Caught in the border crossfire: Gurjars of Jora hear staccato of bullet fire and have no land titles Jora Village (Jammu): For the residents of Jora, it was a morning like no other. On August 23, the familiar staccato of bullet fire from across the International Border pierced through the dark silence, abruptly waking up this Gurjar village located barely few metres away. Having woken up to the sound of cross-border firing for decades, the Hussain household, as usual, prepared to wait outside their thatched roof house in case it caught fire. All of them were sitting huddled there, since they feared remaining inside could endanger them if the heavy firing burnt the roof of their house, said Joras village head Imam Hussain, gesturing towards a vacant space outside the thatched roof house. Then a mortar shell landed nearby and injured them severely. Akram Hussain (30), his two sons Aslam (8) and Yunus (4), wife whom the villagers identified only as Bibi (25) and mother Kali Bibi (60) were all taken to Jammu citys GWC Hospital, located at least 25 km away. However, Akram and Aslams wounds proved too severe and the two were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital while the other three continue to undergo treatment. Within three hours, the tragic event would bring to Jora the misfortune of being the lone Indian village to lose human lives in the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan. For a community and a village that has long been vulnerable to the vagaries of competing belligerent nationalism, these tensions serve to underscore their peculiar suffering which has, yet again, been buried under the political furore that followed. WORMS EYE VIEW For decades, the Kashmiri in popular imagination has either been the Valley Muslim, the Kashmiri Pandit, the Dogri Hindu or, off late, the Ladakhi. The Gurjars dont appear to have found space in anybodys imagination as Kashmiris despite the fact they are native to the Pir Panjal region. The village of Jora, or Jorafarm as its residents call it, provides a worms eye view of how their peculiar history, culture, economy and politics ensure that even in places where they are in sizeable numbers, Gurjars continue to endure isolation and severe hardships. Around the time when this village, which is surrounded by Pakistan on three sides, was officially recognised as such in revenue records, sometime in late 70s and early 80s, a group of Gurjar nomads came to inhabit it. As headman Imam Hussain explained, We were nomads for a long time, but settled here in 1982. I was myself born in the adjoining Revangarh village, but settled here with family. All of us are Dodhi Gurjars and our primary occupation is rearing buffaloes for their milk. A cousin of Akram, Bag Ali (20), said the Hussains and his own family both ply the milk trade and, when needed, also trade in buffaloes and sheep. While other communities also reside in the village, the Gurjars are in unusually high numbers here. Sub-divisional magistrate Raginder Sharma of RS Pura tehsil, under which this village is located, said, This became a revenue village around 30-40 years ago. Typically, villages have about 5-7% Gurjar population, with some having a maximum of 20% population. But this village is different. Of the 370-odd families, at least 50% are from the community. UNCERTAIN FUTURE More than three decades after they adopted a sedentary lifestyle, the Gurjars of Jorafarm continue to live with uncertainties not very different from those they had while being nomads: fear of being caught in the crossfire of security forces, no land titles for anything apart from permission for grazing their livestock, poor social and physical infrastructure and hardly any influential and committed political voice of the community to represent it to the authorities. When this reporter visited the village, most residents repeated with astonishment, We have seen bullets being fired by Pakistan in the past. But we have never been targeted with 81 mm mortar shells this way, with an obvious intention to harm . This was really shocking. As a distraught father of the deceased Akram put it, We do not want to do anything with the siyasat between India and Pakistan. We just want to sell milk and live and die here in peace. The administrations i .. Read more at: economictimes.indiatimes/articleshow/41228648.cms?curpg=2&utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 06:06:27 +0000