SRINAGAR, India | When pro-independence demonstrations erupted in
Kashmir over the summer, Danish Shervani said he hesitated to take
part
until he saw women and children shouting in the streets.
His initiation was painful. A band of riot police trapped him away
from the crowds and beat him with bamboo shafts, breaking
several bones
and shattering a kneecap.
So Mr. Shervani, 25, a mass communications student, fought back the
best way he knew: He uploaded footage of the incident, shot by a friend
with a
hand-held video camera, on the Internet site YouTube. Dozens of
similar videos are posted online.
"We don't use sticks or guns," he said. "We are educated and know other,
peaceful ways of advancing our struggle."
His response is emblematic of a new generation of Kashmiri student
activists whose desire for an independent state burns as hot as ever
but who
don't see militancy as the solution.
These separatist leaders are the engine of protests that have shaken
India-administered Kashmir in recent months - the biggest since a 1989
revolt
degenerated into years of bitter conflict.
"Now 20 years have passed and this movement has transferred to
another generation," said Yasin Malik, chairman of the Jammu and
Kashmir
Liberation Front and a former militant leader. "They are more
angry, but they are committed to nonviolence."
The dispute dates to the partition of Britain-ruled India in 1947.
The
local prince, a Hindu, chose to accede to India even though Kashmir
was mostly Muslim. Fighting led to a U.N. cease-fire, but a plebiscite
demanded by the United Nations in 1948 has never taken place.
India
controls more than half the territory.
Since then, Kashmir has been the trigger for a India-Pakistan war in
1965 and a short conflict in 1999. It has also inspired jihadist
movements in
Pakistan that have links to al Qaeda.
The latest protests were ignited by an Indian government decision to
grant public land to build shelters for Hindu pilgrims who travel to
the
Muslim-majority state to visit a holy shrine. Separatists said it
was a calculated attempt to change the state's religious balance and
used the controversy to rekindle tensions. But Kashmiri youth
stole the
show.
They turned out by the tens of thousands, waving green flags and
chanting "Azadi" (freedom) and "Kashmir's market is in Rawalpindi [in
Pakistan]" after
Hindu counterprotesters shut down the only road
connecting the Kashmir Valley to the rest of India. Separatist leaders
closed ranks behind them.
"The youth are leading the way,"
said Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who
heads one of the two factions of the umbrella All Party Hurriyat
Conference party. "They are showing very much enthusiasm to achieve
their basic right to
self-determination."
Demonstrations intensified until Indian forces moved to stop them,
killing at least 45 people and injuring more than 1,000 others.
Mahmooda Bhat said her
son, Javed, 23, a taxi driver, was standing
outside their downtown Srinagar home watching the protests with his
6-year-old nephew in his arms when a bullet killed him. Eyewitnesses in
the area
corroborated her account with further details.
Indian security officials maintain that the protesters became
hostile, necessitating a heavy-handed response to restore law and
order.
"These confrontations are engineered and managed," said S.A.
Mujtaba, Srinagar's police superintendent. "People are brought and
briefed to indulge in violence. Because of that, the
police crack down
and people get injured."
Streets were calm most of last month as locals observed the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan. Separatist leaders had called for another mass
rally
to begin Monday on Lal Chowk, the summer capital's commercial
hub, prompting police to impose a curfew that has since been lifted.
On Friday, thousands of Muslims took to the streets to
protest the
visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and police killed two
demonstrators.
Mr. Singh was in Kashmir to meet with pro-Indian political leaders
ahead of state elections
tentatively scheduled for November and to
inaugurate a rail link and a power project.
Speaking to reporters later, Mr. Singh reiterated his government's
commitment to finding a solution to
the Kashmir issue through dialogue.
"We are willing to talk to anyone," the Associated Press quoted him as saying.
Direct rule has been in effect across the valley since
early July,
when protests forced pro-India parties to suspend their activities.
Most party representatives insist that the climate is too charged to
hold a ballot, while hard-liners in New Delhi argue
that a postponement
would embolden the separatist cause.
There's no dispute that militant violence has declined sharply in
Kashmir, the object of two wars between India and Pakistan that have
cost 43,000 lives. Analysts attribute the trend to Pakistan's
preoccupation with domestic insecurity and peace talks with India that
began in 2004.
Last year, there were 777 conflict-related
deaths, down from 1,116
in 2006 and 4,507 in 2001, according to the Institute for Conflict
Management, a New Delhi-based think tank.
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal,
Pakistan
President Asif Ali Zardari caused a stir when he branded militants in
Kashmir as "terrorists" unworthy of "moral and diplomatic support." The
comments resonated in the
Indian government and among media outlets, a
growing number of which have voiced newfound support for Kashmiri
independence in light of the protests.
Still, there are some 700,000 Indian
security personnel deployed in
the state, prompting fears of a renewed cycle of armed violence if
India does not ease its grip.
Mr. Malik, one of the leaders of the violent militant movement
that
fought Indian security forces from 1989, warned that if young people in
Kashmir lose hope in dialogue, "then, definitely, they will go back to
where I started."
"This is
the first Muslim [in the world] that has been transformed
from a violent to a nonviolent movement," said Mr. Malik, who renounced
violence in 1995. "The international community needs to
pursue this
issue more right now."
Mr. Shervani, who is still recovering from his injuries, plans to
keep documenting events as they unfold. He now identifies himself on
his MySpace page
as a "freelance documentary filmmaker," beneath a
picture of his head mummy-wrapped in cloth bandages.
"These protests have changed the scenario, turned tables over," he
said. "We've been reawakened."
• This article was reported with a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
See all related reporting from Jason Motlagh on
India's internal conflictsSee this artcile as it ran in the
The Washington Times 
