Peace Watch

  Punchline Art, Literature and Resistance   By Z.G. Muhammad    When a brush, a goblet of paint and a sheet of canvas sends shockwaves to the citadels of power. When a strip of celluloid causes the mighty to jitter in their high rise buildings.   When a tune played on a Santoor shatters window panes of the bastions of the authority.  When verses like “You may write me down in history—but still, like dust, I’ll rise” or “Write down! I … Read entire article »

PUNCHLINE Taking Kashmir To ICJ By Z.G. Muhammad   Can the Kashmir Dispute, once again make it to the center stage of the International Politics and the United Nations? This question started making rounds in diplomatic and media circles in India and Pakistan, and few other world capitals after New Delhi choose to take the case of one of its officers Kulbushan Jadev under the custody of Pakistan on the charges of spying to the International Court … Read entire article »

  PUNCHLINE OURS IS A YOUTH MOVEMENT By Z.G. Muhammad   It is old tactics much tried in the past but failed. Conjuring alternative narratives and churning out one after another ‘hegemonic discourse’ are old    Machiavellian strategies for weaving confusions around genuine political struggles for derailing and defeating them.  The   ‘hegemonic discourse’ do not help in the resolution of the problems but in perpetuating them. Instead of recognizing the harsher realities of the Kashmir Dispute that has bedeviled India-Pakistan … Read entire article »

    Punchline Reading Yusuf Buch Z. G. Muhammad   I learned two new phrases in the past fortnight that I believe are important to our narrative and need to dwell upon a bit at length. One, ‘life writing’ and another ‘conflict parasites’- the first one I heard from a Kashmiri born novelist Nitasha Koul at the Kashmir University and the second one from a young journalist. The first one gives more power to the narratives of the … Read entire article »

  Punchline Life Writing and Resistance By Z.G. Muhammad     Sometimes, one indulges in writings, without knowing to what genre of literature these belong to in the academic world. A couple of days back listening to a talk by novelist and poet Nitasha Kaul on ‘life writing,’ organized by KCSDS and Kashmir University, I understood that this is something couple of my friends and I have been doing for pretty some time.  Interestingly for past ten years, I … Read entire article »