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With Deference Something For Jumpy Kashmir Leaders
PUNCHLINE ‘Political fatigue and surrendering the cherished political causes for which leaders have whipped up public sentiments, mobilized millions to come on the streets and made people to suffer immensely is neither pragmatism nor realpolitik’ . This was central theme of my column, ‘the story of climb-downs’, published two weeks back in this newspaper. To illustrate, how the ‘climbing-down syndrome’ afflicting our leadership had defeated the resolution of the Kashmir Dispute and worked as dampener for bringing in lasting peace in South-Asia, I had quoted examples of the 1964 Holy Relic Movement and Sheikh-Nehru Dialogue, the 1965, students agitation and civil disobedience movement, the 1968 State Peoples Convention and the 1975 Indira-Sheikh Agreement. Nevertheless, for limitations of space, I had not been able to dwell in detail, how our leadership had … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
The Politics of Boycotts in J&K
Z.G. MUHAMMAD Everyone has right to his dreams- even pipe dreams. Jamal – the great hashish smoker in our locality too had his dreams. Many times, sitting on shop fronts, he soliloquized and made his dream of becoming the chief executive of the state and replacing the “tailor’s son”, known to passersby and dizzy friends sharing his pipe. Jamal committed no sin, anyone can dream of becoming the chief executive- And for wishing to be the chief executive or getting a berth in temple of “democracy” there is no need for stoking a debate or conjuring discourses that are not holistically in conformity with the with historical realities and run contrary to the established ‘Kashmir narrative.’ ‘Is boycotting the elections right politics or participation in 2014 Assembly election is the correct option.’ … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
The Story of ‘Climb-downs’
The present leadership has some lessons to learn Punchline Z.G. MUHAMMAD Our “leaders” are in a habit of sparking debates- mostly hackneyed ones parsed and analyzed in these columns umpteen times – rather overdriven. Even adding spice to these stale debates does not make them palatable but still they fuel doubts in the public minds. A similar debate has engaged attention of our political commentators but I have a different take on it. On Sunday, 10 November 2o13, Kashmir leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Molvi Muhammad Umar Farooq, Mohammad Yasin Malik, Asiya Andrabi along with their party men and aids had separate meetings with Sartaj Aziz, Advisor to Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif on Foreign Affairs and National Security. Pakistan High Commissioner to India Salman Bashir aided him during these meetings. He is … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk
Ireland and Kashmir are incomparable
Z. G. MUHAMMAD It will be to be too prophetic to say on what signature tune curtains will be drawn on the year 2013 in Kashmir. Fifty-seven days left of the current year ostensibly are too small a period to expect dramatic political changes in a state caught up in uncertainties for over sixty-six years. Nevertheless, in disputes like that of Jammu and Kashmir even a small incident can presage a big change. The last week of October 2013 was significant in as much as generating a debate over landing of Indian troops on 27 October 1947 at Srinagar airport. The debate was marked by renewed discourse on ‘date and fact’ of the “Instrument of Accession” that had ‘facilitated’ India to send its troops into Jammu and Kashmir- then an independent country. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Third Party Mediation and Kashmir
Z.G. MUHAMMAD It is not a beaten path. That columnists and commentators in the subcontinent in general and Jammu and Kashmir in particular- on both the sides of the dividing line love to tread on October 27 every year for heck of it. Today also, the date runs through Kashmir narrative. On this day in 1947, men in olive green from New Delhi landed at 9.00 A.M at Srinagar aerodrome. Sorties after sorties of planeloads of soldiers raising clouds of dust landed until the sunset. Ever since, with some historians holding view Kashmir dispute was born on this day it has been a matter of debate and discussion with scholars, researchers and commentators. Sixty five years after, the date continues to be central to the Kashmir narrative. The Kashmir dispute not only continues … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
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
Mir Saiyed Ali Hamadani- A Lodestar
Z. G. MUHAMMAD It was a day of introspection. Sitting through a one-day seminar on Mir Sayed Ali Hamadani in Kashmir University, on Wednesday, I was reminded of my identity- Who am I? Pat came the reply, I am an aborigine born in a Muslim family. Brought up in a Muslim family in a very large a seminary- the “old” Srinagar city that was adopted not only as the capital by the Sultans of Kashmir but also as a great centre of Islamic learning. Even after the Sikh rulers in 1819, closed the five hundred year old Islamic institutions, the city lived to the tradition of being a large seminary- where almost everyone received education in basic tenets of Islam from the pulpits. I was reminded of my debt to Mir … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take