By Arif Khan
The most significant question is: why has this exceptional violence taken place during an election boycott? The simple answer is that new generation of Kashmiri youth, born and brought up in the conflict of the nineties of the last century are in no mood to compromise.
By Faakirah Irfan
Until they take down your voice
Gas light your memory
Make battlefields out of your universities
Make martyrs out of toddlers
The occupiers won’t stop.
By Arif Khan
The problem gets compounded when educated youth from the Valley join militant ranks. This is something over which the government needs to think. The PDP-BJP govt has miserably failed to bring “peace” in the Valley. Instead, the chief minister Mehbooba Mufti reiterated her view that the violence is the handiwork of “5%” of the people.
By Adil Bhat
In building the narrative around Noor’s character, Mir opens up the window to his mind and thoughts that is both narrow and has complete disregard for the life of a Kashmiri, which appears simplistic from the outside, but is otherwise dense and located in politics. A subjective account of a protracted conflict, Khalid’s book lacks nuance and depth.
By Asif Ahmad Bhat
The most notable European to travel Kashmir over the Banihal range was none other than Francois Bernier, a French physician attached to the Mughal court at Delhi in the 17th century. Conferring on Kashmir the title, ‘paradise of the Indies’, Bernier writes lyrically: “The numberless streams which issue from the mountains maintain the valley and hillocks in the most delightful verdure. The whole kingdom wears the appearance of fertile and highly cultivated gardens. Villages and hamlets are frequently seen through the luxuriant foliage.”
By Inamul Haque
Those who are aware of Kashmir history would know that violence in the Kashmir valley has increased a lot since 1989. As Hanna Ardent had perceptively argued, violence becomes a tool and technique of social control among the modern nation states.
By Mohammed Sirajuddeen
Burhan didn’t commit mistakes; he was not against ‘Amarnath Yartra’. Since he worked for the sake of Allah, he was in support of Pandits and wanted communal harmony.
By Asif Bhat
Initially, the fruits of the modern education were reaped by the children of Kashmiri pundits. The CMS School was, in fact, monopolized by them. Muslims, on the other hand, from the very beginning of English education, did not show much interest in it. There were so many factors responsible for this. The pundits possessed the economic means to acquire education while, Muslims were very poor. The Muslim clergymen made them believe that by studying English they would become Christians.
By Faakirah Irfan & Sartaj Rather
Khaki
Guns and control
Oppression and mutilation
Barbed wires and bunkers that rise on
The fodder of our young souls.
By Mohammed Sirajuddeen
An exclusive interview with Prof. GN Saibaba, conducted a week back.
By Gowhar Fazili
The mediocrity of the Indian intellectuals and activists has thus rendered the word azadi into an empty signifier that can mean anything and nothing and divested it of all its political and critical content at the slightest nudge from the Right. Is it because they lack moral courage or are they deep down psychically aligned with majoritarian nationalism?
By M.H.A.Sikander
Here we must ask some genuine questions: Will an independent Kashmir face similar problems of structural injustices, poverty, gender parity, economic inequality, and rule of elites and feudal lords? Will the Indian trooper be replaced by a Kashmiri one with similar powers to kill and maim with impunity? Will we suppress the political aspirations of our own people in a similar manner as India is doing now?
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 