What adds to the weight of these photographs is their provenance.
They were originally carried by the most widely read and trusted local newspaper of the time—a paper regarded as the voice of the people, read passionately by common Kashmiris and the intelligentsia alike. The photographer and reporter behind these images were darlings of Kashmiri society, not outsiders, not propagandists.
This was Kashmir documenting itself.
Scores of Kashmiri Pandit women—first-time mothers and otherwise—were pregnant when they fled. Some delivered in tents. Some in overcrowded camps. Some in one-room rented accommodations shared by joint families. Some on the floors of overburdened hospital wards. Children were born in Jammu, Kathua, Udhampur’s Batal-Balian, and other makeshift shelters—places never meant to cradle new life.
Despite adopting the Metric System of weights and measures, discarding Seer and Mann to measure mass, Gaz and Kos to measure distance; Anna or Chavani to count currency, some old habits die hard, as all these words have already become part of our lexicon.
