By Ashley Tellis
The University of Hyderabad students, like Jawaharlal Nehru University students, and like students everywhere in this beleaguered country, are used to this sort of heckling, harassment and intimidation and continue to stand their ground, somewhat tiredly. It is a sad, sad country we live in.
By Abid Ahmad Shah
The struggle of Kashmiris for political and economic rights, justice and dignity predates the birth of India and Pakistan. According to Geelani, it is important to contextualise and historicize the struggle of Kashmiris for independence which can be traced to the 16th century when it was taken over by the Mughals.
By Caroline Vimla and Inamul Haq
The ongoing situation in Kashmir echoes Frantz Fanon’s formulation that the colonial forces focus on two things: it creates a division and the frontiers are populated by barracks and military forces. It is the military man who is more powerful than anyone else and they are frequent in their actions in order to maintain contact with the natives. The creation of fear is one of the tactics the colonizer employs and, in the process, he uses brute forces.
By Sabyasachi Nag
If I tear your veil and force my lips on the blue flame that burns
Your eyes, could you not keep them shut tonight? Not see, just sense?
Kashmir, why do you look at me and make me cry?
By Inamul Haq
A ‘state of exception’ is a lawless void, in which the state authorities act in extreme situations with the force of law. The force of law makes law and life indistinguishable.
By Rimli Bhattacharya
When we type “Rape cases in Kashmir” on Google, we are welcomed by a barrage of more than thirty such gruesome results within a span of one year. And the most startling factor is that the majority of these rapes have been executed by the Indian security forces.
By Aamir Qayoom
Should she wait till you get her aazadi?
By Maliha Siddiqi
Even the term ‘half-widow’ can be construed as derogatory as the individual identity of a woman does not hold any importance and all her individuality is compromised as she is only reduced to a wife – a widow.
By Sabzar Ahmad Bhat
The idea of letting “the Kashmiri people decide their future” comes from a speech, made by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952, in which he said that he would give the Kashmiri people a chance to decide their political future. For this approach to ever become a reality, both Pakistan and India would need to significantly change their attitudes to allow Kashmiri people to play a role in resolving the Kashmir conflict.
By Javid Pandith
When a society starts taking sides and stops to call a spade a spade, it opens itself to anarchy and lawlessness. Time and again we as a society have failed Kashmiriyat by being hypocrites. We claim to be champions of human rights by highlighting the human shield act of Major Gogoi and the pelleting of baby Hiba. But what is holding us back from condemning Atif Mir’s death and observing a shut down on a number of such other cases?
By Mekhala Chattopadhyay
Aijaz Khan does not forge solutions or answers to what exists, but shows what is there, as a part of the lived experience. He does not answer the question whether Hamid retains the hope card through his teenage, and beyond. The discomfort is evident, but not spoken for or against.
By Jyotsna Dwivedi
It should have noticed the crawling shadows that stopped belonging to ‘people’
– ‘who belong to their own land’.
It should have noticed the fumes rising out of their whispers,
Whimpering ‘what about us, our children, our land’.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 