How night football is helping fight the fear of darkness in Kashmir

As the sun sets and darkness descends on restive Kashmir, a cluster of newly installed floodlights glow up, beaming a ray of hope on this playfield on the foothills of the picturesque Zaberwan Hills, in Srinagar.

A crowd of around 3,000 spectators has poured in to watch the Valley’s favourite sport: football.

But the timings are unusual — this ongoing Chinar Cup happens to be Kashmir’s first-ever night football tournament, for under-19 boys. The event is hosted by DPS Srinagar, a prominent school, at its state-of-the-art campus in Athwajan area, a gateway to Srinagar along the national highway.

At the interschool-event, a nail-biting clash between two prominent Christian missionary schools has concluded. The iconic Tyndale Biscoe defeated Burn Hall 2:1.

Another match is between schoolboys from north Kashmir — the region where, on September 11, a gunfight left two ultras, including an 18-year-old boy, dead.

At the playfield, AGS Bandipora emerges victorious in the clash with AGS Sopore. Visibly excited team captain Faisul Shabir, 15, says the night tournament has changed his outlook. “In our area around this time, we are confined indoors. But these floodlights can do wonders, and even the night can be used to groom one’s talent,” he says.

Their jubilant coach Irshad Ahmed, a young man in his 20s, joins in, asking the team members to line up for departure to Bandipora, a town 70 km from the city.

But is the team apprehensive of their movement during odd hours, in a place where new-age militancy and deadly gunfights continue to make news? “No. It depends on how you look at the situation. Once you want to believe it’s okay, it looks okay. Through this tournament, the fear inside our hearts is over,” the footballers from Bandipora say.

The young players, who have poured in from across Kashmir, believe that the event has changed their outlook, and of their families, towards the “uncalled-for fear of darkness in Kashmir.” 

Aiyhyaan Sheikh, the captain of the host school, says that initially, his parents were reluctant to even send him out in the evenings in their native Karan Nagar, a posh residential colony in the civil lines. “But the good thing is that now, even our families come to enjoy the event. These lights have shown us the way,” he says.

DPS Srinagar is believed to be the only school in the country to have introduced floodlights at its playfield.

And this has come with a reason. “See, our (Kashmiri) children have been deprived a lot. A question that often crops up here is what have we done for them in the past 30 years,” says the school chairman and noted educationist, Vijay Dhar.

The school started with 600 kids in 2003, and has now grown to over 4,500 students on its rolls, including specially-abled ones.

DPS Srinagar has often been credited for modern and innovative means of schooling in this trouble-torn region. After all, it’s the only school in the entire state to be fully solar-energy driven.

Some of the school students have already made it to the world’s top-most universities. “Two of our girls got 100% scholarship in Stanford University, and three are in New York University,” says Dhar, himself an alumnus of Biscoe, the century-old school in Srinagar.

Interestingly, it was the founder of this school, Tyndale Biscoe, a British Missionary and educationist, who is believed to have introduced football in Kashmir in the 19th century. 

Over the years, football grew to be among the most popular games in the state. In the post-1947 era, some of the government departments, like food and supplies (now CAPD), and SRTC, were household names for their popularity as iconic football teams. The last 30 years of armed conflict, however, affected such activities.

But the night football seems to be bringing back the lost love. “I just loved the game and it was an amazing experience to watch it at night,” says Wasim Rifat, a young businessman, as he runs his hand through his long beard.

But then, while the nocturnal event is attracting crowds, militancy has been on a steep rise in the region.

Despite a major military offensive against the insurgents, it is for the first time in almost 10 years that the number of militants, largely locals, has crossed the 300-mark.

Only on September 11, as kids of his age played at the under-19 football event, 18-year-old Furqan was killed in the Langate area of Handwara by security forces. The young man had picked up arms four months ago.

So, how to tackle radicalisation?

“We need to engage the youth. My youngster today is not interested in 47 /65/72 etc (the political developments of 1947, 1765, 1972). He wants a tomorrow for which he is angry, and we cannot blame him,” says Dhar, the host of the tournament.

It’s around 10:00pm. The gaming session for the day is over. Everyone leaves the venue.

But the situation is uneasy. Around the same time the previous night, unidentified gunmen shot dead a man in the congested old city of Srinagar. It was the third such mysterious killing in the past three days alone.

The police are on alert on the deserted streets. Our vehicle is stopped for frisking at a check post. A gun-wielding cop asks where we are coming from.

“I was watching a night football match.”

The reply puzzles the cop, as he curiously asks: “Achcha? Who plays football at night in a place like Kashmir?”

Also read: J&K: How the political mainstream is playing with competitive separatism