Kashmir’s five-month blackout: Life in a swirl of rumors
For Indian-controlled Kashmir, the past five months have been a roller coaster, the rockiest, most consequential in decades: an influx of troops; its autonomy stripped; a security clampdown; thousands of arrests; a near-brush with war, between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan; and a communications blackout, the longest ever in a democracy.
But as confusion and chaos grew, the rumors had one thing in common: dapaan.
Loosely translated as “they say,” or “it is said,” is a word without a face, attached to any tidbit of
