The ‘Reality’ of Kashmir on November 8, 2017In a conference on the ‘Future of Pakistan 2017,’ held at the London School of Economics (LSE), Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi of Pakistan made a blanket statement explicitly rejecting the idea of an ‘independent Kashmir,’ claiming that there is no support and demand of the sort. For me, a Kashmiri Muslim from the Valley, […]
Why I wrote Sheikh Mohammad Abdullahs Reflections on Kashmir on October 3, 2017Getting to know one’s ideology is a work in progress. Ironically, it was in the United States — a country that prides itself on the power of it’s military-industrial complex — that I cultivated the drive to study the South Asian politico-cultural matrix. My commitment to pedagogy and scholarship has been unflinching and my faith […]
Transformations in the English language on September 17, 2017Many scholars are of the opinion that contemporary transnationalism helps in a new post-national era. But such transnationalism does not necessarily weaken nationalism; on the contrary, it can at times operate to reinforce a nationalist agenda. Despite the creation of a new global order, has not transnationalism led to the politicisation of identity in the […]
Transformations in the English language on September 17, 2017Many scholars are of the opinion that contemporary transnationalism helps in a new post-national era. But such transnationalism does not necessarily weaken nationalism; on the contrary, it can at times operate to reinforce a nationalist agenda. Despite the creation of a new global order, has not transnationalism led to the politicisation of identity in the […]
The woman question in South Asia II on September 1, 2017As I contemplate the significance of International Women’s Day, I wonder about the plight of women: not just in the developing world, but in the developed world as well, who have been socialized to play second fiddle, demure, passive, and seek neither political nor cultural empowerment. I ask myself, and my readers, the following questions: […]
Kashmir after Indo-US strategic ties on August 28, 2017The line of demarcation between neoconservatives and neoliberals in the United States is thinner than some people realise. In terms of interventionist politics and foreign policy; support for the ramifications of globalisation, some of which are the corporatisation of agriculture and structural adjustment programmes in the developing world; and being harbingers of peace through preemptive […]
The woman question in the Subcontinent on August 21, 2017In contemporary Indian and Pakistani societies, the question of the role of the women in the nationalist scenario remains a vexed one. Ann McClintock observes about the role of the women in the developing world in the following words, “Excluded from direct action as national citizens, women are subsumed symbolically into the national body politic […]
Dispelling nostalgic nationalist myths on August 16, 2017Historically, the Partition of 1947 fragmented the writing community by redistributing its members into two separate territorial nations. One of the significant consequences of the Partition was the migration of Urdu writers of Muslim origin to Pakistan. So the chime of Independence was, as Aijaz Ahmad observes, “experienced the whole range of Urdu literature of […]
Womens activism in conflict zones on August 8, 2017Ethnographer Sharon Pickering, in her study of women in Northern Ireland, theorizes that historically, political analysts and social scientists have not considered the experiences of those coerced and tortured by state violence as relevant to their studies (Pickering 2001: 490). But the unflinching courage of several marginalised women in Jammu and Kashmir in their fight […]
Discourse of nationalism in South Asia on August 3, 2017The ambiguous identity of a Kashmiri is one that some of us have had to live with for a while now. Indian nationalists are quick to claim their intractable hold on Kashmiris; Pakistani nationalists are just as quick to claim to speak for Kashmiris. Kashmir, despite having a real internal history and a place in […]