Tag: Gandhi Peace Foundation

Delhi Police Disallows Event on ‘Media Blackout in Kashmir’

The order says the police have inputs that there could be a law and order problem if the event is allowed to happen. It comes days after the Delhi high court reversed a similar one to cancel a seminar on the theme “Understanding Fascism in India”.

New Delhi: Days after the Delhi high court struck down a Delhi police order to cancel a seminar on the theme “Understanding Fascism in India”, the national capital’s police denied permission for another event to discuss media blackout and state repression in Kashmir that was scheduled to be held at the Gandhi Peace Foundation on Wednesday, March 15. 

The Delhi police in an order stated it has inputs that there could be a law and order problem if the event is allowed to happen. It said its inputs mentioned that the event was being organised by an “anonymous group” and that efforts to contact the organisers remained unsuccessful, although the poster announcing the seminar has a long list of fairly well-known organisers like the Students Federation of India (SFI), All India Students Association (AISA), the Delhi Teachers’ Forum (DTF) and the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM). All of these organisations have offices in Delhi and remain quite active on different issues.

The speakers are also fairly well known across India, and included former Jammu and Kashmir high court judge Hussain Masoodi; M.Y. Tarigami, former CPI (M) MLA in Jammu and Kashmir; Nandita Narain, professor at St. Stephen’s College; renowned documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak; and public commentator Anil Chamadia.

The poster for the event.

The Delhi police had sent a similar order to “Bharat Bachao” – a collective of scholars, social activists, advocates and politicians – that was organising the seminar “Understanding Fascism in India” at HKS Surjeet Bhawan to deny permission to hold the seminar. The police claimed that this seminar too could provoke a law and order situation and in view of that, it could not allow the event to go ahead. Later the organisers went to the Delhi HC and got the police order rescinded, provided they shared the details of the speakers and invitees with the police. 

Interestingly, both orders were passed by the station in-charge of the IP Estate police station. Since the Bharat Bachao representatives received the denial two days before the event, they could move the court and get the order struck down. However, the organisers of the Kashmir seminar – scheduled for Wednesday – came to know about the Delhi police order cancelling the event only around noon on the same day, forcing them to comply with the police directive.

The police’s order.

‘Choking self-expression’

Speaking with The Wire, Sanjay Kak – who was scheduled to speak at the event – said, “When I reached the Gandhi Peace Foundation at around 2 pm this afternoon, I saw police deployment there. I was informed by the policemen that the event has been cancelled.”

He said that the police may have given the order denying permission to the organisers at noon only to stop the organisers from moving the court against the order.

“It’s a telling comment that a seminar on Media Blackout in Kashmir was cancelled earlier today on the grounds that it might disturb the ‘law and order situation’. It is out of such authoritarian steps that the abhorrent silence around the situation in Kashmir has been constructed,” Kak said.

“It’s important for people to take note that this silencing does not – and will not – stop at discussions of Kashmir alone: it has already fallen on various expressions of democratic rights in India. And this silence is not simply a matter of choking self-expression. It is fast becoming the throttling of democracy itself,” he said. 

Commenting on her Facebook profile, Nandita Narain said, “The police tried the same thing with the Bharat Bachao programme at HKS Surjeet Bhavan on 11th and 12th March, but the organisers managed to get a court order allowing the programme to be held. This outrageous cancellation at the last minute only serves to reinforce the widely held belief about suppression of free speech, not only in Kashmir, but all over India, including in its capital Delhi.”

One of the organisers, Deepak Kumar from the Campaign Against State Repression – a collective of activists and students, told The Wire that although the Delhi police order is dated March 14, they received it only on the day of the event, merely three hours before the event had to begin. By the time the organisers reached the venue, the police had already cordoned off both the gates of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, he said.

“We had booked the Gandhi Peace Foundation for the public meeting on February 28. Gandhi Peace Foundation had the names of the organisers and details of the event. It is surprising how the Delhi police could call the organisers ‘anonymous’ and could not get in touch with us or the Gandhi Peace Foundation for the details of the event,” he said.

He said that the event merely sought to discuss an important matter and there was no fear of any law and order situation. “How can a seminar be a law and order problem,” he asked.

The Wire’s Arfa Khanum Sherwani to Receive Kuldip Nayar Patrakarita Samman Award

‘The future of Indian democracy lies with us and not those who control the media in the country,’ said Ashis Nandy as he announced the recipients of the award for the years 2022 and 2021.

New Delhi: The Gandhi Peace Foundation on Monday announced the award of its prestigious Kuldip Nayar Patrakarita Samman for 2022 to The Wire’s senior editor Arfa Khanum Sherwani.

The award honours the legacy of journalist, author and human rights activist Kuldip Nayar and is awarded to journalists working in Indian languages contributing to democratic values and independent media.

The announcement was made at a press conference held on Monday at New Delhi’s Press Club of India by the well-known academic and author, Ashis Nandy.

Speaking to the press, he said, “The future of Indian democracy lies with us and not those who control the media in the country. I have great pleasure in mentioning the person in whose name the award is being given out, Kuldip Nayar. He was an uncompromising journalist and it is to his credit that he never bent against all kinds of control on the media.”

Nandy also announced that the awardee for 2021 was the independent journalist and YouTuber, Ajit Anjum.

“We recognise the two awardees today as not only those who are representing themselves,” said Nandy, “but also representing all of India. We are congratulating them on the courage, tenacity and hard work they have done over the years.”

The awards will be formally conferred at a public function later in the year.

The Bulldozer Is the Latest Symbol of Toxic Masculinity to Create Havoc in the Populace

Unless the courts step in or the weak build up their own defence, the bulldozer will continue to go on the rampage.

The bulldozer style of saffron politics has provoked quite a few articles from different angles, but we may like to look at the juggernaut vehicle as the latest expression of toxic masculinity – something which was quite evident in its predecessors, the horse, the motorcycle and the speedster car. 

So, let’s begin with the horse. From amidst the wealth of literature on the relationship between man and the horse, we zoom directly into Adrienne C. Frie’s report in the Oxford Journal of Archaeoolgy in October 2017, on an archaeological examination of burial ground culture at a site in Slovenia.

Entitled Horses and the Embodiment of Elite Masculinity in the Dolenjska Hallstatt Culture, the author declares quite unambiguously, that “horses have long been noted as an aspect of elite male status…as part of the elite warrior package that developed as a transcultural phenomenon in the Bronze Age, and that continued to be an important expression of elite masculinity in the Early Iron Age…These elite warriors likely represent a hegemonic masculinity – that…was a complex presentation of self that drew on politics of gender, power, status, and the potential for violence.” 

American academic Monica Mattfield who has worked on how horsemanship was utterly masculine between the 17th and the 18th centuries in England, brings in a new element.

This is the political and “in this understanding the man represented the ruling monarchy (the father), and the horse, the nation (the rest of his household)”. She explains that to “many men, horses were indivisible from their masculinity, their ability to govern successfully.”

The similarities with today’s bulldozer are now clearer. By the second millennium BCE, horses were harnessed to chariots, and archers mounted on them spread terror among peasants and foot-soldiers all over the Eurasian heartland. Arthur Cotterell in his book Chariot: The Astounding Rise and Fall of the World’s First War Machine called them the “world’s first war machine” and his descriptions of the havoc they wreaked among the helpless populace are chillingly familiar with the depredations let loose by bulldozers in Modi’s raj.

Félix Resurrección Hidalgo’s painting of a man riding a horse-drawn chariot. Photo: Public domain

Let us move on to the motor car and the motorcycle that replaced the horse.

In his On Men and Cars: An Ethnographic Study of Gendered, Risky and Dangerous Relations, Dag Balkmar touches upon several psychological issues inexorably linked to men (and some women as well) in Sweden and how cars are actually “extended selves”, intended to be “provocative” and the reason why “driving is daring”.

Hollywood has scores of films on risk driving, like Mad Max, Fury, Baby Driver, The Driver and so on – inspiring or corrupting several generations of young men (and women) into foolhardy and life-risking antics with engines revving up and roaring. The macho stamp is simply unmistakable and with it comes gendered domination and a pseudo-sadistic kick from hegemony over the rest of humanity, who, to these daredevils is just “chicken”.

Also read: India Is No Longer a Democracy but an ‘Electoral Autocracy’

To a section, the “feeling of oneness” with the motor car was almost as thrilling as merging with the horse was previously. The restless power of the powerful, almost-uncontrollable beasts they had mastered conferred glory and demonstrated the hegemony of the ultra-virile. A western analyst concluded: “Hegemonic masculinity is intrinsically tied up with the notion of competition, leading to fights over who’s stronger and smarter – not necessarily on the bigger metaphorical dick”.

Car culture did not create toxic masculinity. But it certainly used its worst tropes to its advantage from its start — and not just when it comes to car ads.

A still from the ‘Fast and Furious’ film series.

Motorcycling is equally, if not more masculine to a large section and is certainly closer to the horse. The exhilarating union between motorcycle and rider is only formed in relation to other bodies – non-motorcycles and non-riders – and exists as a form of exclusionary discourse from the surrounding world.

We need not even discuss the animal-like sense of overpowering bystanders once a motorcycle is bursting with fury and the essential point, its dominance, emanates from the panic it creates. When the rider ploughs through crowds, he demonstrates not only his total control over the ferocious electro-mechanical horse, but he petrifies his audience, deriving an unmatched thrill from it.

To be fair, the motorbike is not just the preserve of men in the west, but the percentage of female participation in nowhere near that of men, who challenge death at every moment.

There are good works on how motorbikes represent different visions of power, style and technology to the genders and one is also reminded of Paulo Coelho’s encounter with women riders in The Valkyries.

Photo: Ceyhun Jay Isik/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Nevertheless, the hyper-male type derives a sadistic pleasure in the sheer bullying power of the horse, the motorbike or the powerful automobile in cowing down others and romanticising this power was/is part of the lore.

The bulldozer represents only the logical extension of this psychological pursuit. It reeks of power, trampling and occupation by the pretended machismo. Sanjay Gandhi put it to devastating use during the Emergency as he razed to the ground the hutments of the poor at Turkman Gate.

The next honour for ‘popularising’ its use for similar reasons goes to Adityanath, who dispatched his bulldozer hordes to subjugate the wretched but the defiant in countless places in Uttar Pradesh. He realised the sheer terror and awe with which the bulldozer was held by the dominated – many times more than what a totally unimpressive pipsqueak in saffron could ever command.

Also watch: In Last Phase of UP Elections, ‘Bulldozer Baba’ Plays Politics Over Muslim Strongmen

His delirious sense of duty to cleanse his state of ‘the other’ was further heightened as the bulldozer pulverised the will and stand of those he despised and its long ungainly arms wrenched the dwellings of his targets.

From Khargone in Madhya Pradesh to Jahangirpuri in Delhi, the bulldozer is now the preferred weapon of the toxic masculine and unless the courts halt the mayhem or the weak devise their Vietcong defences, it will continue to go on the rampage.

Locals carry their belongings during an anti-encroachment drive, in New Delhi, Thursday, May 12, 2022. Photo: PTI

The machine bestow upon those who direct their operations the wild powers of unstoppable juggernauts, as they imagine themselves as the ultimate macho men. After all, the colossal ultra-thick blade plates of bulldozers sweep clean what the hooves of the horse had struggled to clear and the wheels of the motorised vehicles had stumbled upon but could barely crush.

As Sakshi Maharaj, the terribly controversial BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh has pronounced: “While Lord Ram and Krishna had dhanush (bow) and sudarshan chakra (a spinning discus) respectively, our baba (Adityanath) has a bulldozer.” So have his other colleagues elsewhere, who tear apart the very structures of plurality, democracy and dissent – with the indulgence of the mastermind. 

Jawhar Sircar is a Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP.

‘Programme Organised by Terrorists’: Delhi Police Allegedly Cancels Event on ‘Bulldozer Politics’

At least 12 parties and organisations, including SDPI, NDPI and Majdoor Ekta Kendra, were expected to participate in the event at the Gandhi Peace Foundation on May 9.

New Delhi: The Delhi Police allegedly cancelled an event focusing on communal politics and the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Delhi municipal corporations’ continued demolition drives scheduled for May 9.

The event, ‘Communal Politics and Bulldozer Raj’, was being organised by the Gandhi Peace Foundation and expected to see the participation of at least 12 parties and organisations, including Social Democratic Party of India, National Democratic Party (Indian) and Majdoor Ekta Kendra.

It was scheduled to take place between 6pm and 8pm at the Gandhi Peace Foundation auditorium on Monday.

However, on Monday, the Delhi Police visited the premises and allegedly refused permission to the Foundation to conduct the event.

Birju Nayak, secretary of the Mazdoor Ekta Committee, told The Wire that the Delhi Police allegedly pressurised the management to cancel the booking. “They [Delhi Police] especially told the management that the programme is being organised by a terrorist organisation, ‘so please cancel the event, or else we will have to seal the auditorium’.”

Therefore, the auditorium listened to police and cancelled its own Foundation’s event.

He further said that the Mazdoor Ekta Committee had organised several events at the Gandhi Peace Foundation auditorium, however, such an incident had never happened.

Talking to The Wire, Arun Manjhi, Supreme Court advocate, said, “We can see how the state is keeping a watch on the people who are conducting meetings and discussions [on the government’s communal politics]. In Jahangirpuri, it was clear that the state targeted the minority community. We have to carry forward the brotherhood which was there in the society earlier. We have to give a message to the state to not help the Hindutva forces who are trying to break communal harmony.”

“The Delhi Police told the auditorium management that they could seal the auditorium if the meeting takes place here,” he confirmed.

He added, “We have to try to save the democratic rights that are being snatched from us.”

Watch | How Yogi Perfected Bulldozer Justice – BJP’s New Weapon Against Muslims

After violence on Ram Navami in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone on April 10, the local administration demolished several properties associated with alleged suspects – most of them allegedly owned by financially disadvantaged Muslim families.

A similar demolition drive was carried out by a Delhi civic body in Jahangipuri on April 20, days after the area saw communal violence. The civic body had razed shops and homes, mostly owned by Muslims, despite a stay order by the Supreme Court.

On May 9, the civic body carried out an “anti-encroachment drive” in the Shaheen Bagh area in Delhi, which was at the centre of anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests in late 2019 and early 2020. The drive was halted due to stiff resistance from local residents of Shaheen Bagh as hundreds of people gathered on the streets and atop buildings. However, the Supreme Court, unlike in the case of Jahangirpuri, refused to interfere or stay the exercise on a petition by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s Delhi unit.

Rights Group Condemns FIRs Filed Against Gandhi Peace Foundation President

Two FIRs were filed against Kumar Prashant for ‘spreading falsehoods’ about the RSS’s role in the freedom struggle.

New Delhi: Two FIRs have been filed against Gandhi Peace Foundation president Kumar Prashant for allegedly spreading lies about the RSS and its icons. Rights groups have protested the action, saying “historical controversies cannot be resolved or put to rest in courts of law”.

Between August 15 and August 23, Prashant travelled to various parts of Odisha for a programme called Gandhi Katha, a narration of historical events during the Gandhian era. He said a “section of people” did not like his presentation, and though they did not disrupt the event, filed two FIRs against him in Cuttack and Kandhamal on August 21. The complaints were filed by members of the RSS.

“Their FIR suggested that I am spreading baseless facts in the name of History, tarnishing the image of their heroes. They alleged that I’m hurting their sentiments. And that my talks were anti-national in light of events in Kashmir. And that I should be arrested immediately for inciting the people of Kashmir,” Prashant said in a statement.

According to the Leaflet, the RSS’s objected to Kumar’s statement that the organisation “played no role in India’s freedom struggle and that Savarkar had actually collaborated with the British to get out of the Cellular jail in Andaman”.

Prashant also described the dilution of Article 370 as an ‘undemocratic’ measure as the move was implemented without the consent of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. On August 18, the Gandhi Peace Foundation released a statement condemning the Centre’s actions. “Even during the Emergency, the Lok Sabha was not humiliated in this manner – the Opposition then ensured that. This time our democracy has plunged to a new low,” the statement read.

Speaking about the FIRs, the Gandhi Peace Foundation’s president said, “Only those who do not have faith in the truth, look for the state support to stop it.” He said the people who did not agree with his presentation could have debated him on these events, instead of filing a complaint.

Prashant said the FIRs are a “very futile attempt” to intimidate him. “On the contrary, I appeal to everyone that I am willing to have healthy discussions based on facts that prove me wrong,” he said.

“I would like to remind my friends of the other side that it is nothing but a sin to poison the minds of innocent youths completely unaware of historical facts and lies. In fact, we actively bring them under our influence to spread lies and hatred. It’s an unholy act of ours,” his statement says.

Also Read: History Shows How Patriotic the RSS Really Is

According to the Leaflet, the FIRs say, “Gandhi Peace Foundation chief Kumar Prashant has sown the seeds of discord by denigrating ‘Veer Savarkar’ whose portrait adorns the Central Hall of Parliament and describing Udham Singh, who laid down his life for the country, as a ‘criminal’.” Both the FIRs filed against him are identical.

On August 31, the People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism issued a statement calling the FIRs filed against Prashant as an attempt to “police public opinion by threats”. “It is an example of the totalitarian habit of mind of the RSS. On this matter we are in solidarity with Kumar Prashant,” it said.

“Instead of proving Kumar Prashant wrong by publishing or speaking their refutation of his views, the RSS have (sic) taken recourse to court,” the statement said. The statement said the role of the RSS, Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League during the country’s independence movement is “well documented and is still being debated”.

“Historical controversies cannot be resolved or put to rest in courts of law. They are academic and political matters. The RSS leadership, must be well aware of this fact but it has chosen to take recourse to intimidation and threats to suppress a democratically expressed opinion by Kumar Prashant,” it said.

The group also asked the Naveen Patnaik government to intervene and prevent the Odisha police from taking any “unlawful action” against Prashant.

Pakistan Considering Complete Closure of Air Space to India: Minister

Fawad Chaudhry, a close aide of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, stated in a tweet that the federal cabinet was also considering banning India from using Pakistani land routes for India-Afghan trade.

New Delhi: Weeks after the Central government revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, and bifurcated it into two union territories, the Pakistan government said on Tuesday that it is once again considering a blanket ban on the use of its airspace by Indian flights, Hindustan Times reported. This after the country announced the closure of one corridor, forcing international flights – mainly to Western regions – to take a longer route.

Fawad Chaudhry, the minister for science and technology stated in a tweet that the federal cabinet, which met on Tuesday, was also considering banning India from using Pakistani land routes for India-Afghan trade. Chaudhry is a close aide of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The Pakistan government has consistently, and vehemently, condemned the government’s changes in J&K, with its prime minister even likening the situation evolving in the region to a “genocide of Kashmiris”.

Pakistan had earlier fully closed its airspace on February 26, after the Indian Air Force fighter jets struck a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist training camp in Balakot in retaliation to the Pulwama attack on February 14. Pakistan then fully opened its airspace for all civilian traffic on July 16.

Air India, the country’s flag carrier, operates around 50 flights daily through Pakistani airspace. These are flights to the US, Europe and the Middle East.

Also read: UN Chief Urges All Parties to Avoid Escalation in Kashmir During Meeting With Modi

Chaudhry said that a blanket ban on the use of Pakistani land routes for India’s trade with Afghanistan was also suggested during the cabinet meeting held on Tuesday.

He said the legal formalities for these decisions to take effect were under consideration.

“Modi has started we’ll finish!” the minister tweeted, referring to the Indian government’s move to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomy on August 5.

Reacting to India’s decision, Pakistan expelled the Indian high commissioner soon after deciding to downgrade the diplomatic ties with India over what it called New Delhi’s “unilateral and illegal” move.

Chaudhry’s statement came a day after Prime Minister Khan said that he will raise the Kashmir issue at every international forum, including at the UN General Assembly next month.

Khan’s address to the nation came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his meeting with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in France on Monday, categorically rejected any scope for third party mediation between India and Pakistan on Kashmir.

(With PTI inputs)

BJP’s Fantasy of Subjugating Pakistan Finds Expression in ‘Kashmiristan’

In this fantasy, Kashmir becomes a subjugated Pakistan, and the Partition is partially deleted.

The scrapping of Article 370 of the constitution and the dismemberment of the state of Jammu and Kashmir have been much commented upon in recent days. Some commentators have seen these frightening events as rehearsals of what is to come elsewhere in India while others regard them as extensions of state repression in Kashmir and elsewhere in India by all the ruling parties since 1947. The fate of ordinary Kashmiris looks dire and India’s claim to be a democracy is facing its most severe test.

What the Modi government has just done in Kashmir can surely be understood as a mix of xenophobia, anti-Muslim policy, political theatre, and cynical realpolitik. I offer two remarks that might further illuminate the timing and special malevolence revealed by the decision to strip Kashmir of the last vestiges of its special status.

The first is that for the Hindu Right, all of Kashmir, on both sides of the Line of Control, stands for Pakistan. This may appear to be a banal observation given the long struggles between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and the longstanding efforts of the Indian state to paint Pakistan as the source of all Kashmiri dissent.

But the timing of the reading down of Article 370 is nevertheless striking. After approaching the brink of a full-scale war between the two countries in February 2019, both states pulled back. On the Indian side, this was a humiliating defeat for the BJP, a concession to its military incompetence, its incapacity to defy global political opinion, and its failure to bring Pakistan to its knees.

Nevertheless, Modi won a spectacular victory in May 2019, fuelled by his massive propaganda machine, his growing Hindutva electoral base, and his crony capitalist supporters. This electoral victory encouraged his voters to raise their anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan expectations to an unmanageably high level.

Notice the timing: a huge victory for the BJP in November 2018 (through the dissolution of the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly), followed by a humiliating diplomatic concession to help make peace with Pakistan in March and April of 2019, followed by the extra-constitutional conversion of Kashmir to a militarily secured Union territory in August 2019.

Also read: Why UP’s Muslims Are Identifying With Kashmiris More Than They Used to

The causes of the recent decision to accomplish a legal coup in Kashmir surely have long-term motives for the Modi regime. But the short-term trigger was to the need to give their electorate something to salve the diplomatic defeat in the aftermath of Balakot in early 2019. Kashmir in August 2019 is a blood offering for the BJP military mouse that roared in February 2019.

Thus, Kashmir is indeed a proxy for Pakistan, but in a new context. The stunning removal of state privileges for Kashmir may have been prepared months, perhaps years, ago, but it became a necessity for the BJP during the course of this year. This sequence of events was not inevitable. But it follows a logic that makes terrifying sense.

There is another long-term proxy logic at play for the BJP in Kashmir today. And that has to do with Gujarat after the pogroms against Muslims in 2002. In the months after the burning of the Godhra train, a democratically elected government in Gujarat led by chief minister Narendra Modi, ably abetted by the present home minister, oversaw a systematic effort to target Muslims, to sponsor mob violence against them, to mobilise detailed data to target Muslim leaders, homes and businesses and to cordon off the Muslim population of Gujarat in the name of peace and security.

Indian security personnel stop Kashmiri residents as they stand guard on a deserted road in Srinagar, on the 19th day of restrictions on August 23, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Danish Ismail

This series of actions by the Modi regime in Gujarat were largely accomplished by organised mobs, but were closely supported by the bureaucracy and police forces at the disposal of the chief minister. This time in Kashmir, he did not need mobs to inflict terror in Kashmir. The security forces are the organised mob that holds Kashmiris hostage in their own land and homes.

Gujarat was Modi’s political lab for his push to national power and the incomplete effort to terrorise Muslims in Gujarat after the Godhra incident. This period witnessed the first major state experiment in mobilising legal, bureaucratic and military power in the service of reducing Indian Muslims to barely human beings.

During this August, therefore, Kashmir has played a dual role for the BJP. It confirmed the power of a Hinduised state machinery to terrorise Muslims, as in Gujarat in 2002, and it restored the reputation of this regime in the eyes of its followers, by making Kashmir perform the role of a fully dominated territory of India, the displaced fantasy of Indian rule over Pakistan.

In this way, Pakistan has morphed into Kashmiristan, where India can now exercise its full dominion without losing the appearance of being a parliamentary democracy among many opinion-makers across the world.

Also read: Why Revoking Special Status Is the Final Betrayal of Kashmir

Kashmiristan is both a fantasy and a laboratory. The fantasy dimension is key. In this fantasy, Kashmir becomes a subjugated Pakistan, and the Partition is partially deleted. Further, this is a fantasy in which Kashmir, as the playground of love, lakes and mountains in Bollywood cinema, becomes the feminised version of Pakistan, populated by fair women ripe for the taking.

In this fantasy, the leisure sites of Bollywood love become real estate playgrounds for Indian speculators and developers. Real estate is the feminised counterpoint to the militarised territory. Kashmiri bodies and Kashmiri land thus become available for Indian nationalist desires.

The laboratory aspect of Kashmiristan renders it an experiment in de-constitutionalisation, the process by which the Indian constitution is steadily turned into a fig leaf for runaway executive power and unadorned military muscle.

This experiment inaugurates a new era in which India competes for primacy with Brazil, the US, the Philippines, Turkey and other emerging mass tyrannies, in which xenophobic order replaces democratic law. Welcome to the age of the masculine Centre and feminised states. Kashmiristan is us. We are all now waiting for the BJP baaraat.

Arjun Appadurai teaches in New York and Berlin and has published widely on globalisation and South Asia. His forthcoming book (with Neta Alexander) is Failure (Polity Press, UK, 2019 Fall).

Ground Report: Agony and Casualties in the Valley in the Immediate Aftermath of Shutdown

“My wife didn’t throw a stone,” said 23-year-old Sameer Ahmad, “Why was she hit with pellets?”

Srinagar: The Central government’s announcement August 5 scrapping the special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir under Articles 370 and 35A of the constitution was preceded by the severing, overnight, of all mobile and internet connections.

The next morning, the 8 million residents of the Valley woke up to strict restrictions on their physical . movement as well. How did families cope with this situation, especially those who had medical conditions?This reporter spent three days in Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital documenting the situation.

Day 2, August 6, 2019

On August 6, a day after the centre read down Article 370 and bifurcated the state, civilian movement was heavily restricted and most roads were deserted. In the event of a medical emergency, a patient had to either display an OPD ticket or a curfew pass for the security personnel to allow him or her to proceed.

Srinagar’s SMHS hospital was barricaded from all sides as the CRPF and the J&K police laid barbed wires near the Fateh Kadal bridge and blocked the entrances to the hospital.

Amongst the crowd of people sitting inside and outside the premises of the hospital, lay an unattended dead body. Soon after, an old man, visibly in despair, rushed towards it – the unattended body was of his wife who had died due to a heart attack in the morning.

The 75-year-old man, Mohammad Akbar Chopan, had earlier come in with his 35-year-old daughter, Afroza Jan for his wife’s treatment. Chopan, a resident of the Khan Sahib area in central Kashmir’s Budgam, had run out of money. He broke down and said, “I have to take my wife home.” But there was no ambulance present in the hospital.

“Right now, we cannot ask the authorities to help us,” said a young boy standing in the crowd. “We have to do it ourselves”. Chopan’s daughter stared at her mother’s body, wrapped in a blue sheet, lying unattended at the hospital’s entrance. Chopan hugged his wife’s dead body and said, “Is there anyone who can take us home?”

Also read: Ground Report: Why Most Kashmiri Children Are Keeping Off School

A police officer in civilian clothing started to collect money from the crowd. Almost everyone, including those who had been stranded since morning, contributed and soon a sum of Rs 4,000 had been collected.

After a few minutes, someone managed to bring a private ambulance from the ‘Help Poor Voluntary Trust’ to take Chopan and his wife’s body.

Mohammad Akbar Chopan from Budgam stands near the private ambulance in which his wife’s body was taken home. Photo: Quratulain Rehbar

Within the hospital premises, several patients and attendees from different parts of the Kashmir Valley including Tral, Budgam, Shopian and Kulgam, had been stranded since the morning after the authorities had discharged them. Unable to leave the hospital due to the restrictions, people had been waiting for several hours for ambulances to take them home.

42-year old Nahida Bano, a resident of Poonch district, had not been able to contact her family since the clampdown on communications in the Valley. “I wanted to call my family because I’m short of money,” she said. Her daughter, who had been admitted in the hospital for the past 15 days, was discharged by the hospital on Thursday morning and ordered to be shifted to the Bone and Joint hospital in Barzullah, Srinagar.

Also read: In Photos: Kashmir Under Lockdown

As she waited within the hospital premises for an ambulance, Bano said, “I know the situation is bad but I have to be with my daughter. We are waiting for the ambulance so that we can go there [Barzullah]”.

Meanwhile, another lady was distributing bananas amongst members of her family who hadn’t eaten anything since morning. Next to them, Nazira Ban, 46, a resident of South Kashmir’s Tral district, sat over a sheet outside the hospital. She had been a patient at the hospital for the past 14 days and was waiting for an ambulance since morning, which was “her last hope to reach home”.

People inside the premises of the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital in Srinagar. Photo: Quratulain Rehbar

Day 3, August 7, 2019

On August 7, near SMHS hospital’s emergency ward, 18-year-old Aijaz Ahmad from South Kashmir’s Pulwama district, displayed the grave injury marks on his back.

Lying on a stretcher, surrounded by his family and friends, he said that over a dozen youths, including shopkeepers, had been thrashed by government forces in Pulwama’s Arihal village after a few young boys threw stones in the village.

Akeel Dar from Nawab Bazar in Srinagar, one of the first to be injured by pellets since the August 5 decision. Photo: Quratulain Rehbar

A few of them had been shifted to the Bone and Joint hospital in Barzullah, Srinagar, while others were brought to SMHS hospital.

Ahmad alleged that around 12:30 pm, after a few boys resorted to stone-pelting, the Rashtriya Rifles (RR)  started to barge into homes in the locality, pulling men out onto the streets. “They asked us to name the stone-pelters but we had no idea,” said Ahmad and added, “We were in our houses.”

Also read: For Kashmir, ‘Normalcy’ is a Word That Needs to be Abrogated

Another boy, Aftab Khan, wearing white clothes with blood-stains visible on his sleeves, lay next to Ahmad, unconscious.  “He was given electric shocks,” his mother said. Out of fear, none of the young boys were willing to reveal their names. “This is a very sensitive time,” said Khan’s cousin and added, “Please don’t write our names, or change them.”

He further went on to say, “The security forces’ personnel came to our house, dragged my cousin onto the road and started beating him. We had no idea why they were doing it.”

Khan, who is currently studying B.Tech in Bengaluru, Karnataka, came home on August 6, fearing a communication blackout due to the prevailing circumstances in the Valley. While being thrashed, Khan was repeatedly asked, “Who is giving you money to throw stones?”

Day 4, August 8, 2019

On August 8, 18-year-old Waseem Dar lay on a hospital bed in ward number 8 of SMHS hospital. Groaning in pain, with both of his eyes bleeding and a pellet stuck in his forehead, he said, the security forces’ personnel “shot pellets at me”.

On August 5, after restrictions had been imposed, Dar stepped outside his home in Nawabazaar Chowk at 11 am to buy milk. “I never knew this would happen with me,” he said.

When one of his friends put eye-drops into his bloodshot eyes, he didn’t shout but pulled onto his hair with his right hand in pain. His mother, who sat beside him, looked away from her son. “I cannot bear to see his eyes,” she said.

According to the administration, 23 pellet victims, from different districts in the Valley, came to the hospital between August 5 and 8.

Dar had been receiving treatment in the hospital for three days. Doctors then told him to undergo another operation on 15 August. “I cannot see from my right eye,” he said and added, “While from my left eye, I can only see blurred images.”

On the bed opposite to Dar, Parveena Bano was crying incessantly. Her 1son, Irfan Ahmad had been struck by pellets in his left eye. “He had gone outside his home [in Srinagar] for tuitions at 4 pm,” she said. “If he didn’t have his exams after Eid, I wouldn’t have let him go. They ruined his career,” she said.

Also read: The ‘Amateur’ Tech That Could Penetrate the Kashmir Blackout

As people in the ward around her tried to console her, someone said, “He is her only son”.

On August 6, scores of people had been injured in clashes with government forces in the Habbak area of Srinagar. Amongst them was 21-year-old Dawood Ahangar, a labourer from Srinagar’s Dargah area. With a bandage wrapped around his eyes, he said he had “got six pellets in his left eye”.

Sameer Ahmad, 23, entered ward number 7 of SMHS hospital clutching onto his wife’s OPD ticket with his right hand. His wife 22-year old Rafia Bano may have been the first female pellet victim from Srinagar. Wearing a blue frock shalwar, she sat on a bed, with her eyes half-opened; pellets had hit her left eye.

After the clashes between young boys and government forces in the Nowhatta area of Srinagar, Bano had stepped out into her courtyard. “A policeman directly hit her,” alleged her husband, Ahmad.

He took out his phone to show a recent picture of Bano, wearing a pink scarf and red lipstick and said, “I had clicked this picture a few days ago.”

“My wife didn’t throw a stone,” he said, staring at the picture with moist eyes. “Why was she hit with pellets?”

Doctors intend to operate on her on August 14. Standing next to his mother, her 5-year-old son innocently pulled her hand and repeatedly said, “Why don’t we go from here? We will go home.”

Note: Names changed to protect identity.

The article has been edited to correctly identify Akeel Dar, a pellet injury victim from Srinagar’s Nawab Bazar. An earlier version had wrongly identified him as Aijaz Ahmad from Pulwama.

Quratulain Rehbar is a Kashmir based journalist working with the Kashmir Walla magazine.

Trump and Kashmir: If It Sounds Like Mediation, It Is Mediation

India foiled US efforts to get involved in the ’90s, when things were far worse in the Valley. Now through acts of commission, Modi has provided an opening for the US to enter.

Donald Trump’s latest remarks at the White House are the surest sign that the US president has no intention of backing off from his offer to mediate between India and Pakistan. But then the signs were already there, all around us.

Last Friday, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke to US President Donald Trump for 12 minutes about the situation in Kashmir, in the wake of India’s decision to withdraw J&K’s special status under Article 370.

Three days later, on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Trump and in a 30-minute conversation, complained about his Pakistani counterpart’s incendiary rhetoric which was destabilising the region. The day before, on Sunday, Khan had termed the Modi government as “fascist” and said they were a threat to Pakistan and Indian minorities.

Thereafter, Trump picked up the phone and dialed Khan, and told him that there was a need for him to tone down his rhetoric and reduce tensions. In his conversation, according to a White House readout, Trump “reaffirmed the need to avoid escalation of the situation and urged restraint” on both sides.

Thereafter, Trump tweeted: “Spoke to my two good friends, Prime Minister Modi of India, and Prime Minister Khan of Pakistan… to work towards reducing tensions in Kashmir. A tough situation, but good conversations.”

Now, if this does not sound like mediation, what does? All we have at present are readouts and press releases of the conversations, but you can be sure that given the rhetoric from New Delhi and Islamabad, there must be more happening in the deep recesses of the State Department and the Pentagon.

Also read | Kashmir and 370: Constitutional Coup Whose Aftereffects Will Linger a Long Time

It stands to reason that the longer the situation takes to return to normality, the more India will be opening itself up to US involvement in the Jammu and Kashmir issue. As for Pakistan, it would be more than happy if the US gets involved. As of now, the situation in the Valley is certainly not normal, especially since thousands of persons, mainly political leaders and activists are detained and communications restricted.

And no one knows exactly how things will unfold in the Valley, not just in the coming days, but also in the weeks and months ahead. You can safely dismiss the propaganda that everything is normal and that there is widespread support for the Centre’s move in the Valley.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only has the Union government’s action added another layer of grievance to those already weighing down the Kashmiris, but it has egregiously also alienated those political elements and parties that had upheld the Indian flag through the thick and thin in the Valley.

Also read | India Wants to Avoid International Intervention, But Needs to Address Human Rights in Kashmir

We need not take either Pakistan or China’s crocodile tears over the changes in the legal relationship between the state and the Centre seriously.  The step is certainly legally and politically infirm, but neither Islamabad nor Beijing have a legal or moral right to complain. Pakistan had dealt whimsically with the areas of the state that it controls and has never given them even a fraction of the autonomy that J&K had prior to the Article 370 decision. As for China, “autonomous” has, and will always be, a fiction when it comes to its political system.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and US President Donald Trump at Washington on July 22, when Trump said Modi had asked him to mediate on Kashmir. Photo: Twitter/@pid_gov

It is difficult to determine what the government has in mind for the future. The government is deluding itself if it thinks investment and development will now pour into the region and take away the sting of recent events. Just why the population should tamely accept a political demotion for their state is not clear. J&K was never backward by Indian standards and the narrative that Article 370 or 35A were some kind of a hindrance is overblown. Investment could head to the Jammu region, but nothing is likely to go beyond Ramban and Nowshera. By itself, development has never moderated separatism, else we would not have the continuing Basque and Scottish separatism.

Since we are talking of another layer of grievance upon an already ongoing situation, the government has no doubt readied to double down on the “all-out” strategy it initiated in 2016. We are likely to see more repression, police action, arrests, not just of militants, but also their supporters.

We are now in for a longer haul in Kashmir than before the poorly thought-through actions of the Modi government. Pakistan retains the ability to make things difficult in the Valley. With New Delhi egregiously roiling the situation, Islamabad has an opportunity to encourage an escalatory cycle of violence.

Southern Kashmir was a tinderbox before August 5, and you can be sure it will remain one in the coming period. In recent years, Pakistan had scaled down its support for militancy in the Valley, but it may now shift gears again. Given New Delhi’s signal that it will not tolerate this, the possibility of a wider conflict has increased.

Also watch | What Did UNSC Say on Kashmir and Article 370 Removal?

And this is where the US comes in. Violence and prolonged disturbances, aided and abetted by Pakistan will paradoxically bring more, not less interference. India successfully foiled US efforts to get involved in the mid-1990s, when things were far worse in the Valley by showing an improvement in the ground situation. Now through acts of commission, it has provided an opening for the US to enter.

Like all countries, the US will act along what it considers are its national interests. Foremost among these, at present, is to prevent the two South Asian neighbours getting involved in a nuclear war and poisoning the global atmosphere. Then comes the need to balance relations with Pakistan, a country that is not only nuclear-armed, but occupies a strategic location in relation to its two-and-a-half adversaries – China, Russia and Iran – and holds the key to peace in Afghanistan.

India is important as a market and also a key to offsetting Chinese power in the Western Pacific, but that only underscores the importance to the US to maintain friendly ties with both India and Pakistan and seeking to mediate between them. This, in fact, has been the leitmotif of US policy to the region since the time of Eisenhower.

Manoj Joshi is a distinguished fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.

Note: The article has been updated to include a reference to Donald Trump’s remarks at the White House on August 20, 2019.

Trump Ready to ‘Mediate’ as US Tells India to Release Kashmir Political Detainees

The US president described Kashmir as a place where “you have millions of people that want to be ruled by others,” while the State Department has called for improvement in the human rights situation inside the region.

New Delhi: Even as the State Department expressed concern about continuing detentions in Jammu and Kashmir but insisted that Washington had no plans of mediation, US President Donald Trump has reiterated his desire to “do the best I can to mediate or do something” over the “explosive situation” between India and Pakistan in Kashmir where “you have millions of people that want to be ruled by others”.

Trump’s latest comment suggests efforts by the Indian side – including phone calls from Prime Minister Modi – have done little to dissuade the US president from offering his services as a mediator.

Speaking to reporters at the White House On Tuesday, Trump said that he knew the leaders of both India and Pakistan as “good friends of mine” and “great people”. “…As you know Prime Minister Khan was here just recently… And I’m going to meet Prime Minister Modi, I will be with PM Modi over the weekend, in France,” stated Trump. Both Trump and Modi will be in France to attend the G-7 Summit.

“And I think we’re helping the situation, but there’s tremendous problems between the two countries. And I will do the best I can to mediate or do something,” he added.

“Kashmir is a very complicated place. You have Hindus and you have the Muslims and I wouldn’t say they get along so great”. 

He also stated that there were “millions of people” who want to be “ruled by others, and maybe on both sides, and you have two countries that haven’t gotten along in a long time”.

Trump further said that Kashmir has been in a “tough situation” for “decades and decades”. “…shooting, and I don’t mean shooting like shooting a rifle, but major shooting of howitzers, of heavy arms, and this has been going on for a long, long period of time”.

The White House later put out an official transcript of his remarks:

Q:    The crisis between India and Pakistan —

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  It’s a big deal.

Q:    — and I know you’ve had some number of discussions — is that solvable?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Well, they’ve been having this — these talks for hundreds of years, even under different names.  But this is — but it’s Kashmir.  And Kashmir is a very complicated place.  You have the Hindus and you have the Muslims, and I wouldn’t say they get along so great.  And that’s what you have right now.

And you have millions of people that want to be ruled by others, and maybe on both sides.  And you have two countries that haven’t gotten along well for a long time.  And, frankly, it’s a very explosive situation.

I spoke to Prime Minister Khan.  I spoke with, yesterday, also, Prime Minster Modi.  They’re both friends of mine.  They’re great people.  They’re great people.  And they love their countries.  And they’re in a very tough situation.

Kashmir is a very tough situation.  And, you know, we’re talking about — this has been going on for decades and decades.  Shooting.  I don’t mean shooting like shooting a rifle, I mean like major shooting of howitzers, of — you know, of heavy arms.  And it’s been going on for a long period of time.

But I get along really well with both of them.  As you know, Prime Minister Khan was here just recently.  And I was with — I’m going to be with Prime Minister Modi.  I’ll be with him over the weekend in France.

So, you know, I think we’re helping the situation.  But there’s tremendous problems between those two countries, as you know.  And I will do the best I can to mediate or do something.  Great relationship with both of them, but they are not exactly friends at this moment.  Complicated situation.  A lot has to do with religion.  Religion is a complicated subject.

Kashmir an ‘internal matter, but has implications outside’

The US called for improvement in the human rights situation inside Kashmir, with the quick release of political detainees and restoration of basic freedoms.

On Tuesday in Washington, the US State Department held a special briefing by a senior official on the tense situation in South Asia over the latest crisis in Kashmir.

The Hindu quoted the official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, as saying that while the revocation of Kashmir’s status may be an internal issue – as India insisted – it had external ramifications.  

“We recognise that it’s an internal matter, but it obviously has implications outside of India’s borders. And so we have long called for direct conversations between India and Pakistan to resolve what have been the decades of tensions generated by that issue,” said the senior US diplomat, as reported by The Hindu.

She noted that the US continued “to be very concerned by reports of detentions, and continued restrictions on the residents of the region”.

Also read: If It Sounds Like Mediation, It Is Mediation

“We urge respect for individual rights, compliance with legal procedures and inclusive dialogue,” said the State Department official, adding that the US was aware of India’s concerns but continued to push for the restoration of normalcy in the region. 

Earlier, on Monday, Trump had first called Modi and then immediately spoken to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan about reducing tensions in South Asia. 

US President Donald Trump. Photo: Reuters

To a question on whether these calls constituted mediation, the US diplomat asserted that the president had offered to “mediate” if asked by both parties. “He’s not been asked by both parties to mediate,” she added.

While speaking to reporters in July during Khan’s White House visit, Trump had claimed that Modi had asked him to mediate on the Kashmir issue. This was denied by the Indian government, whic stated that its traditional opposition to any third-party intervention had not changed.

During Monday’s phone call, Modi had complained about Khan’s “extreme rhetoric”, as per the Indian foreign ministry press note. The White House stated that Trump told Khan to dial back on rhetoric. 

While shying away from terming Trump’s actions as direct mediation, the senior State Department official said that his interest in South Asian stability isn’t new. She pointed out that one of the first strategies unveiled by the Trump administration was its “South Asian strategy”.