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The Bedis, 'Naya Kashmir' and Stalin's constitution

3/31/2017

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The 1944 'Naya Kashmir' or 'New Kashmir' manifesto - or at least the opening pages which propose a draft constitution for the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir - was based in large part on the constitution Stalin introduced in the Soviet Union in the mid-1930s. B.P.L. Bedi and his English wife Freda Bedi are often credited as the main forces behind the drafting of 'Naya Kashmir' - not least in Sheikh Abdullah's own autobiography. But much of the detail was lifted from the Soviet constitution, which the Bedis' had published in full in the quarterly Contemporary India which they edited in Lahore from 1935 to 1937.

This was explained in a talk that Andrew Whitehead gave this week at the University of Kashmir, with more than a hundred faculty and students present. The talk focussed on 'Freda Bedi in Kashmir' - the Bedis  lived in Srinagar from 1947 to 1952 and had an association with the state, and particularly with Sheikh Abdullah's National Conference, from the late 1930s.  

The talk has been reported on the Outlook website - here's the link:
http://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/sheikh-abdullahs-new-kashmir-manifesto-was-a-cut-and-paste-of-stalins-constituti/298388

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Lost Kashmiri History

3/20/2017

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Lost Kashmiri History is a relatively new website which reflects the growing interest in Kashmir and its past. The site bears the strapline: 'the struggle of memory against forgetting'.

The site hosts an impressive array of articles, most relating to aspects of the separatist insurgency. 'Lost Kashmiri History is an initiative to memorise the saga of occupation and oppression', the site declares in explaining its mission. '... And to move closer to our dream of a Just Society.'

This is history from an activist perspective - and that's reflected too in the way Lost Kashmiri History uses social media.

One of the most valuable aspects of the site: the texts of seventy or so books about Kashmir which are available in full ... a really useful resource!


http://lostkashmirihistory.com/books-on-kashmir/ 
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'A new nation is ready' - what Farooq Abdullah meant

3/3/2017

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A few days ago, Farooq Abdullah - from chief minister, former Indian government minister and still a figure of influence in the National Conference - made a typically maverick, but clearly significant, comment in which he described Kashmir as a nation, a nation which seeks Azaadi and spoke positively of those who were fighting for that goal.

“Our youth are not sacrificing their lives for becoming legislators or ministers but for their rights. This is our land. These youth have chosen a path and they have promised to God. You are the sole giver and taker of lives but we will sacrifice our life for the freedom of this nation… Today, a new nation (Jammu Kashmir) is ready, the nation that does not fear guns, and the nation which is out for Azadi. They are taking up guns for something concrete. We need to look into it and the guns need to fall silent. They (Kashmiri gun-yielding youth) are not enemy of any one, neither them (India) nor they (Pakistan).”

What did he mean, why did he say it, and what is the broader context of these remarks? One of Kashmir's wisest journalists, Shuja'at Bukhari, editor of Rising Kashmir, addresses those issues in this important article:

http://www.risingkashmir.com/article/message-from-farooqs-statement
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Farooq Abdullah
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Shuja'at Bukhari
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'Witness to Paradise'

3/2/2017

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At Oxford today, Sanjay Kak and Mirza Waheed lead a seminar on Witness to Paradise, a project which tracks photojournalism in Kashmir over the last thirty years.

​More details here: https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/events/witness-paradise-photojournalism-kashmirs-present-1986-2016

The organisers say about this project: 'Photography in Kashmir has emerged as a powerful witness to its troubled present. Rooted in the everyday of photojournalism, and stretching away from those limits when they can, a remarkable new generation of photographers have steadily illuminated a little understood period of Kashmir’s contemporary life. Over the last three decades their work has also demonstrated the radical part that can be played by photographs in subverting the established views – of Kashmir as a beautiful landscape sans people; or as an innocent paradise; and more recently, of a paradise beset by mindless violence. Witness to Paradise
 is a curated book project that brings together images by nine photographers from Kashmir, the oldest already a working professional in 1986, and the youngest not yet twenty in 2016. The images are by Meraj Uddin, Javeed Shah, Dar Yasin, Javed Dar, Altaf Qadri, Sumit Dayal, Showkat Nanda, Syed Shahriyar and Azaan Shah. The text has emerged from conversations with documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak, and brings out the varied relationships that each one bears to photography, and their commitment to Kashmir, raising quietly profound questions about the place of artistic practice in zones of conflict.'
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