Eerie Silence: The Trauma of Kashmir in the Larger Context of the Fight for Democracy and Human Rights

Posted on August 26, 2019 by beenasarwar

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.

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Filed under: Art and activism, Kashmir, Pakistan-India, Peace | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Journalism and “the lives and aspirations of the peoples of Jammu and Kashmir”

Posted on August 13, 2019 by beenasarwar

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: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

India-Pakistan people’s peace resolution: Throwing a pebble in the pond

Posted on May 7, 2017 by beenasarwar

Shubha_Mudgal

Music legend Shubha Mudgal

A valiant effort by concerned citizens of India and Pakistan to stem the tide of hatred, bigotry and violence, this Resolution has hundreds of endorsements listed alphabetically below. The Resolution is now online at this link. Please sign and share.

Peacemongers call for India, Pakistan to resolve differences through dialogue

With tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan on the rise, some concerned citizens from India and Pakistan have come together to formulate a statement expressing their deep concern at “the current rise in animosity and antagonism between India and Pakistan”. The resolution urges “both governments and their security establishments to take all steps possible towards improving relations”. Continue reading →

Filed under: Pakistan-India | Tagged: , , , , , | 16 Comments »

As tensions rise between India and Pakistan, we remember a friend who called for peace

Posted on November 8, 2016 by beenasarwar

Sharing a piece I wrote with Dr. Partha Banerjee about our friend Haider “jigar”Rizvi, published by PRI on October 28, 2016, a year after he died in Lahore. Reproduced here with photos that we weren’t able to get to PRI in time.

Haider in Gilgit-fb page

Haider Rizvi celebrating life and love at Ghizar District, Gilgit, 2015. Photo by Qamar Abbas.

Last year around this time, we were saddened by the death of our poet and journalist friend Haider Rizvi in Lahore, Pakistan, on Oct 29, 2015. Haider had lived in New York, and was for many years a correspondent for the Inter Press Service (IPS), based at the United Nations.

With Haider’s untimely passing, we lost someone who loved to make friends irrespective of religion, color or caste — someone who believed firmly in peace.
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Filed under: Pakistan-India | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Call me unpatriotic, or even a traitor…

Posted on July 15, 2016 by beenasarwar

Respect to and solidarity with those who refuse to fall in line with the oppressive narratives peddled by hyper nationalists and security establishments. Sharing a post here by senior journalist Saleem Asmi, former Editor of Dawn and a dear friend of my late father:

Call me unpatriotic, even a traitor if you like, but I must say this straight, without mincing words that we have no right, absolutely no right at all, to condemn what the Indian occupation troops are doing in Kashmir, as long as we are ourselves guilty of committing the same, even worse, crimes in Balochistan. Now look at this: 1) The Indian army has invaded and occupied Kashmir, 2) They brutally oppress the Kashmiri people, and call the freedom fighters ‘terrorists’, 3) We invaded and occupied Balochistan in 1948, 4) We brutally oppress the Baloch people, and call the freedom fighters ‘terrorists’. If anything, we surpass the Indians in kidnapping young Baloch by their thousands without trace. Then their brutally tortured bodies appear under flyovers, by the roads, anywhere.

Also see – by Hasan Raza in Pakistan: Kashmiris continue to be the biggest victims of the Indo-Pak tussle for Kashmir – and Nirupama Subramanian in India: Face the disillusion

 

Filed under: Balochistan, Human rights | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The real cost of conflict in South Asia

Posted on October 17, 2015 by beenasarwar

My article on the symposium I attended last week at University of Texas, Dallas, published in Aman ki Asha

The real cost of conflict in South Asia

Peacetalks symposium: Raza Rumi, Pritpal Singh, Amitabh Pal, Nyla Ali Khan. Photo by Beena Sarwar

By Beena Sarwar

Born in the Rawalpindi area in 1943, Suresh Bakshi was about four years old when his family left their ancestral home after Partition in 1947. But he still remembers and has strong feelings for the place where he was born.

These feelings created a powerful conflict when, as an Indian Army soldier, he fought in the 1965 war against Pakistan. Continue reading →

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For Insha Afsar… Ski is the limit

Posted on May 26, 2015 by beenasarwar

Ski is the limit

Insha Afsar: A champion skier from Muzaffarabad.

Thanks to the Association of Pakistani Physicians of New England (APPNE) for the opportunity to meet an inspiring young lady, 14-year old Insha Afsar of Muzaffarabad who lost a leg in the earthquake of 2005 but has risen to become a champion one-legged skier, enabled by her supportive host parents in the USA. My piece in The News on Sunday

Some weeks ago, I happened to sit at the same table as a bright-eyed, long-haired young girl with a wide smile. The only non-desis in the room were the white couple with her. I assumed they were doctors or medical representatives in that hall full of physicians and their families.

But a pair of crutches resting on the table indicated that the girl was Insha Afsar, the 14-year old from Muzaffarabad who lost a leg in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake but has become a skiing sensation as she dominates the slopes — on one leg. Continue reading →

Filed under: 'Internally Displaced Persons', Gender | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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