I became an “outsider” the moment I showed them my “local” press card !

By the time I would leave office each night, most shops would have closed and NIT being very close to my current residence would prove to be a great option to have my evening meal.

The old Kashmiri gatekeeper at the NIT gate would look at my Delhi University college I- card each night and good-naturedly allow me to go inside the cafeteria to have my dinner. The CRPF personnel positioned there not once objected.

But that was before I showed them my press card.

In the first 10 days that I spent in Srinagar, I had not once been questioned by a policeman. Never was any inconvenience caused by any member of the security forces. I, therefore, was convinced that in order to uphold their “image outside the valley”; the forces would never trouble any mainstream Indian.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Because, you are safe from the wrath of the forces in Kashmir only till you are one of the ‘mainstream’. The moment you are even remotely associated with anything local here- be it the families, the community or the media- you become an object they love to insult.

That night, I walked into the sprawling NIT campus like I had done so many times previously. I had got my temporary press card that very day and believing it to be an adequate proof of my credentials, I showed it to the concerned authorities. “You are an outsider. You cannot enter NIT”, was the shocking, immediate reply.

I wondered if I would have to sleep without dinner. But the middle-aged, south-Indian accented CRPF personnel clearly hadn’t finished. “Being in the press, you must be aware that no place is safe for women here. Even the campus is insecure. If something happens tomorrow, then your folks will blame us. The cafeteria is not for outsiders.”

Confused, I came back home, only to sleep on an empty stomach that night. But the questions being raised disturbed me for quite some time. If the campus was insecure, why had I been allowed in it for the past 10 days? Had anything gone wrong then, would the forces have not been responsible? Or had the campus become unsafe after I told them I was interning for a local (read separatist) paper? Also, I had not been going to the hostel mess, where only the institution’s students are allowed but the privately owned cafeteria that is open for all. Who gave the CRPF the right to prevent a Central University student from entering a State-run educational institution to have a harmless meal in a privately owned cafeteria?

“Outsiders are not allowed here”, the CRPF official had said.Ironically, I had become an “outsider” the moment I showed them my “local” press card.