Several Kashmiris have been reporting about the disturbing trend of Hindutva nationalists publicly smacking their dirty minds about how scrapping Article 370 now makes whiter Kashmiri women available to them. There apparently is little to distinguish nationalism from racism from rape in the fascist mode of intersectionality. That creepy information accords with reports that most of the white nationalist perpetrators of the deadliest massacres in the US have domestic violence in their backgrounds. Like their nationalist brothers in India, they are not mentally ill so much as poisoned by hatred & violence against women, Blacks, & others with brown skin.
Daily Archives: August 7, 2019
Solidarity with Kashmir from the Syrian Arab Spring now under aerial & ground bombardment by Syrian, Russian, Iranian, US-coalition, Hezbollah, Israeli forces:
There are a few reports trickling out of Kashmir however not by Kashmiri journalists who have been silenced. It’s not certain, given the complete shutdown of telecommunications in Kashmir, how these reporters are getting their information or getting it out of Kashmir. The BBC which apparently has journalists on the ground has reported scattered protests in Kashmir & Huntington Post published this disturbing report that a 17-year-old boy was drowned trying to escape paramilitary troops chasing a group of teenage boys. Thirteen of the boys ended up in hospital with pellet gun injuries. There is no indication the young boys were engaged in protests or any kind of mischief but only that they were in the public streets during curfew.
“Indian journalists who’ve been given “access” to Kashmir by the state, please do spare a thought for your colleagues in Kashmir. They haven’t been allowed to report, write, speak one word.”
–Kashmiri journalist & writer Mirza Waheed
Indian scholar Jairus Banaji on India turning Kashmir into a concentration camp:
The shameless subjugation of the Kashmiris should come as no surprise to all those in India and outside who know that the BJP government doesn’t give a f**k about the constitution of India, much less about legality, democracy or individual rights. But the curfew that is currently in force amounts to a crime against humanity under international law, since article 7(e) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes, in the list of such crimes, “Imprisonment *or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law*”.
Doval has described the situation in Kashmir as one of “normalcy”. The architects of India’s national-security state think it is normal to live surrounded by tens of thousands of troops, to have barricades and check-points every few metres, to imprison people in their homes, to cut their communications completely, to try and keep them in the dark about what is happening, to make it near-impossible to access emergency services such as hospitals, etc., basically to live in a state of fear and isolation as if gathered in one vast concentration camp. One can only hope that one day Doval and his wretched ilk will have to face similar conditions.
A facebook friend commented that the annexation of Kashmir has been driven by “a desire to put Muslims in their place and have them crawl before their Hindu masters” (comment by Amitabha Pande). To this one might add that the true target of Kashmir’s subsumption into what is rapidly becoming a Hindu state is Article 35A, because that is widely perceived as a hindrance to “freeing” the resources of the Valley and to its unfettered economic exploitation (euphemisically called “vikas”) by powerful business interests linked to the present government.
As for parliament, it has been reduced to a fig-leaf for the exercise of naked force.
Protests are erupting in Kashmir despite the presence of nearly a million troops. The struggle for #azaadi is irrepressible. This is a brief but very good video report including interviews with two insightful young Kashmiri men.
The NY Times calls Kashmir “the most dangerous place in the world” as a result of India’s military onslaught & scrapping of Article 370 because it is “courting conflict with Pakistan” & with China which considers its own bogus claims to Jammu & Kashmir to be threatened. The danger would all be sustained by Kashmiris in an attempt by all three countries to abrogate the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/opinion/kashmir-article-370.html?
According to Muzzammil Ayyub Thakur from the World Kashmir Freedom Movement, there were ten reported incidents of stone pelting in different parts of Kashmir on August 5th. There is also “Aggressive posturing by the army. Utter desolation. Stone pelting. A child’s been killed. Simmering. Palpable tension. Curfew.”
#StandWithKashmir
This interview begins with a very useful interview with Kashmiri journalist & writer Mirza Waheed & proceeds to a debate with Syed Zafar Islam, a buffoonish spokesperson for the fascist BJP party of Modi, Ajai Shukla, a former Indian officer now impersonating a hapless journalist, & Muzzammil Ayyub Thakur, president of the World Kashmir Freedom Movement. It’s worth watching, especially when Thakur reduces Islam to blubbering protoplasm with sarcasm & at about 19:10 where the BJP dope claims India has won the hearts & minds of Kashmiris while Thakurm laughs in contempt.
It is reported today that so far over 100 political leaders & activists have been arrested in Kashmir, according to a senior J&K official. Former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti & Omar Abdullah are under arrest but cannot be considered representatives of the Kashmiri struggle for #azaadi because of their lifelong collaboration with Indian colonialism & occupation. Under Abdullah’s tenure, pellet munitions against unarmed protesters were introduced & under Mufti’s tenure they were used to injure, disfigure, blind, kill thousands of Kashmiris, including children. Kashmiri anthropologist Ather Zia has pointed out that Mufti’s home is a former interrogation center which she had redone as a bungalow. Mufti & Abdullah are acting out a political farce to emerge as political leaders of a resistance that will collaborate with Indian colonialism & compromise the struggle for independence.