It's an eerie feeling, even for a long-time resident of high-security Delhi. The ubiquitous police barricade is part of life in India's Very Important Capital and we have grown to accept it.

But this?

. While I drive past, ordinary citizens queue up at the barricade. They answer questions and put up their hands so the police personnel can frisk them and confiscate whatever they might be carrying. The scene etches itself in my mind, almost like a sepia-tinted frame from a '50s war movie.

This is the start of my guilt trip. As I travel in Kashmir, I often feel I'm not in my country. The overwhelming presence of the army and the BSF, the all- too-frequent check-posts and the piercingly sharp questions posed by citizens - all say that if this is India, this is not normal India. And I'm in a deep moral dilemma: As a journalist do I report what I see? Or am I Indian first, determined to see no wrong in Kashmir? I resolve the dilemma by deciding that there is no dilemma. For Kashmir to stay with us, more importantly for Kashmiris to stay with us in mind and body, we must acknowledge the wrongs done there. Without this vital step, we can secure our borders, enhance our intelligence, gather all the tactics we want from Israel, but not win the trust of the people. In short, make no headway.

I left for Srinagar believing that the Valley had turned around: Reports said that, yes, there was no let up in Pakistan-backed militancy. But no, there was no popular backing for this. Indeed, that the people had reconciled themselves to a future with India. Sadly, I didn't see this reflected on the ground. True, there is hardly any support for Pakistan. But there is hardly any support for India. Instead there is resentment and anger - whether along the Dal Lake, outside Hazratbal or in interior Kashmir. The stories repeat themselves too - of young boys picked up for questioning one day, and their bodies returned to their families the next. It is almost as if there is no family where a member has not made the mandatory trip to the interrogation cell.

(Some) sound calm, almost resigned ... The mood is more hostile at Hazratbal .... "Why don't you leave us alone?" ... "Look, we are not against you. But for us you are India." They are sore about rigged elections, puppet regimes, the Abdullah family's self-indulgent ways, and worse, about the official presumption that each one of them is a terrorist. Their preference line-up: Azadi, Pakistan, India. I face more anger at the house of Mohammad Rafiq Baqal, a shopkeeper at LD market, recently shot dead by the BSF. Baqal's neighbourhood is mourning his death, and in protest, nt onc shop has opened. Up in the hills of Pathribal, there is the same despondency. This is the spot where five young civilians perished in a fake encounter in March ...

POK is not Pakistan. Terrorists are freedom fighters. This is the constant refrain even in interior Kashmir. And this explains the contradiction between lack of support for Pakistan and support for militancy. And attached to militancy is the notion of Azadi, the almost innocent beliefthat for militants freedom is more important than Pakistan ... As Mirwaiz Umer Farooq says, "Azadi is avague concept. It is not necessarily for a separate state or Pakistan. It means alienation."

In Kashmir, there's no upsurge as in the mid-'90s. But there is enormous anger and hurt. Feelings natural to any people exploited politically and hounded by the security forces. For this situation to change, Farooq Abdullah and the BJP must stop playing games. Kashmiris have a strong sense of identity. But Abdullah-style autonomy makes no sense when panchayat elections are not held in years, when salaries are held up and there are no jobs for most. It makes even less sense when the state-run Task Force feels free to pick up innocent citizens. For its part, the BJP must understand that India cannot feel secure when Kashmiris are so insecure. (Source: The Times of India, 13 July, 2000)