Khalid Bashir Ahmed The wounds of tyranny had been festering for long. The pent-up resentment against a highly repressive and hated regime that made no distinction between shooting a game bird and its subjects was only waiting to burst. The killing of 21 unarmed civilians on July 13 1931, sent … Read more →
The Day of Sabzar’s Funeral
Sheikh Saqib On an exceptionally hot Saturday morning, I along with my friends was riding to a village, to explore the destined place and trek its mountains. We stopped a few kilometers back and bought some junk food and bottles of soft drink and mineral water. Everyone was excited about … Read more →
The Patriot, Ashfaq Majeed Wani
On the martyrdom anniversary of Ashfaq Majeed Wani, Salman Shah writes how Ashfaq became the inspiration to the youth of his time. When Ashfaq returned from Pakistan, he was greeted with flower petals, slogans and “Wanwun” in the Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar. Women and Men sat along roadside to get a … Read more →
Why are People Protesting in Kashmir
A Citizen’s report on the violation of democratic rights in the Kashmir Valley in 2016 Following the alleged extrajudicial killing of 8 July, in the violence unleashed by state armed forces unarmed protests were met with sustained attack by the Indian Army, J&K police and paramilitary, including with the … Read more →
Army camps in Kashmir have succumbed to ‘Mandir’ culture: Parvez Imroz
A Civil Rights activist for decades and well-known lawyer, Parvez Imroz is the Patron and co-founder of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and possesses a long-standing experience of human rights activism in Kashmir. He also represents ‘the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered … Read more →
Kashmir from Orient to a State of Exception
[This essay has been published in The Funambulist Issue 8, Nov-Dec 2016] Ather Zia Kashmir, the Orient Historically the global imagination has often reflected on Kashmir, the erstwhile Himalayan kingdom through scenes of colonial idyll, wilderness, and romance. This imagery was fine tuned through works like “Lalla Rookh: An … Read more →
The Farewell Journey
Muzamil Rather “Dapan mujahid che fassith ” (the militants are trapped), somebody shouted, as soon as I stepped out of the main gate of my house to offer the maghrib salah, the news came as a bolt from blue. When I was informed that the three rebels are trapped in … Read more →
Post-Traumatic Hurriyet Disorder
More heads usually means better decisions. When the Hurriyat leaders put theirs together after decades of separation, one thought this basic rule would apply. But as always the Hurriyat leaders proved themselves what they are: a massive disappointment. And these are no ordinary times we are talking about. At one … Read more →
Resistance Poetry in Kashmir
Chinki Sinha My gaze has been silenced, what frenzy is this? – Zarif Ahmed “Zarif”, Kashmiri poet When she was a young girl, she wrote a poem called Laments at Bullet, where she imagined a bullet – as a piece of metal – protesting that it did not want to be … Read more →
End of Journalism
Sheeba Lone Note: This article is the extract of one of the research papers on ‘End of Journalism’recently presented by the author at her University. Journalism entered the twenty – first century caught into a paradox of its own making. We have more news and influential journalism, across an unprecedented range … Read more →
Kashmir Reader and the Journalism of Courage
Rouf Dar, Umar Lateef Misgar & Harun Lone Modern age is defined by media. Every epoch has a certain peculiarity, a marked distinction. The present epoch is characterized by a dominating incision of media and it’s round the clock surveillance of our political and social community. As a matter of … Read more →
Kashmir Reader and the Journalism of Courage
Rouf Dar, Umar Lateef Misgar & Harun Lone Modern age is defined by media. Every epoch has a certain peculiarity, a marked distinction. The present epoch is characterized by a dominating incision of media and it’s round the clock surveillance of our political and social community. As a matter of fact, … Read more →
Is Independent Kashmir Possible?
Bilal Hussain Over the decades, the people of Kashmir have expressed their desire to have an identity, a homeland, and a separate nation, in many forms at multiple times. However, the Indian state has so far successfully been able to convince the global community about the non-viability of an Independent … Read more →
Whose fault is it being a slave?
Muhammad Nadeem He was about to leave with his new cricket bat when his mother reminded him of tomorrow’s History test at school. ‘Tamim, I’ll break your legs if you take one more step towards the door’, his mother gave him the same ineffectual warning again, ‘Get your History textbook … Read more →
What you need to know about the current crisis in Kashmir
The Daily Vox The situation in Indian-administered Kashmir has worsened in recent weeks. Eighty-two people have people killed in clashes with Indian security forces, while thousands of civilians have been injured. Why the unrest though?Kashmir’s summer of discontent was stirred by the killing of a popular militant, Burhan Wani on 8 July. … Read more →
‘Hum Kya Chahte? AZADI’ – The Slogan which always reverberates in Kashmir.
Khan Ansur “Freedom is an idea that no tyrant will ever crush.” ~ Laurence Overmire Sloganeering means to raise slogans. It is a way of protest or appreciation in some ways. It is raising slogans to form a protest in order to get attention or to bring change in any … Read more →
Three Generations of Kashmir’s Azaadi: A Short History of Discontent
Farrukh Faheem How the Right to Self-determination Got Euphemised into Merely Ending Human Rights Violations When did the question of Kashmir’s right to self-determination get euphemised into Kashmiris’ “grievances” against the Indian state, centred merely on ending human rights violations and better economic support? When did the people of Kashmir, who … Read more →
Counterpoint: Is it really so difficult to hear what Kashmiris are saying?
Mohammad Junaid Among a series of articles that have been written on the Kashmir uprising of 2016, Chitralekha Zutshi’s piece, “The new wave of anger in Kashmir is not just about poor governance but about preserving an identity“, published recently in Scroll.in, took me by surprise. The author makes two broad … Read more →
Azadi Resurrected: A Referendum In Blood
Ather Zia As I write this, it is the 51st day of protests in Kashmir. The number of those killed by the Indian forces is 69+; the injured are more than 8500; more than 570 have had their eyes ruptured by pellet shotguns. Not all of those killed and maimed were active protesters. The internet and pre-paid … Read more →
Is Kashmir Militarily Occuped by India?
A few Kashmiri scholars responded on Facebook to this video by Al Jazeera+, titled “Is India’s military presence in Kashmir an occupation like Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories? Since its a slight introduction to an important seminal conversation, Zeerak Shah captures the responses for Kashmir Lit. “Kashmiris are not fighting … Read more →