And that’s only one of 115, only from one year of many years.
…which in these dark times is so life-affirming:
I can spot a Khushwant Singh, a Khalil Gibran and a Chetan Bhagat in the pile of books. “Most of these books have been gifted to me by my lover,” she says. This is the first I’ve heard of a man in her life. I hesitate, but Sharmila is clearly keen to talk about him. A Britisher based in Kerala, he got to know about Sharmila after he read Burning Bright, a 2009 book on the Manipuri struggle written by Deepti Priya Mehrotra and published by Penguin. “He wrote me a letter after he read the book. We have been exchanging letters since then,” she says shyly. Continue reading Irom Sharmila is in love
Guest post by NEERJA DASANI
Please ladies and gentlemen…
A round of applause for this worthy verdict!
Please understand now:
Silence is molten. Continue reading A curtain call for the world’s largest democracy: Neerja Dasani
[An edited version of this article by me has appeared in the November-December 2010 issue of Conveyor, a magazine published from Srinagar.]
On 22 October 2010, there was a public seminar in Delhi, titled “Azadi: The Only Way”. I did not plan to attend it as I had important work that day. However, a day before the event, it was announced that the keynote speaker would be none other than Syed Ali Shah Geelani. How could one not go to hear what the man of the moment had to say?
I reached late, when two speakers had already spoken, Kashmiri Pandits had already created a scene, even getting into a physical fight with some Kashmiri Muslims. As I entered the precincts of the Little Theatre Group auditorium, I met Delhi University student Suvaid Yaseen who showed me a small cut in his hand, caused by the fisticuffs with the Pandits. Some of the Pandits had been taken away by the Delhi Police and detained for a few hours, many others still inside the auditorium. The auditorium was full of cries of “Hum kya chahtay? Azadi!” To hear that in central Delhi rather than Srinagar’s Lal Chowk is a little incredible. But it had happened before, on 7 August, at Jantar Mantar, the only place in the capital of the world’s largest democracy where protest is allowed. At Jantar Mantar too, Pandits were being restrained by the Delhi Police. Continue reading The Logical Urges of Sedition
This note comes from Manisha Sethi of the JAMIA TEACHERS’ SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION
Wikileaks has exposed that there existed secret channels of communication between the US agency FBI and our very own Delhi Police Special Cell. FBI—which has witchhunted American democratic and civil rights organizations and leaders (including Martin Luther King Jr.), raids the homes of anti-war activists, and helps the overthrow of popular governments around the world—and Special Cell whose personnel have been indicted in the past, by none less than the CBI, for manufacturing ‘terrorists’ out of thin air by planting false evidence; an organization often accused by rights activists of killing in cold blood, a.k.a. ‘encounters’, for medals and promotions. What possible information were they sharing in secret? Who to frame and fix next? Or the merits of water-boarding over indigenous torture techniques? Continue reading Look who’s talking (to whom): FBI and Special Cell
Guest post by GOWHAR FAZILI
Some old memories came to mind when Noor Mohammed Bhat, a college lecturer in Kashmir got arrested for asking in an examination, “Are the stone pelters real heroes? Discuss.”
I studied at Burn Hall, a missionary school in Srinagar. In the mid-‘80s, they would make us recite the national anthem in the morning assembly on one of the week days. Interestingly, while the little kids would do as they were told, the ‘big’ ones who had just crossed their sixth grade, would for some strange reason go off tune so that Jana Gana Mana… would start sounding like “Jaaaaaanaooauea maaaoAAAonaa gaooooOOnaannNNaaaA…”, like it were a sound coming out of an audio tape that was stuck or a damaged gramophone record! This bad behaviour invited corporal punishment. Shah Sir and Mohinder Sir (P.T. Masters) used to lurk behind the assembly and surreptitiously appear and whip on our legs at lightning speed. They would lash at the whole queue in a single run and be gone before we knew it. While the tune in the queue that was being freshly hit would get restored, the queues furthest from the P.T. Masters would go really off the tune! They would keep running about madly like this from one end to another but the cycle (orchestra) would continue till the whole song was over. It used be maddening for them. Though they were quite ferocious if one were to encounter them in person, (having been used regularly to instil fear and maintain ‘discipline’) somehow as a collective, we dared them in this manner week after week and year after year. Continue reading Noor Sahab in Horror Land: Gowhar Fazili
Noor Mohammed Bhat, a college lecturer in Srinagar, who decided to get creative with the English examination paper. Amongst his essay topics: “Are the stone pelters real heroes? Discuss.”
It also asked students to translate this Urdu-language text into English: “Kashmir is burning once again. The warm blood of youth is being spilled like water. Police and soldiers are beating even small children to death. Bullets are being pumped into the chests of even girls and women. People in villages and towns are crying in pain. Rulers continue to be in a deep slumber. It appears they’ve turned dumb, deaf and blind.” [Associated Press]
Although the AP report linked above says he has been charged with promoting secession, it’s not clear if he’s been charged with sedition. Kashmir Dispatch reports say he’s been charged under section 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Ironically, the college where Bhat taught (he’s already been sacked) is named after Gandhi. Univesity spaces in Kashmir are heavily controlled to prevent political expression and student unions are banned. So much so that when Kashmiri students see campus politics at the Jawaharlal University in Delhi, they often remark that they are seeing for the first time what freedom looks like!
Meanwhile, Rohini Hensman says Kashmiris should not have azadi until they ask India and Pakistan for azadi in equal measure, or something like that.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH has released an 81-page report that documents the situation on the border region, where both Bangladesh and India have deployed border guards to prevent infiltration, trafficking, and smuggling. They found numerous cases of indiscriminate use of force, arbitrary detention, torture, and killings by the security force, without adequate investigation or punishment. The report is based on over 100 interviews with victims, witnesses, human rights defenders, journalists, and Border Security Force and Bangladesh Rifles’ (BDR) members. You can read the report here and download it here (.pdf). Given below are the report summary and recommendations.
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
No, that is not someone’s clever response to the attacks on WikiLeaks. It was written fourteen years ago.
The article by John Perry Barlow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation was quoted by Operation Payback which has done some great things recently! And Barlow says, “The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops.” The MasterCard story of course runs deeper.
Operation Payback is the brainchild of pro-piracy hacker group 4chan, which incidentally has a Bollywood connection!
Guest post by ZAFAR MEHDI
Muharram, the month of epic action, has announced its arrival. Black banners symbolizing grief are fluttering around. A pall of gloom has descended. 1500 years later, the lessons of Karbala continue to be the beacon of inspiration for strugglers of truth and righteousness. Muharram, contrary to perception, is not an event, episode or chapter in history. It is a philosophy, a concept, a movement. As centuries roll by, the great uprising of Husain(as), the beloved grandson of Holy Prophet (saww), continues to drive believers to hurl defiance at the forces of evil. The final call Imam gave to humanity still lingers in the minds of millions of Muslims around the world. It teaches that notwithstanding the inadequacy of numbers, if you run down the gauntlet backed by the staunch faith in the Almighty, triumph will be yours. Continue reading Sinister designs behind Muharram ban in Kashmir: Zafar Mehdi
The answer may lie in this poster they’ve put out:
Julian Assange explains The WikiLeaks Manifesto, and reveals more about WikiLeaks here.
Guest post by HILAL MIR
Two monoliths of pro-India politics in Kashmir, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed and Dr Farooq Abdullah, are soaring high in the dark autumn skies of the valley like vultures. Below are the 110 bodies of warm-blooded children, boys, men and a lone woman. From these bodies will they and their offspring derive nourishment because serving a nation of 1 billion people is indeed an uphill task.
The way Madhu Kishwar and Prem Shankar Jha are lobbying for Mufti at every seminar in New Delhi demonstrates Mufti’s silence is really studied. What about Abdullah duo. They are neck deep in muck, which reminds one of those famous lines of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Kubrick’s masterpiece Full Metal Jacket—you are the lowest form of life on earth…
This is the third of a series of fact-finding reports on the recent violence in Kashmir. The fact-finding has been conducted independently by a team of BELA BHATIA,VRINDA GROVER, SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN and RAVI HEMADRI. For an introduction to this series, see here.
Continue reading Report #3: Shooting the Messenger in Kashmir
This is the second of a series of fact-finding reports on the recent violence in Kashmir. The fact-finding has been conducted independently by a team of BELA BHATIA,VRINDA GROVER, SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN and RAVI HEMADRI. For an introduction to this series, see here, and also see the first report.
Guest post by SUVRAT RAJU
Although the Indian media collectively swooned on President Obama, and breathlessly informed its audience about how many rooms he had booked at various five-star hotels, there was surprisingly little discussion on two key questions. What is Obama’s foreign policy record? Moreover, what impact will his visit have on most Indians?
Dear Rohini,
Apologies for taking the liberty of writing a separate post to respond to yours. I am doing so as a separate post not only because this response is rather too long for the comments space, but also because I have been wanting to address the issues you have raised. The issues are not new; I have been hearing them ad nauseaum since 2008, when the Kashmiri demand for independence from India took on a renewed momentum. In your post you bring in various external contexts – such as Rosa Luxemburg and the Sinhala-Tamil conflict. I am grateful that you do so, because it is always useful to learn from history and not repeat history’s mistakes. However, there are other recent histories of conflict and conflict resolution you don’t talk about, but which many Kashmiris are aware of – Kosovo, East Timor, Northern Ireland. Some new countries are being formed as we speak!
Also, there is history and context in Kashmir too, which you don’t go into. Your post talks more about LTTE than about Kashmir. Here, I will try to stick to Kashmir in responding to you.
Continue reading Dilemmas of ‘Right of Nations to Military Occupation’: A Response to Rohini Hensman
This is the first of a series of fact-finding reports on the recent violence in Kashmir. The fact-finding has been conducted independently by a team of BELA BHATIA, VRINDA GROVER, SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN and RAVI HEMADRI. For a introduction to this series, see here.
Continue reading Report #1: Attack and killing on Pattan hospital premises
This post introduces a fact finding team’s work on the recent violence in Kashmir. The contents of the report are being posted as separate posts and will be linked below as and when they’re posted.
Since June this year, the Kashmir valley has been torn by mass protests which have been met with overwhelming force by Indian security forces. Curfews and closures have been frequent, often shading into each other. No less than 111 deaths have been registered, of which a large number have been of students and youth in the age group of 8 to 25 years. There have besides, been hundreds of cases of injuries, of both protesters and those who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. An independent fact-finding team went to the Kashmir valley at the end of October to go into the totality of the situation, principally to inquire into the causes for the unconscionably large number of deaths that have occurred in the current phase of mass agitation. The team comprised of academic BELA BHATIA, advocate VRINDA GROVER, journalist SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN and activist RAVI HEMADRI of The Other Media, a Delhi based campaign and advocacy organisation, at whose initiative the effort was organised. Each member of the team spent varying lengths of time in the valley, but in total, roughly about twenty-five person days were put in the fact-finding exercise. In groups or individually, the team met the families of almost 40 persons who had been killed since the beginning of the civil unrest. Several individuals who had suffered serious injuries were also met. The team worked out of the state capital of Srinagar, and visited villages and towns in five of the Kashmir valley’s ten districts: Baramulla in the north (Sopore and Baramulla tehsils); Anantnag (Bijbehara and Anantnag tehsils) and Pulwama (Pulwama tehsil) in the south; Badgam in the west (Chadura and Badgam tehsils) and Srinagar itself. Separate sessions were held with journalists and media practitioners, university teachers and students, doctors, lawyers and activists besides officials in the police headquarters and the civil administration. The findings of the team are being released in a series of short reports beginning with following two sections. Forthcoming reports will deal with various facets of the situation that civilians in the Kashmir valley face in a season of unabated turmoil.
Next in this series
Report #1: Attack and Killing on Pattan Hospital Premises
Report #2: Palhallan Under Siege
Report #3: Shooting the Messenger in Kashmir
(Shuddhabrata Sengupta has written eloquently his account of the day-long seminar, ‘Azadi: The Only Way’. The seminar was organised by the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners. Given below are CRPP’s minutes of the seminar. You can also see, on YouTube, two short videos showing the ruckus that some Kashmiri Pandits created before Syed Ali Shah Geelani was to speak (1, 2). Also on YouTube, in two parts (1, 2), is Arundhati Roy’s speech, for which some want her booked for sedition. Those on Facebook can also see most of SAS Geelani’s speech (1, 2, 3). A small part of Geelani’s speech is on Youtube, here. Those hurling abuses at Roy and Geelani would do well to read this text, see these videos, and engage with these ideas intellectually, instead of asking for individuals to be jailed and persecuted.)
Continue reading Minutes of the seminar on ‘Azadi: The Only Way’
Guest post by HILAL MIR
There are various divisions of pain the different classes of people feel in Jammu and Kashmir. Like those bank credit cards which classify customers according to precious metals—Platinum, Gold, Silver—pain is a class thing. For example, when PDP veteran Muzaffar Hussain Baig, after making a long convoluted speech in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, said Omar Abdullah’s name figured in the list of the people who used their authority to sexually exploit girls, the junior Abdullah was transformed into a character from a Greek tragedy.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 