Kashmir: Counter-mapping an Occupation

Assistant Professor of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at MCLA, Mohamad Junaid and Lafayette College Assistant Professor, Hafsa Kanjwal join the WBI show to discuss the the acceleration of the settler colonial project in Kashmir and the continued fight for Azadi (or self-determination). The Indian BJP government’s recent passage of the domicile law in Jammu and Kashmir is a move towards ethnically cleansing the occupied territory.  Last November, Indian Consul General in New York, Sandeep Chakravorty, advocated for this law in order to introduce “Israeli model” settlements into Kashmir.

“I don’t keep calm, I’m continuously in outrage, I don’t have any spiritual solace, I don’t have any calm, everyday is like a new mourning,” Junaid shares. He finds hope in Kashmiri writers, activists and artists a generation removed from state sanctioned illiteracy now documenting the desire and struggle for national liberation to the rest of the world. 

“Bollywood is India’s kind of wet dream...Initially kind of creating this desire for the beautiful landscape without any regard for the local ‘ignorant people they needed to modernize,’” Kanjwal provocatively comments, drawing out the sophisticated ways in which Hindu nationalist culture legitimizes the state sanctioned erasure and potentially the extermination of the Kashmiri people.

Hosts: J. Khadijah Abdurahman, Ilan Mandel and Simi a.k.a. Skanda Kadirgamar
Music: Drew Lewis

Links for the Episode:
INDIA'S 10 STEPS TO SETTLER COLONIALISM IN KASHMIR | by Stand with Kashmir
Counter-maps of the ordinary: occupation, subjectivity, and walking under curfew in Kashmir
Reflections on the Post-Partition Period: Life Narratives of Kashmiri Muslims in Contemporary Kashmir
Many retired Gorkha soldiers in 6.6k to get J&K domicile
What does the domicile law mean for Kashmir?
Section 377: A timeline of India's battle for gay rights — Quartz India

Recommendations:
Hafsa The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity | Darryl Li, The Kashmir Syllabus | StandWithKashmir
Junaid An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, A Desolation Called Peace: Voices from Kashmir by Ather Zia, Javaid Iqbal Bhat, Faiz Ahmed Faiz: Read 'Hum Dekhenge' and seven other poems for 2020 in translation
Simi Jallad: Death Squads and State Terror in South Asia|, The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher