Punchline Thieving My Language By Z. G. Muhammad    The whole story is about the “hegemony”. It is all about cultural and political dominance.  The concept of political and “cultural hegemony” as theorized by Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci’s, in fact, explains the situation that we are more intensely caught up in during past sixteen months. There is all out effort by the powers that be, to ‘manipulate the cultural of our society, change our beliefs, perception, values, customs, and traditions. So that the world view of hegemonic forces becomes our world view – that is imposed and accepted as the cultural norm and an ideology that justifies political status quo as natural and inevitable.’ To the long list of the ‘dominant discourses’ and hideous moves aimed at changing the demography of the Muslim majority state, … Read entire article »

Punchline The “Map” Battle By Z. G. Muhammad G. Muhammad In the 1990s firebrand, Hurriyat Conference leader Late Abdul Gani Lone was a nationalist to the core. In the mid-nineties, when ‘armed struggle’ was at its peak, he wanted to reach out to Indian masses with his idea of Kashmiri nationalism. And garner support for an independent state of Jammu and Kashmir which he believed could be an oasis- a buffer of peace bridging three nuclear powers. His belief was that the left in India was not suffering ‘ultra-nationalism’, and there were some important leftist leaning intellectuals and ideologues who were supporters to self-determination for people of the state. For this belief, he wanted to start his campaign for winning friends for his cause from Kolkata- once a bastion of the left … Read entire article »

  The UN in the Dock Z. G. Muhammad Two years back the National Geographic identified world’s six “worrisome disputes”-   potentially dangerous to the global peace.  These included Crimea, the East China Sea, Jammu and Kashmir, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and West Bank, Western Sahara and Transdniestria.  The report recognized Jammu and Kashmir as disputed, ‘since the British relinquished control of the subcontinent in the 1940s.’ For the state being ‘highly militarized, and troops of two nuclear powers of South Asia pitted against each other along the 724-kilometre long Line of Control, the National Geographic looking at Jammu and Kashmir as most ‘simmering’ dispute had very candidly pointed out dangers inherent in the ‘lingering’ of this dispute. Since the birth of the dispute thousands of people have fallen to the bullets and bombs. … Read entire article »