By Ather Zia I am their Mother, who shall bar me from them?[1] Mogal Maas breathed her last in the fall of 2009, just some hours short of the 27th of October, a momentous date in Kashmir’s history. In her last days, she was bedridden but not defeated in the … Read more →

BY Hakeem Irfan The razor wires, barbed wire mentality, troops, dogs, garbage, bullets, tear smoke canisters, rubber bullets, pallet guns, murders, injuries, hospital, ambulance, protests, identity card, dialogue, peace, treason, apathy, promise break, impotent curfew pass and of course the CURFEW itself. The vocabulary has reduced to these words in … Read more →

Long Drive to Freedom By Sajid Iqbal ‘We shall meet again in Srinagar, by the gates of the Villa of Peace, our hands blossoming into fists till the soldiers return the keys and disappear. Again we’ll enter our last world, the first that vanished in our absence from the broken … Read more →

By Sohail Iqbal The legend has it that each locality in my homeland owned one pyjama only. Inhabitants of that locality would take turns to wear the solitary pyjama whenever they undertook a visit to another locality. Those times might have preceded me but the earlier period of the last … Read more →

By Nyla Ali Khan In the wake of Modi’s reprehensible attempt to stoke the flames of communal hatred and sectarianism in Gujarat and the judgment of the Lucknow branch of the Allahabad high court regarding the Ram Janmabhoomi site, our memories of the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation of 1989 are refreshed. … Read more →

By Rekha Chowdhary Social Diversity Jammu and Kashmir is a highly diverse society going through conflict in an intensified manner. Diversities are so placed in this state that a complex social and political environment is generated. Firstly, there is no clear-cut context of ‘majority’ and ‘minority. Majority in one context … Read more →

By Shubh Mathur I recently came across a picturesque and devastatingly accurate metaphor for nation-building, that of a ‘‘handsome neoclassical building in which political prisoners scream in the basement’ [i]. Despite the truth we that we almost instinctively recognize in this image, the authoritarianism and violence ‘“symbolic and physical – … Read more →

Ather Zia [circa 2010] You ask about his birth? No, no he was not born today. No not at the time you see him, frozen in the frames of countless magazines and screens, aggressive and intent on throwing the stone at the well armed and armored Indian trooper whose finger … Read more →

  Kashmiri-American Poet [February 4th, 1949 – 8th December 2001] In this 2010 winter issue, we mark Kashmiri American poet Agha Shahid Ali’s birthday which falls on February 4th. Shahid had very short time on this earth nevertheless the genius of his poetry blossomed and continues to flourish in the … Read more →

Sohail Iqbal Pluck the feathers of a wild duck; smoke it on a charcoal fire so that all the bits of fluff are burnt away. Roast it in a spicy gravy ‘and we Kashmiris would love it ‘Batte kehow Mussalman ‘Muslims and Pandits alike. Let’s revive wildfowling! Let us face … Read more →

By Najeeba Syeed-Miller Too often in modern religious discourse, we have devolved into conversations that emphasize only the passion of faith and do not honor the very aspect of faith that make us human: The role of rational thought. Emotion is important; it keeps us connected with God. We know … Read more →

By Nusrat Ara Some months ago, lawmakers in Kashmir secretly got the new legislative building exorcised after chief minister Omar Abdullah nearly lost his chair on the second day of the session. In 2008, former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had to resign on the first day of the first … Read more →

Shopian Rape Case Conundrum By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal Two women went to their orchard in the evening of May 29 last year in Shopian, Kashmir and went missing. They never returned. Their family and police personnel searched for them till the dead of the night along the trickle of a … Read more →

By Fatima Sultan Syed I grew up in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, in a small town adjacent to Dal Lake. If mythology were to be my source, I would tell you that life itself emanated from this lake and that monsters and demons hid deep in its waters. But … Read more →

By Javeed Ahmad Mir Concluding her speech at U.S.-India Business Council’s 34th Anniversary ‘Synergies Summit’ just before her India visit, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said, Sixty years ago this October, then-Prime Minister Nehru told a joint session of the United States Congress that, quote, Progress cannot go far … Read more →

By Nyla Ali Khan I belong to Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), a highly volatile South Asian region with rich reservoirs of cultural, social and human wealth. I was raised in the splendid Kashmir Valley located in the foothills of the Himalayas. The charm, splendor and heterogeneity of the Valley … Read more →

By Seema Kazi The unexpectedly high voter turnout in the Valley during Kashmir’s recent assembly elections evoked considerable debate and analysis. A number of commentators both in Kashmir and elsewhere noted that the elections reflected citizens’ expectation and demand for good governance and development; they did not represent a mandate … Read more →

By Jehangir Rashid Kashmir valley has been a witness to the conflict over the past couple of decades and estimates put the number of casualties at one hundred thousand. Thousands of women have been widowed and almost one lakh children have turned out to be orphans. In addition to the … Read more →

by Afsana Rashid Absence of proof of death makes life miserable for half – widows, women whose husbands are missing in a conflict situation in Kashmir. That is the irony they are faced with and continue to live with uncertain hopes. Waiting for twelve years (after the disappearance of her … Read more →