AsiaNet-Pakistan Premier Editorial Content and Press Release Distribution Service
Srinagar, January 14, 2017 (PPI-OT):In occupied Kashmir, a painter, Mohammad Rafiq, is suffering from continued depression ever since he was tortured during custody by Indian police for painting the real picture of the territory during the mass uprising in 2010.
He has to abandon his passion of painting due to the fear of reprisal. Rafiq’s room, in the outskirts of Srinagar, itself is filled with sprinkled colours, paints, brushes, paintings, and canvases with half-made paintings.
Ever since the 2016 uprising broke out in occupied Kashmir, Rafiq has been unable to draw. “I wanted to give vent to my feelings but I could not, due to the fear of the government. I wanted to show to the world the sufferings of people through my work, but I could not,” Rafiq said in an interview. “You can call me a coward but only I know what I went through in 2010 when I landed in a police station for drawing pictures that had offended the government,” he said.
Whenever Rafiq has an urge to draw, there is a brief movement of the paintbrush on the canvas but then he instantly drops the brush. “This has been my routine for the past few months. I am not able to concentrate anymore. I have become depressed and am on anti-psychotic drugs,” Rafiq said when I visited him.
In the summer of 2010, Rafiq, like thousands of Kashmiris, had expressed his protest against the killings that took place that year, except that the means of protest had been his paintbrush. For that, Rafiq spent a week in a police station. “It was a series of paintings depicting the pain of Kashmir and they condemned the atrocities of the government. Hence I landed in the police station,” Rafiq said.
Since then, he stopped drawing anything that he felt the government would not like. But the summer uprising of 2016 made him feel a sense of duty and he tried to start painting the grim picture of occupied Kashmir again. “There was a voice trying to push me to draw, but then there was another, saner voice, continuously reminding me of the 2010 episode. That episode had a serious impact on my family. I did not want them to suffer like they did in 2010,” he said.
Rafiq said that he was warned by police to not indulge in “anti-national” activities or he would have to face “dire consequences”. “I was threatened to not draw anything that is anti-India or anti-government,” he recalled.
Dr Waris Qadri, a psychiatrist who has been treating Rafiq, said that his patient was battling between his conscience and his passion. He said that Rafiq first visited him in the month of August, at the peak of the anti-India protests. “He told me of his condition and asked my opinion. I told him to act safe. He controlled his urge and compromised with his passion,” Dr Waris said.
For more information, contact:
Kashmir Media Service
Email: info@kmsnews.org
Phone: 92-51-4435548, 4435549
Fax: 92-51-4861736