Peace Watch » Entries tagged with "Kashmir Dispute"
Pakistan’s Letter Diplomacy and Kashmir
PUNCHLINE Pakistan’s Letter Diplomacy By Z.G. Muhammad Kashmir has been converted into blood tarn. In the recent history, the past forty-three days have been the goriest and the barbaric. More than 1.3 billion pellets, thousands of bullets, teargas shells and pepper gas cartridges have been fired killing sixty-eight and wounding over ten thousand civilians- scores disabled for life. Every day, more than two hundred and fifty people at an average are wounded. In the seventy years, history of the struggle for the right to self-determination for the first time more than five hundred children, teenagers and youth were fired with pellets in eyes and pushed into darkness for rest of their life. In the twentieth century, largely seen a century of decolonization, freedom struggles and people’s struggles for rights across the globe … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Pakistan Taking Kashmir To UN?
PUNCHLINE Back To Old Battleground By Z.G. Muhammad Sixty seven years after their birth, India and Pakistan, have failed to resolve their disputes. The relations between the two continue to be on a short fuse. Under the weight of their own inaction, the protracted composite dialogue and back channel confabulations started in 2003 for settling their disputes have once again come to cropper. During past fifteen months, notwithstanding, nudging from Washington and Beijing and the two countries agreeing to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk
Hurriyats Not Third Party?
Simla Agreement Syndrome Z.G. Muhammad India and Pakistan, on August 23, 2015 after cancelling National Security Advisors talks added another sad chapter to their long history of acrimony and mistrust. In July, Prime Ministers of two countries during summit in Ufa had agreed upon holding talks at the level of National Security Advisors. Notwithstanding, scepticism about holding of these talks looming large, after political commentators in New Delhi started looking at the joint statement issued at the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Featured
Changing Power Equations and Resolution of Kashmir
‘BURDEN OF HISTORY’ Z. G. MUHAMMAD Independent India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and Home Minister, Sardar Patel were not on the same page on overwhelmingly Muslim majority State becoming part of union of India. Nehru, was obsessively working for it since 1946. And after Lord Mountbatten arrived in India as the last British Viceroy, Nehru reviving his old friendship with him ‘never lost an opportunity to ‘arguing in favour of Jammu and Kashmir joining India.’ In June 1947, before Mountbatten leaving for Srinagar for meeting Maharaja Hari Singh, Nehru handed over a memorandum to the Viceroy arguing for accession of the state to India- and this memorandum became Viceroy’s bible on Kashmir. Contrary to Nehru’s overzealousness about Kashmir, many historians have recorded that Sardar Patel was not interested in the State joining India. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Inside Stories About Kashmir and Indian Biographies
PUNCHLINE Biographies and the Narratives By Z.G. Muhammad “An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned,” writes an author of Indian origin. There is some truth in his assertion but it cannot be the whole truth. Notwithstanding, autobiographies and memoirs being overwhelmingly subjective, they do provide warp and weft for recording history of the political struggles. This genera of literature, besides providing an insight into behind the scene happenings that have impacted history and politics of a nation also … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk
New White Paper on Article 370
The chapter 370 Z. G. MUHAMMAD It is a political naivety. To say debating Article 370 is being sucked into the ‘dominant discourse’ or falling in the RSS trap. On 25 December 2030, some best legal minds and constitution experts of Kashmir had gathered on a chilly day in a local hotel and dusted off this Article of hackneyed interpretations. During brainstorming deliberations it became evident that the Article under debate with all its historicity and dynamics does not strength the ‘dominant discourse’ but bolsters the ‘Kashmir narrative’- that many of us prefer to call as the peoples discourse. Mian Abdul Qayoom and Zafar Shah, two important legal wizards of Kashmir analyzing Article 370 along with other allied Articles, such as 307, 368 and 253 with all provisos attached to these convincingly made … 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