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Reclaiming Azad Jammu Kashmir For Her People
The Evolution of AJK Public Agency
Citizen’s Opinion + Citizen’s Resources
=
Citizen’s Control of Public Policy
The most important aspect of modern-day governance is a consensus...
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- Featured
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- Health & Fitness
- Identity Conundrum
- Identity Crisis
- Identity DIS
- Imagined Identities
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- Kids Corner
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Kashmir’s Occupied Rivers
And here lived, beneath the receding waters of Mangla, my forebears, once upon a time
As her waters recede and the green grass shimmers...
What are cultural spheres?
The term ‘cultural sphere‘ can be used in different contexts. At the core of the idea is the notion that a culture can be shared...
The Pahari language of ‘Azad’ Jammu & Kashmir
The Politics behind Linguistic Identities
Aside from popular conventions in how we would transliterate words from one language into another, no corresponding practise exists for...
Asking the questions, having the discussions!
What are cultural spheres?
The term ‘cultural sphere‘ can be used in different contexts. At the core of the idea is the notion that a culture can be shared...
The Pahari language of ‘Azad’ Jammu & Kashmir
The Politics behind Linguistic Identities
Aside from popular conventions in how we would transliterate words from one language into another, no corresponding practise exists for...
Are Azad Kashmiris the same people as Valley Kashmiris?
Competing ‘State Identities’ & Ethnic Ambiguities
In the absence of a genuine Pakistani state or nation-state identity what are Azad Kashmiris?
It is at this point...
Pakistan’s Article 370 Delusions; the Free State that is not Free!
It’s ‘Azad’ - 'Free'.
"Okay!?" "It's Azad Kashmir!" "Free!"
This is Pakistan’s official stance on 'Azad' Jammu & Kashmir.
But what is Kashmir ‘free’ of?
According to the...
The Governance Dilemma in so-called “Azad” Jammu Kashmir
This footage makes an attempt to summarise the effort of Mahmood Ahmed Musafir in light of his herculean effort to address the near absence...
A Message from Kashmir
Dear British Paharis
I speak to you through this medium as a brother from Indian Occupied Kashmir. I speak to you for our shared homeland,...
Reclaiming Azad Jammu Kashmir For Her People
The Evolution of AJK Public Agency
Citizen’s Opinion + Citizen’s Resources
=
Citizen’s Control of Public Policy
The most important aspect of modern-day governance is a consensus...
TOPICAL
Protected: Who are Azad Kashmiris? Are they bonafide Pakistanis, liberated Kashmiris,...
Anonymous Quote
“They’re fighting over Kashmir! One way to win this fight is by splitting the people into different groups. When people are divided, or...
The Feudalism of the Western Himalaya; Patronage, Caste Myths and Colonialism
A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting with some local guys as they consumed copious amounts of alcohol to the backdrop of a...
Why do anti-Semites say “Israeli Jews are not real Jews?”
You must have heard the claim that modern-day Israel is a country with another people’s language and religion?
If you haven’t, antisemitism has become so...
MOST COMMENTED
Pakistan’s Article 370 Delusions; the Free State that is not Free!
It’s ‘Azad’ - 'Free'.
"Okay!?" "It's Azad Kashmir!" "Free!"
This is Pakistan’s official stance on 'Azad' Jammu & Kashmir.
But what is Kashmir ‘free’ of?
According to the Pakistani state-enforced narrative, Azad Kashmiris are free from Indian tyranny. Women aren’t being raped by Indian soldiers, and by Indian they mean non-Muslim...
The Feudalism of the Western Himalaya; Patronage, Caste Myths and Colonialism
A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting with some local guys as they consumed copious amounts of alcohol to the backdrop of a varied playlist, and it dawned upon me that my opposite number were unaware of the ‘caste-titles’ they were fondly using...
Fake News, False Narratives and Identity Politics, Silencing Dissent through Digital Media and Search Engine Manipulation
I’ve said on this site, at various places, that Digital Media particularly through interactive platforms like Wikipedia and Social Media, are vehicles of disinformation and political propaganda. Whatever the nature of an online conversation, be it a family’s travel vlogs, pictures, fashion tips, food...
Ethnic tokenism in electoral politics and the laws of unintended consequences
There was a time when you could walk into any local Labour Party branch meeting in the densely populated Pakistani constituency wards of England, and you would realise that something was breathtakingly afoot. The room would be overcrowded. Almost entirely male-dominated with the usual...
Propaganda and Digital Media; the curious case of Authoritarianism and Online Bullshit
Don't trust everything you read online.
You'll be duped into believing utter tosh. This holds true for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Had it not been for authoritarianism and control freaks, these spaces would have been wonderful places to learn facts and create vibrant friendships. Sadly,...
The curious case of the anecdote becoming narrative
Internalising the negative perceptions of out-group members is not proof that there’s something inherently wrong with your in-group identity. This has happened to lots of people who have been ‘othered’ through a combination of factors that include inaccurate media portrayals, native informants and unjust social...
Appraising Mirpur’s documented history, the story of Kashmir before and after 1846
Mirpur was the name of an historical settlement in the Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir (1846 – 1947), variably known as Kashmir State, Jammu Kingdom and/or the Dogra Raj. The name Mirpur postdates the principality’s alleged founding in the 1600s. Centuries later, the...
Understanding Disinformation and Propaganda on Kashmir
Those who argue that Kashmir is the Valley of Kashmir and that Kashmiris are the ethnic Kashmiris of the Valley are engaged in deliberate disinformation. These sinister interests want you to think that they are making ethnolinguistic claims about the people we call Kashmiris, but...
Whose Kashmir is it? Conflict & Territorial Claims; the abuse of myths
As in my earlier post on Israel and competing myths of exclusive origin, Kashmir serves as a good example of national myths and territorial claims. But unlike Israel, Kashmir has a special place for us. It is the place from where our forebears originated,...
Why do anti-Semites say “Israeli Jews are not real Jews?”
You must have heard the claim that modern-day Israel is a country with another people’s language and religion?
If you haven’t, antisemitism has become so common these days (I’m speaking of hatred against Jews, and not criticism against Israel), that you’ve probably come across multiple...
Muslim Ummah Syndrome and Identity Politics
Some years ago, Saudi Arabia proscribed its male citizens from marrying the citizens of four nationalities. Pakistanis were included on this list. The Monarchy had its reasons, no doubt, good or bad; the preponderance of such marriages was given as the primary reason. Apparently, marriages...
Colonial myth making and the Martial Races
Heather Streets, author of "Martial Races; the military, race and masculinity in British imperial culture, 1857 - 1914" said,
"...the savage representations of masculinity that lay at the heart of martial race ideology* were a crucial imaginative site upon which Anglo-Indian military elites responded to,...
Kashmir’s Occupied Rivers
And here lived, beneath the receding waters of Mangla, my forebears, once upon a time
As her waters recede and the green grass shimmers in the full glory of the sun
We are taken back to the memories of our ancestors, only just buried...
Reconciliation for divided Jammu & Kashmir; working towards peace
At some point in the not too distant future, Commander Farooq of Mong and Dr Karan Singh, son of the last Dogra Jamwal Rajput ruler of Jammu & Kashmir, could (and should) meet in Mong, auspices of the people of “Azad” Jammu & Kashmir. This...
Nation state fictions and imagining the past
A lot of us confuse our 'countries', and the technical term for what I'm describing is 'nation states', with ideas of historical continuity. We tend to confuse our countries delineated by their map-depicted borders as being the product of a natural timeline that connects...
What exactly is “cultural heritage”?
What do we mean by the term ‘cultural heritage’?
For my British-Pahari readers, I have compiled a series of short posts to educate them about their cultural heritage, as a means of showing them that modern identities have never been around since time immemorial. Identities...
The Importance of Cultural History; Kashmir – a Fragmented Land
The immediate thoughts which sprung to mind when faced with the word ‘history’ were recollections of sitting in a high school classroom making notes on British monarchs. However, it is only after following the dictation of the National Curriculum, I found myself with a...
Who will win the fight against fundamentalism in Pakistan?
Vali Nasr, author of ''Forces of Fortune - the rise of the new Muslim Middle Class and what it will mean for our our world" said,
"The truth is that that the West's best ally against fundamentalism and extremism in Pakistan is not, and never was, that...
What’s in a name? A brief look into place-names of the Pahar
Unknown (or often untold) stories live on in the names of villages and towns in the Pahar region of Jammu & Kashmir. Variably known as the 'Pahari Ilaqah', or the 'Pir Panjal' region, this area has a rich cultural heritage. The names of our...
