personally taken hostage by them some 19 times, but was released with due respect. We had already made a commitment deep inside, and there was no way we were recanting our steps.

Our only option was to persist in our chosen field, and continue building bonds of friendship and trust with those around us. Our main purpose was not to defeat anyone. We wanted to take every person, even those who didn’t wish us well, along and advance together and win together. Our efforts finally began bearing fruit. Seeing our work and persistence, the local community warmed upto us. Finally in 2006 we set up two more homes, in Beerwah and Anantnag. And finally, in 2009, we set up a home in Jammu for the migrant Kashmiri Hindus who had left the valley.

SOL: Tell about your experience when you survived a bomb blast?

ADHIK: In the year 1999, I was travelling from Kupwara to Srinagar by local Sumo along with the local passengers. We left the town around 9 am, and came to an army camp after Sangrama junction on my left where security personals were stopping civilian vehicles for checking. There was an army convoy entering the camp and our vehicle was right in front. The way out was also blocked and only Army vehicles were moving out. It was tardy process, but waiting for routine practice for everyone. So we all waited inside our vehicles. I was little sleepy.

Suddenly there was a movement. A boy, around 14 years of age, dressed in an army uniform ran behind an army vehicle entering the camp. He was wearing sports shoes, which gave away that he couldn’t have been a security personnel. As he ran inside the entrance gate, the next moment there was a big blast. We jumped on our seat, passengers in our vehicle covered their heads in their laps. The next moment a piece of flesh fell on front glass with a “thup”; it was quivering with fresh blood gushing out.

An uncontrolled firing started, bullets flew in all directions. It was a fidayeen attack, a human bomb! The firing stopped in some minutes and security personnels came to search the civilian vehicles, including ours. They let us go but not before beating up our driver, and other drivers too. It was heartbreaking. I couldn’t do anything. I was appaled and shocked, my mind racing from one thought to another. Why I am here? Should I leave this place? Who was the boy? Was he aware of what he did? 6-7 security men died on the spot and God knows how many got injured. Who is responsible for this? How can people kill one another? Are they mad? Who asked the boy to blow his body in the army camp? What could have prompted him give up kill himself and many others? On enquiring from my fellow passengers, they told me that they had seen, heard and experienced many such incidents since last six years.

Throughout that day and many more days to come, the scenes of the blast, the mangled remains, the quivering piece of human flesh, the sound of firing, innocents being beaten up replayed in my mind. I was silent. I was completely shocked. I was studying political science in SP College, Pune, to understand political situation and to study Act 370 in depth, I started visiting Kashmir and locals too.  After reaching my friend’s place, I narrated the whole incident to him. He gave me a cup of tea, and while going to his office, said, “Welcome to Kashmir”.

This came as another shock. I was alone at home, feeling helpless. I cried a lot the whole day. I was left with only two options, either I should leave Kashmir immediately and go to Pune to live with my parents, or take the risk of staying here and being killed in order to pursue my study and travel in Kashmir. I sat down for meditation, went into deep silence again. That entire night I studied something which was inside me. I discovered my third option – Why not live with the Kashmiri people. I could live amongst them and work for them. There is so much confusion between Kashmir and the rest of our country. There must be some purpose in my being there at such time. Some divine plan in action in my travelling all the way from Pune to Kashmir, witnessing everything around me at a time when all the negative forces are at their active most. “What is the worse that can happen if I stayed here,” I thought. I may get killed in the confusion, but that’s fine. I realized my purpose in life and thanked God for all his presence in every moment of my life. Early the next morning, with the message clear in my heart, I promised myself to work in Jammu & Kashmir till my last breath.

SOL: We have been told that militants have kidnapped you many times? Is it true? How do you still continue to carry on?

ADHIK: When I was kidnapped by the militants for the first time, is when I experienced fear in its truest sense. At the same moment, I also experienced being fearless. In 1998, one evening Bharati and I were on our way to a village called Gushi, in Kupwara. All of a sudden, we came face to face with a group of some 11 militants. At that moment, I told her, “shayad hum gaye” (We are gone) and she agreed. They stopped us, one of them hit me with his AK 47 on my knees. They started abusing us as well as India, called us Kafir etc. We responded saying that we have come from Bombay, we are educated and belonging to good families. We have come here to do some good, and if you think we should go away, then we will go away. All this conversation happened within a matter of one minute, both of us simultaneously handling a volley of questions. They suddenly gave way. One them spoke in English, asked us where do we stay. He let us go, asking us not to turn back. One of them kick started the bike for me as my knees were hurting. Thereafter, I have been kidnapped several times. But our interaction with the locals and community, as well as army and militants continued, at times for the model village project, or for UNICEF’s project on children affected by armed conflict in Jammu and Kashmir. In 1999, during the Kargil war, we were in Kargil for several months.

The Great Way is not difficult, we make it difficult. After facing my fears and death so many times, I have come to believe that there is no need to manage anything. There is no need to plan anything, as it is already planned, all our sufferings, joys, troubles, agonies, ecstacies. I am a mere carrier of the divine plan.

SOL: Share with us some of the memorable experiences with orphans while carrying forward your project?

ADHIK: Each moment I spend with them is memorable and is close to my heart.

One day a sarpanch (village head) of the nearby village, got us three sisters for admission. The youngest Soha was barely 15 months old, the elder Roshni was around six yrs, and Halima, the oldest, was 16 yrs old. Both their paternal uncles were terrorists, and were killed on a same day. On hearing the news, their father too passed way. Unable to bear these losses, the mother lost her mind. The baby, Soha, was put in my lap. I used to cradle her to sleep. She is now three years old, and calls me papa. Seeing her growing up is a very different feeling, and this joy is unexplainable.

One of my biggest pride took place this year in July when I did the kanyadaan (Kanyadaan is one of the most vital rituals in Hindu Culture, which is performed in conformity to Vedic scriptures. ‘Gift of a girl’, the literal meaning of Kanyadaan, signifies the custom in which a girl is gifted by a father to a groom) for our oldest girl Halima, who turned 19 this year. We had given her training in tailoring before she got married. She now runs her own tailoring shop at her home, while her husband works in a farm.

These are two of numerous fond memories with the children, many more are in the making.

SOL: How do you feel militancy has affected people of the state? How do you bring an end to it?

ADHIK: Conflict is not outside, it is inside us. It is a reflection of our own mind. When people don’t feel trusted, loved, respected, accepted by the mainstream it results in conflict. We need a greater mutual understanding between us. Militancy is a form of reaction; our mind reacts impulsively to the various conflicting situations. If we do not deal with the real source of this conflict, i.e. our mind itself, but only work with the reflection of this real conflict, then this problem will persist. At present we are only dealing with the reflection- whether it is militancy, community or children. When we will begin to deal directly with the hearts and minds of people, helping them thaw their hearts and open up their minds, the change will automatically set in at the most fundamental level.

I would like to quote a beautiful thought which I read somewhere- “Healing the children’s wounds will help them to survive a war or conflict. Healing their spirit will prevent the next war.”

To know more about The Borderless World Foundation visit http://bwfindia.org.in/