India-Managed Srinagar, Kashmir – On Saturday morning in Fate Kadal, a densely packed neighbour in the sloped construction of the Jeram River in Srinagar, the largest city in Kashmir managed by the Indians, Hajira, 62, wrapped a cotton scarf with a brown poisoner design.
She sat on the cement floor of a government-run grain shop, with the muscles in her face tense and sweating across her upper lip.
“Can I make it faster?” she called the person in the store.
Hajira comes to the store every month to submit her biometric details. This requires the government to ensure a monthly allocation of subsidized grain, which the four families rely on.
But this time it was different. The past few days have been unprecedented for the residents of Kashmir, managed by India. Drones floated above their heads, airports closed, explosions rang, people were killed in fires that crossed borders, and the area was prepared for the possibility of a full-scale war.
“He put me in line,” she said, referring to the store operator, flinching from the pain in her knees. “But there is uncertainty. I want a share of the meal so I can go back soon. War is here.”
Then, on Saturday evening, Hajira sighed in a relief. President of the United States Donald Trump has announced that he has successfully brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
“Thank you to Allah,” Hajira said. “Perhaps he understood that he had no way to withstand the economic difficulties that war-like circumstances would have caused.”
On Sunday morning, Trump goes a step further and works with India and Pakistan in his post on his true social platform to resolve a long-standing dispute over Kashmir, partially controlled by both countries, where each of them argues other managers.
Zafar Choudhary, a political analyst based in Jammu, Kashmir, managed by southern India, told Al Jazeera that New Delhi was not satisfied with Trump’s statement. India has long argued that Pakistan-sponsored “terrorism” is the main reason for tensions among nuclear-armed neighbours.
But “Trump’s offer highlights the fact that Kashmir is at the heart of the India-Pakistan conflict,” Choudhary said.
And for Kashmiris, hope stemming from a fragile suspension in the fight between India and Pakistan, Trump’s offer to mediate consultations with Kashmir has been tempered by decades of desperate peace.
“I’ve never been more scared.”
Recently, hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris between India and Pakistan have been in direct fires.
When neighboring countries launched missiles and drones on each other, India-promoted Kashmir communities witnessed cross-border artillery fire on an invisible scale for decades over the decades, triggering the departure of people to safer locations.
The shadow of the conflict has taken lives for nearly 40 years as an armed rebellion first erupted against the Indian government in the late 1980s. Then, in 2019, the government abolished the semi-autonomous position of India-controlled Kashmir and was scrapped amid major security crackdowns. Thousands of people have been imprisoned.
On April 22, 26 civilians died in brutal gunmen attacks on tourists in Pahargam, shattering critics of normalcy, accusing India of projecting it into conflict zones.
Since then, in addition to diplomatic immorality and missile exchanges with Pakistan, the Indian government has intensified its crackdown on India-controlled Kashmir.
It destroyed the homes of rebels accused of ties to the Pahargam attack, raided other homes throughout the region, detaining around 2,800 people. Police also summoned many journalists and detained at least one to “promote separatist ideology.”
By Sunday, a sense of joy had wiped out the area through a ceasefire, but many are still cautious and doubtful about whether the Trump-brokered truce will be held.
Just hours after the two countries declared a halt of hostility, a loud explosion occurred in the main Indian-controlled urban centres of Kashmir, with swarms of Kamikaze drones from Pakistan sprinting through the airspace.
Many residents competed on the terraces of apartments and homes, capturing videos of drones that were defeated by Indian defense systems.
As part of emergency protocols, authorities have turned off power supplies. Fearing that debris from the drone would fall on them, residents ran for safety. The surge in drones in the night sky also touched the sirens, causing a sense of fear.
“I don’t think I’ve been scared any more before,” said Hasnain Shabil, a 24-year-old business alumni from Srinagar. “The streets are deprived of life. If the prelude to war looks like this, then I don’t know what war would look like.”
A fragile ceasefire
Hours after the ceasefire was announced on Saturday, India accused Pakistan of violating the ceasefire by bombarding the border areas. The inhabitants of Kashmir’s main town were again on their toes after the drones reappeared in the sky.
One of the most influenced places in Kashmir these days is Uri, a beautiful town of pear orchards and walnut groves, near the contested border with Pakistan.
The village is surrounded by majestic mountains flowing through the Jeram River. It is the last frontier on the part of India administered before the Hills paves the way for Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
Some of the URI saw the heavy fire and forced residents to leave their homes and look for safety. On May 8, authorities told Al Jazeera that after she and her family flew the vehicle, a woman was killed in her car as she and her family tried to escape from the border area like thousands of other people. Three of her family members were injured.
Mohammed Naser Khan, 60, a former Army serviceman, was huddled in his room when a Pakistan fire struck a nearby military post. “The explosion hurt one side of my house,” Khan said, wearing a traditional blue shirt and tweed coat.
“I don’t know if this place is livable or not,” he said. His bright blue eyes betray the sense of fear.
Despite the ceasefire, his two daughters and many others in his family have departed for relatives’ homes away from the contested border, but are skeptical of returning home. “My kids refuse to come back. They don’t guarantee that the gun will never roam again,” he said.
Suleman Sheikh, a 28-year-old resident in Uli, recalls his childhood when his grandfather was talking about Bofour’s artillery stationed at the military camp in Mora in a nearby village.
“He said the last time the gun was roamed was in 1999 when India and Pakistan collided at an icy peak in Kargil. Here, if the gun was roaming again, things would be too bad,” he said.
That happened at 2am on May 8th. Sheikh felt the ground swaying beneath him as Mora’s Beaufords gun prepared to fire ammunition across the mountains into Pakistan. An hour and a half later, a shell fired from the other side struck a nearby Indian paramilitary installation, making long hissings before making a noise.
Hours after Sheikh spoke to Al Jazeera for this report, another shell landed at his house. According to a video he shared with Al Jazeera, his room and the portico of his house collapsed.
He refused to leave his home despite bemoaning that his family would join them. “I was here to protect the livestock,” Sheikh said. “I didn’t want to leave them alone.”
Unlike other parts of the Kashmir Valley, where apple cultivation brings millions of dollars to the area, the URI is relatively poor. Villagers are mostly odd jobs for the Indian army, which maintains large risons and farm walnuts and pears there. Raising livestock has transformed into a popular occupation for many in the town.
“We’ve seen first-hand experiences about how war feels. It’s good that a ceasefire happened, but we don’t know if it will be held or not,” Sheikh said. “I hope it does.”
“How long does this need to last?”
Back in Srinagar, the residents slowly return to the rhythm of everyday life. Schools and universities continue to be closed, and people are avoiding unnecessary travel.
The scenes of the sky race drone fleet and the accompanying blasts are burned into public memory. “Only in the evening we will be able to know if this ceasefire is held or not,” said Maskan Wani, a medical student at the government medical college in Srinagar.
It was overnight, but tension remains over whether it would last.
Political experts attribute general skepticism about ceasefires to unresolved political issues in the region. This was a point reflected in Trump’s statement on Sunday, where he referred to “a solution on Kashmir.”
“The problem is political alienation in the first place. [of Kashmiris]said Noah Ahmad Baba, former professor and director of the Faculty of Political Science at Kashmir University.
“The Kashmir people are humiliated by what has happened to them in the last few years. There has been no significant effort to beat them. When there is humiliation, there is doubt.”
Others of Kashmir, managed by India, expressed anger towards both countries for ruining their lives.
“I don’t think even our feelings as Kashmiris are important,” said Furqan, a software engineer at Srinagar, who only gave him his name. “Two nuclear powers fought, causing damage and casualties at the border, giving each country a spectacle that focused on their respective countries, their goals were achieved and the war was stopped.
“But the question is, who suffered the most? It’s us. For the world, we are nothing but a side loss.”
Furqan said his friends were skeptical of the ceasefire when the two countries resumed artillery fire on the evening of May 10th.
“We all said, ‘It won’t last,'” he said.
Munib Meraj, a 26-year-old resident of Srinagar who studies management in Punjab, northern India, reflects Hurkan.
“For others, the war may have ended. A ceasefire has been declared. But once again, it was Kasimiris who paid the price – life was lost, the house was destroyed, and the peace was shattered,” he said. “How long does this cycle need to last?”
“We’re tired,” Meraj continued. “We don’t want another temporary pause. We want a permanent, lasting solution.”
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