The net result of the events of the past few days, as a result of Narendra Modi being at the helm in India, can be tersely summarized as – ‘Pakistan-1: India-0’
Tag: Pakistan
The net result of the events of the past few days, as a result of Narendra Modi being at the helm in India, can be tersely summarized as – ‘Pakistan-1: India-0’
This is how it unfolded. The Uri film releases, with the media very transparently hyping it up. Just a month later, in the midst of the Rafael controversy, out of the blue, comes an opportunity to replicate that (disputed) strike in real life again, just two months before the elections.The North Korean Indian TV channels activate full-blown mass hysteria. (While South Korea gives Modi a peace prize.) Suddenly, the Pulwama attack is more about Pakistan than Kashmir, more about World Cup cricket than time-honoured rogue terrorism and most disconcertedly, more about war than dialogue.
Sometimes it is important to think about the unthinkable. Although South Asia has been called “the most dangerous place in the world” by many, the discourse in those countries, and elsewhere, about the potential aftermath of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan has been remarkably muted. What would these two enduring rivals, home to more than a sixth of the world’s population, look like after a nuclear exchange?
Sometimes it is important to think about the unthinkable. Although South Asia has been called “the most dangerous place in the world” by many, the discourse in those countries, and elsewhere, about the potential aftermath of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan has been remarkably muted. What would these two enduring rivals, home to more than a sixth of the world’s population, look like after a nuclear exchange?
Everything will be okay tomorrow
Tomorrow everything will be okay
Tomorrow the great media will
Deliver the propaganda pizza
Tomorrow everything will be okay
The convenor and the presenters of the panel ‘Feminist Reframings of India’s Northeast: Gendered Geographies and Genealogies’ have decided to withdraw our panel from the AAS-in-Asia, 2018 Conference. The panel has made this decision in the light of how the denial of visas to scholars from Pakistan was handled by AAS and Ashoka University. The Association has kept this news away from all other participants of the conference.
The complicity of the Association of Asian Studies (AAS) with the Indian government’s violation of academic freedom compels us to boycott the conference. We do so in solidarity with our Pakistani colleagues and to express our commitment to the unfettered exchange of ideas. Today, this government has decided to ban Pakistani scholars. Tomorrow, another might decide to deny Indian or Chinese or British scholars, or issue conference visas on the basis of religious identification or sexual preference. Would we still allow pragmatic reasons to dictate our participation? Boycotting is an obligation we owe not only to our Pakistani colleagues, but also to the values of open and inclusive intellectual exchange that we cherish.
With grief in her usual frail voice she utters, “I saw the poverty with my own eyes; my Mother’s gold and silver ornaments had to be traded to make ends meet. I remember running from pillar to post for loans and to collect pending money. What other alternative we had? None! All of us left Wahlong for Shillong in the next few months after partition for the better or worse, while Dad persisted to stay back and supervise the remaining lands (certain portions of our land is in Bangladesh today). Our journey to Shillong was treacherous! We walked from Wahlong to Mawbang and then we finally took a bus to Shillong.”
If Asma’s vision for Pakistan had ever become a reality, it would be a much better place. But it is hard to talk about dreams. It is the reality of a country which shapes who we make of ourselves. Throughout her life, Asma stood with the oppressed and the marginalized, whether they be women, religious minorities, brick kiln workers or peasants. Asma, like her father, was on the wrong side of Pakistan’s historical consensus.
In this excerpt from his autobiography, Syed Ali Shah Geelani talks of 1947, the tribal invasion and Indian Army in Kashmir
The Hindutva ideology, much like other fundamentalist undercurrents would have us deny the humanism of Manto and the syncretic traditions of Husain. It is in this context that the Partition themed fiction provides an effective counter-narrative to all efforts at social engineering. It need hardly be mentioned that the absence of an effective political discourse challenging the RSS-BJP combine, willing to transcend the secular-communal binary, mandates a search for a different language sensitive to past history and cognizant of our own failures.
“Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on this land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.”
A day ahead of the India Pakistan match, when Indian media, publicity hungry cricketers and showbiz stars are all over spitting their Indian nationalist bile, Chalukyan G, a Chennai based graphic designer wrote a fan mail on Facebook to Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi. His fan mail did not just touch upon sporting matters but also laid out in detail the hypocrisy of Indian nationalist rhetoric. To his surprise, Afridi replied and unlike cricketers like Sehawg, he said “Let the best team win,”
I did not go to Wagah to get high on nationalism which was evident the day I reached the check point. And I do not need to paint the national flag on my face or chant vande mataram only because I am at Wagah. In these times of ultra nationalism and faulty patriotism, Wagah and such model should not become the reason which forces me to declare my loyalty to the country. Not now not ever.
Unfortunately, there is no polite, civilised or prettier way to say this. Major Gaurav Arya is a liar.
My father passed away almost 20 years ago but I remember him every day. I remember him as a loving and doting father, a jolly, generous, kind, often compulsive person, always ready to lend a helping hand to anyone in need. He would buy us gifts – clothes, toys and food whenever he felt like. I would always be so happy and glad just to be in his company. He had many names and identities you might say. He was known by his Muslim name as Abrar Hussain, his nickname was Khuku and Johnky, his Christian name was Peter.
Kashmir has historically since Nineteen Forty-Seven been a site of territorial claims between the two nations, India and Pakistan; in such contested claims history in itself has become a site marking these contestations. The history of Forty Seven has been written from a certain vantage point constructing a particular kind of history and memory associated with it. The story of Forty-Seven told and retold over the years with tribal invasion being ‘The Event’ has shaped the history with almost a complete erasure of what happened earlier and what followed next. As a student of history I feel a dire need to free Forty Seven from the baggage of the ‘Tribal Invasion’ story which has more of less sabotaged the history of the state, question the politics of silencing the ‘unfamiliar histories and memories’ associated with it.
Independence Day in India – a day of celebrating our national sovereignty and saluting the anti-colonial freedom struggle. The triumph of Indian independence, however, is inseparable from the trauma of the Partition experience. Hence, in mainstream culture in India, August 15 becomes a day of bashing Jinnah left, right and centre. It makes one suspect that the ideals of populist nationalism and inclusive democracy have been long forgotten under a sea of symbolism, antipathy and myth making– of what a successful nation we could have had, had there not been an evil separatist at work whose legacy sabotages us even today.
The specter of Partition continues to loom large in the politics of the subcontinent. How one imagines the Partition and how it came about is…
Dogs of War
Saadat Hasan Manto’s well-known short story “Tetwal ke Kutte” is very prescient in contending with our hypernationalist and jingoistic conjuncture. The story is well known, but worth recapitulating.
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