Journalism
From 1997 to 2004 I reported for Rediff, from Kashmir and Kargil and from across India. A selection, with links to the pieces as they first appeared.
Kashmir and Kargil
Blood in the snow
1999 A ten-part series on a decade of conflict in the valley.
Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The lost generation
2001–03 The children of Kashmir: orphans, survivors, and boys drawn into militancy.
Where daily life is deadly business
1999 Kargil town under Pakistani shelling.
‘The next time you hear the swish you don’t wait. You sprint’
1999 What it is like to come under shellfire.
Batalik, the army’s toughest call
1999 The terrain and the fighting in Batalik.
Memories fester in Maqbool Bhat’s village
1999 Trehgam, the JKLF founder’s home village, at election time.
The slaughter of democracy
1999 An eyewitness account of polling day in Kupwara.
‘Wherever they saw a turban, they fired’
2001 The killing of six Sikhs in Srinagar.
One minute alive. The next, killed. This is Kashmir
2001 An eyewitness account of a protest near Baramulla, during the ceasefire, when security forces opened fire and four demonstrators died.
A soldier’s story
2001 A soldier’s life in Srinagar.
‘Return to Kashmir… for what?’
2003 Kashmiri Pandits in the Muthi migrant camp, Jammu.
Across India
The world of wheelchairs
1997 Inside the army’s paraplegic centre in Pune, and the soldiers who might lose it. Photographs by Jewella C Miranda.
Boys 2 Men
1998 Forty-two days at the army’s commando school in Belgaum, told in the second person. Photographs by Jewella C Miranda.
82 hours with the People’s War
1998 A diary from the Dandakaranya forests, with Naxalite guerrillas.
The jihad within
1999 Muslims in Malappuram, Kerala, ostracised by orthodox groups.
Of profit and predation
2000 Ersama, Orissa, after the super cyclone.
Christians in the Hindi heartland
2000 A five-part series on violence against Christians and the fight over conversion.
Interviews
Syed Salahuddin
2001 The Hizbul Mujahideen chief, interviewed in Islamabad.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani
2001 On the cease-fire and the rifts in the Hurriyat.
Mirwaiz Omar Farooq
1997 The Hurriyat leader on his role and Kashmir’s politics.
General V P Malik
2001 The army chief’s account of the Kargil war. Three parts, with Josy Joseph.
Ganapathy
1998 The People’s War Group leader, in the forest, after the merger with Party Unity.
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed
1999 On the polls and militancy.
Hashim Qureshi
2001 Critical of both Pakistan-backed militancy and Indian security excesses.