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Kashmir: Hegemonic Discourses And Azadi
PUNCHLINE People VS Power Z,G. Muhammad Seventy-one years on we have become so used to the ‘hegemonic discourses’ that once a new one is churned out; people laugh it out. Many an important political scientist like Antonio Gramsci have dwelled upon the subject ‘hegemonic discourse’ in great detail and come up with scholarly treatises on the subject. Instead of getting lost in the academic jargons in simpler terms it means the ‘dominant powers’; ‘who have come … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Kashmir: Hegemonic Discourses And Word Azadi
PUNCHLINE People VS Power Z.G. Muhammad Seventy-one years on we have become so used to the ‘hegemonic discourses’ that once a new one is churned out; people laugh it out. Many an important political scientist like Antonio Gramsci have dwelled upon the subject ‘hegemonic discourse’ in great detail and come up with scholarly treatises on the subject. Instead of getting lost in the academic jargons in simpler terms it means the ‘dominant powers’; ‘who have come to be … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Bombay Days: The City Is Not All About Darker Alleys And Thugs
Nostalgia Outside Darker Alleys ZGM The city of seven islands for me was not just about the tinsel town with all its flashy glamour and scandalous stories making covers of glamour magazines. Or some making to the cover pages and topless female centerfolds of the Debonair magazine. It was not all about spicy gossip columns of Devayani Chaubel ’s about film stars, actors, and actresses. Her concocted stories’ precariously brimming with an “intimacy” that unnerved topmost … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
AMU Portrait Controversy: Amidst RSS Hate Campaign Jinnah Reigns Supreme
Punchline RSS Portrait Controversy: Jinnah Reigns Supreme By Z.G. Muhammad History reveals itself. Sometimes, it is a bad happening that works as catalysts in bringing out some important historical facts to the fore that otherwise remain concealed under the veil of political prejudices, expediencies of power politics or the vote bank politics. What has been happening in the Aligarh Muslim University during the week is sad and bad. Nonetheless, the sad happenings have triggered a debate … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Bombay Days 14. Spiritual Solace In Madding Crowds of Bombay
Nostalgia Spiritual Solace in Bombay ZGM Instantaneously, on my arrival, in February 1983, I had fallen in love in with metropolitan not only for its glamour and glitter, its pulsating evenings and safe nights but the honesty amidst the hullabaloo of crime and fraudulence. The cab drivers, mostly Muslims from Kutchi Memon community that had come from Gujarat to the metropolitan in the early nineteenth century had earned trust with the commuters for their scrupulousness and integrity. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Omar Abdullah’s Berkley Discourse Demolished
PUNCHLINE Hashtag Kashmir Omar Abdullah Berkley Discourse Demolished Z.G. Muhammad The Blue Gate, leading to a magnificent two-story white building with blue windows on the foothills of the Mount Solomon, Srinagar has been central to the post-1947 Kashmir narrative. In 1964, when topmost United Nations official Ralph Bunch arrived in Kashmir, the then premier students’ organization, the Jammu and Kashmir Students and Youth League organized a march to the white building housing the United Nations Military Observers Group. Lieutenant … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Bombay 12. Film Nagari to Dawat o Tabligh and Islah
Nostalgia Bandra Bandstand By ZGM Someone to my delight sent an anonymous poem ‘Bandra Meri Jann’ to me on WhatsApp. The amateurish poem took me on a trek to the Carter Road, the Linking Road, the Pali Hill and Bandstand of the city of dreams. It made me relish the soothing breeze blowing along the Carter Road, relive the experiences of the pageant of buzzing street Bazars, high profile designer boutiques, gaudy and stylish shoes and trendy fashion of the Linking Road, and glamour, romances and freedom of the Bandstand. Nonetheless, the poem also took me on an odyssey to the teenage days- full of fancies, fantasies, and dreams when some of my friends sitting on Hassan Khar’s shopfront daydreamed about making it to the film world. Truly, those were simple nevertheless beautiful days. The … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take