Kashmir has had many a period of glory before the advent of Islam. It has a long chain of dynasties, Suraj Bansi, Pandava, Maurya, Kushan, Gonandya, white Huns, Karokata, Utapala, and Loharas. Some of the regimes had not only their periods of glory in this beautiful land, but their borders extended deep in South of India and touched the[Read More…]
Stories about the thirties, in our childhood, were not that old. Every elder in the family had a story to tell about one or the other martyr of July 31, 1931, buried just three hundred yards from our house. They remembered stories of the movement against the Maharaja like textbook lessons. Even an old small earthen pitcher painted green had[Read More…]
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 pit dwellers, I had no idea about the world outside. Dead landlines and lifeless cell phones had gathered dust as thick as scum on the stinking pond in the heart[Read More…]
Some moments are important than epochs in the histories of nations. So holds true about 13 July 1931 in the history of Kashmir. On this day v people of Kashmir scripted their history with their blood. It was not the first day when people laid their lives for just cause- history of Kashmir after 1819 is replete with incidents when[Read More…]
‘The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what he pleases before the public: to forbid this is to destroy the freedom of the press.’ – ‘Free speech must be kept free even in wartime, even when passions are high because that is when the[Read More…]
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 been my cup of tea. I never endeavoured to analyse voting patterns, regional and sub-regional factors, the role of caste, sects and religious factors, in the elections held in the[Read More…]
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 to smoke yellow biography published eighty-eight years back by George Allen and Unwin Limited, 40 Museum Street, London. It has a foreword by father of Indian Nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.[Read More…]
Like Chris, a French writer and filmmaker, “What I’m passionate about is History; politics interests me only insofar as it is the cross-section of History in the present.” Looking, at the contemporary scenario at our own place, I was thinking how past three centuries have shaped our contemporary narrative, in this column I may not venture courage to write how[Read More…]
Thank God for the clouds of war that frighteningly hovered for a week have started waning from the skies of the Sub-Continent. In the seventy years, acrimonious history of India and Pakistan another terrifying date has been added to already existing long list of the dates reminiscent of awful tales of death and destruction. On Tuesday 26 February 2019, twenty[Read More…]
For four million people living in an area of 85,805.8 square milesin the bosom of mighty Himalayas,Saturday ‘12 March 1932’ was a momentous day.On this day after years of struggle and sacrifices, ‘Maharaja Hari Singh, the autocratic ruler of Kashmir on the recommendations of the Glancy Commission Report announced the grant of the rights to freedom of press and platform[Read More…]
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, lots of news about frightening rattling of aeroplanes and helicopters from 2 A.M in Srinagar, deployment of hundreds of additional companies’ of paramilitary troops in Kashmir to the mid-night crackdown[Read More…]
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 past couple of days. Calling for a full-fledged war including the use of nuclear weapons is expected of some television anchors, hatemongers and shouting brigades know for screaming, screeching and[Read More…]
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 games behind popping up of new characters like mushrooms during rains with alternative narratives for fortifying the ‘hegemonic discourses’ at the time of elections in the State. Moreit also helps[Read More…]
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 strong undercurrent in a whole generation of them to use music, arts, literature, theatre and modern mediums like Instagram and YouTube for telling their stories, and articulating their pain and[Read More…]
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 reports and writings of journalists of Kashmir, works of some writers with the literary works of Barbara Harlow, he suggested instituting of annual awards for best journalists, fiction writers, novelists[Read More…]
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 a dozen and half books. His forte has been Islam in South Asia, communalism and birth of India and Pakistan as independent dominions. Except for some occasional remarks in sync[Read More…]
Some ten years back, I reviewed, ‘Journey into Islam, the Crisis of Globalization’ (2007) the first of series of three books written by Prof Akbar Ahmed, an American scholar seeking to establish a dialogue and understanding between the West and Islam. And to find answers for the hatred and mistrust between Muslims and the West intensified after the September 11-[Read More…]
In a scenario, when politics in our state has become crazy, the ‘hegemonic discourses’ have the sway, and a big lie projected as truth is accepted, restlessness is a natural corollary. To fight this restlessness instead of reading new books on Kashmir by authors published by big houses in India,- of course, tutored, of late, I have started re-reading books[Read More…]
A momentous day in the life of a leader, writer or poet is when he sees his ideas translated into reality. Iqbal did not live up to the day when his dream of a separate nation for Muslims of South Asia became a reality on 14 August 1947. He was not a part of the galaxy of leaders of[Read More…]
Two sons did an excellent job! Both merit credit for doing a job that many other children placed in similar situations have chosen to ignore. Fathers of the two from ab initio were proactively involved in the struggle for ending the autocratic rule in the state. For their centrality in the struggle and proximity to the top leadership, the two[Read More…]
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 weird scenario the moment I sat on my desk to write a weekly column Ispotted an old book titled ‘The Governor Sage or Saboteur’ on a shelf in my small[Read More…]
The Sun that like grand artist excited us when we would be still in our bed now stopped to be a painter for us. In wee hours, rising from behind the Zabarwan hillock, it now did not enter our bedroom through the latticed windows, to create those mesmerizing magical floral and geometrical images on the walls daubed with white clay[Read More…]
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 walking through the streets, lanes, and bylanes of the heart of Srinagar city. None but the people they catapulted to power after big struggle and sacrifices have betrayed them and[Read More…]
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 also had become an avid dust jacket reader inside the bookshop and had developed the habit of flaunting my knowledge about books over a cup of hot coffee. The bookshop[Read More…]
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 straight into the eyes of the surfers telling terrifying tales of suppression of the yester years. It had hundreds of likes and dozens of shares.It generated scores of euphoric and[Read More…]
Few days back another voluminous biography was added to grand list of biographies on Mahatma Gandhi.Seventy years after the British sailed across the Indian Ocean the stories of the two protagonists of the India’s independence movement Mahatma Gandhi and Quaid Azam Jinnah continue to engage scholars and biographers. Notwithstanding, the two charismatic leaders of the subcontinent largely forgotten by[Read More…]
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 has become more than obvious. The two countries are apparently yet to learn lesson from the past- that it was they joining the cold war politics, which immensely contributed to[Read More…]
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. It, in fact, began, on 30 December 1947, when New Delhi sent a cable to the Security Council, through its representative at UN. The cable, making a complaint under Article[Read More…]
In all literature; history, memoirs, and travelogues, Kashmir is described as a country.Notwithstanding, being ruled by Moguls, Durranis, and Sikhs through their governors for exacting taxes to the extent of famishing people, it continued to be known as a country.It retained, this title even after India and Pakistan were born as an independent dominions.For the first time, it lost this[Read More…]
We have a story, with a beginning, middle and end- but it is the end that is confounded by “the others,” who have their ‘meal tickets in the pursuit.’For confusing the end, they not only collaborate with the coercive forces in strengthening the ‘hegemonic discourse’ but also indulge in what academic’ describe as the ‘violence of hermeneutics.’ The ‘others’ that[Read More…]
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 was reported.Annie Gowen, graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas recipient of Human Rights Press Award of Special Merit 2018,[Read More…]
On a couple of times, I noticed a man wearing grief on his face as withering leaves on hackberries on graveyards strolling on dusty lawns of the Srinagar court. At some other times, I had spotted him silently sittingin corners of the canopies erected by the human rights activists or the resistance leadership to mark the world human rights[Read More…]
The date 6 August 2018, has been hanging like the sword of Damocles on the heads of the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir, across the religious, regional, ethnic and linguistic divide. On this date, the Supreme Court of India is to hear Public Interest Litigations on the Article 35A dealing with permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir. In 2014,[Read More…]
My take on the book, ‘Kashmir Glimpse of History and Story of Struggle’ by Saifuddin Soz the past week in this column kick-started an important debate on the social media. Minus, some unsavoury remarks by some friends on the book and the scholarship of the author, the debate generated was important in as much as, it raised some important questions[Read More…]
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 as a student of contemporary Kashmir politics had come to me as good tidings. My belief has been that the stories of politicians, who are on the other side of[Read More…]
I will join Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, authors of ‘Untold History of the United States in saying that ‘Ambassador Akbar S Ahmed is a treasure.’‘His insight, wisdom,and experience are desperately needed right now when so much US and European policy towards Muslim world is guided by fear, ignorance,and greed.’ Those, who have been reading him; one of topmost anthropologist[Read More…]
Historically, Kashmiris since 1819 have always greeted the voices raised from outside the state against their oppression and in support of their cause. In 1934, when Mahatma Gandhi in response to a missive by a Kashmiri Pandit leader, Prem Nath Bazaz wrote to him in a letter dated May 15, 1934, “Seeing that Kashmiris predominantly Mussalman it is bound to[Read More…]
There is no history of a dialogue between Srinagar and New Delhi for the resolution of the “Kashmir Dispute.”If a dialogue takes place now, it will be making history. Moreover, the leader from New Delhi, who initiates talks for deciding the future of the state, the cause of wars and skirmishes between India and Pakistan and a nuclear flash point[Read More…]
Sometimes a new book for its contested contents makes one dust the archives and look for answers and explanations for the controversies raised in it. In a situation like that of our where peopleare caught up in a morass of political uncertaintyandare struggling for ending it many times, books are sponsored by the establishment to cloud the historical realities. [Read More…]
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 to explain his conduct. A host of army generals in the country created by Jinnah ‘through his indomitable will’ from General Mohammad Asghar Khan, ‘Generals in Pakistan Politics (1958- 1982)[Read More…]
It was yet another dark day for people living on the bloody line dividing Jammu and Kashmir. On Friday, fire-spewing mortar guns that have been thunderously roaring like man eaters for past seventy years devoured ten more human beingsand wounded dozens critically- perhaps disabled for life. Four civilians including a husband and wife and a Border Security Soldier where killed[Read More…]
Seventy-one years on we have become so used to the ‘hegemonic discourses’ that once a new one is churned out; people laugh it out. Many an important political scientist like Antonio Gramsci have dwelled upon the subject ‘hegemonic discourse’ in great detail and come up with scholarly treatises on the subject. Instead of getting lost in the academic jargons in[Read More…]
History reveals itself. Sometimes, it is a bad happening that works as catalysts in bringing out some important historical facts to the fore that otherwise remain concealed under the veil of political prejudices, expediencies of power politics or the vote bank politics. What has been happening in the Aligarh Muslim University during the week is sad and bad. Nonetheless, the[Read More…]
The Blue Gate, leading to a magnificent two-story white building with blue windows on the foothills of the Mount Solomon, Srinagar has been central to the post-1947 Kashmir narrative. In 1964, when topmost United Nations official Ralph Bunch arrived in Kashmir, the then premier students’ organization, the Jammu and Kashmir Students and Youth League organized a march to the white[Read More…]
On 15 March 1929, Sir Albino Banerjee, a Bengali Christen, who for two years had been Foreign and Political Minister of Maharaja Hari Singh had observed that the rulers had been treating “Mohammadan population” worst than “cattle.” Ninety years later, when the idea of governance in the world has undergone a sea change,andcolonialism has crashed themindset of those in[Read More…]
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. On Saturday, a four column news story published on page seven of the newspaper caught my attention more than the two BJP ministers resigning at the insistence of the party[Read More…]
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 flagrantly in contradiction with the black bordered banner lead stories, ‘Bloody Sunday: 20 Killed’ in all the newspapers.The blood curdlingdetails of blood bath enacted in wee morning hours of Sunday[Read More…]
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 yards from his residence. For about, three thousands days, five times a day Muezzin had been calling on him from the Masjid in his neighborhood to join the congregational prayers,but[Read More…]
Some days back, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, decided to step aside and passed on the baton of the Tahreek Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir to his second in command Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai. On the expected lines, the decision taken at a Shoora meeting of the Tahreek Hurriyat made it to headlines in the newspapers across the sub-continent. The decision caused[Read More…]
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 in the bed. These cannot be jettisoned from the mind unless talked about boldly and candidly. For couple of days,an idiom ‘barking up the wrong tree’ has been bothering my[Read More…]
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 attrition. The two important South Asian players, now nuclear powers have continuously been exchanging mortar shells and fighting battles along the line Jammu and Kashmir. The line drawn by the[Read More…]
Somedays back, I found a passionately written petition in my mail box appealing for ending tension on the line vivisecting Jammu and Kashmir (LOC). The petition from a journalist friend from Jammu was addressed to Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan. The appeal on behalf of the citizen of Jammu and Kashmir rightly ‘apprehend that the growing tension will[Read More…]
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 ringing across the divide. Moreover, it calls for serious attention, far beyond a tweet or a post on the social media or a statement in the newspaper. In fact, the[Read More…]
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My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
