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Baramulla: caught between our past, guns, ghosts, and inner conflict

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inam ul rehman Baramulla is a haunting thriller and different from The Kashmir Files . We know Pandits were driven out from Kashmir, but produced and written by Pandits, the movie itself is empathetic to characters. It does not weaponise that deracination.   Any Muslim who stands for Pandits in the movie is shot dead.   The director weaves the story with supernatural and psychological elements, reminiscent of Ram Gopal Verma ’s Raat movie, but does not match its eeriness. It is an emotional, socio-political allegorical movie directed by Aditya Suhas Jambhale. The film uses the allegory of ghosts and families to depict the inner conflict of Kashmiris struggling with its past. Set in 2016, it shows the complexity of Kashmiris where the father fights against militants, but his own daughter terms him traitor to the Kashmir cause, an MLA takes oath on the Indian constitution , but his own son is against the same system. The father and daughter, father and son duo, divided ...
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A book fair of noise and heat

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 inam ul rehman  On August 3, I visited a book fair titled Chinar Book Festival organised by the National Book Trust of India at the expansive SKICC lawns. The moment I stepped into the shamiyana erected at the back lawns, I was hit by suffocating heat, stale air, posters of politicians, and hundreds of government schoolchildren darting about — not for books, but for keychains and snacks. I kept wondering: why do politicians need to inaugurate a book fair? Why must everything be politicised? Inside, the heat was unbearable and the chaos created by school children worse — stall after stall lined with pirated books. I don’t know why school children were dragged into this? Is it for footfalls to show that the book fair attracted everyone? To put this book fair into perspective, the weekly book market at Mahila Haat, Daryagunj in New Delhi outmatches this in size and genuine offerings.  Apart from a handful of genuine stalls mostly run by the locals, the rest were f...
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Pahalgam massacre: Conspiracy theories, and a turning point?

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  inam ul rehman   On April 22, I was with my colleagues in the interiors of Kupwara shooting a documentary. From 9am to 4:30pm we shot nonstop, not even taking a tea, lunch, or loo break. We got exhausted and decided to pack up, as is our wont we switched to social media to see what was happening around.    One of my colleagues informed me that a grenade attack had taken place in the tourist resort of Pahalgam , resulting in many injuries. We were hungry and didn’t pay much heed to it. As we were busy locating a place where we could have lunch-cum-supper, we had to travel a further half an hour to finally zero in on a roadside dhaba.    After satiating our hunger, we logged into our social media and were shell shocked to find out 26 tourists had been murdered by militants! For a moment, we all looked at each other in askance. Not knowing what to say. We quietly boarded our vehicle.  It was the driver of our hired vehicle who broached the topic. ...
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My colleague the artistic Akhtar was never given institutional recognition

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 inam ul rehman  Like all great artists, and concerned citizen of his community, Akhtar Rasool was a lonely person. He had several friends, was a star of his community, but he held many views which were contrarian. He groomed artists, gave them suggestions, and didn’t shy in saying that Kashmiri artists do not have that perseverance, grit, and imagination to grab the attention of clients.     Akhtar Boss, as I fondly used to call him, belonged to a minority community which is also marginalised in Kashmir. I used to see his artistic work in the Greater Kashmir pullout magazine . It was Urdu weekly Kashmir Uzma , where he changed the view of newspaper editors and layout designers. He designed Kashmir Uzma in his own novel way. His frontpage illustrations combined with Riyaz Masroor ’s editing skills made this weekly a household name.   In 2007, I joined the daily Etalaat , an English newspaper. Here I came to know Akhtar boss’s work. He was the overall...
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Review: A spymaster writes about his craft

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   inam ul rehman   Book: A life in the shadows: A memoir Author: A S Dulat Publisher: Harper Collins India Pages: 264 pages     As the author of the book Dulat comes across a person of considerate, tolerant, knowledgeable, fun loving, and a great listener. The latter quality makes him a special person to develop rapport in Kashmir. And boy, his CV is full of North and South Pole people in Kashmir.  Dulat, as his books testify, knows all the important persons of Jammu and Kashmir.    He has already penned down two books, “ The Vajpayee Years ”, and “The Spy Chronicles” written in partnership with his ISI counterpart Assad Durrani . The latter one showed his subtility in nudging Durrani to talk more.  However, the book under review is a memoir, and is not restricted to Kashmir though the latter has occupied many pages. I have a strong hunch that the Bollywood movie Lamhaa , released in 2010, was based on Dulat’s experience in Kashmir just...
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For the “greater benefit of the tehreek," corruption and unaccountability were overlooked, confesses SA Geelani in his resignation letter

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His letter validates what Zakir Musa , Qayoom Najar said years ago.   inam ul rehman In June this year, an audio conversation between the then Jaish-e-Mohammad chief of Kashmir , Mufti Waqas , and Ansar Ghazwatul Hind chief, Zakir Musa, was released by al Qaeda ’s media platform. In the said conversation Mufti Waqas tells Musa that he has been to Afghanistan and fought there, “I swear the sacrifices,” he says, “that Kashmiris have given are unparalleled, but this nation has got traitor leaders.” Jaish is a pro- Pakistan militant outfit, and in conflict with the AGH ideology. Here Mufti Waqas is talking in personal capacity because he understood that the Jihadi project run by Pakistan and its proxies in Kashmir is a business for both of them. In the same conversation he raises suspicion on the killing of many Jaish commanders in Kashmir saying that those who understood the tehreek in Kashmir get killed.  Mufti Waqas was killed in 2018. His audio conversation w...
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You cannot shame a state into submission

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inam ul Rehman   It has been 30 years since the Kashmiris picked up gun against the Indian system . If someone says nothing has changed then he must be put into a mental asylum. What hasn’t changed is that the Kashmiris fight to redraw the boundary continues.   So, what has the Kashmiri leadership, pro-resistance intellectuals learned in the past 30 years about the Indian state? Apparently, nothing. From trying to physically evict India from Kashmir, the Kashmiri leadership, and pro-resistance intellectuals are now trying to shame the Indian state into submission! No state in the world can be shamed into submission, especially when it comes to secession .   Sadly, there has been no concerted effort to understand the Indian state. No Tehreeki intellectual writes on the Indian state. How does it work? What galvanises it?what riles it?what holds it together?what are its underbellies?what makes it to fear?what will make India to give up its claim on Kashmir? What keeps it u...
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Kashmir’s beautiful game: Same ground, different crowds

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inam ul rehman  On Saturday, July 19, I went to the Tourist Reception Centre ground to watch a soccer match played in the floodlights.  Both the entry and parking are free. As I entered the ground, the stadium was packed with people of all ages, but only a few women and girls were present. People were cheering for their favourite teams, I could sense by their diction that the crowd consisted of people from rural areas as well.  It was a different experience to see a huge number of people watching a local soccer match. Children as young as five to 10 years old were moving up and down the aisle, cheering and jubilant in their parents’ company.   As my eyes scanned to spot a place to watch the match my mind went to the 2008 event, when thousands thronged to the same place, which at that time had not yet been bifurcated into two playgrounds. Then also it was called TRC ground . In 2008, as a rookie journalist I went to cover an event, where thousands of people cong...
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Dissecting the fallacy of "Love Jihad"

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Book: Love Jihad and Other Fictions: Simple Facts to Counter Viral Falsehoods Authors: Sreenivasan Jain, Mariyam Alavi, Supriya Sharma   Publisher: Aleph Book Company Pages: 205 inam ul rehman Whenever I hear “love jihad” I often laugh at this oxymoron term used by Hindutva groups in India . A Muslim man or a woman is forbidden to enter into any relationship before marriage. So, there cannot exist any “love jihad”. However, no matter how much you drill this point the Hindutva groups will not relent in using this terminology.     The Hindutva people ascribe everything wrong in India to Muslim conspiracy. The Congress party for long has been described as “appeasing Muslims” while as the fact is that Muslims, which constitute 14 percent of Indian population are marginalised in every sector.  The Congress party other than offering lip service didn’t do anything for Muslims. Muslim percentage in government jobs is abysmal, their representation in state assembli...
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Destroying institutions in a Kashmiri way?

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inam ul rehman On January 08, 2020, I came across a news story in one of the fledgling English newspaper, Kashmir Reader , on the Global Educational Trust, Mumbai , run schools in Kashmir. The story ( “Mumbai based school closes 2 branches in Srinagar, career of hundreds of students in quandary”) was a case of lazy journalism in which the contending party’s view was not sort, or wilfully ignored.    In the said story the reporter quoting the “parent association” writes that the GET closed two school branches at Iqra International School, Habak , and Bagh-i-Mehtab , adding that it “hiked fee”, increased the “prices of books by 40 percent”, the GET management wants to “layoff some staff members at the two branches”; “staff barred to enter the premises”, and the “salary of staff members is withheld for several months” The fact is that my kids are studying there from the past six years. I looked at the fee card which says that no fee was hiked for the past three years. Pl...
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