FJ Kashmir

Book: This our paradise Author: Karan Mujoo Publisher: Penguin Random House Pages: 240  Reviewer: inam ul rehman It is never, never easy for any deracinated writer to have a sympathetic look at the place where there community was forced to live a life of exile. Then to expect them to rationally find answers why things happened is not possible from mere mortals.   Karan Mujoo’s novel, set in the Kashmir Valley , sweeps away stereotypes with his characters. A fictional book where the author juxtaposes two communities of Kashmir to explore what went wrong. We have Shahid , living in a distant land where life has remained fossilised, refuse to take up a government job, believing he is destined for extraordinary things that will shape history. Our protagonist is 8-years-old when the novel commences. He is deeply attached to his uncle, Vicky , a Marxist in the making. The premonition of things to come starts right when our protagonist moves to his new home in Bagh-i-Mehtab in...

Book: City as memory: a short biography of Srinagar    Author: Safaf Wani Publisher: Aleph book company Pages: 180 Reviewer: inam ul rehman  If you look at the mesmerising cover illustration of Zainab Tambawalla, evocative and detailed that it visually tells a silent introduction to the book. The city of Srinagar has been described in myriad ways. Basharat Peer referred Srinagar as a medieval town caught in the modern warfare. For Khalid Mir it induces the memory of Jaffna Street .  For the author of the book, Srinagar or Sirinagar, as she uses it, evokes a feeling of undefined relationship, which she is unable to communicate.  To define her relationship with Srinagar city she seeks help of many people. Shahar-i-Khas is an important but a small part of Srinagar city. It was this Shahar-i-Khas which was responsible for making Kashmir famous for its hospitality. And every community extended hospitality to travellers.   However, the author brings up th...

inam ul rehman   From the age of 20 years onwards I used to question myself why is Palestine such an issue in the Muslim world? What is in Palestine that makes Muslims emotional. In most Friday sermons preachers would pray for the Palestinian people.    The same preachers would bemoan Muslim rulers’ inability to attack the state of Israel . Then they would beseech if Muslims unite no one can stand in front of us!      Friday after Friday I would listen to this sermon and prayers. The state of Israel and the Jews were abominable.   All the conspiracies and disastrous things happening in the world were put in the lap of Jewish people. Jews, as per the Muslims, controlled world economy, world politics, world weapons, rulers, media. Everything. The more the preachers and Muslim prayed for the destruction of the state of Israel the more powerful it becomes.   Surprisingly I didn’t develop hatred or revulsion against it. I developed admiration for the ...

inam ul rehman    If Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires Kashmir is the graveyard of reputations. The latest example of this is the Jamaat-i-Islami . From violently taking on the Indian state from 1990 to 2019 to its final meltdown, or the National Conference challenging the rule of the Indian state on Kashmir to finally acceding to it, Kashmir has seen many others crumbling under their own inflated weight.    As the present “panel head” of the banned Jamaat-i-Islami finally said publicly his party is ready to contest elections, adding it never issued boycott calls. One wonders why this politico-religious party lies so much? Officially the party endorsed election boycott calls throughout the 90s well upto 2014 ( https://kashmirlife.net/ jamaat-e-islami-supports- geelanis-poll-boycott-call- 48486/ ). (If the Jamaat hadn’t pulled out its website one could have easily show them their past statements. But there is still a vast digital repository where one can find...

    i nam ul rehman                                      Book: Those who stayed: the Sikhs of Kashmir   Author: Bupinder Singh Bali Publisher: Manjul India   Pages: 285   While reading Siddharth Gigoo’s latest book “ A long season of Ashes ” it came to my mind: why haven’t Kashmiri Sikhs written a book on their survival? Kashmiri Muslims have written on the conflict, so have Pandits. But Kashmiri Sikhs? No way.    As I finished Siddharth’s engaging book, I surfed the net to explore my curiosity, and fortunately “Those who stayed: the Sikhs of Kashmir” came up. Written by a 35-year-old Sikh youth, who returned to Kashmir as a PM package employee in 2011, this candid book is a part memoir, and part historical. It is almost written in the same vein as Siddharth Gigoo’s.   Bupinder Singh Bali starts the book from a phone call he receives on October 7,...

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...