They snatched my playground

Are you with India or against India?’ This is the dominant question facing every Kashmiri Muslim today. When Khalid Jehangir asked himself this question, he realised that he wanted to be with India. He also felt Kashmir needed to be with India. Why? Khalid wants to tell the world, Kashmiri Muslims are as nationalistic as anyone else. They want to be a part of India, moving rapidly towards becoming a developed nation, on a prosperity arc. Khalid feels BJP as a political force is evolving in Jammu and Kashmir and will bring in the integration that Kashmir needs. In his book, he says Kashmir’s aspirational youth are fed up of terrorism, which has destroyed its tourism and economy. They have no hopes of jobs, nor futures. Religious militancy is not what Kashmir is all about. He reiterates, Kashmiris have always practised the Islam of Sufis which is about syncretism. Hizbul and Jamaat-e-Islami extremists call it kufr. Khalid’s marriage to a Christian girl from Thanjavur introduced him to the multi-religious, secular India. Though a Muslim, he was married in a temple and in a church and he shared a meal with Hindu priests and Christian Fathers. It is Khalid’s quest for a secular democratic Kashmir that has brought forth this book that profiles through a personal journey, a larger political perspective.

About the Author

Sheikh Khalid Jehangir is a journalist and a politician,and a core member of Bharatiya Janata Party. He is an alumnus of Burn Hall School. Before joining national politics he worked with national, international media news bureaus in India and abroad. He contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the Srinagar constituency. He served as vice chairman of J&K Projects Construction Corporation (JKPCC), and has received prestigious Fellowship from SEAC, Pennsylvania, USA, where he specialised in diplomacy and outreach programmes. At 22, he was the youngest Kashmiri representative at UN Commission for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland. He lives with wife and with two daughters in Srinagar, Kashmir.