The Colaborator Character Analysis

Set in the aftermath of 1947 Kashmir at a time when war has finally reached the isolated village of Nowgam that has been described in the book as "the forgotten last village before the border". “The Collaborator” is a compelling and brilliant novel in the recent times. The 1990s was a time of turmoil and unrest all through India and Kashmir faced a lot of consequences of the Independence that we gained. Four out of five friends from the village of Nowgam disappear one by one, to cross into Pakistan and join the movement against the Indian army. The scared villagers afraid for their own safety decide it is best to search for a place of greater safety. The Headman, however, decides that he and his family would stay. His son, under the brutal
As a result of its close proximity to the LOC, a large number of soldiers have been stationed in the village. Around there, ‘the Indians kill just about everyone. Who will know and object, leave along protest, in this remote, cut-off wilderness? You know, sometimes I wonder – because for Kashmir, there is always an Indian and a Pakistani version of everything – what if they have their own pasture of dead boys on the other side of the border? Their own stash of the infiltration residue? Young men who lost their lives while learning to walk the perilous path to freedom. Treachery is a word everyone should learn.’ People live in fear of the Indian Army which is responsible for large scale massacres and mass-rapes where all women in a village are raped. There is an instance in the novel when an old man tell the protagonist about the elite Makara soldiers who even eat people, old people mostly. He believes every word he hears, maybe because he doesn’t know better or the fear that has been inculcated into the minds of the villagers, including
India and Pakistan have fought at least three wars over this territory and the problem refuses to be solved. The conflict in Kashmir seems like a conflict that would never have a resolution. Despite UN intervention, nothing has happened that would effectively end the conflict. It is also important to note that this conflict is something that our government would never wish to solve for the sole reason that this issue has over the years been the reason for their successful vote-bank politics in the region. The Collaborator highlights the way in which the conflict in Kashmir is staged for the Indian public. This serves to counter the Indian narrative of Kashmir’s irrefutable place within India by exposing the existence of propaganda and physical oppression aimed at ‘fixing’ Kashmir within the Indian imagination. The funereal tale of the obliteration of a community is deeply moving and profound, not only for the way it is written but because of the truth that one knows lurks within the