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Untold Tales of Kashmir
It was time of change. As, I was leaving my mother’s lap, that warm hug, where evil could not harm me and learning to waddle with watangour- walker, toddling and stumbling at every step, lots of changes were taking place– changes that were bringing down the towers of Ilium, hubris and hegemony. It was a period of paradoxes and power. I do not know if these changes could be compared to the changes during the Victorian period for criss-crossing of ideologies, politics, duality and duplicity. It was a period of what social scientists would call as ‘paradigmatic change in the socio-economic structure.’ Panting for breaths the centuries old order and practices was dying – feudalism was dying, the brutal institution of moneylenders was gasping for breaths, and peasantry was discovering … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Kashmir Muslim Society New Challanges
I want to have a frank talk with ‘the pulpit’. My belief is that I will not be committing any blasphemy in stating my mind to the preachers and sermonizers in my part of the world. Like overwhelming majority, I am born, and brought up in a Muslim family and have not received any formal education in Deen. I have not been a student of any seminary or theological school. Conscious of my limitations and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Featured
Abdul Majid Zargar Reviews- The Meadows, Kashmir 1995
There are now enough grounds to order reinvestigation of 1995 abduction & killing of six foreign tourists following startling revelations by a new book that they were killed by pro-government counter-insurgents fully aided & abetted by the security forces . The book – “The Meadow, Kashmir 1995 – Where the terror began, by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark”, succinctly details the reasons & circumstances leading to the brutal killings of five out of six abducted innocent foreign tourists. The two British Authors, who specialize in investigative journalism and have worked for UK’s “The Sunday Times” and “The Guardian” for nearly 18 years and have been honored with ‘Foreign Correspondents of the Year’ award in 2004 and ‘British Journalists of the Year’ award in 2009, have made painstaking efforts in lifting … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured
My Nostalgia Story of A Generation
I am a witness- witness to an era. So is the whole crop of my generation and the generation after. Born and brought up in a city, should I say of defiance or desolation; I have been the witness- in the words of a poet ‘ to the threshing of the grain’. Something eerie was there in the zephyr- yes the morning breeze that blew across our city; it sang different cradlesongs for us. Songs, which for over three centuries have mixed with chilly wintry winds and soothing summer breezes. That taught ‘us no love for the authority but for the defiant’ and abiding love for the ‘commoners’- the devout. I do not remember in my childhood having ever seen a minister walking through our streets or visiting our school- top … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Nostalgia
I am a witness- witness to an era. So is the whole crop of my generation and the generation after. Born and brought up in a city, should I say of defiance or desolation; I have been the witness- in the words of a poet ‘ to the threshing of the grain’. Something eerie was there in the zephyr- yes the morning breeze that blew across our city; it sang different cradlesongs for us. Songs, which for over three centuries have mixed with chilly wintry winds and soothing summer breezes. That taught ‘us no love for the authority but for the defiant’ and abiding love for the ‘commoners’- the devout. I do not remember in my childhood having ever seen a minister walking through our streets or visiting our school- top … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Kashmir Youth Heading Where?
I was shocked! Have, I a reason to get shocked on discovering that our new generation is detached from its past. It knows not what it ought to know. Have I a right to expect young people to think as I do; to believe in what I believe in or to love what I love. If I am not becoming too didactic and want to foist my ideas on the techno savvy generation. These questions … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Who am I?
Talking Identity It set me thinking! In connection with the observance of the World Heritage Day, I received an invitation card from a government organization, the motto on top of the card read: `Preserve the Heritage – Preserve the identity.’ The motto by all stretch of imagination is innocuous but for me it subtly made a huge political statement and stirred many a question that called for answers. Who am I? Where are my roots? What is my identity? Do I have an identity of my own or I am just a part of the sub-continental identity? Does this identity provide basis to my grand narrative? How and why has my ‘identity’ become part of the “dominant discourse”? To tell me who I am, some years back a beeline of “scholars’, “researchers”, “think … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take