STATEMENT FROM CONCERNED INDIVIDUALS

We the undersigned, express our grave concern regarding the current state of affairs in Kashmir. The disproportionate use of state violence on unarmed protesters in Kashmir reflects severe human rights violations. Setting aside the paramount concerns in terms of continuous interventions in the normal lives of the people, the alarming loss of civilian lives and reports of serious injuries, including blinding from pellet wounds are deeply disturbing.

Attacking hospitals, ambulances, stopping funeral processions and even burning down residential buildings cannot be the response of a democratic nation. The attack on civilians and the ethical implications this has on our armed forces are not justifiable. Images of police, army and task force brutalities against women, children and youth are spreading across the social media. At the same time, partial and prejudiced reports on television and print are becoming the basis for racism, regionalism and religious intolerance among people who are not afraid to bully Kashmiris and other minorities.

We appeal to our government to consider the state of affairs in Kashmir democratically, prioritizing the right of Kashmiri citizens to normal lives. Continue reading Statement on Kashmir from concerned individuals →

Guest Post by JHUMA SEN

Kashmir – the average Facebook trotting, Twitter wielding, middle-class Indian will assert – is an inalienable, inseparable part of Bharat Mata, the anthropomorphic representation of cartographic territorial sovereignty of India. Atoot Ang or inseparable organ. Yeh Fevicol ka majboot jod hai, tutega nahin.

The adhesive in this case is a deadly cocktail of an occupying power periodically using the spectacle of a ritualistic and performative violence to discipline and punish the colony, brutalizing every peaceful protest, responding to stone pelters with bullets, and prisoners with execution, to satiate some imagined collective conscience that sleeps like a baby when a three-year old is shot with his father, a ‘former terrorist’. But Kashmir belongs to India, in the same way Kiran belongs to Rahul in the famed Bollywood film of 1998, Darr: A Violent Love Story, the Wikipedia page of which describe it as a ‘romantic psychological thriller’. [i] The film traces the ‘romantic’ obsession of Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) with Kiran (Juhi Chawla)—the serenading Rahul, the stalker Rahul, the fragile male ego Rahul, the violent Rahul, the abductor Rahul, the killer Rahul and a traumatized Kiran simply wanting to be left alone and desiring freedom from the wretchedness of Rahul’s ‘love’–Tu Haan Kar Ya Na Kar, Tu Hai Meri Kiran (Whether you agree to it or not, Kiran, you are mine’). The relationship between Rahul and Kiran (or for that matter any violent and delusional relationship) mirrors the relationship between the Indian State and Kashmir—the desire to control and the desire to be free. Continue reading Terms of Endearment – Kashmir and the Possessive Cartography of the Indian Nation-State: Jhuma Sen →

Guest Post by GAUTAM NAVLAKHA

Image courtesy India Today

Burhan Muzaffar Wani and his comrades were born and died in the phase of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir that symbolizes the watershed in politics in J&K; pre and post ‘89-90. Unlike in the past, indigenous militants now neither travel to Pakistan for guns or for arms training. Armed resistance and its indigenous roots are etched on the faces of these young men.  Burhan’s killing on July 8 and following that, the turnout at his funeral as well as the protests that broke throughout the  state have rekindled memories of the early 90s, especially the death of Ashfaq Majid in 1990, which too had seen mass outpouring of rage.  Burhan and his comrades knew they would not survive for long; seven years is the average life span of a militant in Kashmir, as Burhan’s father poignantly stated long before his death.  Not because that was their own choice, but it was the only choice offered to a people by a ruthless military suppression by a state that has refused to recognize the popular demand for right of self determination.

Indians remain ignorant of the depth of the passion for ‘Azaadi’ from forced union with India, a union imposed in myriad ways. The policy of land grabbing to settle ex servicemen from outside the state (an old project of RSS); allowing non-state subjects unhindered access to land for industry, real estate, mining, for setting up fortified colonies for migrants; where control of the state government, especially Kashmir based ruling parties, over administration has always been circumscribed by New Delhi; and financial dependence  compounded by autonomy of the military from the purview of representative government – all of these point to the fact that the reins of government are held in New Delhi. Continue reading Kashmir – Cry my beloved country: Gautam Navlakha →