Why America won’t help with Kashmir
Media commentator Aakar Patel, who also co-owns a publishing and content outsource company in Mumbai, recently wrote for The Express Tribune about the Kashmir freedom struggle and how India gets away despite its reign of oppression and coercion in the valley. For a change, Aakar is one of the voices from the Indian mainstream who infuses fresh life into the waning secular Indianess. However, his skewed proclamations where he raises questions like “What does azadi mean? It means freedom, of course. But freedom from what? (sic)”, which are not new to the Kashmir discourse, stink of ignorance and self-righteousness, and ...
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Kohli: The future of Indian batting
India has always produced exquisite batsmen from Viswanath to Vengsarkar, Azharuddin to Tendulkar; from this pedigree, another star has emerged that shines brighter than the other young guns around. Virat Kohli has set himself apart from his contemporaries with such dominant performances that India’s batting future seems to be secured. Actually, in the last few weeks we have had a glimpse of that future twice; once, when Kohli led India to a successful run chase in Australia, chasing 321 from 36 overs. And again yesterday, when India completed their highest, Kohli was at the ...
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Rahul fights for his destiny, not for the dynasty
In William Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” the protagonist is the complex Prince Henry – the son of the king who keeps the audience baffled at all times. Sometimes the king himself is worried about his son’s future. His subjects were never sure what the prince (Hal) stands for. He acts rebellious but does not reveal his intentions. However, Hal redeems himself on the battlefield by saving his father from the enemy and eventually shrugs off his bad reputation when he demonstrates his ability to govern in uncertain times. In India, an icon of a dynasty is working to engage the masses and ...
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Who cares about Pakistan’s Anna Hazare?
The success of the Indian anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare and the defeat of his Pakistani counterpart Jehangir Akhtar in their almost similar missions perhaps reflect the nature of politics and how it is perceived in both countries. The 75-year-old Indian shot to fame, thanks largely to the power of the Indian media, when he undertook a much hyped fast. That, more or less, brought the Indian government to its knees and made it agree to move a bill in parliament to establish the office of an ombudsman (Lokpal). However, in Pakistan, the story was quite different with the fasting Akhtar largely ...
Read Full PostKashmir- where Indian democracy comes to weep
The title of one of the sessions in the recently held Jaipur Literature Festival was “Prison Diaries”. Moderated by Sidharat Vardarajan, editor of The Hindu, the three authors of on stage were all from Jammu and Kashmir; Iftikhar Gilani, Anjum Zamarud Habib and Sahil Maqbool. Whether it was by choice or coincidence, all the prison diaries that have been produced in India in recent times have been written by Kashmiris. Iftikhar Gilani, a journalist by profession who is also well-connected with political circles in Delhi, was picked up in 2002 by security agencies from his Delhi residence on charges of ...
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What a gori learned in India
I didn’t get to ride an elephant or dance and sing about love and heartache in choreographed Bollywood style. But during a little trip to India to attend my boyfriend’s cousin’s wedding, I did learn some things about Indian etiquette. Here are a few lessons for non-Indians who find themselves sari-wrapped in India. Lesson #1: The price is never fixed You can haggle for literally everything in India — even when there are signs saying “price is fixed.” The process is like interpretive dance: prices hang in limbo while unresolved arms sway and strike poses to the rhythms of sari fabrics brushing ...
Read Full PostIndia and Pakistan: Sharing one soul
Recently, I was in India to attend a course on environmental journalism hosted by a renowned New Delhi-based NGO. One day, I was at one of Delhi’s social clubs and ran into a retired Indian general, Maj-Gen Ashok K Mehta, to be precise. We ended up having quite an interesting conversation. He said that he was in the Indian Army during the 1971 Pakistan-India war and that he had been in contact with several Pakistani prisoners of war. One of them, he said, was a senior officer, who on the day the Pakistani forces surrendered to the Indians, wrote in ...
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An Indian who moved to Pakistan
This blog post is a response to an article published in The Express Tribune by Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy titled:“Deepening the Pakistan-India divide.” Hence I address this to him. Sir, I know exactly how you feel. I have been feeling the same every year for the last 20 years when I go to seek a visa for India. I have to fill the same form which is ‘special’ for Pakistani Nationals (and it is the same for Indians in the Pakistan embassy). I am not a professor like you who gets an invite and a letter to give a lecture at some university. Nor ...
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Bollywood, give us something new!
The Indian film industry just copies ideas from wherever it can. Be it from China, Arab countries, Pakistan or the USA, Bollywood has turned in to mere replica. This is why I had to stop watching Indian movies. What happened to the good old days, when a movie was just based on a good story line and didn’t have fancy animations? Recently I saw low-budget movies like ‘Dou Dunni Char’ and ‘Love Express.’ Now these films really have substance. They don’t rely solely on dance and songs. Even high-cost comedies do not have any content these days. It is the low-budget ...
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Pakistan’s love-hate relationship with the US
Once upon a time what united Pakistanis was hatred against India. Now the nation has set its sights higher: it is now the US that brings out the worst passions in us. India has quietly receded to the background despite the fact that it is busy building dams on rivers allotted to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty and is massively upgrading its army’s arsenal. On the other hand, the US, which has come to our aid every time we started a needless conflict, has become enemy number one. Had the US not forced India to cease fire during the ...
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