Somewhere in Indian Occupied Kashmir [Image Gowhar Farooq]As a people living under an occupation which is camouflaged inside a democratic patina, dripping with draconian laws, there is a constant erasure of Kashmiri bodies, memories, and identities. Kashmiris are inflicted with active forgetting to ensure survival. At the frontier where the direct gaze of prose is constricted with barbed wires of multiple coercions, poetry spurts forth. Poetry makes one a witness, rather than just an archivist. One’s life-blood, all that is political and emotional; lived, remaining, and forgotten coagulates into a poem. Kashmir Lit presents the selections for 2018 resistance poetry section. Read, savor, think — Ather Zia
The role and importance of poetry in liberation struggles are crucial since the orality of verse aids mobilization of a collective response to occupation and subjugation. The orality also makes it an ideal archive of collective memory and consciousness. It represents an attempt by the populace to speak for itself rather than allow other groups to articulate their interests and perspectives. This was the guiding principle behind the call for submissions in this issue, and the selection of pieces. Each demonstrates one aspect of the subaltern’s subjectivity. We hope you will savor the poems and witness the times upon the people hidden from view — Huzaifa Pandit
