Peace Watch » Archive
Kashmir Youth Heading Where?
I was shocked! Have, I a reason to get shocked on discovering that our new generation is detached from its past. It knows not what it ought to know. Have I a right to expect young people to think as I do; to believe in what I believe in or to love what I love. If I am not becoming too didactic and want to foist my ideas on the techno savvy generation. These questions … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Who am I?
Talking Identity It set me thinking! In connection with the observance of the World Heritage Day, I received an invitation card from a government organization, the motto on top of the card read: `Preserve the Heritage – Preserve the identity.’ The motto by all stretch of imagination is innocuous but for me it subtly made a huge political statement and stirred many a question that called for answers. Who am I? Where are my roots? What is my identity? Do I have an identity of my own or I am just a part of the sub-continental identity? Does this identity provide basis to my grand narrative? How and why has my ‘identity’ become part of the “dominant discourse”? To tell me who I am, some years back a beeline of “scholars’, “researchers”, “think … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Islam Inaugurated Intellectual liberity in Kashmir
Introduction Man is born poet. To express himself has been an innate and intrinsic urge with him. Initially he might have responded to the ‘sounds of natural forces; birds and animals; fear and joy through shrieks, cries and guffaws.’ The pitch and quality of these initial expressions might have ‘by degrees invented words and language.’ When did first word tumble in the world is a question that would continue to engage the attention of scientists in … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Featured
Is Accepting Political Defeat A Way Out?
Gimmickry and diplomacy are not and cannot be synonymous. Past week Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was in New Delhi. He had a luncheon meeting with Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Ostensibly, it was a “private visit” but after Dr. Manmohan Singh invited him for a one to one meeting and sumptuous luncheon in Mogul, tradition it turned into what was described as an ‘accidental summit’. There was a lot of euphoria in a section … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Jammu Since 1947 Abdul Majid Zargar tells the tale
The recent communal incidents in district Rajouri of Jammu province need to be viewed in the historical perspective. Primarily, because it is essential to lay the lessons of the past before the present & future for those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it . These events, were Ostensibly provoked by Parveen Togadia, international president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, but in effect it is the continuation of the RSS agenda followed in Jammu since 1947 .In that year, Muslims of Jammu were systematically annihilated under a well thought out plan by RSS under Maharaja Hari Singh’s auspices. Their percentage in population was reduced from 61% to 38% thus changing the demographic character of the province. As Gandhi himself said on November 27, 1947, “This (genocide) has not been … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured
Distorted Kashmir History And Historians.
History too is elitist. It does not tell the whole story. It tells stories about Czars, Pharaohs, and Moguls but very rarely narrates the stories about the real Spartacus’s- the real heroes. Kashmir is not an exception besides elitism the history of this land more particularly about past seven hundred years has also suffered distortions and largely written with a particular mindset. It is not only, none of the past historians has written what is termed as the ‘people’s history’ but they have been on mainly to use Albert Camus ‘phrase by ‘the side of executioners’. Here, I am not to talk about the narratives of the past that avowedly have been twisted to suit particular discourses but of the contemporary history that I believe after the end of the feudal rule … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
My Nile Tells Stories of Agony and Ecstasy
It was an odyssey- a grand odyssey: ‘sailing along the past’ with the great Sultans of Kashmir, sharing pinnacles of their glories, celebrating their victories and tasting their benevolences. Singing hymns in chorus with the great saints of the yore and living mystic experiences with the great mystics of the land. Suffering with the multitudes fleeced alive by the beastly rulers and then hanged from the cantilever bridges like sheep from hooks in a butcher’s … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take