“As chants of Azaadi grow louder in protests across India, the more sanitised they become of references to Kashmir’s struggle for freedom. For some, these are merely strategic separations. And though they feel strongly about it, they restrain themselves. We restrain ourselves.
There are real repercussions for linking the anti-CAA-NPR-NRC protests with Kashmir’s demand for self-determination. Might make already precarious lives of Muslims in the country even more so. They did lodge an FIR against the woman holding the ‘Free Kashmir’ poster.
Imagine how much worse it would have been had she been holding that poster in AMU. But this silence is deafening too. Its sad really that one has to maintain this strategic silence about an occupied people and their most basic demand to be free.
It’s so simple really. ‘Free Kashmir’ means end the occupation. No intellectual reach-around necessary. And yet we fail Kashmiris and are unable to be good allies despite our best intentions.”
–tweeted by Sinjini @sinjini_m