Wrote this curtain raiser a couple of weeks ago together with a colleague in India, published in Aman Ki Asha 20 September 2019.
By Neel Kamal and Beena Sarwar
The world’s largest India-Pakistan golf tournament will take place in Los Angeles early October, even as relations between nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours India and Pakistan sink to a dangerously low levels.
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Published in Cambridge Chronicle, September 24, 2019.
Sunday, 22 September, Cambridge MA: “Resist to exist” proclaimed a placard on the steps of MIT. The placard featured the picture of a woman in a red pheran, the long woolen tunic traditionally worn by Kashmiris from the Himalayan region in India’s north-west tip.
The woman holding the placard also wore a red pheran, her mouth taped shut like the others in the pheran-clad group she stood with to symbolize the communications blackout in her home state since 5 August this year. The pheran reflects an iconic image that has become integral to the Kashmiris’ resistance movement, as covered by NPR news recently (Finding resistance in fashion, Kashmiri creator turns to the pheran).
The color red, taken up by thousands in their social media profile images, has come to symbolize the Kashmiris’ spirit of resistance and defiance.
The woman and her companions stood with other peace-loving South Asians and friends on the steps of MIT this past Sunday at noon, to demand that the Indian government “immediately restore communication in Kashmir, remove the draconian measures enforced in the name of security and order, and respect Kashmiris’ right of self-determination”.
The next day, Monday 23 September, marked Day 50 of “the unprecedented and total communications blackout for 8 million Kashmiris enforced on them by the Indian government. Kashmiris, living in the most militarized region on earth, now fear that the present communications blackout is part of a larger plan to ‘ethnically cleanse’ Kashmir,” according to the statement read out at the event.
The event at MIT was part of a series of peaceful protests that weekend in solidarity with the Kashmiri people, coordinated by a small coalition called the Global Standout for Peace in South Asia.
Besides Boston, the Standouts took place in the San Francisco Bay area, Kolkata (India), Gotenburg (Sweden), Islamabad (Pakistan), and Kathmandu (Nepal), on the same weekend as Indian Prime Minister Modi shared the stage with U.S. President Trump in Houston. Solidarity with Kashmir protests took place in Houston also, as well as Seattle WA.
Nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan both lay claim to Kashmir. The Global Standout protestors showed their rejection of these territorial claims by not carrying the flags of any nation or state.
Supporting organizations in Boston included Massachusetts Peace Action, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, MIT Students Against War, Stand With Kashmir, Coalition for Democratic India, Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia, and Boston University Students for Justice in Palestine.
Addressing the participants, Cambridge City Councillor Sumbul Siddiqui encouraged them to keep ‘speaking out for justice’.
The event ended with a drum sounding 50 beats, one for each day since the communications lockdown up to that point.
(ends)
Filed under: fascism, Freedom of expression, Human rights, Kashmir, Peace | Tagged: #StandwithKashmir, Activism, Global solidarity, Kashmir, women | 1 Comment »
This weekend, starting with 21 September 2019, the UN International Day of Peace, marks a series of events taking place in cities around the world in solidarity with Kashmiris.
Continue readingFiled under: Art and activism, Human rights, Kashmir, Pakistan-India, Peace | Tagged: #StandwithKashmir, India, Pakistan | 1 Comment »
I wrote this piece a few days back – the second of my occasional syndicated columns. Published in The Wire, Naya Daur, Mainstream, The Citizen among others.
Early Sunday morning in Karachi, a little over a month after his 89th birthday on 18 July 2019, B. M. Kutty slipped into the ever after. Lifelong activist, trade unionist, political worker, peacemonger, humanist. I like to remember him as I last saw him in Karachi – his big smile, deep voice with its powerful timbre, intense gaze behind the glasses, dapper as usual in bush-shirt and trousers.
Continue readingFiled under: Obituary, Pakistan, Pakistan-India, Progressive politics, Resistance | Tagged: Asma Jahangir, B.M. Kutty, Communist Party of Pakistan, cpp, DSF, eqbal ahmad, Eric Rahim, Hasan Nasir, india pakistan peace, Kerala, Malabari, Moplah, Mubashir Hasan, Pakistan, PILER, PIPFPD, SAP-Pk, south asia | Leave a comment »
Rafia Bano, 23, was injured by pellets in the courtyard of her house. Photo: Quratulain Rehbar, Kashmir Walla/The Wire
I wrote this piece about the Kashmir issue last week, trying to go beyond the chest-thumping and belligerence to the trauma of the Kashmiri people. Also making the point that brandishing Pakistan flags at protests about the injustice in Kashmir does not help the Kashmiri people. Thirdly, this struggle must be situated in the larger context of the fight for democracy and human rights, relevant beyond India. Published in Naya Daur and Hard News. Some related must-read pieces besides those linked in my piece: ‘Separate Fact From Fiction’: A Letter to PM Modi From a Kashmiri by Salman Anees Soz, India must stop weaponizing the pain of Kashmiri Pandits by Nishita Trisal, Arundhati Roy, The Silence Is the Loudest Sound; and this searing piece in The Wire: Ground Report: Agony and Casualties in the Valley in the Immediate Aftermath of Shutdown. And this: The Mental Health of Kashmiris is Everybody’s concern: Dr Kala. My piece below.
Filed under: Art and activism, Kashmir, Pakistan-India, Peace | Tagged: Article 370, censorship, Curfew, democracy, Kashmir, mental health, Modi | Leave a comment »
Wrote this piece yesterday, published in Aman Ki Asha, about the annual joint Independence Day Celebrations by Indians and Pakistanis. The Aman Dosti Yatra (Peace Friendship March) reached Amritsar from Delhi yesterday. Friends in Pakistan were prevented from going to the border but they held a seminar in Lahore. There’s a piece about the Yatra in The Indian Express:
Continue readingFiled under: Interfaith, Pakistan-India, Progressive politics | Tagged: Activism, Aman Dosti Yatra, Asma Jahangir, Independence Days, India, Kamla Bhasin, Pakistan, peace march, Syeda Hameed | Leave a comment »
Facebook.com/IshtyaquesCartoons
The largest people-to-people group in the region, the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy has since its formation in the mid-1990s been calling for India and Pakistan to see Kashmir not as a territorial dispute but as a matter of the lives and aspirations of the peoples of Jammu and Kashmir, who must be involved in any dialogue about their future. That seems even further from the table now. Continue reading
Filed under: democratic political process, Human rights, Kashmir, Pakistan-India | Tagged: bearing witness, freedom of information, Human rights, India, journalism, Kashmir, Pakistan, Peace | 2 Comments »
Prof. Higgins haranguing Eliza in My Fair Lady
We raised eyebrows when Higgins asked
“why can’t a woman be more like a man?”
Look how whole nations now build upon
That thought in the Professor’s brain. Continue reading
Filed under: Culture, fascism, Freedom of expression | Tagged: democracy, equality, fascism, Gender, gender equality, Human rights, India, lynching, Middle East, poetry, racism, usa | Leave a comment »
Women mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Lahore, November 25, 2010. (Getty)
Found this old report I wrote about a young woman who miraculously survived horrific domestic violence, published in The News on Sunday, 18 January 2004. What has changed in Pakistan since I reported on it and what hasn’t? Posting it here as I couldn’t find it online.
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Filed under: Gender, Human rights | Tagged: Asma Jahangir, domestic abuse, domestic violence, gender violence, VAW, women | Leave a comment »
M. Bashir ‘Chacha Chicago’ cheers for both teams (for details see this report)
I wrote this piece published in The Wire 6 June 2019, Letter From a Pakistani to an Indian Friend: Can We Please Have a South Asian Union? — pegged on Eid at the time. Posting it here on the eve of the Cricket World Cup match between Pakistan and India in Manchester Sunday. As Admiral Ramu Ramdas says in his little video message, treat it as a game, not a proxy war… And we want a South Asian spirit (also see Himal SouthAsian map and caption below)
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Journeys to democracy 