Z.G.Muhammad

Indu Kilam Waxes Lyrical

It was perhaps the twentieth day of the lockdown. I had lost count of dates and days, sitting in my small ten by twelve feet study, like my ancestors the…

Polls, Politics and Experimentation

I am not a psephologist. Notwithstanding, in the democratic process, the role of psephology is recognized as an important one, the study of elections in Jammu and Kashmir has never…

Stanley Wolpert’s Works

In our generation, perhaps rarely any of one might have read it or heard about it. In my small collection of biographies, there is a purple coloured hardbound, with  pagesturned…

 War Is No Solution

Saturday morning, I woke up to many a disturbing news on the grapevine. From the Masjid door to  long waiting  at the bakers’ shop for hot loaves of traditional bread,  …

Let Us Talk Peace

There is war talk all around. The war cries that have been an intrinsic feature of some television studios for about the past five years have become shriller during the…

How New Delhi Has Been Looking At Kashmir

Sometimes meeting an embittered politician, enables one to peep into a domain of politics that otherwise remains obscure. Moreover, on occasions sharing experiences about such meetings helps in analysing the…

Kashmir’s New Ambassadors

Like many others in my tribe; opinion writers and columnists, guided by screaming headlines I am also oblivious to the urges and aspirations of our youth. That there is a…

Awards And Politics

More than a decade back, sitting in a newspaper office, a fellow writer Ashraf Sahil suggested the idea of instituting of the ‘private awards’ in Kashmir for literature. Comparing the…

Forget History! Write Literature

A fortnight back, a single column news item in newspapers announced the death of Mushirul Hasan, an Indian historian and former Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia and author of…

Chidambaram Has A Point

On Saturday, Oct27, 2018, there was a graveyard silence outside, and everything is in mourning over spurt of killings during the autumn-  fifty youth killed in a month. In this…

Srinagrites Are Not ‘Ghetto People’

Honestly, they ‘have been more sinned against than sinning.’ Distraught at the plight of a million people with bright minds and deft hands this Shakespearean quote knocked my mind while…

Kashmiri Started Writing Their Story

Like many other bibliophiles, the iconic bookstore, ‘The Kashmir Bookshop’ on the Residency Road had also become my haunt. Similar to some morning visitors to the India Coffee House, I…

Kashmir’s  Tryst with Ballot

  Some days, back on social media network Facebook, someone posted a black and white photograph of a handsome turbaned man draped in an up-button black coat. The picture looked…

Kashmir in New Power Game

  Once again India-Pakistan relations are getting enmeshed in the emergent ‘neo-cold war between Washington and Moscow. Since Donald John Trump took over as President of the United States, it…

UN And Battle Over Kashmir

For the past seventy years the war of words, on the floor of the United Nation’s Security Council on the Kashmir Dispute, has been a routine with India and Pakistan.…

Kashmir: No-go Zone For Foreign Journalists?

  The storyof contemporary Kashmir would have remained under wraps, marked as “classified,” “top secret” never to be toldto the world.But,for some journalist living true to their professional ethics, it…

My Take on Soz’s Book

Some twelve years back, Farooq Abdullah, senior scion of the Abdullah family told me  he was writing a book that will tell many inside stories, never told before. The information…

Thus Spake Spymasters

In Pakistan, it is rare of rarest happenings when a spy chief in the office or out of office is publicly summoned to GHQ the headquarters of Pakistan Army, Rawalpindi…

It Takes Courage

Sometimes, some news stories published on the inner pages because of their imminent political fallout are more significant than those that for their immediate news value make the lead stories.…

Kashmir: Misplaced Optimism

The past Monday, when my column, ‘Geelani Release- A Way Forward,’ appeared in this newspaper, I felt remorseful of having written something outlandish- far fetched from the ground reality.It was…

Geelani Release- A Way Forward

It might have been festive day for nonagenarian Syed Ali Shah Geelani, when he offered congregational Friday prayers, obligatory on all Muslims at the Jamia Masjid, Hyderpora, some two hundred…

The Idioms of Hubris

At times some words or phrases or idioms, more particularly those maliciously spoken to demean a nations pride get badly stuck up in one’s mind. Like witches, they haunt even…

Kashmir on Diplomatic Turfs

India and Pakistan have earned a ‘sad and bad distinction.’ Perhaps in the world, only these two nations since their birth as independent countries are endlessly engaged in war of…

The Ominous Shadows

It presages something cataclysmic is in the offing that has the potential of tearing apart the social and political fabric of the state beyond repair. It should send alarm bells…

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