Poetry: Oh Kashmir!
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?
Kashmir: A Letter to my Mother
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.
Kashmir: The valley of rape
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.
Should I suffer till you bring me aazadi?
By Aamir Qayoom
Should she wait till you get her aazadi?
Justice still eludes Kashmir’s ‘half-widows’
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.
Let the Kashmiris decide their political future
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.
Jahiliyat (Ignorance) killed Rizwan and Atif in Kashmir
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?
Film: Half-Truths and ‘Hamid’
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.
Artwork: On Kashmir
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’.
What does India mean for a Kashmiri student?
By Suaid Rather, Mohammad Umar, and Sobia Bhat
Why are Kashmiris attacked though? Why is that every time a Kashmiri is seen amongst Indians, s/he is seen as the other, an enemy, a terrorist or at least a supporter of some supposed terrorist outfit, thereby blurring the line demarking a civilian and a musketeer?
The long tradition of communal harmony in Kashmir
By Abid Ahmad Shah
In the town of Seer Hamdan, Anantnag, the legal heir of a deceased Hindu Pandit, namely Arzan Nath, is a Muslim man, Nissar Ahmad Wagay. He served the former during ups and downs of life. Arzan Nath was a government employee with no one to look after. Nissar Ahmad served him through the turbulent times and offered heart-touching services, which even a true descendant, could not offer.
In Uttarakhand, it’s time to talk over the Pulwama attack
By Malika Pandey
As someone from Uttarakhand, which has always been famous for its immeasurable generosity, I would like to say that we all need to continue to live up to our ideals. In times of crisis, we ought not to forsake our fellow beings. We need to understand the actual faultiness which have been blurred and how situations have turned out to be a battleground for power politics.
