Haji Abdul Kareem Sheikh doesn’t understand, or care, about the politics of demilitarisation. The proposal may have sparked a political crisis in Jammu & Kashmir, but all Sheikh wants is for the troops to leave his apple orchards, which were turned into army camps one night more than a decade ago. For him, troop withdrawal is linked to his livelihood. “I lived like a king and overnight I became a beggar,” he says. “The army didn’t let me visit my own orchards. I went to the police and the deputy commissioner, but nobody helped.”

So Sheikh formed an organisation of the apple farmers in south Kashmir whose orchards were occupied by the security forces. Despite more than a hundred members and a struggle that has gone on for over a decade, nothing has changed. “It’s a lost battle. We have approached the senior army officers in Srinagar and have met every chief minister in the past decade, but nobody has helped us get our orchards back,” he says. “My family had an apple orchard spread over 45 kanal at Chak Wagund and another over 18 kanal at Larkpora. Both are with the army.”

After several years, the army has decided to pay him a yearly rent, which is negligible compared to what they have earned from apple sales. “They (army) sell the fruit from my orchards and it breaks my heart. I feel helpless.”

For a majority of farmers, and worse, the small orchard owners, even the meagre yearly rent is not forthcoming. And unlike Sheikh, who has an alternative business, a shop, to feed his family, they have nothing to fall back on.

... contd.