Kashmir: Polls, Politics and Experimentation
PUNCHLINE Polls, Politics and Experimentation Z. G. Muhammad I am not a psephologist. Notwithstanding, in the democratic process, the role of psephology is recognized as an important one, the study of elections in Jammu and Kashmir has never been my cup of tea. I never endeavoured to analyse voting patterns, regional and sub-regional factors, the role of caste, sects and religious factors, in the elections held in the state since in 1957. The 1957 elections were held under the Jammu and Kashmir Representation of … Read entire article »
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Stanly Wolpert: A Historian We Should Read
PUNCHLINE Wolpert’s works Stanley Wolpert is a historian who makes the difference By Z. G. Muhammad In our generation, perhaps rarely any of one might have read it or heard about it. In my small collection of biographies, there is a purple coloured hardbound, with pages turned to smoke yellow biography published eighty-eight years back by George Allen and Unwin Limited, 40 Museum Street, London. It has a foreword by father of Indian Nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The biography has been authored Mahadev Desai Gandhi’s James Boswell and personal … Read entire article »
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Prison Tales VI: 1965- Lives In Bosom Of This Generation
Nostalgia Prison Tales 1965 Dwell in Their Bosoms By ZGM They are no Malcolm X, who has a big story to tell. They are not AlexHaley, who have to share a grand saga of chastisements and confinements of Kunta Kinte and his descendants. Nonetheless, they also have their stories to share, some interesting and touching, on occasions cascading with wit and humour. I am talking of whole a generation of medicos, engineers, professionals and senior officers who were students … Read entire article »
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The Mirwaiz Institution – Its importance In Kashmir Story
The Mirwaiz Institution It’s Importance for Kashmir By Z. G. Muhammad Author Like Chris, a French writer and filmmaker, “What I’m passionate about is History; politics interests me only insofar as it is the cross-section of History in the present.” Looking, at the contemporary scenario at our own place, I was thinking how past three centuries have shaped our contemporary narrative, in this column I may not be able to write how this narrative is potent … Read entire article »
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Prison Tales V: Badamwari Agony amidst Blossoms
Nostalgia Mothers with Tiffin Carriers By ZGM Having cured chilblains contracted during harsh winters by running on fresh snowfalls with deer’s and stag’s thrill; we would be geared by mid-February to be back to the school. Soothing spring breeze greeted us on the way to school, at times the lone almond tree in full bloom in the cherry orchards around the Jamia-Masjid made us detour our journey through the flowering almond gardens inside the four centuries old walled city at the foothills of iconic Srinagar hillock. … Read entire article »
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Kashmir: Silver linings in Dark Clouds
Punchline Kashmir Returns To International Discourse By Z. G. Muhammad On Tuesday 26 February 2019, twenty years after the Kargil war alarm bells once again started ringing in the capitals across the globe from Moscow to Beijing to Washington to Riyadh. On this day at around 3:30 am, the Indian air force conducted airstrikes at Jaba hilltop in Balakot, in Mansehra District in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Several Mirage 2000, dropped “1000 Kg bombs” on the hills. The attack was carried out in ‘reprisal’ of … Read entire article »
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Prison Tales IV: Jails The Cauldron of Ideologies
Nostalgia By ZGM On a shelf in my small study, I have a beautiful book printed on glossy paper ‘Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam’, translated from Persian into our mother tongue by Ghulam Nabi Khayal. It was my second introduction to Khayyam, after having read translation of Rubaiyat by Edward FitzGerald as a student of literature and parroted verses like: “Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.” Many a critic of Kashmiri literature considers Khayal’s translation of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as one of the best in our native language. Long before, as a young student passing my leisure time inside a bookshop in our Mohalla, owned by one of the then famed calligraphist Mahajan Sahib, I had seen the first edition of the translation and heard the story that poet had rendered 15o quatrains from … Read entire article »
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