In our part of the world, recently a historical predicament brought everything to a standstill. It was abrupt and not absolutely expected the way it happened. Its impact was unpleasantly overpowering. It suddenly cut us off from our history. Our collective memory was ransacked. We ushered into an era of stifling silence, an era that brutally took to defamiliarizing the … [Read more...] about A Discourse on Writing in Kashmir
Indian Occupied Kashmir
The Stitched Messages: Love Loss and the Last Wishes
I am a tailor. I specialize in sewing shrouds! In the spring of 2015, two young boys came to my shop. They asked me to sew the green crescent flags. I asked them to wait as I was busy stitching a bride’s gown. Two young boys had been martyred in Tral. Their last wish was to be buried with the Green Crescent flag. One of the two boys made me listen to the last call that they had … [Read more...] about The Stitched Messages: Love Loss and the Last Wishes
Sharda Peeth : The Hindutva Encirclement of Political Shrines of Kashmir
Sharda Peeth — its origin, status as a learning centre or temple or both, and philosophical orientation as Hinduistic or Bhudistic may be contestable in its mythological discourse. But what is NOT contestable is the significance of this space in the Hindutva imagination of the subcontinent. Sharda Peeth is central to the ‘Akhand Bharat’ notion in Hindutva Racial … [Read more...] about Sharda Peeth : The Hindutva Encirclement of Political Shrines of Kashmir
Jammu Genocide: Forgotten Human Carnage
On the afternoon of July 10, the Bosnian Serb army soldiers began storming Srebrenica, a city of refuge created by the United Nations, where more than 40,000 people sought shelter from war. A United Nations officer in the town hunched over his computer and tapped out a desperate plea to his leaders in Geneva; about 23,000 Muslim women and children were deported in the next … [Read more...] about Jammu Genocide: Forgotten Human Carnage
19th July, Special Importance in Kashmir’s History
19th July is of special significance and an important day in the history of Jammu and Kashmir when the Kashmiri people had attached their future with Pakistan in 1947. It was on this day in 1947 that the Kashmiris adopted a historic resolution from the platform of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference in Srinagar, calling for the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to … [Read more...] about 19th July, Special Importance in Kashmir’s History