2014 Worries Me
Z. G. MUHAMMAD I am a good sleeper. A paragraph in a new book “The Thistle and The Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam” by Prof. Akbar Ahmed gave me a couple of sleepless nights. Moreover, set me thinking about 2014. Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington D.C. He is an internationally acclaimed anthropologist, an administrator and diplomat by training. He has been Pakistan’s Ambassador in the United Kingdom and has spent long years as administrator in Waziristan and Balochistan and as a student in Mohand tribal areas. This book is third in the series of books that he has written about ‘troubled relations’ between the Muslim World and the United States after 9/11. In this … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk
Nailing Lies About Kashmir Struggle
Z.G. MUHAMMAD It is tomfoolery- share naiveté. You cannot beat us by contorting and distorting hard historical realities. You cannot delegitimize a movement- a Spartan movement as old as two hundred years marked with bravery and soaked in blood by spreading lies about it and its Spartacus. Of late, some fringe elements of a particular community, owing their allegiance to a particular mindset have launched a vicious campaign of distorting history of the struggle of people of Jammu and Kashmir for their rights through internet and their websites. To spread canard about a struggle for freedom and rights that is older than the Chicago uprising, they shoot as many malicious mails as they can – their most favourite target readership has been journalists, writers and members of the civil society. This malicious campaign, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk
In Defence of M.A. Jinnah
Mountbatten, Jinnah and Nehru M. YUSUF BUCH To hold Jinnah “solely responsible” for the Kashmir dispute is, of course, sheer calumny but sentiment and ethics apart, it is also a breathtakingly grotesque contention. From the whole tangle of personalities, Indian, Pakistani or Kashmiri involved in the origination and hardening of the dispute either by commission or by omission, it foists blame on the one whose role was least indictable, indeed most honorable and based on perspicuous judgment. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Perspectives
Who Are They To Tell You This
Books And ‘National Narratives’ Z.G. MUHAMMAD Four new books, published from Srinagar during May vied for space in my small work place. Out of them, two have been written inside the Central Jail, Srinagar by two prisoners Dr. Muhammad Shafi Khan Shariati and Dr. Muhammad Qasim. Both convicted for life. Ess Ahmed Pirzada and Shabnam Qayoom have authored the other two. The book by Dr. Muhammad Shafi Khan Shariati is an Urdu translation of controversial book ‘The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order’ by Samuel P Huntington. Translated into almost every important language in the world the book has been for past two decades at the centre of discussion in academia, passageways of power in the West and the Muslim World. Seen as gospel for Muslim bashing the adversaries of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk
A.G.Noorani On A Slippery Wicket
Z.G. Muhammad On two counts, I thank A.G. Noorani, one, for titling his book as, ‘The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012.’ (No one now in New Delhi likes to call Kashmir as a ‘dispute’. Instead, they grapple with some “palatable” softer phrases for describing the imbroglio.) Two, for bringing question of the ‘accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India’ once again into sharp focus through his speech. In his speech on the release of his book, he made … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk
Geelani, Abdullah and Bakshi- Right To Dissent
Has Dissent Place in Kashmir Z. G. MUHAMMAD Long before. Almost a century back our forefathers had started struggle for right to dissent and free speech. The then feudal rulers who had purchased the land and people as merchandise from the British for making a booty and sharing the same with their lords had denied all freedom to the people of the land. Most disadvantageously placed was the overwhelming Muslim population. ‘There was no touch between the government and the people, no suitable opportunity for representing the grievances..The rulers had no sympathy for people’s wants and grievances. There was no space for public opinion and press was non-existent’. This dismal situation had not only caused our elders to rise in revolt but also even made an important Christen Minister of Maharaja Albion Bannerji … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk
2014- Kashmir and Afghanistan
Z.G. Muhammad Some fifty-nine years back Josef Korbel wrote, ‘India and Pakistan continue to dissipate their wealth, their strength and their energy on a near fratricidal struggle in which the hitherto almost unknown State of Kashmir has become the physical battleground.’ Trillions of dollars are spent on building arsenals at the cost of development of tens of millions living a sub-human life. People of the two countries have not been paying heavy prices for the wars … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk