A Reluctant Soldier

The young CRPF trooper the author met has not made his peace with his job. He is an Indian soldier, but he wants you to remember that he is a Kashmiri first

It was a cold December night in Jammu. After travelling around 300 km in a rugged Tata Sumo vehicle from Srinagar, I arrived at the Jammu Tawi railway platform. I was scheduled to attend a media workshop at a journalism school in Chennai. The Andaman Express was to leave the station at around 11 pm. My destination was two days and three nights away, and a gruelling train journey of more than 3,000 km lay ahead of me.

After identifying my berth, I immediately dropped my luggage. Tired, I slept like a log. The first night passed like it never was. The next morning, the light flickering in from the train’s small window woke me up. A young man was sitting on the opposite berth. He came forward to greet me in Kashmiri. With sleep-strained eyes, I could see him smile.

We shook hands; his was a firm handshake. He introduced himself, first as a Kashmiri, which was evident in his features. Then came the surprise—he was a CRPF trooper by profession. In his late twenties, strongly built, he had sharp features like a young soldier. But quite unlike a trooper, a shy smile permanently played on his innocent-looking face.

Some three years ago, he told me, he was selected by a CRPF recruitment drive that had reached his native village in Budgam district of Kashmir. Every year since then, he comes home to spend some time with his family. When we met last December, his vacation had got over. Now he was heading back to attend to his duties at a remote CRPF camp in Andhra Pradesh. 

“My mother weeps every time I leave home for my camp in Andhra Pradesh,” he told me. “I can face bullets, but I can’t stand my mother weeping in front of me,” he says. The image of his mother kissing him goodbye, with tears in her eyes, disturbs him for many months on duty. “I keep thinking about it here,” he says, “even when I am out in the field on night patrol.”

To pass the many free hours on the train, we shared food, jokes, and all those stories of our growing up in the Kashmir of the 1990s. We had many of them to share. And ironically, many stories from our growing up years featured CRPF troopers. And all those unforgettable moments of our childhood—innumerable curfews, harsh crackdowns and search operations—form an inseparable part of the memories of our homeland.

This young man from Kashmir had become a CRPF trooper, except that he was not posted on the streets of Kashmir. And that is the only thing he liked about his job—the fact that he was not patrolling the streets of Kashmir as a CRPF trooper.  “It would have been difficult as people would not have identified me as a Kashmiri,” he says. “They would have seen my CRPF uniform first. They would have seen me as an Indian soldier and hated me.” The hatred would have been unbearable for him. He is aware of this painful irony that comes attached to his job. And he says he doesn’t want to be posted in Kashmir as a CRPF trooper, ever.

On a lazy afternoon, as the train gently swayed us back and forth, I finally asked the question that was playing on my mind for long. It was as if the entire conversation till then was a lead up to this question.

Why the CRPF?

“Baekeree hez aes,” he answered in Kashmiri. Because of unemployment, he replied. One fine day some years back, a CRPF recruitment drive reached his village. Being unemployed, like many youth from his village, he too showed up in the playing field where a large number of unemployed youth had gathered, hoping to land a job. His height and muscular build caught the attention of CRPF recruiters. “They asked me to remove my shirt and breathe in and breathe out,” he recalls. “I did that. They were impressed. And I was selected,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone, still smiling.

That he would become a CRPF trooper was not on his mind at the time of his recruitment. As he waited for his results, he says the only thing he was thinking of at that time was his family: his unmarried sisters, his ageing father, and his mother, a heart patient who would constantly worry about her daughters’ marriage, and about her unemployed son—until that day.

The next day, he was asked to pack his bags. Along with a few more youth selected from other villages, he left for a remote village in Andhra Pradesh, where he continues to be posted till date. Reconciling his Indian-CRPF-soldier self with his Kashmiri-youth identity has been most difficult. This peculiar identity—of being a Kashmiri who earns a living as a CRPF trooper—has given him many sleepless nights, and put many unresolved questions in his mind. Among all his colleagues from other states of India, he stood out for living with these two identities. Despite wearing the same indistinguishable CRPF uniform, he was different. Among his colleagues there was only suspicious acceptance of his being an ‘Indian soldier’. It was not said openly, he says, “but I could feel it”.

The fault lines became more visible every time India played Pakistan in a cricket match. Along with other Kashmiri colleagues in his battalion—and unlike his colleagues from other states—he always instinctively cheered for the Pakistani team. This support was inherent in him, something that comes naturally to youth growing up in Kashmir, something that his colleagues didn’t understand. Along with a few of his Kashmiri colleagues, he would tune into the live commentary on his small transistor that he carried along, even while out on field duty. His colleagues from other states of India didn’t like him for cheering the Pakistani team. There were many fights over this, but he didn’t pretend otherwise.

He says he tried to make his colleagues understand that cheering for the Pakistani cricket team did not mean he was a Pakistani. Only a few of his colleagues would understand that. The rest suspected him of disloyalty—for being a Muslim and Kashmiri by conviction, and an Indian CRPF soldier by profession. The differences between him and his colleagues from other states grew starker with time. This resulted in many hours of solitude and doubt, mixed with fear and intense longing for home.

If he got some job back home, say, in Kashmir Police, would he come back, I asked. The question evoked a thoughtful silence. The young man looked around and asked for a pen from a fellow passenger. On a small piece of paper, he wrote down his address and phone number. “Please let me know if you find some job for me in Kashmir,” he requested, after handing me the paper. And he was not particular about getting a job in the Kashmir Police.

Many months have passed since that train journey. As I write this, he might be on duty, in his CRPF uniform, patrolling a remote village in Andhra, and thinking of his ailing mother who wants him back. And he might still be struggling to reconcile the questions of his split-identity.

Kashmirsoldiertrooper