Understanding Kashmir

04/07/2020

Settler colonialism is both a historical and contemporary phenomenon. Conventionally associated with the genocidal origins of the white…

25/12/2019

For those of you who want to rewatch our conference.:)

KASHMIR: POLITICS OF RELIGION AND RIGHTS NITASHA KAUL, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, THE CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY, UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER 27 November 2019...

12/11/2019

THE KILLABLE KASHMIRI AND WEAPONIZED DEMOCRACY

"In Kashmir’s frigid winter a woman leaves her door cracked open, waiting for the return of her only son. Every month in a public park in Srinagar, a child remembers her father as she joins her mother in collective mourning. The activist women who form the Association of the Parents of the Disappeared Persons (APDP) keep public attention focused on the 8,000 to 10,000 Kashmiri men disappeared by the Indian government forces since 1989. Surrounded by Indian troops, international photojournalists, and curious onlookers, the APDP activists cry, lament, and sing while holding photos and files documenting the lives of their disappeared loved ones. In this radical departure from traditionally private rituals of mourning, they create a spectacle of mourning that combats the government’s threatening silence about the fates of their sons, husbands, and fathers."

In Kashmir’s frigid winter a woman leaves her door cracked open, waiting for the return of her only son. Every month in a public park in Srinagar, a child remembers her father as she joins her mother in collective mourning. The activist women who form the Association of the ParentsRead More →

17/09/2019

What is happening in Kashmir? Kashmir under siege , day 44!

07/04/2019

"This 270 kms road, which is an inter district road & the National Highway connecting Kashmir to rest of the world will be shut for civilians every Sunday & Wednesday for protecting the armed forces, who India claims are here for the security of Kashmiris. "

-via Khurram Parvez

06/04/2019

"Kashmir is now emerging from the grip of a long Himalayan winter, a season when Kashmiris try to soothe their new and old scars with warmth and dark humor. In spring they begin a fresh year in their long struggle for dignity and freedom; they will hope the world will at last take proper notice of them, as it does of the arresting beauty of their homeland.

I will return home again and hope to look at the gorgeous flowers, but I will know that there is a dark river that lies beneath." , writes Mirza Waheed.

A dispatch from another year of agonizing bloodshed in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

24/03/2019

"Graffiti in Kashmir is an important extension of the resistance culture and part of the many approaches through which Kashmiris have tried to express their political aspirations. Graffiti has always existed in some form ever since the advent of occupation in the region; it is also any attempt to immortalize resistance and keep the flame alive in public spaces. Employment of Graffiti or murals is a manifestation of countering hegemonic narratives of the state. When means to express and spaces for engagements are totally absent, graffiti therein, forms an important discourse, and provides an alternative political understanding and simultaneously reclaims spaces."

The graffiti in this photo essay by are all taken in Islamabad (Anantnag) distrist and is an attempt to place these graffiti in the contestation of public spaces in Kashmir.