{"id":3085,"date":"2017-05-16T15:46:15","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T10:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=3085"},"modified":"2017-05-16T16:08:21","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T10:38:21","slug":"life-writing-every-kashmiri-has-a-story-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/life-writing-every-kashmiri-has-a-story-tell\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Writing: Every Kashmiri Has A Story Tell"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

 <\/p>\n

Punchline <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Life Writing and Resistance <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Z.G. Muhammad <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

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 \u2018life 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.\u00a0 Interestingly for past ten years, I have been recording my childhood memoirs and experiences, reproducing stories, I have heard from my grandmother, mother and elderly neighbors in the nostalgia column. Some more writers like Prof. Nighat Hafiz and Nazir Ahmed have also been doing the same. \u00a0Thus, perhaps unwittingly subscribing to this genre of writings.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What is life writing? The\u00a0 Oxford Centre for Life-Writing explains that the \u2018life writing is the recording of memories, and experiences, whether one’s own or another’s. It applies to many genres and practices, under which can be found autobiography, biography, memoir, diaries, letters, testimonies, personal essays and, more recently, digital forms such as blogs and emails.\u2019<\/p>\n

Scholars, in the academic world, are discussing various facets of the \u2018life writing.’ Some are engaged in analyzing ethics of this genre of writing, and some are involved in studying if such writings can \u2018violate a literary convention governing non-fiction as a genre.\u2019 \u00a0This category of literature for providing first-hand stories of the individuals about their participation in various social and political movements or being witness to the resistance and freedom movements struggles against apartheid and casteism can be\u00a0 \u201cuseful academically\u201d in history writing. One needs not to be \u2018someone big to resort to life writing; it \u00a0can be someone readers have never heard \u00a0about before\u00a0 so long he has a good story to tell about life.\u2019<\/p>\n

I realized this a couple of days back when I got access to an unpublished diary of a professional who was detained in 1965 under the Defence of India Rules\u00a0 (DIR) along with some of his friends for their \u2018political activism\u2019. \u00a0The Preventive Detention Act (PDA) perhaps had not then been enacted, and students and political activists were detained under the DIR.\u00a0 \u00a0The act after 1975 Indira-Abdullah Agreement was given more teeth and renamed as the Public Safety Act (PSA). \u00a0\u00a0During his three years, long incarcerations under the dreaded law the detainee had been meticulously recording the treatment meted out to the prisoners behind the high walls of the Srinagar Central Jail and political aspirations of fellow inmates and also their desire for release from the prison. \u00a0While recounting the story a psychopathic superintendent jail, who derived sadistic pleasure in inflicting emotional and physical pain on the inmates he also has recorded how eventually his hubris led him to his nemesis. It is more valuable a prison diary than those published by some leaders in the recent past, as the detainee had been closely monitoring the Kashmir-related developments at the international level and same penning down in his diary. Such diaries are the life writing that not only enriches narrative of the resistance literature, provides big props to it but also are a major source for writing history. Instead of leaving such diaries for silverfish to feast upon there is need to publish them and bring them in the public domain. For past seventy years, scores of thousands of political activists and people were incarcerated- even if only one percent maintained diaries or recorded notes about their jailed life that could be substantial material for the future writers of telling the whole story.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Telling the truth is essential for life \u2018life writing\u2019, and any compromise on the truth whittles down even the most powerful narrative. The autobiographies and biographies are important life writing. Nevertheless, they lose their authenticity once lies find space in them for self-glorification and demeaning others. The autobiography of one of the protagonists of the earlier part of the resistance movement of Kashmir published posthumously suffered this malaise, and thus it has ceased to be a true story for the posterity.\u00a0 Nevertheless, honest memoirs of some prominent contemporary actors blow away the cobwebs\u2019 woven by such narratives around the resistance movement. One of the classic examples, in the case of Kashmir, in the recent past have been the memoirs of Munshi Mohammad Ishaq, a prominent leader of the Kashmir Struggle. Even fifty years after his death his son Munshi Ghulam Hassan Publishing these brought into focus some unknown facts. \u00a0Publishing such journals are essential for defeating the \u201cdominant discourses\u201d and strengthening the \u2018public discourses.\u2019<\/p>\n

Some famous leaders of 22 years long years of the Plebiscite Front Movement had written their memoirs, but for the callosity or expediency of their progeny, these were not published. One example that haunts my mind is of advocated Ghulam Qadir Hagroo, editor the Front, Official organ of the Plebiscite. He had written his memoirs when he was suffering from cancer but after his death, his children thought it expedient not to publish the same.\u00a0 \u00a0Thus the real story about an important chapter of the resistance movement is lost.<\/p>\n

Letters and testimonies that also are included in the \u2018life writing\u2019 too play a significant role in strengthening the narratives of the struggling nations. That reminded me of Ho Chi Minh\u2019s February 15, 1967, letter to American President Lyndon Johnson and New York-born actress Jane Fonda\u2019s testimony- broadcast over Radio Hanoi to American servicemen involved in Vietnam War. Ho Chi Minh in his letter sent a terse message to Washington: \u201cThe Vietnam people deeply love independence, freedom, and peace\u2026They have risen united as one man\u2026they are determined to carry on their resistance until they have won real independence, freedom and true peace\u2026The Vietnamese people will never submit to force; they will never accept talks under threats of bombs.\u201d\u00a0 Such letters strengthened the resolve of the Vietnamese people. Equally it was Jane Fonda\u2019s testimony:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that I have learned beyond a shadow of a doubt since I have been in this country (Vietnam) is that Nixon will never be able to break the spirit of these people; \u00a0he will never be able to turn, north and south into a neo-colony of the United States by bombing\u2026\u201d. That sent a message to the people of the United States and made intellectuals to come into the open in support of people of Vietnam.<\/p>\n

True, some \u2018life writing\u2019 like the Curfewed Night of Bashrat Peer have ably told the Kashmir story to the world. Nonetheless lots of stories are yet to be told- every one of us has a story to tell.<\/p>\n

There is great scope for strengthening the people’s narrative through this genre of writings.<\/p>\n

PUBLISHED IN Greater Kashmir on 15-5-15<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 
\nPunchline
\nLife Writing and Resistance
\nBy
\nZ.G. Muhammad
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nSometimes, 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 \u2018life 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.\u00a0 Interestingly for past ten years, I have been recording my childhood memoirs and experiences, reproducing stories, I have heard from my grandmother, mother and elderly neighbors in the nostalgia column. Some more writers like Prof. Nighat Hafiz and Nazir Ahmed have also been doing the same. \u00a0Thus, perhaps unwittingly subscribing to this genre of writings.
\nWhat is life writing? The\u00a0 Oxford Centre for Life-Writing explains that the \u2018life writing is the recording of memories, and experiences, whether one’s own or another’s. It …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3085"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3092,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3085\/revisions\/3092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}