The Silent Defiance Of Banned Books: Kashmir’s Unyielding Truth
India’s war on Kashmiri narrative memory is longstanding, far preceding the recent ban on 25 books that made the headlines on August 5, 2025. The selective outrage over the book ban reveals the systematic erasure embedded in the 70+ year military occupation, where persecution, extrajudicial killings, native dispossession, and land grabs steadily dismantle Kashmiri life. […]
Kashmircore: India’s Tool to Erase Kashmiri Counter-Memory
In 2023, I had a tough time locating online links to some key citations for an essay for Global Voices. The piece was about the renowned Kashmiri human rights defender Khurram Parvez and his 2nd year of incarceration in an Indian jail. These were longstanding references to critical articles, links to Kashmiri and regional newspapers […]
Last Signature—a Ghazal for Agha Shahid Ali
Our wounds are labeled forgettable, ShahidOur life before death is imperceptible, Shahid Billboards proclaim, Kashmir is ParadiseGod has a reason to be chimerical, Shahid Memory threads tied to wooden roses at KhankahEven simple prayers are incomprehensible, Shahid At Naseem Bagh, your presence was ephemeralNow, your absence is a spectacle, Shahid Our laments are lost, our yearnings […]
I’m A Kashmiri. This Is What I Thought When Kanhaiya Said Kashmir Is Integral To India
After the sedition fracas, Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the JNU student union, finally reclaimed his patriot status by reiterating that Kashmir is an integral part of India. This statement is the mother of all gold standards for proving one’s patriotism in India. In addition to its shorthand use, this statement also becomes an analytic for many […]
Wither Kashmir: Short-Term Glory or Long-Term Solution
The mere mention of Kashmir, brings about an inevitable gush of emotions, a slew of stanched resolutions, sterile accords and pacts, impulsive wars and the incessant violence. In the recent years, where the relation between India and Pakistan is thawing in many regards, and the movement in Kashmir has been wallowing amidst different narratives emerging […]
Kashmir’s Stone Pelter
You ask about his birth? No, no he was not born today. No not at the time you see him, frozen in the frames of countless magazines and screens, aggressive and intent on throwing the stone at the well armed and armored Indian trooper whose finger stands alert on the trigger. He was born before […]
Kashmir: From Orient to the State of Exception
Historically the global imagination has often reflected on Kashmir, the erstwhile Himalayan kingdom, through scenes of colonial idyll, wilderness, and romance. This imagery was fine tuned through works like “Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance” a poem written in 1817 by the English poet Thomas Moore. Photographs from the bygone era are replete with soft verdant […]
Being Of Faith
Ather Zia’s #poem about the #Muslim registry i hearwe will be in the Muslim registryour faces will be pixelizedirises digitized,each finger, andthe opposable thumbthat all homo-sapienspossibly evolved together,will be memorized i hear,my young cello playing sonparents,who finally remember directions to Safeway,daughter whose singing never stopsdead friend’s soft-spoken wife, a master at making apple pies,husband who […]
Gula of Kashmir: Tales from the Spring of Verinag
Gula is a young fish who lives in the Verinag spring, also known as the Neel-nag (Blue Spring) in Kashmir. He lives there with his Mother, Sheer, and his other fish friends, Nika, Nitch, and Kaakh. The Neel-nag spring is significant since the river Jehlum flows from here into the valley. Neel-nag is surrounded by […]
‘They want us to write. In blood.’ Four poems on Kashmir
Poetry makes one a witness rather than just an archivist. One’s life-blood, all that is political, emotional and ethical; lived, remaining, and forgotten coagulates into a poem. Yet at many junctures the verses are only despair; mourning a beleaguered homeland. And sometimes the poems cannot help but disparage the act of writing itself, which under […]