In occupied Kashmir, they can’t turn on a light at night to take a child to pee without risking a home invasion by Indian soldiers that would get any boys kidnapped & sent to some hellhole prison in India for torture. India calls this ‘normalcy’.
Arizona State University forum on Kashmir, October 2nd, 2019.
There is no ‘violent backlash’ in Kashmir to Indian genocide. The only violence is from the Indian Army. Any who call unarmed protests ‘violence’ are falling for simple-minded Hindutva propaganda. Even if every Kashmiri was packing an AK-47, that would be self-defense since those facing genocide have the right to defend themselves ‘by any means necessary’.
Indian External Affairs Minister told a US think tank which includes Henry Kissinger on its board of trustees that the Modi gang is continuing the restrictions including the telecommunication blockade, in Kashmir ‘to ensure there is no loss of life in the Valley’. What he meant to say is, ‘no life in the valley’, a genocide.
https://theprint.in/diplomacy/kashmir-lockdown-changes-ground-jaishankar-us-think-tank/299971/?
Indian ‘normalcy’ in Kashmir.
It’s absolutely certain now that, per India’s request, Twitter has completely locked me out of direct access, though my posts from Facebook still go there automatically. It’s a valuable source of information & contacts but I had a life before Twitter & will manage without them until we figure out a way to outsmart them. Proud to know I’m persona non grata to the Modi gang. Disturbing to know Twitter has such a vassal relationship to state power especially of the fascist kind.
So Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, the writer of that Indian propaganda crap in The Print about Shia in Kashmir supporting Modi, turns out to be a real piece of work. Unfortunately for him, he’s no intellectual match for Kashmiris who only in the past week have shredded his ass twice & made him look like chopped Hindutva liver. On September 26th, The Print published an odious thing by him titled “I went to meet pellet gun victims in Soura, the new epicentre of Kashmir’s anger.” Is The Print ever going to recover from publishing this kind of trash? They’re like the Indian version of Counterpunch.
In only a matter of days, on October 1st, Nawal Watali refuted his trash with an article titled “Kashmir pellet wounds not superficial: the story Abhijit Iyer-Mitra didn’t report.” She did not merely refute his article; she kicked his ass, including reporting that he drove around an occupation zone in a chauffeur-driven car. Given the misogyny he expressed in his Soura article, it must have smarted like hell to have a woman shred him so publicly. On the other hand, a guy who can write such callous, heartless propaganda probably hasn’t got enough self-awareness to have a sense of shame.
Sajid Ali responds powerfully to the pernicious & divisive rubbish in The Print by Abhijit Iyer-Mitra titled “After scrapping of Article 370, Shias in Kashmir are in a state of relief and caution.”
Teargassed, restricted, alienated – stop saying Shias in Kashmir are on Modi govt’s side
https://theprint.in/opinion/teargassed-restricted-stop-saying-shias-kashmir-on-modi-side/299294/?
“Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.”
Kashmiri human rights leader Khurram Parvez pointed out in an interview a few years ago that in Kashmir, Sunni, Shia, Wahabi, & other Muslim denominations all marched together united for azaadi. Ashaq Hussain Parray recently said, “When it comes to fighting against oppression, there is no Shia, Sunni, Sikh or Dogra….We are all united against any assault on Kashmir & its people irrespective of religion, class & creed.” Kashmiri solidarity is not going to let India go there to divide. There were those who fell for that rubbish in Syria. They are now a deranged Assadist & Stalinist cult of no consequence in human rights politics.