Podcasts about Kashmiris

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Envisioning Hopeful Futures Host Miko Lee speaks with two Bay Area artists, activists, and social change makers: Tara Dorabji and Cece Carpio. Both of these powerful people have been kicking it up in the bay for a minute. They worked in arts administration as community organizers and as artist activists.   LINKS TO OUR GUESTS WORK Tara Dorabji Author's website New book Call Her Freedom Find more information about what is happening in Kashmir Stand With Kashmir Cece Carpio  Tabi Tabi Po running at Somarts   SHOW Transcript Opening Music: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express. Miko Lee: Good evening. I'm your host Miko Lee, and tonight I have the pleasure of speaking with two Bay Area local artists, activists, and social change makers, Tara Dorabji and Cece Carpio. Both of these powerful people have been kicking it up in the bay for a minute. They worked in arts administration as community organizers and as artist activists. I so love aligning with these multi hyphenated women whose works you can catch right now. First up, I talk with my longtime colleague, Tara Dorabji Tara is an award-winning writer whose first book Call Her Freedom just came out in paperback. And I just wanna give a little background that over a decade ago I met Tara at a workshop with the Great Marshall Gantz, and we were both asked to share our stories with the crowd. During a break, Tara came up to me and said, Hey, are you interested in joining our radio show, Apex Express? And that began my time with Apex and the broader Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality community. So if you hear a tinge of familiarity and warmth in the interview, that's because it's real and the book is so great. Please check it out and go to a local bookstore and listen next to my chat with Tara. Welcome Tara Dorabji to Apex Express.  Tara Dorabji: Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be with you, Miko. Miko Lee: And you're actually the person who pulled me into Apex Express many a moon ago, and so now times have changed and I'm here interviewing you about your book Call Her Freedom, which just was released in paperback, right? Tara Dorabji: Yep. It's the one year book-anniversary. Miko Lee: Happy book anniversary. Let's go back and start with a little bit for our audience. They may have heard you, if they've been a long time Apex listener, but you as an artist, as a creator, as a change maker tell me who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? Tara Dorabji: Who are my people? My people I would say are those who really align with truth. Truth in the heart. That's like at the very core of it. And I'm from the Bay Area. I've been organizing in the Bay a long time. I started out organizing around contaminated sites from nuclear weapons. I've moved into organizing with young people and supporting storytelling. So arts and culture has been a huge part of it. Of course, KPFA has been a big part of my journey, amplifying stories that have been silenced, and I think in terms of legacy, I've been thinking about this more and more. I think it goes into two categories for me. One are the relationships and who remembers you and and those deep heart connections. So that's one part. And then for my artistry, it's the artists that come and can create. On the work that I've done and from that create things that I couldn't even imagine. And so I really think that's the deepest gift is not the art that you're able to make, but what you create so that others can continue to create. Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing the deep kind of legacy and sense of collaboration that you've had with all these different artists that you've worked with and it's, your work is very powerful. I read it a year ago when it first came out, and I love that it's out in paper back now. Can you tell our audience what inspired Call her Freedom. Tara Dorabji: Call Her Freedom is very much inspired by the independence movement in Indian occupied Kashmir. And for me it was during the summer uprisings when, and this was way back in, In 2010-2009, after the Arab Spring and for the entire summer, Kashmir would be striking. It would shut down from mothers, grandmothers, women, children in the street. This huge nonviolent uprising, and I was really drawn to how it's both one of the most militarized zones on earth. And how there was this huge nonviolent uprising happening and questions about what it could look like, even like liberation beyond the nation state. And so I was really drawn to that. My dad's from Bombay, from Mumbai, that's the occupying side of it, and ethnically we're Parsi. So from Persia a thousand years ago. And so I think for me, at a personal level, there's this question of, okay, my people have been welcomed and assimilated for generations, and yet you have indigenous folks to the region that are under a complete seizure and occupation as part of the post-colonial legacy. And so I went and when I went to Kashmir for the first time was in 2011, and I was there. Right when the state was verifying mass graves and was able to meet with human rights workers and defenders, and there was a woman whose husband had disappeared and she talked to me about going to the graves and she told me, she said I wanted to crawl in and hug those bones. Those are the lost and stolen brothers, sons, uncles, those are our people. And another woman I spoke to talked about how it gave her hope for the stories to carry beyond the region and for other people to hear them. And so that became a real core part of my work and really what call her freedom is born from. Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing and I know that you did a film series and I wonder if you could about Kashmir and about what's going on, and I think that's great because so many times we in American media don't really hear what's going on in these occupied lands. Can you talk a little bit about how the interconnectedness of your film series and the book and was that part of your research? Was it woven together? How did you utilize those two art forms?  Tara Dorabji: I think we're both accidental filmmakers. That might be another way that our cross, our paths cross. In terms of medium. So for me, I was actually working with Youth Speaks the Brave New Voices Network at that time and doing a lot of short form. So video content, three minutes, 10 minutes, six minutes. And it was playing really well and what I was seeing coming outta kir by local filmmakers was beautiful, gorgeous, highly repressed work generally, longer form, and not always immediately accessible to an audience that didn't have context, that hadn't been, didn't understand. And my thinking was this was a gap I could fill. I had experience, not as a filmmaker, but like overseeing film teams doing the work, right? And then here are some of the most silent stories of our time. So when I went back to do book research in 2018, I was like, Hey, why don't I make some short form films now? I didn't even know what I was getting into. And also I think. When you go in as a novelist, you're absorbing your hearing and it takes time. There's no clock. It was, it's been the hardest project to get from start to finish. And I couldn't be like, okay, Miko, like I've done it once. Now this is how you do it. And when people trust you with their story, there's an urgency. So throughout the whole project, I was always seeking form. So my first trip went straight to KPFA radio. Took the stories, project sensor, took the stories, and so I wanted to build on that. And so the documentary films provided a more some are, I'm still working on, but there was some immediacy that I could release, at least the first film and the second film, and also I could talk about how can this work dovetail with campaigns happening on the ground and how can my work accelerate what human rights defenders are doing? So the first film here still was released with the first comprehensive report on torture from the region. And so it gave that report a whole different dimension in terms of conversation and accessibility. It was a difficult film but necessary, and because I had to spend so much time with. It was a difficult film but necessary, and because I had to spend so much time with transcribing, watching the footage over and over again, it really did inform my research from the B-roll to sitting and hearing the content and also for what people were willing to share. I think people shared in a different way during video interviews than when I was there for novel research. So it worked really well. And what I am, I think most proud of is that the work was able to serve what people were doing in a really good way, even though it's really difficult work.  Miko Lee: It built on the communication strategies of those issues like the torture report and others that you're working on.  Tara Dorabji: Exactly. And in that way I wasn't just coming and taking stories, I was applying storytelling to the legal advocacy strategies that were underway. And, you make mistakes, so it's not like there weren't difficulties in the production and all of that. And then also being able to work with creatives on the ground and at times it just. You, it became increasingly difficult, like any type of money going out was too heavily scrutinized. But for a time you could work with creatives as part of the projects in the region and then that's also super exciting.    [00:11:18] Miko Lee: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more, I heard you say something about how the, when people are telling your story for the novel versus telling the story for the video that the cadence changes. Can you share a little bit more about what you mean by that?    Tara Dorabji: Yeah, I think when I'm doing novel research, it's very expansive, so I'm dealing with these really big questions like, what is freedom? How do you live in it? How do you, how do you choose freedom when your rights are being eroded? And so that conversation, you could take me in so many different directions, but if I am focused on a very specific, okay, I'm doing a short documentary film around torture, we're gonna go into those narratives. Or if I'm coming with a film medium, like people just see it differently and they'll speak and tell their stories differently than with a novel. It's gonna be fictionalized. Some of it might get in there or not. And also with a novel, I don't ever, I don't take people and apply them to fiction. I have characters that like, I guess come to me and then they're threaded through with reality. So one character may hold anecdotes from like dozens of different people and are threaded through. And so in that way you're just taking like bits and pieces become part of it, but. You don't get to see yourself in the same way that you do with the film. So in some ways. It can be safer when the security environment is as extreme as is as it is right now. But there's also this real important part of documentary film where it's people are expressing themselves in their own words, and I'm just curating the container.  Miko Lee: Was there an issue like getting film out during the time that you were doing the documentary work? Because I've heard from other folks that were in Kashmir that were talking about smuggling film, trying to upload it and finding different, did you have to deal with any of that, or was that before the hardest crackdown? Tara Dorabji: I mean there were, there's been series, so 2019 was abrogation where there was a six month media blockade. And so just your ability to upload and download. And so that was after I had been there. The environment was there was challenges to the environment. I was there for a short time and you just come and you go. You just do what you're gonna do and you be discreet. Miko Lee: And what is going on in Kashmir now?  Tara Dorabji: The situation is really difficult. One of the lead leads of the report on torture and coordinator from the human rights group that put, that helped put out that report has been incarcerated for four years Koran Perve. Miko Lee: Based on what?  Tara Dorabji: His human rights work. So they've just been detaining him and the United Nations keeps calling for his release.  Miko Lee: And what do they give a reason even?  Tara Dorabji: They, it's yeah, they give all kinds of trumped up charges about the state and terrorism and this and that. And also. One of the journalists and storyteller and artists in the first film that I released, Iran Raj, he's been incarcerated for two years. He was taken shortly after he was married, the press, the media has been dismantled. So there was, prolific local press. Now it's very few and it's all Indian State sponsored narrative propaganda coming through. ] Miko Lee: How are concerned folks here in the US able to get any news about what's happening in Kashmere, what's really going down?  ara Dorabji: It's really hard. Stand with cashmere is a really good source. That's one. There's cashmere awareness. There's a few different outlets that cover what happens, but it's very difficult to be getting the information and there's a huge amount of repression. So I definitely think the more instagram orgs, like the organizations that go straight to the ground and then are having reels and short information and stories on Instagram is some of the most accurate information because the longer form journalism. It is just not happening right now. In that way people are being locked up and the press is being dismantled and people running, the papers are being charged. It's just horrendous. Entire archives are being pulled and destroyed. So hard. Really hard. So those, Stand With Kashmir is my go-to source, and then I see where else they're looking.  Miko Lee: So your book Call Her Freedom is a fictionalized version, but it's based around the real situation of what's been going on in Kashmir. Can you share a little bit more about your book, about what people should expect and about what you want them to walk away with understanding.  Tara Dorabji: It's a mother daughter story. It's a love story. It's about love and loss and families, how you find home when it's taken. And the mom is no Johan. She's a healer. She's a midwife. She has a complex relationship with her daughter and she haunts the book. So the story told from multiple points of view, we never get and ignore the mom's head, but. She comes back as she has a lot to say. And I think it's interesting too because in this village that's largely run by men, you have these two women living by themselves and really determining their own fate. And a lot of it has to do with both nors ability to look at ancient healing practices, but also a commitment that her daughter gets educated. And so she really like positions her daughter in between the worlds and all the while you have increasing militarization. And Aisha starts as a young girl just starting school. And then at the end of the story, she's a grandmother. We get to see her relationships evolve, her relationship with love evolve, and a lot of the imperfections in it. And one of the things in writing this is when you're dealing. Living in occupation, there's still the day-to-day challenges that so many of us endure. And you have these other layers that are horrific.  Miko Lee: Yeah. And I'm wondering how much of yourself as a mother you embedded into the book as a mother, as an activist, as a mother of daughters, how much of yourself do you feel like you put into the book?  Tara Dorabji: A ton. It's my heart and spirit in there. And there were some really, there's this scene where the mom does die, and I actually wrote that before my mom passed away. And I do remember like after my mom died, going through and editing that part. And it was just like. It was really, it was super intense and yeah, I mean it definitely made me cry and it was also like the emotion was already there, which was interesting for me to have written it before but then have it come back and a full circle, I think.  Miko Lee: So did you change it after you experienced your own mom dying?  Tara Dorabji: It was soft edits. In my second novel, there's a scene and it, that one completely changed 'cause I didn't hit the emotion. Emotional tenor, right? It's funny, but in this one it was pretty good. I was like, I did pretty good on that one. But yeah, so it was just like tinkering with it a little. I think also my daughters were about four when I started.  Miko Lee: Oh, wow.  Tara Dorabji: And it came out as, when they're 18. So the other part was I was able to use their age references constantly throughout it because. I could just map to what it's like being a mom of a kid that age. So I did ob yeah, definitely used my own. So it's an amalgam and also it's fictionalized. So in the book, it's not Kashmir, it's Poshkarbal there's right a village. And so trying to take people out of something that they can identify as reality, but then at the same time, you can see the threads of reality and create a new experience. Miko Lee: So since you brought that up, tell us about the next book that you're working on right now.  Tara Dorabji: Yes, it's still very much in a draft form, but takes place here in the Bay Area. Similar themes around militarization, family secret love, lineage loss, and part of it's in Livermore Home to one of the world's nuclear weapons lab. Mm-hmm. Part of it's in San Francisco, so exploring into the future tech, AI, and. There's an underpinning around humans' relationship to technology, and I think at this point. We know that technology isn't gonna solve the crisis of technology. And so also looking at our relationship to land and culture and lineage. So there's, it's about, now I'm looking at about a hundred year span in it.  Miko Lee: Wow. Really?  Tara Dorabji: Yeah. Contained with the geography of the Bay Area  Miko Lee: Toward the future. Toward the past? Tara Dorabji: both past and future Miko Lee: Whoa. Interesting.  Tara Dorabji: Yeah.  Miko Lee: I'm reading Empire of AI right now. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but, oh, the AI stuff is so deeply disturbing about humanity. You're really thinking about where we're going, so I'm curious to find out your fictionalized versions of the impact.  Tara Dorabji: It's a major change we're going through. Yeah, and you and I grew up in a time when we didn't have cell phones and we used maps, and Yeah. If I was gonna meet you, I had to be there and we'd have to make a plan in advance and yeah. It's just shifting so rapidly. So we went  Miko Lee: through that. Even how to read a, how to read a clock like my girls, I had to show them as adults how to read a clock. Wow, I didn't realize these things. Our world is so digitized that even the most basic, that concepts ha how are shifting and even fine motor skills. Like most young people do not have good, fine motor skills.  Tara Dorabji: Yeah.  Miko Lee: Because they're just used to being on their phone all the time.  Tara Dorabji: Yes, and the, and I would give it is during the rain over the holidays, there is just always a family out with a small child in their yellow rain boots. And the kid like reaching into the tree, grabbing, smelling it dad or mom holding them. And so there are these anchors.  Miko Lee: Yeah.  Tara Dorabji: And even though humanity is accelerating in this one way, that's very scary and digitize. It's like the anchor of the earth in our community and our relationships still is holding us. Some of, you know, there's still that pull. And so I think that how people form their communities in the future and the way that. The choices that are gonna be made are just gonna become increasingly difficult. We faced it in our generation, parenting around cell phones, social media. We're seeing that impact of the suicidality, all of those things coming up. And that's gonna accelerate. So I do think it's, definitely a major change in transition some dark times, but also some really beautiful possibilities still rooting in our communities and in the world.  Miko Lee: And because we both work in movement spaces, I'm really curious I heard you talk a lot about connection and land and I'm just curious in your book. I got this vibe and I know a lot of the work that we do in the community. I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit on the land back movement internationally. In so many of those spaces, women are at the forefront of that. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.  Tara Dorabji: That's one of the most exciting things happening right now is the land back movement. In my younger days when I was studying what determines a woman's quality of life internationally at a scale, it's, it was really came down to land ownership. So in societies where land ownership went to women, they were able, and it was like. Outpaced by far, education and those other things is like that access to the land and the resource in that way. And land back is an acceleration of that, and I think particularly when we're looking at a lot of questions around philanthropy, spun downs, how it's done. When you transition an asset back into the community as land and land stewardship, right? Because then there's like the ownership for the stewardship and yeah, the different ways that it's done. But that is a lasting impact for that community. And so often when you're investing in women. Then it goes not just in terms of their quality of life, but the children, right? And the whole community tends to benefit from that. And I think even looking at Kir in the, one of the things that always has fascinated me is Kashmir during, it was independence was a carve up by the British, so that's a post-colonial strategy to keep people fighting. That has been very successful in the subcontinent. Kashmir had  Miko Lee: all over the world.  Tara Dorabji: Exactly. And Kashmir had a semi-autonomous status. That's what was really stripped in 2019, was that article from the Constitution. And so in the very early days when their autonomy was stronger, they started some pretty revolutionary land reforms. And so there was actually clauses where the people that were working the land could have it. And people Kashmiris were transferring land. To two other cashmeres. And so it was this radical re resource redistribution and you have a really strong legacy of feminism and women protesting and leading in Kashmir and I think that part from my perspective is that was a threat. This fear of redistribution of resources, land distribution other areas started to follow suit and the nation state didn't want that to happen. They wanted a certain type of concentration of wealth. And so I think that was one of the factors that. There were many, but I do think that was one that contributed to it. So I do think this idea of land backed land reform is extraordinarily important, and particularly looking at our own relationship with it. How do we steward it? How do we stop stripping the land? Of its resources and start realigning our relationship to it where humans are supposed to be the caretakers. Not the ones taking from.  Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. I was thinking so much about your book, but also about the movement that we live in and the more positive visions of the future. Because right now it's devastating all the things that are happening in our communities. So I'm trying to be a bit hopeful and honestly just to keep through it make sure that we get through each day. Given so many of our brothers and sisters are at risk right now I'm wondering what gives you hope these days?  Tara Dorabji: Yeah, a lot of things do, I think like when I do try to take the breaths for the grief and the devastation because that loss of life is deep and it's heavy and it's real and it's mounting. So one, not to shy away from feeling it. Obviously not, it's hard. You don't want to 24 7, but when it comes in to let it come in and move through. And for me it's also this idea of not. It's just like living in hope. How do you live each moment and hope? And so a big part of it for me is natural beauty, like just noticing the beauty around me and filling myself up in it because that can never be taken away. And I think also in some of the most violent acts that are being committed right now, the way people are meeting them with a pure heart.  Miko Lee: Yeah.  Tara Dorabji: It's like you can't stop, like that's unstoppable is like that beauty and that purity and that love. And so to try to live in love, to try to ground in hope and to try to really take in the beauty. And then also like how do we treat each other day to day, and really take the time to be kind to one another. To slow it down and connect. So there are, these are tremendously difficult times. I think that reality of instability, political violence, assassination, disappearances, paramilitary have come visibly. They've been in the country, but at a, in the US at a more quiet pace, and now it's so visible and visceral  Miko Lee: And blatant. Yeah. It's just out there. There's no, they're not hiding about it. They're just out there saying out there, roaming the streets of Minnesota right now and other states to come. It's pretty wild.  Tara Dorabji: Yeah. And I think that the practice is not to move in fear. The grief is there, the rage and outrage can be there. But the love and the beauty exists in our communities and and in the young people. Miko Lee: Yeah.  Tara Dorabji: And our elders too. There's so much wisdom in our, in the elders. So really soaking up those lessons as much as possible.  Miko Lee: Thank you so much for chatting with me and I hope everybody that checks out your book call Her Freedom, which has gotten some acclaim, won some awards, been out there, people can have access to it in Paper Book. We'll put a link in our show notes so people can have access to buy it from an independent bookstore.  Tara Dorabji: Thank you so much. Wonderful to catch up and thank you for all your work on Apex as well.  Miko Lee: Thank you. Next up, take a listen to “Live It Up” by Bay Area's Power Struggle.    MUSIC “Live It Up” by Bay Area's Power Struggle.  Next up I chat with Visual artist, cultural strategist and Dream Weaver, Cece Carpio about her solo exhibition that is up and running right now at SOMArts through March. Welcome, Cece Carpio to Apex Express.   [00:33:37] Cece Carpio: Thank you for having me here.   [00:33:39] Miko Lee: I am so excited to talk with you, and I wanna start with my very first question that I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? [00:33:52] Cece Carpio: That's a packed question and something I love. just in terms of where I come from, I was born and raised in the Philippines, small little farming village town, and migrated as my first so ground in the United States here in San Francisco. So my peoples consists of many different beings in all track of. The world whom I met, who I've loved and fought with, and, relate with and connect with and vision the world with. So that includes my family, both blood and extended, and the people who are here claiming the streets and claiming. Claiming our nation and claiming our world to make sure that we live in the world, that we wanna envision, that we are visioning, that we are creating. I track along indigenous immigrant folks in diaspora. black, indigenous people of color, community, queer folks, and those are folks that resonate in, identify and relate, and live, and pray and play and create art with.  [00:35:11] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. And do you wanna talk, chat a little bit about the legacy that you carry with you? [00:35:16] Cece Carpio: I carry a legacy of. Lovers and fighters, who are moving and shaking things, who are creating things, who are the healers, the teachers, the artists and it's a lot of load to carry in some extent, but something I'm very proud of, and those are the folks I'm also rocking with right now. I think we're still continuing and we're still making that legacy. And those are the people that are constantly breathing on my neck to make sure that I'm doing and walking the path. And it's a responsibility I don't take lightly, but it's also a responsibility I take proudly. [00:35:58] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. We are talking today because you have an exhibit that's at SOMArts Space, your first solo exhibit, and it's running all the way through March 29th, and it's called Tabi Tabi Po: Come Out With the Spirits! You Are Welcome Here First, tell me about the title and what that evokes for you. [00:36:18] Cece Carpio: Yes, so Tabi Tabi Po is a saying from the Philippines that essentially. Acknowledge, like it's most often used when you walk in the forest. And I think collectively acknowledge that there are other beings and spirits there beyond ourselves. So it's asking for permission. It's almost kind of like, excuse me, we're walking your territory right now. And, acknowledging that they're there and acknowledging that we're here or present and that, we're about to. Coexist in that space for that moment. So can we please come through? I think this is also not just like my open idea and choosing this title is not that we're only just coming through, but we're actually coming out to hang out for a little while and see what's happening here and kick it. Opening up space and welcoming folks who wants to come out and play with us and who wants to come and share the space.  [00:37:15] Miko Lee: Ooh. I really love that. I feel that when I walk in the forest to this ancestors that are with us. That's beautiful. This is your first solo exhibit, so I'm wondering what that feels like. You have been a cultural bearer for a really long time, and also an arts administrator. So what does it feel like to have your first solo exhibit and see so much of all of your work all around?  [00:37:36] Cece Carpio: Well, I'm a public artist. Most of the stuff that I've been doing the last decade has been out in public, creating murals and installations and activations, in different public spaces, and went somewhere. Specifically Carolina, who is the curator at SOMA have asked me to do this. To be honest, I was a little bit hesitant because I'm like, oh, it's a big space. I don't know. 'cause I've done group exhibitions in different parts of the years, but most of the stuff I do are affordable housing to like public activations to support the movement. Then I kind of retracted back and it's like, maybe this is the next step that I wanna explore. And it was a beautiful and amazing decision to work alongside so Mars and Carolina to make this happen 'cause I don't think it would've happened the way we did it in any other space, and it was amazing. Stressful that moments because I was still doing other projects and as I tried to conceive of a 2000 square footage gallery and so my district in San Francisco. But it was also the perfect opportunity. 'cause my community, my folks are here and. We are saying that it's a solo exhibition, but it really did take the village to make it all happen, and, which was one of my favorite part because I've been tracking this stem for so long and he is like folks on my back and I wanted to tell both my stories and our stories together. It was very opening, very humbling. Very vulnerable and exciting. All at the same time, I was able to talk or explore other mediums within the show. I've never really put out my writing out into public and is a big part and component of the exhibition as well as creating installations in the space. Alongside, what I do, which is painting mostly. But to be honest, the painting part is probably just half of the show. So it was beautiful to play and explore those different parts of me that was also playing with the notion of private and public, like sharing some of my own stories is something as I'm still trying to find ease and comfort in. Because as a public artist, I'm mostly translating our collective stories out, to be a visual language for folks to see. So this time around I was challenged a little bit to be like, what is it that you wanna share? What is it that you wanna tell? And that part was both scary and exciting. And, and he was, it was wonderful. It was great. I thought he was received well. And also, it was actually very relieving to share parts and pieces of me out with my community who have known for a long time. There were still different parts of that there were just now still learning. [00:40:39] Miko Lee: What did you discover about yourself as you're kind of grappling with this public versus private presentation? [00:40:45] Cece Carpio: What I learned about myself through this process is I can actually pretty shy. I mean, I might be, you know, um, contrary to like popular belief, but it was definitely, I'm like, Ooh, I don't know. I don't know. My folks who had been standing close with me, just like, this is dope. And also just in the whole notion that, the more personal it is, the more universal it becomes and learning that, being able to share those part of me in a way of just for the pure sake of sharing, actually allows more people to resonate and relate, and connect, which at this moment in time is I thing very necessary for all of us to know who our peoples are when this tyranny, trying to go and divide us and trying to go and separate us and trying to go and erase us. So I think there's something really beautiful in being able to find those connections with folks and spaces and places that otherwise wouldn't have opened up if you weren't sharing parts and pieces of each other.   [00:42:00] Miko Lee: That's so interesting. The more personal, kind of vulnerable you make yourself, the more it resonates with folks around the world. I think that's such a powerful sentiment because the, even just having a gallery, any piece of artwork is like a piece of yourself. So opening up a huge space like Somar, it's, that's like, come on in people. Thank you for sharing with us. To your point about the shocking, horrible, challenging, awful times that we live in. As we talk right now, which is Saturday, January 31st, there protests going on all around the country. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what it means to be a visual artist, a cultural bearer in a time of fascism and in a time of struggle. [00:42:43] Cece Carpio: Well, if you go and see the exhibition, that's actually very much intertwined. My practice has always been intertwined with, creating a vision in solidarity with our communities who are believing and fighting for another world that's possible. My practice of this work has been embedded and rooted with the movement and with organizations and people who have the same goals and dreams to, bring in presence and existence of just us regular, everyday people who are still fighting to just be here to exist. So just to your question of, but what it means to do this work at this time. I think it is the imagination. It is the creativity that allow us to imagine something different. It is the imagination, it is the dreams that allow us to create that. Other world that we wanna envision when, everything else around us is telling us another way that's not really the best for ourselves and for our peoples and for the future generations that's gonna be carrying this load for us. And with this. In so many ways, a lot of my. my creating process, my making process has always carried that, and even myself, immigrating to this place that was once foreign is figuring out where I can belong. My art practice has not only been a way in which I express myself, but it has been the way in which I navigate the world. That's how I relate to people. That's how I am able to be part of different groups and community. And it's also how I communicate. , And that's always been, and still is a very big portion of my own practice.   [00:44:37] Miko Lee: Can you share a little bit more about your arts practice, especially when we're living in times where, people are trying to get a paycheck and then go to the rally, and then maybe phone banking and organizing and there's so many outside pressures for us to just continue to move on and be in community and be in movement work. I'm wondering how do you do it? Do you carve out times? Is it in your dreams? Where and how do you put yourself in your arts practice. [00:45:04] Cece Carpio: I don't think there is a wrong or right way of doing this. I think being an artist, it is not only about being creative on what, a paint on the walls, it is about being creative on how you live your life. I don't know if there's a formula and it's also been something that, to be honest, it's a real conversation. I mean, most of us artists. We're asking each other that, you know, like You do it. How do you figure out, like how do you add hours in your day? How do you continue doing what it is that you love and still fall in love with it when we're under capitalism trying to survive, all these different things. Everyone has a different answer and everyone has different ways of doing it. I'm just kind of figuring it out as I go, you know? I'm an independent artist. It is the center of the work that I do, both as a livelihood and as a creative practice, as a spiritual practice, as a connective practice. This is what I do. For me it is just like finding my peoples who wants to come and trek along. Finding folks who wants to support and make it happen. Beyond painting on walls, I'm also an educator. I've taught and pretty much most of the different levels of, what this nation's education system is like and still do that in practice, in both workshops, , sometimes classrooms, community group workshops and folks who wants to learn stern, both technical and also like conceptual skills. I consider myself also a cultural strategist, within a lot of my public activation and how I can support the movement is not just, creating banners or like little cards, but actually how to strategize how we utilize art. To speak of those things unspoken. But to gather folks together in order to create gateways for, other everyday folks who might not be as involved with, doesn't have time or availability or access to be involved to make our revolution irresistible. Many different cultural strategist comes together and we produce public art activations to make it both irresistible, but also to provide access, to folks who otherwise probably would just walk by and have to go to their everyday grind to just make it on this work. As long as I see it aligned within kind of divisions that we have together to consistently rise up and get our stories known and become. Both a visual translator but also a visual communicator in spaces and places sometimes, you know, unexpected, like for example, within the protest when protest is over, like what are left behind within those spaces where we can create memories. And not just like a moment in time, but actually how do we mark. The space and places we share and that we learn from and that we do actions with. We can make a mark and let it be seen.   [00:48:05] Miko Lee: Thank you for that. I'm wondering, as you're talking about your profound work, and how you move through the world, I'm wondering who are some of the artists that inspire you right now?  [00:48:17] Cece Carpio: So many, so many folks. Artists at this moment have been becoming vital because of the intensity of our political climate that's happening. There's so many artists right now who are. doing a lot of amazing, amazing things. I definitely always have to give shout out to my mama, Esra, which is one Alicia, who's just consistently and prolifically still creating things. And she, I've been doing and collaborating with her for many, many years. What I think I really love and enjoy is that she's continuously doing it and like it gives us more hunger to like, all right, we gotta catch up. it's amazing and  [00:48:58] Miko Lee: beautiful. Amazing work.  [00:49:00] Cece Carpio: Yes, and I've been very fortunate and been very lucky to be part of an artist Has been such an inspiration , and a collaborator and in the many process of the different works that we do. So some of the crew members definitely shout out to my brother Miguel to, folks like Frankie and Sean Sacramento. Then we have span over in New York, like we've, we're now spreading like Voltron. ‘ve been very lucky to have some amazing people around me that love doing the same things who are my family. We're continuing to do that. So many more. It's really countless. I feel like I definitely have learned my craft and this trait by. Both being out there and making happen and then meeting folks along the way who actually are in the same path. And it's such a beautiful meeting and connection when that happens. Not only just in path of creating work, but, and path of we down to do something together. There's so many, there's so many. It's so nameless.  [00:50:05] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing some of them, some of the artists that helped to feed you, and I'm sure you feed them. You just have finished up an artist in residence with the Ohlone people. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what that experience was like being an artist in residence there. [00:50:21] Cece Carpio: It has been an amazing, and the relationship continues. Karina actually gave the spirit plate on the opening, which is such a big honor because I consider her, both a mentor and a comrade and, and  [00:50:34] Miko Lee: Karina Gold, the Chair of the Ohlone tribe.  [00:50:38] Cece Carpio: Yes. And who I have such admiration for, because if. Both integrity and also the knowledge that she carries and the work that she's doing and how she opens it up for different folks. How she walks is such a big part of how that collaboration started in the first place. As an indigenous immigrant that's been consistent. Like what does even mean to be indigenous in the land that's not yours, you know? Just the notion of what is our responsibility as stewards of this land to live on stolen land? I had this specific skill that I wanted to share, and they were more than willing, and open to dream together of what that could look like and was able to do. Many different projects and different sites , of land that's been returned to indigenous hands. It was such an honor to be part of that. Creating visual markers and visual acknowledgement in spaces that, you know, kind of telling the autobiographical stories of those spaces and how it was returned, what our divisions, and to work alongside the young people, the various different communities she believes and wanted to take part of the movement. I learned as much or if not more. I share my knowledge of like how to paint a mural or all the different skills. So it was very much a reciprocal relationship and it's still a continuous relationship that we're building. It's gonna be an ongoing fight, an ongoing resistance, but an ongoing victory. They've already have shared and won and have shown and shared with us the experiences of that. It's been very rejuvenating, regenerating, revitalizing, and in all those different ways, being able to bear witness to that, but taking small part in pieces, and certain projects to uplift and support that and also just to learn from the many different folks, and people from both Sego and the communities that they've able to like. Create and build through the time, I mean through the young time actually that they've been here, but definitely still growing.  [00:52:46] Miko Lee: Thank you. Your show is up until the end of March. What do you want folks to feel after they go see Tabi Tabi Po  [00:52:55] Cece Carpio: Mostly are gonna feel whatever they wanna feel. I'm kind of curious to know actually, what is it that people are feeling and thinking, but I think Enchantment, I wanna recapture that feeling of Enchantment in a time and moment where. It can be very frustrating. It can be very, depressing. Seeing the series of event in this nation and just uncaring, and like the pickable violence that's imposed to our peoples. I wanna be able to give folks a little bit of glimpse of like, why we are fighting and why we were doing this for and even see the magic in the fight. I think that's a big part of the story that's being told and that the, knowing that we're still writing a story as we go. Within this exhibition, there's a lot of spaces of me sharing parts of my story, but a big part of that is also spaces for folks to share theirs. That exchange of magic is something that we can use as ammunitions, we can use as tools to keep us going in times that is very, very trying.  [00:53:59] Miko Lee: The magical exchange to make the revolution irresistible.  [00:54:03] Cece Carpio: Let's do it. Let's go.  [00:54:05] Miko Lee: Sounds great. We're gonna put links to the show at SoMarts we'll put them on our Apex Express, um, page, and I'm wondering what's next for you? [00:54:14] Cece Carpio: We will also have programs that coincides alongside the various stories that we're telling with this exhibition to welcome for other community members, other artists, other cultural bearers, other fighters to come and join us, and be part of it and tell stories, heal time. Imagine a magical future to celebrate the victories and wins as big and small as they come. So that is gonna be happening. What's nice for me is, actually it's going simultaneously is I'm still painting. I'm going to be in support of painting a new space opening for a Palestinian owned bakery. They're opening up a new space back in their hometown right here in Oakland. And Reem is a close friend, but also a very frontline fighter. 'cause you know, genocide is still happening right now. I wanna be able to support that and also support her. Another public art installation is actually gonna be unveiling within next month over at soma. In the district of Soma Filipino with the Jean Friend Recreation Center. I'm actually trying to carve out more time to write. I'm still exploring, definitely like in the infants stages of exploring it, but falling in love with it. At some point in time within this show, . Wanna be able to actually get it published, in a written form where both the images can accompany some of the written work , and wanna see like its duration last beyond the exhibition show. There's always the streets to come and protest to happen and contributing to that work that we do to reclaim what is ours, the world that is ours.  [00:55:53] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. You're doing so many things so powerfully, so beautifully, so articulately and I guess the best way for folks to follow up is on your Instagram. [00:56:04] Cece Carpio: Yeah, I'm still actually operating in myself.  [00:56:06] Miko Lee: Okay. Okay. Well thank you so much for your work, everything that you do in the community, so powerful, and thanks so much for speaking with us today. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to our show tonight. Please go check out Cece's exhibition Tabi Tabi Po at SoMarts and go to a local bookstore to get the paperback version of Tara's Call Her Freedom. Support artists who are paving the way towards a vision for a new future. They are working to make the revolution irresistible. Join us. [00:56:41] Closing Music: Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apex Express to find out more about our show and our guests tonight. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by me Miko Lee, and edited by Ayame Keane- Lee. Have a great night.     The post APEX Express – 2.5.26-Envisioning Hopeful Futures appeared first on KPFA.

In this episode of the Mashq Talks Podcast, RJ Umar Nisar hosts Shafat Qazi, Kashmiri American entrepreneur, global tech leader, and film producer.Founder and former CEO of BQE Software, a cloud based project management and accounting company. Ranked among USA Today's Top 50 CEOs in 2018.Shafat Qazi shares his journey from Kashmir to building world class companies. You hear real stories of struggle, ambition, discipline, and long term thinking. He breaks down AI, marketing, the future of human jobs, and how technology reshapes business.He speaks openly about failures, success, net worth, and the role of a life partner in growth.He also talks about Kashmiris in Bollywood and his film as producer, Songs of Paradise, based on the life and legacy of Raj Begum. A powerful story of culture, identity, and resilience.A conversation on leadership, purpose, and impact.Host: Rj Umar NisarInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/rj_umar_nisar/

Everything Koshur is a podcast exploring Kashmiri culture, identity, and lived experience. While earlier seasons focused on preserving and celebrating Kashmiri heritage, Season 3 turns the spotlight toward Kashmiris doing interesting, meaningful work across the world - artists, creators, and changemakers shaped by their roots, wherever they are.With new hosts,  Ritvik Raina and Akansha Bhat, the season opens with singer-songwriter Shreea Kaul, who reflects on moving from India at a young age, bonding with her mother over Bollywood and Indian TV, discovering her love for music, and how her Kashmiri upbringing shaped her resilience. She also shares hard truths about the music industry, and her goals for the future.Through honest conversations, Everything Koshur explores what it means to carry Kashmir forward, through ambition, creativity, and evolution.

Listen to the latest SBS Hindi news from India. 14/11/2025

Today, India and Israel have forged an alliance. It wasn't always that way. India became independent in 1947. Its first prime minister, Nehru, positioned his country as a champion of the Palestinian cause. As the leader of the non-aligned movement, India's stance on Palestine had great influence among other post-colonial nations. In the 1990s, that shifted. India moved into the U.S. orbit and embraced neoliberalism. And at the same time, it moved closer to Israel. It was said if India wanted to be close to the U.S., it had to reshape its critical policy towards Israel. And that they did. The two countries have something in common: India's military occupation and domination of Kashmiris and Israel's military occupation and domination of Palestinians. And India, under the Modi Hindutva, Hindu nationalist regime, is the world's largest buyer of Israeli weapons. Israel, in return, buys weapons from India. Recorded at Simon Fraser University, Harbour Centre, Vancouver, BC

Six years after the abrogation of Article 370, Kashmiris continue to wait for the restoration of statehood, says journalist and analyst Zafar Chaudhary. While street protests, stone-pelting, etc. seem to be a thing of the past in J&K, the stripping away of statehood is a sore point for most.

NL TeamThis week, host Sumedha Mittal is joined by The Caravan's Sunil Kashyap, and Jatinder Kaur Tur. Jatinder reports from Kashmir, where three bodies of locals who were in police detention surfaced in the Veshaw River. Following the Pahalgam terror attack, Kashmiris felt being suspected and criminalised. Amid rampant arrests and deaths, families like that of Nazir Ahmad Magray – whose 20-year-old son was taken in a night raid by the Jammu and Kashmir Police's Special Operations Group – have been left shattered.“We are talking about three brothers [and one man] who went missing and there was no believable story from the police. It is said that they drowned in Veshaw river or naala, which was completely dry and no one could have drowned there,” says Jatinder. Meanwhile, Sunil's report uncovers an unseen, unheard truth from Bihar. At Bodh Gaya's Mahabodhi Mahavihara – a sacred Buddhist site – Buddhist monks and Dalit-Bahujan groups are protesting the Bodh Gaya Temple Act of 1949, which mandates Hindu involvement in managing the temple. This stems from centuries of Hindu appropriation of the site, despite its centrality to Buddhism. “The Hindu Sangh sees Buddhism, not Islam, as its biggest ideological challenge,” says Sunil. Timecodes00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:02 - Kashmir police silences questions as bodies emerge from the Veshaw River00:20:59 - The Bodh Gaya Protest00:45: 37 - RecommendationsRecommendationsJatinder How to Forgive Sunil In 6 months, Fadnavis seat added 29,219 voters. Poll staff claim lapsesA flurry of new voters? The curious case of Kamthi, where the Maha BJP chief wonSumedha A border ran through it: The life and lonely death of an 80-year-old Kashmiri manProduced and edited by Saif Ekram and Tista Roy Chowdhury, recorded by Anil Kumar. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know that up to the Partition of India in 1947, Kashmiri Muslims lived in conditions that very much resembled serfdom? Exploitation of Kashmiri Muslims was particularly notable during the Dogra Dynasty, which ruled the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1846 to 1947.Since their partition in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought four wars: in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999. Based on research and information, three of these wars were specifically about the Kashmir region. In this interview, I bring historical perspective to conflicts and crises about Kashmir by asking my guest scholar the following questions: ►Is Jammu and Kashmir different than Kashmir?►Who are Kashmiris?►Why did Persian missionaries visit Kashmir?►What happened to Kashmir after the Mughal Empire?►What does it mean that Kashmir was a princely state?►Did the British introduce a more egalitarian system in Kashmir? If so, why?►Why Kashmir was an autonomous region under British rule and until recently in the Republic of India?►Why is Kashmir called the Indian Administered Kashmir?►How did Kashmir become a part of India?►What was the Kashmir massacre that happened in 1947?►How are Kashmiris 'othered' in India?►What is it about Kashmir that makes it different from all other Indian states?►Is Kashmir an integral part of India?►Would my guest scholar be able to freely talk about Kashmir's history in India?

India ja Pakistani vahelisel jagelemisel ning konfliktidejadal on pikk ajalugu. Kahtlemata mõjutavad minevikus väljakujunenud jooned ka mai alguses uuesti lahvatanud konflikti Kashmiris. Seekordses Ringjoone saates keskendumegi põhjalikumalt 7. mail alguse saanud India-Pakistani konfliktile ning proovime lahti mõtestada selle ajalooliseid kui ka tänapäevaseid juurpõhjused. Samuti võtame vaatluse alla konflikti laiema mõju maailmapoliitikas.Seekord lahkavad teemat Siim ja Erik ning saatejuhiks on Kaspar. Saade on lõigatud kokku samuti Eriku poolt.

Acknowledgement of Country//Headlines//Gaza update Flooding in NSW mid-north coastLegal experts and advocates raise concerns about NSW police's use of firearm prohibition ordersState Library of Queensland withdraws fellowship from First Nations writer over Palestine solidaritySurges in refusals of Freedom of Information requests   Updates from an 'australian' activist in Palestine on recent developments in Masafer Yatta, a collection of herding communties in the West Bank. We hear about the everyday violence of settlers encroaching on Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley, as well as our correspondent's reflections on being involved in international solidarity work providing a presence to deter these incursions.//  Nerita Waight, CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, joined us to unpack funding implications for the Aboriginal legal sector in Victoria's 2025-26 budget, which was handed down by Treasurer Jaclyn Symes this Tuesday 19 May. Nerita discussed the impacts of the Allan Government's massive funding boost for the prison system and police in the wake of this year's regressive bail reform, as well as its decision to stick to time-limited funding for Aboriginal legal services in regional Victoria. Nerita Waight is a Yorta Yorta and Narrandjeri woman with Taungurung connections.// Jalees Hyder is a fiery Kashmiri writer, teacher, poet, freedom fighter, and survivor living as a guest on Chinook Land in 'portland'. In this special 3 part series, Jalees and Inez unpack Kashmir's history, interconnected resistance and solidarity with Palestine, the importance of centering Kashmiri voices, tourism as a tool of normalising the occupation and much more. From personal stories of solidarity to what life is like under occupation, Jalees paints a picture on why Kashmiris have had enough and what actionable solidarity looks like. Today, we play part 2, we talk about how media manafacture consent for violence, supression of Kashmiri voices, tourism as normalising occupation, and india x israels relationship.Follow Jalees on Instagram, where he shares his writing and poetry as well as resources about Kashmir - support and amplify Kashmiri voices!// Song:  Sahal Kar from Ali Saffudin, a singer-songwriter from Srinagar, Kashmir. Known throughout the valley for his magnetic and captivating voice, take a listen.//  Thursday 15th of May marked the 77th anniversary of Nakba Day, commemorating the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the fight for Palistinian liberation since 1947. This Day reminds us that Nakba, meaning catastrophe or disaster in Arabic, never ended. Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land is ongoing in the form of genocide, ecocide and epistemicide - which means to 'destroy and erase sovereign knowledge'. The following audio was recorded by 3CR's Karina Aguilera at the Naarm Nakba Day Rally on Sunday last week. You will hear the voices of Noura Mansour, Nasser Mashni, Uncle Gary Foley and Uncle Robbie Thorpe.//

 Acknowledgement of Country// Headlines:Updates from GazaNationwide action for Nakba Day 2025University of Sydney students vote on controversial antisemitism definitionVictorian Government commits $727 million to prison expansion An 'australian' activist currently in Palestine shares updates from Masafer Yatta in the West Bank and an interview with Palestinian activist Hamoudi about his family's experiences of the ongoing Nakba and exercising steadfastness in the face of occupation. We also hear a short clip of some school girls in Susiya singing the song 'Aytuna Tafola' ('Give Us Our Childhood').// Dr Jamal Nabulsi is a Palestinian writer, researcher, rapper, organiser, educator on unceded Jagera and Turrbal land ''brisbane.'' Jamal joins Inez to discuss Palestinian and First Nations solidarity, resisting fragmentation, the importance of self-determined Indigenous spaces, and shared music, art, and solidarity practices. Jamal is a founding collective member of the Institute of Collaborative Race Research, and his PHD thesis ‘Affective Resistance: Feeling through everyday Palestinian struggle', which explores Palestinian hip-hop music and graffiti, was awarded the prize for best doctoral thesis on emotions in politics and international relations by the British International Studies Association. Check out Brisblackpal for resources on Blackfulla - Palestinian Solidarity. Get your tickets for the Activism for Palestine Conference 2025, running 30 May-1 June in Fortitude Valley, Magan-djin/brisbane, on Humanitix.// Jalees Hyder is a fiery Kashmiri writer, teacher, poet, freedom fighter, and survivor living as a guest on Chinook Land in 'portland'. In this special three-part series, Jalees and Inez unpack Kashmir's history, interconnected resistance and solidarity with Palestine, the importance of centering Kashmiri voices, tourism as a tool of normalising the occupation and much more. From personal stories of solidarity to what life is like under occupation, Jalees paints a picture on why Kashmiris have had enough and what actionable solidarity looks like. Today, we play part 1 of the conversation, where Jalees and Inez talk about community solidarity, the history of Kashmir, and what often gets left out of mainstream narratives on the region. Follow Jalees on Instagram, where he shares his writing and poetry as well as resources about Kashmir - support and amplify Kashmiri voices!// Lorna Munro, Wiradjuri and Gomeroi woman and multi-disciplinary artist extraordinaire, caught up with Priya to speak about anti-colonial solidarities between First Nations Peoples and Palestinians, and to situate the role of poetry in the struggle for liberation against colonial violence and occupation. Lorna also shared a beautiful poem about surviving genocide. Keep up to date with Lorna's work on Instagram.// Songs//yayayaya (prod. Atari) - Haykal// Mawtini/My Homeland  - Gaza Youth Choir//

In a special episode for Press Freedom Day, Newslaundry's Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande and Jayashree Arunachalam, are joined by historian and author Ramachandra Guha. The panel begins with a discussion on the history of press freedom in India. Ram reflects on the similarities and differences between 1975's Emergency and today. “The Modi regime has gone farther than Indira's regime by weaponising agencies in a much more systematic and planned way.” Commenting on the ‘downfall' of mainstream media, Manisha adds, “The sheer anti-people quality of the media, painting minorities as threats, is relentless and unprecedented.”The panel discusses the history of violence in Kashmir and the attacks on Kashmiris across India after the Pahalgam terror attack. “One word from Modi and it would have stopped,” says Ram. Jayashree notes, “People are very happy to believe the worst qualities about Muslims and Kashmiris right now, and the media is feeding into it.”This and a lot more. Tune in!We have a page for subscribers to send letters to our shows. If you want to write to Hafta, click here. Check out the Newslaundry store and flaunt your love for independent media. Download the Newslaundry app. Contribute to our latest NL Sena here.Timecodes00:00:00 – Introductions 00:02:08 - Special Press Freedom Week offer00:03:43 – Headlines 00:10:16 - Press freedom in India00:49:04 – Understanding the Kashmir conflict01:14:37 – Ramachandra Guha's recommendations01:16:51 – Letters01:29:16 – RecommendationsCheck out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters Produced and recorded by Priyali Dhingra and Ashish Anand. This episode is outside of the paywall for now. Before it goes behind the paywall, why not subscribe? Get brand-new episodes of all our podcasts every week, while also doing your bit to support independent media. Click here to subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First, we talk to The Indian Express' Aishwarya Raj about the threats that Kashmiris have been facing across the country since the Pahalgam attack, and especially in Uttarakhand where two Kashmiri shawl sellers were assaulted by locals, and students were heckled and harassed.Next, we talk to The Indian Express' Diplomatic Affairs Editor Shubhajit Roy about India not only stepping up security and intensifying its efforts to track down the terrorists, but also launching a strong diplomatic offensive against Pakistan since the Pahalgam attack. He shares how New Delhi is actively engaging with its strategic partners, seeking support and pushing for strong international condemnation of the attack. (11:29)Lastly, we speak about the Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited, a seaport project that is providing employment to the local fisherman community of Kerala. (21:56)Produced and Hosted by Niharika Nanda and Shashank BhargavaEdited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

The response of Kashmiris has been an outcome that is a true game-changer. The present government has an opportunity to claim ownership over this final and happy chapter.

This week we talk about British India, Kashmir, and water treaties.We also discuss the global order, sovereignty, and tit-for-tat escalation.Recommended Book: Power Metal by Vince BeiserTranscriptWhen then British India was partitioned by the British in 1947, the country carved up by its colonialist rulers into two new countries, one Hindu majority, the Union of India, and one Muslim majority, the Dominion of Pakistan, the intention was to separate two religious groups that were increasingly at violent odds with each other, within a historical context in which Muslims were worried they would be elbowed out of power by the Hindu-majority, at a moment in which carving up countries into new nations was considered to be a solution to many such problems.The partition didn't go terribly well by most measures, as the geographic divisions weren't super well thought out, tens of millions of people had to scramble to upend their entire lives to move to their new, faith-designated homelands, and things like infrastructure and wealth were far from evenly distributed between the two new regions.Pakistan was also a nation literally divided by India, part of its landmass on the other side of what was now another country, and its smaller landmass eventually separated into yet another country following Bangladesh's violent but successful secession from Pakistan in 1971.There was a lot more to that process, of course, and the reverberations of that decision are still being felt today, in politics, in the distribution of land and assets, and in regional and global conflict.But one affected region, Kashmir, has been more of a flashpoint for problems than most of the rest of formerly British India, in part because of where it's located, and in part because of happenings not long after the partition.Formerly Jammu and Kashmir, the Kashmir region, today, is carved up between India, Pakistan, and China. India controls a little over half of its total area, which houses 70% of the region's population, while Pakistan controls a little less than a third of its land mass, and China controls about 15%.What was then Jammu and Kashmir dragged its feet in deciding which side of the partition to join when the countries were being separated, the leader Hindu, though ruling over a Muslim state, but an invasion from the Pakistan side saw it cast its lot in with India. India's counter-invasion led to the beginning of what became known as both the Indo-Pakistani war of 1947-1948, the first of four such wars, but is also sometimes called the first Kashmir war, the first of three, though there have been several other not-officially-a-war conflicts in and over the region, as well.Things only got more complicated over the next several decades; China seized the eastern part of the region in the 1950s, and while some Kashmiris have demanded independence, both India and Pakistan claim the region as totally their own, and point at historical markers that support their claim—some such markers based on fact, some on speculation or self-serving interpretations of history.What I'd like to talk about today is what looks to be a new, potentially serious buildup around Kashmir, following an attack at a popular tourist hotspot in the territory, and why some analysts are especially concerned about what India's government will decide to do, next.—Early in the afternoon of April 22, 2025, a group of tourists sightseeing in a town in the southern part of Kashmir called Pahalgam were open-fired on by militants. 26 people were killed and another 17 were injured, marking one of the worst attacks on mostly Indian civilians in decades.In 2019, Kashmir's semiautonomous governance was revoked by the Indian government, which in practice meant the Indian government took more complete control over the region, clamping down on certain freedoms and enabling more immigration of Indians into otherwise fairly Muslim-heavy Kashmir.It's also become more of a tourist destination since then, as India has moved more soldiers in to patrol Indian Kashmir's border with Pakistan Kashmir, and the nature of the landmass makes it a bit of a retreat from climate extremes; at times it's 30 or 40 degrees cooler, in Fahrenheit, than in New Delhi, so spendy people from the city bring their money to Kashmir to cool off, while also enjoying the natural settings of this less-developed, less-industrialized area.Reports from survivors indicate that the attackers took their time and seemed very confident, and that no Indian security forces were anywhere nearby; they walked person to person, asking them if they were Muslim and executing those who were not. Around 7,000 people were visiting the area as tourists before the attack, but most of them have now left, and it's unclear what kind of financial hit this will have on the region, but in the short-term it's expected to be pretty bad.In the wake of this attack, the Indian government claimed that it has identified two of the three suspected militants as Pakistani, but Pakistan has denied any involvement, and has called for a neutral probe into the matter, saying that it's willing to fully cooperate, seeks only peace and stability, and wants to see justice served.A previously unknown group calling itself the Kashmir Resistance has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Indian security forces have demolished the homes of at least five suspected militants in Kashmir in response, including one who they believe participated in this specific attack.The two governments have launched oppositional measures against each other, including Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines and shutting down trade with its neighbor, and India shutting down a vital land crossing, revoking Pakistani visas, and suspending a 1960 treaty that regulates water-sharing along the Indus River and its tributaries—something that it's threatened to do, previously, and which could devastate Pakistan's agricultural sector and economy, as it basically regulates water that the country relies on for both human consumption and most of its crop irrigation; and for context, Pakistan's agricultural sector accounts for about a forth of its economy.So if India blocks this water source, Pakistan would be in a very bad situation, and the Pakistani government has said that any blockage of water by India would be considered an act of war. Over the past week, a Pakistani official accused the Indian government of suddenly releasing a large volume of water from a dam into a vital river, which made flooding in parts of Pakistan-held Kashmir a real possibility, but as of the day I'm recording this they haven't closed the taps, as Pakistan has worried.For its part, India wouldn't really suffer from walking away from this treaty, as it mostly favors Pakistan. It serves to help keep the peace along an at times chaotic border, but beyond that, it does very little for India, directly.So historically, the main purpose of maintaining this treaty, for India, has been related to its reputation: if it walked away from it, it would probably suffer a reputational hit with the international community, as it would be a pretty flagrantly self-serving move that only really served to harm Pakistan, its weaker arch-nemesis.Right now, though, geopolitics are scrambled to such a degree that there are concerns India might not only be wanting to make such moves, whatever the consequences, but it may also be hankering for a larger conflict—looking to sort out long-term issues during a period in which such sorting, such conflict, may cause less reputational damage than might otherwise be the case.Consider that the US government has spoken openly about wanting to take, by whatever means, Greenland, from the Danish, a long-time ally, and that it's maybe jokingly, but still alarmingly, said that Canada should join the US as the 51st state.These statements are almost certainly just braggadocio, but that the highest-rung people in the most powerful government on the planet would say such things publicly speaks volumes about the Wild West nature of today's global order.Many leaders seem to be acting like this is a moment in which the prior paradigm, and the post-WWII rules that moderated global behavior within that paradigm, are fraying or disappearing, the global police force represented by the US and its allies pulling inward, not caring, and in some cases even becoming something like bandits, grabbing what they can.Under such circumstances, if you're in a position of relative power that you couldn't fully leverage previously, for fear of upsetting that global police force and tarnishing your reputation within that system they maintained, might you leverage it while you can, taking whatever you can grab and weakening your worst perceived enemy, at a moment in which it seems like the getting is good?It's been argued that Russia's violation of Ukraine's sovereignty may have helped kick-off this new paradigm, but Israel's behavior in Gaza, the West Bank, and increasingly Syria, as well, are arguably even better examples of this changing dynamic.While the Democrats and Joe Biden were in the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu seemed to be mostly playing ball, at least superficially, even when he very clearly wasn't—he did what he could to seem to be toeing rules-based-order lines, even when regularly stepping over them, especially in Gaza.But now, post-Trump's return to office, that line-toeing has almost entirely disappeared, and the Israeli government seems to be grabbing whatever they can, including large chunks of southwestern Syria, which was exposed by the fall of the Assad regime. The Israeli military launched a full aerial campaign against the Syrian army's infrastructure, declared a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria to be void, and though it initially said it would hold the territory it has taken temporarily, it has more recently said it would hold it indefinitely—possibly permanently expanding its country's land mass at the expense of its neighbor, another sovereign nation, at a moment in which it felt it could get away with doing so.It's not clear that India has any ambitions on Pakistani territory, beyond what it holds in Kashmir, at least, but there's a chance it sees this moment the same way the Israeli government does: as a perhaps finite moment during which the previous state of things, the global rules-based-order, no longer applies, or doesn't apply as much, which suggests it could do some serious damage to its long-time rival and not suffer the consequences it would have, reputationally or otherwise, even half a year ago.And India's leader, Narendra Modi, is in some ways even better positioned than Israel's Netanyahu to launch such a campaign, in part because India is in such a favorable geopolitical position right now. As the US changes stance, largely away from Europe and opposing Russia and its allies, toward more fully sidling up to China in the Pacific, India represents a potential counterweight against Chinese influence in the region, where it has successfully made many of its neighbors reliant on its trade, markets, and other resources.Modi has reliably struck stances midway between US and Chinese spheres of influences, allowing it to do business with Russia, buying up a lot of cheap fuel that many other nations won't touch for fear of violating sanctions, while also doing business with the US, benefitting from a slew of manufacturers who are leaving China to try to avoid increasingly hefty US tariffs.If India were to spark a more concentrated conflict with Pakistan, then, perhaps aiming to hobble its economy, its military, and its capacity to sponsor proxies along its border with India, which periodically launch attacks, including in Kashmir—that might be something that's not just tolerated, but maybe even celebrated by entities like China and the US, because both want to continue doing their own destabilizing of their own perceived rivals, but also because both would prefer to have India on their side in future great power disagreements, and in any potential future large-scale future conflict.India is richer and more powerful than Pakistan in pretty much every way, but in addition to Pakistan's decently well-developed military apparatus, like India, it has nukes. So while there's a chance this could become a more conventional tit-for-tat, leading to limited scuffles and some artillery strikes on mostly military installations across their respective borders, there's always the potential for misunderstandings, missteps, and tit-for-tat escalations that could push the region into a nuclear conflict, which would be absolutely devastating in terms of human life, as this is one of the most densely populated parts of the world, but could also pull in neighbors and allies, while also making the use of nuclear weapons thinkable by others once more, after a long period of that fortunately not being the case.Show Noteshttps://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20250427-indian-pakistani-troops-exchange-fire-for-third-night-in-disputed-kashmirhttps://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250422-at-least-24-killed-in-kashmir-attack-on-tourists-indian-police-sourcehttps://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20250424-india-will-identify-track-and-punish-kashmir-attack-perpetrators-modi-sayshttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/world/asia/india-pakistan-kashmir.htmlhttps://archive.is/20250426143222/https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-pakistan-exchange-gunfire-2nd-day-ties-plummet-after-attack-2025-04-26/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/world/asia/india-pakistan-indus-waters-treaty.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/world/asia/kashmir-pahalgam-attack-victims.htmlhttps://apnews.com/article/india-pakistan-kashmir-attack-829911d3eae7cfe6738eda5c0c84d6aehttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11693674https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Indiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmirhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_conflicthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_war_of_1947%E2%80%931948 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Tensions are growing between India and Pakistan after an attack killed 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir. As the exchange of accusations and gunfire continues, Kashmiris fear for what is to come. In this episode: Assed Baig (@AssedBaig), Al Jazeera correspondent Episode credits: This episode was produced by Khaled Soltan and Chloe K. Li, with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Kisaa Zehra, Kingwell Ma, Mariana Navarrete, and our guest host, Manuel Rapalo. It was edited by Kylene Kiang. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad Al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube

00:08 — Luke Savage is a columnist for Jacobin and author of The Dead Center: Reflections on Liberalism and Democracy After the End of History. You can find him on Substack at lukewsavage.com. 00:20 — Nora, is a Master's student at University of Michigan and a member of the Tahrir Coalition, a campus group campaigning for divestment from Israel and replacing campus police with an unarmed crisis response team. 00:33 — Ather Zia is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Gender Studies at University of Northern Colorado Greeley. Her books include “Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women's Activism in Kashmir.” The post Canada Election Results; Plus, FBI Raid on University of Michigan Pro-Palestine Activists; And, Kashmiris Bear Brunt of India-Pakistan Political Tension appeared first on KPFA.

In this episode of All Things Policy, Carl Jaison speaks to Karishma Mehrotra, South Asia correspondent for The Washington Post regarding her report on the sentiments of Kashmiris in the aftermath of the recent elections there. They discuss the perspectives of ordinary Kashmiris who saw the election as a way to express their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs and how dignity and respect, rather than economic considerations, accorded far more importance in their decision to vote. All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru. Find out more on our research and other work here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://takshashila.org.in/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our public policy courses here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://school.takshashila.org.in⁠

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports on fresh rocket attacks in the Middle East; Kashmiris voting in a 2nd round; defense discussions between the Philippines and the U.S; and Sri Lanka's new president calling for a further vote to strengthen his position.

Congress-NC majority, BJP-led coalition or status quo under L-G Manoj Sinha's rule- three scenarios on J&K poll results day and what each offers to Kashmiris, ThePrint Political Editor DK Singh explains in this episode of #PoliticallyCorrect.----more----Read this week's Politically Correct here: https://theprint.in/opinion/politically-correct/why-pm-modi-amit-shah-should-in-national-interest-defer-plans-for-a-bjp-cm-in-srinagar/2269505/

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports on a likely shift in military tactics by Israel over Hezbollah in Lebanon; Kashmiris may vote in this weeks' local elections; Central Europe floods worsen; and Myanmar deaths rise following Typhoon Yagi.

*) Israel killed 500+ Gaza medics since Oct 7 — health authorities https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/live-blog-israel-killed-500-gaza-medics-since-oct-7-health-authorities-18138481 Since October 7 last year, over 500 medical workers in Gaza have been killed by Israel, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in the enclave. This grim statistic was highlighted on International Nurses Day, with 138 nurses among those killed. Health Ministry spokesperson Khalil al-Daqran emphasised the challenges faced by these healthcare professionals, including injuries and detentions in Israeli prisons. *) Egypt to join genocide case against Israel at top UN court https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/egypt-to-join-genocide-case-against-israel-at-top-un-court-18131402 Egypt has announced its decision to support a genocide lawsuit against Israel, filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice. This move by Egypt is a response to what it calls the "escalating severity and scope" of Israel's offensive in Gaza, including the targeting of civilians and infrastructure. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry's statement condemned these actions as violations of international law, humanitarian law, and the Fourth Geneva Convention. *) Fight between Sudan's army, paramilitaries leave dozens dead in Darfur — UN https://www.trtworld.com/africa/fight-between-sudans-army-paramilitaries-leave-dozens-dead-in-darfur-un-18135457 Clashes between Sudan's army and rival paramilitaries have resulted in at least 27 deaths in the city of El-Fasher in one day, according to the United Nations. Eyewitnesses have described the city being battered by air strikes, artillery fire, and machine gun clashes since Friday, leading to around 850 people being displaced. The UN's ability to verify information is hindered by a communications blackout, leaving medics and human rights defenders struggling to relay news. *) Kashmiris prepare to voice discontent in India's election against Modi https://www.trtworld.com/asia/kashmiris-prepare-to-voice-discontent-in-indias-election-against-modi-18138784 India's national election has resumed, including in New Delhi-administered Kashmir, where voters are expected to express their discontent with significant changes in the disputed region. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government remains popular in many parts of India and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is anticipated to win the election. However, Modi's decision in 2019 to bring Kashmir under direct and strict rule by New Delhi sparked resentment among Kashmiris. This election marks their first opportunity to vote since these changes were implemented. And finally... *) Turkish archer Mete Gazoz becomes European champion https://www.trtworld.com/turkiye/turkish-archer-mete-gazoz-becomes-european-champion-18131725 Turkish archer Mete Gazoz has won a gold medal in the men's recurve category at the Essen 2024 European Outdoor Championships. Gazoz defeated Slovenian Den Habjan Malavasic 6-0 in the final to become the European champion on Sunday.

Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India, 2023) is a collection of essays and recipes that highlights the complex and layered food history of Muslim communities across South Asia. The contributors to the volume include historians, literary scholars, plant scientists, writers, chefs, and more. And their range of essays take us from Ladakh in the north to Sri Lanka in the south, as we learn how food has not been fixed but rather has traveled, survived, and transformed with its peoples. The memories of foods captured here, be it biryanis, pulaos, khicheris, prawn curries, dhal, kanhi (or khanji), and halwa, just to name a few, unsettle gender, class, economic, and caste boundaries, and welcome us to plunge into the delicious food practices of diverse Muslim communities be they Indians, Pakistanis, Rampuris, Kashmiris, Mappila, and Tamils.  The collection also critically highlights how food has been weaponized and politicized (as we see with Muslims eating beef in India today) while also being invoked in discourses of authenticity, especially as food practices and memories travel with those who are displaced into the diaspora, such as amongst Kashmiri Muslims. Food here is then used as an incisive analytical tool to complicate histories and contemporary experiences of Muslims in South Asia. This stunning archive of Muslim food memories and its accompanying delicious recipes will be of interest to so many communities of listeners, from academics of Islam in South Asia, food bloggers, foodies on social media, chefs, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India, 2023) is a collection of essays and recipes that highlights the complex and layered food history of Muslim communities across South Asia. The contributors to the volume include historians, literary scholars, plant scientists, writers, chefs, and more. And their range of essays take us from Ladakh in the north to Sri Lanka in the south, as we learn how food has not been fixed but rather has traveled, survived, and transformed with its peoples. The memories of foods captured here, be it biryanis, pulaos, khicheris, prawn curries, dhal, kanhi (or khanji), and halwa, just to name a few, unsettle gender, class, economic, and caste boundaries, and welcome us to plunge into the delicious food practices of diverse Muslim communities be they Indians, Pakistanis, Rampuris, Kashmiris, Mappila, and Tamils.  The collection also critically highlights how food has been weaponized and politicized (as we see with Muslims eating beef in India today) while also being invoked in discourses of authenticity, especially as food practices and memories travel with those who are displaced into the diaspora, such as amongst Kashmiri Muslims. Food here is then used as an incisive analytical tool to complicate histories and contemporary experiences of Muslims in South Asia. This stunning archive of Muslim food memories and its accompanying delicious recipes will be of interest to so many communities of listeners, from academics of Islam in South Asia, food bloggers, foodies on social media, chefs, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India, 2023) is a collection of essays and recipes that highlights the complex and layered food history of Muslim communities across South Asia. The contributors to the volume include historians, literary scholars, plant scientists, writers, chefs, and more. And their range of essays take us from Ladakh in the north to Sri Lanka in the south, as we learn how food has not been fixed but rather has traveled, survived, and transformed with its peoples. The memories of foods captured here, be it biryanis, pulaos, khicheris, prawn curries, dhal, kanhi (or khanji), and halwa, just to name a few, unsettle gender, class, economic, and caste boundaries, and welcome us to plunge into the delicious food practices of diverse Muslim communities be they Indians, Pakistanis, Rampuris, Kashmiris, Mappila, and Tamils.  The collection also critically highlights how food has been weaponized and politicized (as we see with Muslims eating beef in India today) while also being invoked in discourses of authenticity, especially as food practices and memories travel with those who are displaced into the diaspora, such as amongst Kashmiri Muslims. Food here is then used as an incisive analytical tool to complicate histories and contemporary experiences of Muslims in South Asia. This stunning archive of Muslim food memories and its accompanying delicious recipes will be of interest to so many communities of listeners, from academics of Islam in South Asia, food bloggers, foodies on social media, chefs, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/food

Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India, 2023) is a collection of essays and recipes that highlights the complex and layered food history of Muslim communities across South Asia. The contributors to the volume include historians, literary scholars, plant scientists, writers, chefs, and more. And their range of essays take us from Ladakh in the north to Sri Lanka in the south, as we learn how food has not been fixed but rather has traveled, survived, and transformed with its peoples. The memories of foods captured here, be it biryanis, pulaos, khicheris, prawn curries, dhal, kanhi (or khanji), and halwa, just to name a few, unsettle gender, class, economic, and caste boundaries, and welcome us to plunge into the delicious food practices of diverse Muslim communities be they Indians, Pakistanis, Rampuris, Kashmiris, Mappila, and Tamils.  The collection also critically highlights how food has been weaponized and politicized (as we see with Muslims eating beef in India today) while also being invoked in discourses of authenticity, especially as food practices and memories travel with those who are displaced into the diaspora, such as amongst Kashmiri Muslims. Food here is then used as an incisive analytical tool to complicate histories and contemporary experiences of Muslims in South Asia. This stunning archive of Muslim food memories and its accompanying delicious recipes will be of interest to so many communities of listeners, from academics of Islam in South Asia, food bloggers, foodies on social media, chefs, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

"India's democracy is being systematically disassembled,” says renowned writer and activist Arundhati Roy. She adds, “Any kind of dissent is just smashed with an iron fist." Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party openly espouse Hindutva, a racist ideology rooted in a mythical past and fueled by magical thinking. It's a supremacist doctrine that privileges and elevates one group, Hindus, over all others. Its animus toward Muslims is particularly acute but Christians and other minorities also incur its wrath. Hindutva nationalists want to dominate Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state. The Himalayan region has endured decades of occupation by hundreds of thousands of Indian troops. There is resistance. Tens of thousands of Kashmiris are dead and missing. Human rights violations are routine. Yet the Kashmiri quest for azadi, freedom, continues.

In the wake of Congressional investigations into a wave of so-called “anti-Semitism” on university campuses, college administrators are bending over backwards to appease Right Wing politicians and wealthy donors at the expense of civil liberties, and free speech and academic freedom protections. They particularly operationalize notions of public safety and feelings of safety to mute protests over the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people, a genocide enabled by these same universities and the United States as a whole. Thus we see a warped set of values and priorities wherein the most principled people are being disciplined, suspended, and expelled from campus. Hamza El Boudali, a student activist, Nicole Morse, a professor long involved in the movements for Palestinian rights and LGBTQ justice, and Natasha Lennard, a journalist from The Intercept who has been covering these cases join us for a conversation that ranges from the immediate case at Columbia to a broad discussion of attacks on education by the right wing. We end with arguments for the future.Hamza El Boudali is a master's student at Stanford University studying Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Born in Morocco and raised in New Hampshire, he is a practicing Muslim interested in Muslim and Islamic causes worldwide. He is a former co-President of the Muslim Student Union at Stanford and he is passionate about advocacy for Palestine as well as other oppressed Muslim groups around the world such as the Uyghurs, Rohingya, Kashmiris, etc. After graduation, he plans to study the traditional Islamic sciences and combine his interest in AI with Islamic studies, philosophy, and intellectual activism.Natasha Lennard is a columnist for The Intercept, and her work has appeared in The Nation, Bookforum, Dissent, and the New York Times, among others. She is the associate director of the Creative Publishing & Critical Journalism graduate program at the New School for Social Research in New York. She is the author of Violence: Humans in Dark Times (with Brad Evans, CityLights, 2018), and Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life (Verso, 2019). She is working on her next book, on conceptualizing uncertainty, for Verso Books.Nicole Erin Morse is an Associate Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Their research has been published in Feminist Media Studies, Porn Studies, Jump Cut, Discourse, and elsewhere, and their book Selfie Aesthetics: Seeing Trans Feminist Futures in Self-Representational Art was published by Duke University in 2022. They are a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, which has landed them on Turning Point USA's Professor Watchlist.  

AS Dulat was R&AW chief and a former advisor to the Prime Minister's office on Kashmir. He talks about his good friend Ajit Doval and what can be done to earn Kashmir's trust after abrogating Article 370.

rWotD Episode 2501: Abu Zar Ghaffari Welcome to random Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a random Wikipedia page every day.The random article for Saturday, 9 March 2024 is Abu Zar Ghaffari.Abu Zar Ghaffari (Urdu: ابو ذر غفاری Sindhi: ابو ذر غفاي) is a neighborhood in the Karachi Central district of Karachi, Pakistan. It was previously administered as part of New Karachi Town, which was disbanded in 2011.There are several ethnic groups in Abu Zar Ghaffari including Muhajirs, Sindhis, Punjabis, Kashmiris, Seraikis, Pakhtuns, Balochis, Memons, Bohras, Ismailis, etc. Over 99% of the population is Muslim. The population of New Karachi Town is estimated to be nearly one million.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:17 UTC on Saturday, 9 March 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Abu Zar Ghaffari on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Joey Standard.

Naley is the founder of NaleybyNature, an independent project to document stories from different corners of the world. She is a filmmaker, producer, and writer and is currently working on bringing greater awareness of the Palestinian genocide to Western audiences. Born and raised in New York, Naley studied media and journalism at Iona College. With the rise in social media, Naley was drawn to all the perspectives traditional media fails to report on. During the pandemic, Naley and her co-founder, Sadia, quit their jobs and started traveling the world to create their documentary. Since then, they have captured compelling stories of Palestinians, Israelis, Tibetans, Kashmiris, and Indians.    Show Notes: Naley by Nature Instagram Naley by Nature YouTube ORDER MY BOOK HOW TO MANIFEST Laura Chung Instagram Laura Chung's Website  Laura Chung's Tik Tok YouTube Channel Awaken and Align Instagram Connect with Awaken and Align: If you enjoyed the podcast and you feel called, please share it, and tag me! Subscribe, rate, and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Your rating and review help more people discover it! Follow on Instagram @awakenandalign Let me know your favorite guests, lessons, or any topic requests.

Ever since the early 1990s, Indian security forces have tortured and killed with impunity—because of frustration at not being able to find perpetrators, or even greed. Largely, 'criminals in uniform' got away with it—but the Government's taken path-breaking action after the exposure of videotaped torture of villagers in Rajouri.

Hello everybody, in this podcast I discuss with my Garwhali dad Prem Sharma on the politics and history of Article 370, asking whether it was beneficial for Kashmiris in the past and present. My dad has a Ph.D and is a research infection microbiologist who has held faculty positions at Emory and Harvard University. He married my mom, who is a Kashmiri pandit and immigrated to the United States in 1986.

In her scintillating and brilliant new book, Colonizing Kashmir: State-Building Under Indian Occupation (Stanford UP, 2023), Hafsa Kanjwal details and showcases the discursive and institutional means and mechanisms through which the Indian state made possible and maintained its occupation and colonization of Kashmir. Focused on the mid twentieth century period of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Second Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Kanjwal examines a range of arenas including tourism, agriculture, film, education, and political engineering through which a seemingly postcolonial nation-state, that of India, perpetuated its colonization of Kashmiris, all the while justifying that colonial enterprise through the ruse of “state-building.” From the resulting analysis, Kanjwal forcefully and convincingly pushes us to rethink the very separation, temporal and conceptual, between the colonial and the postcolonial. Historically invasive, theoretically cutting edge, and written in prose at once mellifluous and purposeful, this book is nothing short of a wonderfully mesmerizing intellectual earthquake in the fields of South Asian history and contemporary politics more broadly. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In her scintillating and brilliant new book, Colonizing Kashmir: State-Building Under Indian Occupation (Stanford UP, 2023), Hafsa Kanjwal details and showcases the discursive and institutional means and mechanisms through which the Indian state made possible and maintained its occupation and colonization of Kashmir. Focused on the mid twentieth century period of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Second Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Kanjwal examines a range of arenas including tourism, agriculture, film, education, and political engineering through which a seemingly postcolonial nation-state, that of India, perpetuated its colonization of Kashmiris, all the while justifying that colonial enterprise through the ruse of “state-building.” From the resulting analysis, Kanjwal forcefully and convincingly pushes us to rethink the very separation, temporal and conceptual, between the colonial and the postcolonial. Historically invasive, theoretically cutting edge, and written in prose at once mellifluous and purposeful, this book is nothing short of a wonderfully mesmerizing intellectual earthquake in the fields of South Asian history and contemporary politics more broadly. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In her scintillating and brilliant new book, Colonizing Kashmir: State-Building Under Indian Occupation (Stanford UP, 2023), Hafsa Kanjwal details and showcases the discursive and institutional means and mechanisms through which the Indian state made possible and maintained its occupation and colonization of Kashmir. Focused on the mid twentieth century period of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Second Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Kanjwal examines a range of arenas including tourism, agriculture, film, education, and political engineering through which a seemingly postcolonial nation-state, that of India, perpetuated its colonization of Kashmiris, all the while justifying that colonial enterprise through the ruse of “state-building.” From the resulting analysis, Kanjwal forcefully and convincingly pushes us to rethink the very separation, temporal and conceptual, between the colonial and the postcolonial. Historically invasive, theoretically cutting edge, and written in prose at once mellifluous and purposeful, this book is nothing short of a wonderfully mesmerizing intellectual earthquake in the fields of South Asian history and contemporary politics more broadly. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

In her scintillating and brilliant new book, Colonizing Kashmir: State-Building Under Indian Occupation (Stanford UP, 2023), Hafsa Kanjwal details and showcases the discursive and institutional means and mechanisms through which the Indian state made possible and maintained its occupation and colonization of Kashmir. Focused on the mid twentieth century period of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Second Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Kanjwal examines a range of arenas including tourism, agriculture, film, education, and political engineering through which a seemingly postcolonial nation-state, that of India, perpetuated its colonization of Kashmiris, all the while justifying that colonial enterprise through the ruse of “state-building.” From the resulting analysis, Kanjwal forcefully and convincingly pushes us to rethink the very separation, temporal and conceptual, between the colonial and the postcolonial. Historically invasive, theoretically cutting edge, and written in prose at once mellifluous and purposeful, this book is nothing short of a wonderfully mesmerizing intellectual earthquake in the fields of South Asian history and contemporary politics more broadly. SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

I interviewed Khurram Parvez in Srinagar, Kashmir in February 2011. When I returned to India that September to follow up on reporting on the mass graves in Kashmir, I was denied entry by the Indian government. I've been banned from India ever since. Sadly, this interview is still relevant. Since August 2019 the Hindu nationalist regime ruling India has imposed even harsher conditions on Kashmiris and eliminated what little autonomy they had. This story needs to be told. But the G20 won't hear it. Its tourism officials are visiting Kashmir in late May in what will be an orchestrated photo-op extolling the valley's natural beauties and comparing Kashmir to paradise. Kashmir is off the media radar screen. India has carefully controlled the narrative. Interview by David Barsamian.

AS Dulat was R&AW chief and a former advisor to the Prime Minister's office on Kashmir. He talks to Harinder Baweja about his good friend Ajit Doval and what can be done to earn Kashmir's trust after abrogating Article 370.

To many in Srinagar, Rahul Gandhi's flag hoisting in Lal Chowk was just another political display. Post abrogation of article 370 in 2019, Kashmiris have 'lost faith in Delhi parties', analysts say.----more----Read the article here: https://theprint.in/politics/theres-a-political-vacuum-in-kashmir-and-rahuls-bharat-jodo-hasnt-bridged-it/1348323/

In this edition of #ThePrintUninterrupted, former head of India's external intelligence agency, R&AW, AS Dulat, tells ThePrint Senior Consulting Editor Jyoti Malhotra why Kashmiris have learnt to take the revocation of Article 370 in their stride and why Farooq Abdullah remains Kashmir's tallest leader

In this episode, Samir Kalra speaks with Dr Michael Rubin, from the American Enterprise Institute, about his recent trip to Kashmir and what he learned from speaking with Kashmiris about life after Article 370, as well what is needed to improve US diplomacy in the region. 

In this episode, Samir Kalra speaks with Dr Michael Rubin, from the American Enterprise Institute, about his recent trip to Kashmir and what he learned from speaking with Kashmiris about life after Article 370, as well what is needed to improve US diplomacy in the region.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Azadi!"—Urdu for "Freedom!"—is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against Indian occupation. Abroad, New Delhi promotes itself as the world's largest democracy. At home, the picture is quite different. India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJP, led by Narendra Modi espouses Hindutva, Hindu nationalism. It promotes Islamophobia and stifles dissent. What it wants from largely Muslim Kashmir is submission. To ensure that it has deployed hundreds of thousands of troops making the Himalayan region the most densely militarized zone on earth. Kashmir is an unresolved issue dating back to the partition of India in 1947. For decades Kashmiris have been in revolt against Indian rule. Many tens of thousands have been killed. Many more have been displaced. What do Kashmiris want? Azadi. Interviewed by David Barsamian.

The internet is crawling with black-market sales of exotic scorpions and spiders. More than 12,000 species of arachnids are bought and sold online, according to a new report in Communications Biology. Study author Alice Hughes joins us. And, Raksha Kumar brings us the stories of three generations of Kashmiris – whose lives illustrate the changing nature of this decades-long conflict between India and Pakistan.

Kashmiri rapper Ubaid Taj Beigh ‘Koshur Reggae'. Started Rap some twelve years back, and first Kashmiri to introduce the reggaeton genre. His songs are breaking the internet. From Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon to ordinary Kashmiris, Ubaid's content is being shared by one and all on social media platforms. Listen to journey exclusively on #MashqTalksPodcast.  || Donate to Mashq Talks at https://rzp.io/l/mashqtalkspodcast

Born in kashmir, Samina did her Masters in Biochemistry from kashmir university. Soon after she migrated to United States. Started her own supplement company and later joined her husband in running their software company as Senior Vice President for sales for 25 years. Samina is passionate about preserving Kashmiri culture and language in US as well as kashmir. She has organized several cultural programs with Kashmiri diaspora from North America and has also compiled 4 Kashmiri books of songs namely Manzirath, Kasher khander baeth, Kashur Wanwun and recent collaborative electronic wiki book Kasher bath which can be accessed from www. Kashmirisongs.com.She is also involved in several projects that help kashmiri students and Kashmiri men and women from underprivileged homes gain meaningful education and means to earn their own money. Samina is also involved in popular kashmiri women's group yakjut. She is particularly passionate about women's causes and she spends most of her free time mentoring women of all ages on educational, careers, financial and social issues. Her goal is to help coach and make every kashmiri women financially independent so they don't end up on streets after a bad divorce or death of a spouse. Samina also loves to use and wear kashmiri products and shop from kashmiri businesses whenever possible. Lastly Samina loves listening to kashmiri music and loves conversing to other Kashmiris in Kashmiri. Her fear is that if we don't do something to stop the dilution of our language and culture, pretty soon it will be extinct like Latin.Her tag line is Parev Koshur, Kaeriv koshur te Rusiv Kasher!

(FINAL EPISODE SEASON ONE)A question that most of us get asked is why do we do what we do? This is something I wanted to understand for myself and therefore I had a conversation with two Kashmiri academics, to understand why our experiences are central to what we become and why it is important to leave behind a collective understanding of events that have shaped the present in Kashmir . One of our guests is a historian in making and another one is an anthropologist. As Kashmiri researchers I hardly see us working on topics other than Kashmir and yet everytime we start this research process, it only feels like a beginning. In this conversation with Mohammad Junaid and Iffat Rashid, I realised how this is not the start. There have always been kashmiri historians, writers, ethnographers and journalists who have tried to document our past and our present. It's a different question altogether as to how much their voices were recognised. Mostly our story has been told through the colonial gaze. We have had people outside of Kashmir telling our stories, writing about us and some even exotifying or demonizing the people of Kashmir by saying things like Kashmiris have red cheeks, they have fair skin, they are incapable of ruling themselves or even worse - that kashmirs are  terrorists. Therefore, Kashmiri scholarship is important and it is the only way we not only write our own history and present but also collectively understand possibilities for our future. This episode features Iffat Rashid, a researcher at the Faculty of History, University of Oxford.  And Mohamad Junaid, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.