Are
they choosing death in Kashmir?
The snow pelted down through thick,
slate clouds as our ancient taxi
bumped endlessly through the back
streets of one of the world’s
more troubled capital cities. The
cold was so intense it hadn’t
left me all week. I could feel it
sluggishly climbing up my legs. Srinagar
in February is not at its best.
The city centre felt uneasy. Noisy
streets were sprinkled with piles
of sandbags, gun barrels poking their
way through tiny eyeholes. There
was good reason too for all the nervousness.
This city had seen better days. Building
after building seemed to be either
charred or bullet-ridden or worse
still, completely shelled and reduced
to piles of rubble. Grenades had
been lobbed around town earlier in
the morning as another politician
struggled to make it through his
day. More injuries were treated and
more fear was left suspended in the
air to further subdue the already
murky Kashmiri atmosphere.
It had been a fascinating visit
into Kashmir. I had met with small
groups of believers worshipping together
with hushed voices. Some came as
a result of correspondence courses.
Others were the product of home Bible
study groups. Tailoring workshops
were prising open the door. Leprosarium
work was bearing fruit. My hosts
were of the highest calibre: a handful
of braveheart-believers living out
the gospel of grace in this world
of tense civil violence. They persuaded
and they prodded. They prayed together
and they risked it all.
Here, the theology of suffering
was part and parcel of their daily
walk and certainly central to their
missionary endeavour. I asked Paul
- who had himself been repeatedly
threatened and whose own wife and
kids were evicted and expelled from
their homes on more than one occasion – just
what it would take to win these Muslims
to the Lord. “More martyrs” was
his immediate comeback. I knew this
was no quest for death but for love.
I thought again of the day I had
met Farouk. He had shown me burns
running the length of his torso from
the acid they had poured on him.
All he had done was joyfully declare
his allegiance to the Living Lord.
I had so much to learn!
As we left town, Kashmir’s
Hajis were returning from Mecca,
arriving home in their droves and
pumped to fever-pitch from their
long and costly pilgrimage to Islam’s
most celebrated of sites. For six
days they had been shoved and shunted
like cattle among the other 2 million
devotees to Islam’s holy site.
It’s a once in a lifetime journey
for them. Beyond the prayers and
the ceremonial stone-throwing, for
Kashmiris the Haj is a time for personal
renewal. It’s an annual injection
of Islamic oomph for the multitudes
flying back to Srinagar.
The long airport road was guarded
like a fortress. We were stopped
repeatedly by the edgy Indian troops.
These were Hindu faithful patrolling
a militant Muslim outpost in the
sub-continent’s north-western
tip. Every few yards, it seemed,
a captain would dip his shoulders
and stoop to peer right in at us,
first at the driver, then at his
passenger and finally into the back
seat. His machine-gun would point
through our window and our documents
would be required again. The police
radios crackled and squawked and
we moved on.
To the north, China looms ominously.
To the west and over the hills, Pakistan
patrols and Islam urges. To the east,
the Himalayas rise imperiously. In
the centre of them all, the Kashmiri
cauldron bubbles and boils. It’s
a Muslim heartland, a hotbed of fanaticism
where the Church finds few allies.
Is it too difficult here, an impossible
dream for the Gospel? Is it reason
enough to wipe the dust from the
feet and move on? Not at all! There’s
no self-pity here among believers.
This is a breeding ground for a new
generation of Kashmiri radicals – barbarian
Christians whom, it seems, God is
not simply allowing to suffer but
actively appointing to a lifestyle
of tough-witness. It might take generations
but Kashmir’s Christians are
resolute in their determination to
win Muslims to the Lord! “Except
a grain of wheat falls to the ground…”
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