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.
What a colossal act of aggression that India would shut down every form of telecommunication with Kashmir. The personal & political magnitude of that is mind-boggling. The modern world pivots around communication with everyone having personal phones in hand at all times & constant use of computers. Those Kashmiris abroad with ailing or aging parents, with family that may be in vulnerable situations (especially with the disability rate caused by pellet guns), or are worried about how their families are doing under this siege are torn with distress & worry. It’s a cowardly, malicious act of unspeakable dimensions.
One wonders how the government does that. They don’t just flip a switch. Don’t they have to order workers to shut down operations? Aren’t those workers on our side? Or at least shouldn’t they be? We need to look into how they did it because if we are going to change this world & end the ugliness & violence, communicating with each other is imperative & we can’t let them take that away from us again. Amen.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but India’s current military onslaught against Kashmir is the first time there has been such a wide expression of solidarity from Palestinian groups & individuals. Not because they did not support the Kashmiri struggle but because the news blackout that prevailed for so long kept them in the dark, as it did the rest of us. Because of the political & military links between India & Israel to sustain their military occupations & because India has adopted the Israeli form of colonialism–a colonial settler state–the bonds of solidarity between Palestinians & Kashmiris & including Rohingya are massively important, even a ‘game changer’ in terms of building a consistent, active, committed international solidarity & anti-colonial movement. India & Israel may come to regret scrapping Article 370 as the action that helped unite the oppressed in a mighty uncompromising force.
The video about Kashmir that Facebook suspended me for yesterday was shared almost two-thousand times before Facebook censors determined I had violated their standards on hate speech. The video was simply a progression of images from protests & funerals in Kashmir. It was a Kashmiri protest against occupation without any hatred expressed except for colonialism & occupation.
Just coincidentally, I watched a Bollywood movie last night titled “Wazir.” It was cinematically dreadful & politically detestable. The bad guy in the film was a Kashmiri politician who, according to the improbable plot, had been a member of a terrorist gang that massacred everyone in a Kashmiri village, kidnapped a surviving little girl & forced her to pose as his daughter so that when Indian troops moved in to save the day, he could escape. That’s a dystopian tale without a shred of reality. But see how magically it serves nationalist propaganda? It reminded me the entire time of the John Wayne movies I grew up with which glorified WWII & the role of US militarism. Only worse.
Ather Zia interviewed on BBC about India scrapping Article 370.