The new India under the Modi regime: Hindutva goons are assaulting a Muslim while chanting slogans of Ram, a Hindu god, with police watching as mute spectators.
So I was not chosen for the paid opinion thingy today. After breakfast at a swank hotel, the law firm sent half of us home with $100 for our time. A lovely woman I ate breakfast with is a retiree who works with her local church group which crosses weekly into Reynosa, Mexico across the border (a dangerous town which the drug cartels control) to work with unaccompanied refugee children. Others at our table strongly supported her work so I was among friends. She was chosen for the study which pays $300 for the day. I would have liked the dough but meeting her was worth losing out.
“This is called coldblooded denial….when u disrupt “others “world and declare it as “normal “….what a shame….#standwithkashmir”
–Rollie Mukherjee
Today I was given an opportunity to earn some extra dough & could not turn it down since my dog’s rabies shots are due. I will not be posting until later today & hope that others will add their voices to Kashmiris since the siege & blockade continues in its murderous way.
We may have differences on Turkey’s genocidal assault on Syrian Kurds. I would only ask for no war mongering on my wall whilst I am gone. Antiwar principles exclude no people, not even those with corrupt leadership.
Dalit & other oppressed caste signatories of the letter to Modi protesting lynching were expelled from university while upper caste signatories were threatened with prosecution. That’s the kind of democracy India has.
On the leading role of Kashmiri women, not as emotional victims, but as leading participants in the struggle for self-determination, by Nawal Ali Natali:
-my beloved brother.
I swear, if my tears would bring him back,
I would let all my tears out
I cried until this sun,
became darkness to my eyes
If I would request anything from this mortal world
I would request to divide my lifetime to two
I would give him half of my lifetime,
I would see him alive again
And tell him how precious he is to me,
and what is his rank in my heart
I would tell him that he lives
here till my last breathe
I would fight my sadness,
by recalling his memories, his
goodness, and defeat it
I feel the burn,
in every side of my heart
I try to act with pride,
but my soul surrendered to this pain
I wish this grave knows how
great is the man we just buried
How great was he when he was alive,
and how great is he when he is not with us.
-aabid ibn bashir
“Is it normal that the people we used to interact everyday haven’t been seen or heard for now over two months?”
#standwithkashmir
–Rajiv Kumar
Eight-year-old Faizan Mir died on the spot from Indian shelling yesterday of the Neelum Valley, a region of Pakistan-controlled Azad Kashmir near the Line of Control. His parents two siblings & two cousins were among the 13 civilians wounded. May little Faizan Rest In Peace.
Demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir.
A moving account by Irfan Rashid of the anguish suffered as a result of the complete telecommunications blockade in Kashmir.