India-Occupied Kashmir Uprising; Azad Kashmir Polls; RNC Convention; Qandeel Baloch

[Riaz Haq]

Why are Kashmir’s young men and women in Indian-Occupied Kashmir (IOK) leading a massive uprising against Indian occupation of their land? Is Pakistan inciting them? Can this new generation of tech-savvy freedom-fighters be suppressed by 700,000 Indian soldiers deployed in IOK making it the world’s most heavily militarized occupation? Will Modi’s India finally listen to the voices of reason from within India to deal with the alienation of Kashmiri youths? Is it time to revive the Musharraf Formula that brought India and Pakistan very close to a deal in 2007?

Why did the ruling AJK PPP get wiped out in Azad Kashmir elections? And why did Imran Khan’s PTI fail to get much traction? How did Nawaz Sharif’s PMLN manage to sweep the polls there?

How did the Republican National Convention go in Cleveland Ohio? Did the RNC achieve its goals of uniting the party and reaching out to independents and Democrats? Did Donald Trump’s  "Messianic" convention speech help or hurt him?

Could Qandeel Baloch, also known as Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian, even be imagined in conservative Pakistan just a few years ago? Doesn’t the fact that she existed is in itself a sign of a social revolution sweeping Pakistan today? How will Pakistan protect its young women who are leading this social revolution?

Viewpoint From Overseas host Faraz Darvesh discuses these questions with panelists Ali H. Cemendtaur and Riaz Haq (www.riazhaq.com)


https://youtu.be/1BDfFWagtcE





Related Links:

Haq's Musings

The Trump Phenomenon

Qandeel Baloch Leading Social Revolution

Kashmir in Context

Talk4Pak Think Tank

VPOS Youtube Channel

VPOS Vimeo Channel

VPOS Dailymotion Channel

[Riaz Haq]

How does the #Indian media toe the government line to define a terrorist? #Kashmir #BurhanWani http://www.kashmirmonitor.in/Details/107220/how-exactly-does-the-in... … via @Kashmir Monitor

On July 10, India woke up to startling pictures of massive crowds at the funeral of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in Tral, Kashmir.
The disconnect between Kashmir and the rest of India was captured by the fact that even as Wani was a figure of mass adulation in the Valley, large sections of the Indian media had described him as a “terrorist” as it had reported on his killing by Indian security forces on July 8.
This included the Times of India, Times Now as well as NDTV – even as the Telegraph, Indian Express and Business Standard stuck to the plain vanilla “militant”.
How these respective organisations differentiated between a “terrorist” and a “militant” was unclear and undefined.
This might seem like hair splitting around semantics but it’s actually far deeper than that – even if this is a discussion that’s not been had in India.

“Terrorism” and “terrorist” are words laden with value judgment, used often by political players as a means of getting their own message and viewpoint across. In reality, there are few definitions of the word “terrorist” accepted across the board. Indeed, it is for this reason that a number of global publications have strict guidelines on how to use the term. In India, however, few press outlets seem to have rules about the T-word and much of its use in the country, it seems, is driven either by Arnab Goswami-esque jingoism and/or India’s highly troubled relationship with Kashmir.

There are few words in the English-language which have had as tumultuous a life as “terrorism”. In fact, the word didn’t even start its life in English but in French where the regime de la terreur was a label adopted by the new French state to establish order after the first uprisings of the French Revolution in 1789. The first avatar of the word “terrorism” was therefore almost completely different from its modern meaning.

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“Terrorism” is, of course, exactly the sort of “meaningless word” that Orwell railed against, used not for its lexical meaning but to serve various political agendas.
In most cases, the Indian media uses it either to suit the purposes of the state or various nationalist narratives. The sharp difference between the way it is used when Muslims/Kashmir are involved versus other instances such as the North-East also points to a subtle anti-Muslim bias.

[Riaz Haq]

Dystopian Novel Challenges Misogyny As 'The Natural Way Of Things' by Charlotte Wood as reviewed by NPR's John Powers:


"Wood is clearly offering a metaphor for our own everyday world in which girls are "slut-shamed," rape victims get accused of bringing the violence on themselves, female celebrities are threatened sexually online and, at the outer limit, women are actually murdered in the name of honor, as recently happened to the Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch who was killed by her brother for dishonoring her family."


Novelists have always put their heroines through awful ordeals. But over time, these tribulations change. Where the 19th Century was filled with fictional women trapped in punishing marriages — think of Middlemarch or The Portrait of a Lady — today's heroines face trials that are bigger, more political, and more physically demanding. They fight in hunger games.

This fight takes a different form in The Natural Way of Things, a ferocious new novel by the Australian Charlotte Wood whose writing recalls the early Elena Ferrante — it's tough, direct, and makes no attempt to be ingratiating.

Set in a dystopian backwater, her short, gripping book begins as an allegory of thuggish misogyny then evolves into a far stranger and more challenging feminist parable.

The first chapters plunge us into a dusty, desolate prison camp deep in the outback. The prisoners, we learn, are 10 young women whose crime, so to speak, is to have been involved in sex scandals, from sleeping with a priest, to engaging in a cruise-ship orgy, to giving sexual favors to the judge of a talent show.

Now pariahs, they've been drugged and kidnapped, dressed in rough, ratty clothes, and sent off to do hard, pointless labor. Surrounded by electric fencing and cackled at by kookaburras, they are being systematically degraded.

With such a set-up, Wood is clearly offering a metaphor for our own everyday world in which girls are "slut-shamed," rape victims get accused of bringing the violence on themselves, female celebrities are threatened sexually online and, at the outer limit, women are actually murdered in the name of honor, as recently happened to the Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch who was killed by her brother for dishonoring her family.

All these cases remind us that female sexuality, and the bullying attempt to control it, remain dangerously volatile flashpoints in almost every culture.

http://www.npr.org/2016/07/26/487485581/dystopian-novel-challenges-...

[Riaz Haq]

#Facebook is censoring posts on #Indian-Occupied #Kashmir. #India #Pakistan #BurhanWani

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/27/facebo...


NEW DELHI — Film makers, activists and journalists accused Facebook of blocking their accounts this week after they posted messages and images related to the violence in the trouble-torn province of Kashmir.

In recent weeks, the India-administered, Muslim-majority Kashmir state has been facing violence and curfews after protests erupted against the killing of a popular leader of a terrorist group.

As people posted images, videos and stories about police violence and people injured by pellet wounds on Facebook, some discovered their accounts were disabled.

On Monday, the account of Arif Ayaz Parrey, an editor with an environmental magazine in New Delhi, was disabled for more than a day. He administers the Facebook account of a discussion group called the Kashmir Solidarity Network, whose page was also removed.

“The Kashmir Solidarity page was started by a Kashmiri anthropology student in New York. This is not a hate forum, we share stories,” Parrey said.

More than 47 people have died and hundreds injured in angry clashes between the police and protesters in Kashmir this month, the worst outbreak of bloody violence in six years in the region claimed by both India and neighboring Pakistan.

Authorities banned newspapers for four days and restored cellphone service on Wednesday after it was out for 20 days.

“Our Community Standards prohibit content that praises or supports terrorists, terrorist organizations or terrorism, and we remove it as soon as we’re made aware of it,” said a Facebook spokesman in India. “We welcome discussion on these subjects but any terrorist content has to be clearly put in a context which condemns these organizations or their violent activities.”

India and the United States topped the list of governments that request Facebook for details of accounts in the second half of 2015.

India has more than 340 million mobile Internet users and has the second largest number of Facebook users after the United States. The company is seeking to expand its footprint here by introducing a pared down version called “Free Basics.” But earlier this year, New Delhi shot it down, saying service providers cannot charge discriminatory prices for Internet users.

A journalist in Kashmir said that many who shared stories about a new band of militants and videos of police brutality have been blocked.

“It looks more like Facebook censorship rather than something initiated by the government. Maybe they are trying to please the government proactively,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Center for Internet and Society. “Nevertheless it will have a chilling effect. You will think twice before exercising free speech on Facebook now.”

Ather Zia, a political commentator from Kashmir who teaches anthropology at the University of Northern Colorado, said after her account was disabled on Tuesday: "It is safe to assume creating awareness for Kashmir using social media or writing about the ground reality is under severe threat."

Meanwhile, users struggled to restore their accounts on Wednesday as they uploaded new documents requested by the company.

“I use my Facebook account not as a personal page to tell people about my last haircut or last holiday. I use it for work, I share media stories about whatever bothers me in the universe,” said Sanjay Kak, a documentary film maker whose account was disabled Tuesday. “Nothing I shared can be considered inflammatory or incendiary.”

[Riaz Haq]

Azadi (Freedom) for #Kashmir by Arundhati Roy. #India #Pakistan #BurhanWani

http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/azadi/297536

The people of Kashmir have made it clear once again, as they have done year upon year, decade upon decade, grave upon grave, that what they want is azadi. (The “people”, by the way, does not mean those who win elections conducted in the rifle sights of the army. It does not mean leaders who have to hide in their homes and not venture out in times like these.)
While we denounce—as we must—the gunning down of unarmed protesters by the security forces, the attacks on ambulances and hospitals by policemen, and the blinding of teenagers with pellet guns, we have to keep in mind that the real debate cannot only be about the violation of human rights by Indian security forces in the Kashmir valley. Egregious though they are, those violations are the consequence—the inevitable and unavoidable consequence—of the militaristic suppression of a people’s struggle for freedom. Kashmiris are not fighting for the establishment of the rule of law or an end to human rights violations. They are fighting for azadi. For this, they are prepared to face down bullets with stones. For this, they are prepared to die in numbers. For this, they are prepared to exhibit acts of open defiance that may lead to their death or incarceration in the most densely militarised zone in the world. For this, they are prepared to take to arms, to fight to the death, knowing full well that they will die young. They have proved that with tragic regularity. They have been nothing if not consistent.

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If there is to be a solution to this terrible, seemingly endless tragedy, we have to be able to think clearly, speak freely and listen fearlessly to things we may not want to hear. We have to find a new imagination. This applies to everybody, on all sides of the dispute.
Something beautiful could come of it. Why not? Why ever not?

[Riaz Haq]

Kashmir: Terrorism Or
Freedom Movement?

This article argues that the massive bloodshed continuing in Kashmir is not merely a result of cross-border terrorism as the Indian State would like us to believe, but that there is also a genuine freedom struggle going on against the repressive Indian State by the Kashmiris who are alienated equally with India, Pakistan and the militants and whose grievances have their historical roots in the events of 1947.


The Promise

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian Prime Minister hailed from a Kashmiri Hindu(Pandit) family whose ancestors had lived in the lush-green Kashmir Valley(Vale) and hence had a great deal of emotional attachment towards the Vale as can be inferred from the beautiful poems he had written comparing the Vale to a beautiful woman. Besides, he was a great friend of Sheikh Abdullah to the extent that when the Lion of Kashmir was arrested by Hari Singh for his Quit Kashmir movement in 1946, Jawaharlal had rushed to his rescue braving imprisonment.

Following the accession of Kashmir to India, Nehru promised the Kashmiri people in a famous speech at Lal Chowk in Srinagar that their wishes would be consulted in a plebiscite or referendum regarding the future of J&K. Naturally he was confident that the popular leader Sheikh Abdullah would be helpful in convincing his people to choose India in a plebiscite to be held in future and thus his beloved Vale would remain the Jewel in the Indian Crown. He would repeat this promise time and again in various speeches from 1947-1951 and the 1948 Indian White Paper clearly records that the accession of Kashmir to India is provisional until such time as the will of the people(self-determination) of the State could be ascertained by a plebiscite[7]. Some of the aging locals i met in Kashmir still remember the promise of plebiscite given by Jawaharlal Nehru in an emotional speech at Lal Chowk Grounds in Srinagar more than half a century ago.

The strongly nationalistic Kashmiris were fearful of joining India given the communal holocaust raging elsewhere in India during the Partition. This is clearly articulated in a famous speech by Sheikh Abdullah on 22 Oct, 1947 where he explains the apprehension of the Kashmiri Muslims in joining India, given the massacre of muslims in Kapurthala and elsewhere in India. However, Abdullah would consent to provisional accession to India on 27th October clearly stating that it was an ad-hoc accession ultimately to be decided by a plebiscite[8]. Throughout the next few decades, he would continue to oscillate between a pro-India position and demand for self-determination, constantly torn between his friendship with Nehru and promise to his people.


http://www.countercurrents.org/kashmir-raman220307.htm 

[Riaz Haq]

It is only with love that we can hold #Kashmir: #India Chief Justice TS Thakur (Kashmiri Pandit) http://dnai.in/dmen via @dna

The problem, was not also, entirely Pakistan's support for militancy in the state, he (Justice Thakur) admitted. "How many of us can vouchsafe that Kashmir was given the same kind of democratic freedom that was given to other parts of the country? In Kashmir, we've heard that mayors are elected, but there were deputy commissioners who would be the returning officers who would reject all the nomination papers and declare the candidate of a particular party as elected and therefore the government would be formed even before the vote being cast."

Finding a solution, he said, appeared to be very difficult as "Jammu wants Article 370 to be abolished. Ladakh wants to be centrally governed, and Kashmir valley wants independence. And within that valley, the Hindus want a separate conclave for themselves".

The only way out, Justice Thakur felt was to embrace inclusiveness. "When we rejected two nation theory we went for an inclusive society. We need to nurture it. It is only with love that we can hold Kashmir," he said.

[Riaz Haq]

#India-Occupied #Kashmir behind Azad Kashmi in education ranking. http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/kashmir/jk-behind-azad-kashmir-i... … via @sharethis

Jammu and Kashmir has figured among worst performing states in elementary education in India while ‘Azad Kashmir’ across the Line of Control in Pakistan is leading in the same, two separate surveys have revealed.
According to a latest round of the National Performance Survey conducted by the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), the percentage of students “able to listen, recognize words and read with comprehension in Jammu and Kashmir is lower than the national average.”

Against the national average score of 257 (on a scale of 0 to 500), the students in J&K scored just 232 in language subject. Similarly for mathematics, J&K scored 240 as against the national average of 252.
In language, the state is third worst performing state, triumphing only over Bihar and Chhattisgarh. Here, the students were able to answer just 56 percent of language questions correctly as against the national average of 64 percent. The top position went to Daman and Diu with a score of 74 percentile.
In the sub-category of Listening under Language, the state is at the bottom of all states as only 49 percent of Class III students were able to listen to a passage with understanding. Furthermore the average score of boys is lower than the girls in the state.

In Mathematics, J&K is tied up with Rajasthan as fourth worst performing state. In both the states, the students were able to answer just 61 percent of mathematics questions correctly. In all the abilities like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, place value and shapes category, the state score was lower than the national average. The girls scored slightly better than the boys in the state.

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Under the Provincial and National Education Scores (Primary School), AJK has jumped to second position just behind the top ranked Islamabad. AJK has a score of 76.67 as against the Pakistani average of 70.33. All AJK districts have a high education score between 70 and 79.
Gilgit Baltistan (GB) comes fourth just after Punjab with a score of 73.78. The rankings in primary school sector are a lead by Punjab, AJK and GB. The middle school rankings, however, are completely dominated by AJK, which has six districts in the top 10.
“Bhimber (AJK) replaces Skardu as top district from last year. Overall, districts from AJK occupy four of the top five ranks,” the report says.
“Throughout the period we have been calculating the Alif Ailaan district education rankings, AJK has continued to perform well on the education score for primary schooling. This is the same in 2015,” the report said in its observation. The report also paints positive image for GB. “Despite poor performance on the school infrastructure score, GB districts continue to score well on the education rankings. GB is the only region in the country where none of the districts score lower than 50 on the learning score,” the report says.
Surprisingly the good performance comes despite the fact that educational infrastructure in AJK and GB is one of the worst in entire Pakistan.
AJK is at the bottom of the infrastructure ranking among all provinces. Less than 50 percent of 50% of schools in AJK can provide functional toilets, water or electricity.

[Riaz Haq]

From Hindu: Comparison of Azad Kashmir and Indian Occupied Kashmir:

As a resident of Baramulla, I should have been able to make it to Muzaffarabad, the capital on the other side, within five hours by road, had the governments of India and Pakistan allowed our three-member delegation to travel on the much-vaunted cross LoC bus.

However, the walls between the two sides built over 60 years forced me to travel via Delhi-Lahore-Islamabad — the journey thus took me almost three days.

Nevertheless, this longer route was interesting in itself. The 180-km Islamabad-Muzaffarabad road reminded me of the winding Srinagar-Jammu highway, while the mountainscape and the gushing waters of the Jhelum resembled Patnitop and the waters of the Chenab.
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Muzaffarabad, with a population of just over 6,00,000, looks cleaner than Srinagar (PoK has 10 districts with an estimated population over three million in 2009). Even during my previous visit in 2004, I found that the stories of “under development in PoK,” fed to us on this side, are off the mark. This time, I noticed road connectivity and power supply to houses even on the upper reaches of a hill. In contrast, many villages in Jammu and Kashmir even today are without basic facilities. Neither does Muzaffarabad seem to be lagging behind in education and health compared to the Indian side of Jammu andKashmir though progress is more in tune with Pakistani literacy rates. In the past few years the development in these two sectors has been rapid. The literacy rate in PoK has touched 65 per cent which is higher than for any other area in Pakistan. In conversations, both the young and old in Muzaffarabad say that Pakistan has “never discriminated” against the region.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-other-kashmir/article2101764.ece 

[Riaz Haq]

US Urges #India to Curb “Rising #Intolerance and #Violence” . #Muslims #BJP #Modi #Kashmir

http://www.thequint.com/world/2016/07/30/us-urges-india-to-curb-ris...

The United States expressed concern over the “rising intolerance and violence” while responding to a question about the rising instances of violence against people for beef consumption.
Answering a question posed by Pakistani journalist Jahanzaib Ali from ARY News TV, US State Department Spokesman John Kirby said:
As we do in countries facing such problems around the world, we urge the government to do everything in its power to protect citizens and to hold the perpetrators accountable.

Ali raised the question in the Daily Press Briefing of the US Department of State in light of recent reports of alleged violence against ‘beef eaters,’ like the one where two Muslim women were thrashed at Mandsaur railway station in Madhya Pradesh. They were suspected to have been carrying beef.

We look forward to continuing to work with the Indian people to realize their tolerant-inclusive vision, which is so deeply in the interests of both India and the United States.
John Kirby, US State Department Spokesman


In response to a question by the same journalist on the US involvement in the “Indian-held Kashmir” issue, Kirby said:


We encourage all sides to make efforts to find a peaceful solution to this, and I can tell you we are.. in close touch with our Indian counterparts there in New Delhi as this goes forward.

[Riaz Haq]

Chomsky Compares #India's occupation of #Kashmir with #Israeli occupation of #Palestine | http://TwoCircles.net http://twocircles.net/2016jul16/1468659479.html#.V6_dhKN8s_p.twitter …

Boston/Srinagar - In an email conversation with Mehboob Makhdoomi, Expert on Kashmir situation and Socio-Political commentator from Harvard, American linguist and political activist Prof. Noam Chomsky compared the conditions in Kashmir to that of Palestine.

He called the current development in Kashmir as "shocking" and termed the discussion between Kashmir and the rest of the India as "hysterical". He wrote that he has discussed this topic(Kashmir issue) in India in the past, where it aroused hysteria so much that his hosts insisted on police protection for several weeks of rest of his stay.

Earlier in July 2015, Chomsky advocated that Indian army should move out of the Kashmir. "Indian Army should leave Kashmir. Kashmir has had an awful story, especially since late 80's after that fake election and that there have been horrible atrocities," said Chomsky.

In the recent conversation, he had said, "the reason Palestine has been his priority is because of the crucial role of the United States, which means that the activists in the US can do something about it, which may not happen when in case of Kashmir."

He has also called the atrocities of Army in the Valley has a "superficial gesture". Chomsky said that he would have to do same on Kashmir, what he does for Palestine.

In the past, Chomsky has urged for a common federal arrangement by India and Pakistan for Kashmir, so that semi autonomous regions could loosely federated with each other.

The valley is tense after Burhan Wani's death on July 8. In subsequent protests, 44 have lost their lives, along with thousands injured. Curfew is in effect in most of the areas of Kashmir.