TRENDING
Reclaiming Azad Jammu Kashmir For Her People
The Evolution of AJK Public Agency
Citizen’s Opinion + Citizen’s Resources
=
Citizen’s Control of Public Policy
The most important aspect of modern-day governance is a consensus...
FEATURED
A quiet triumph for humanity
Politics and politicians herd us like sheep into a protective ‘national’ net that restricts and exploits us rather than allow us to utilise our...
Identity DIS Podcasts
Google Search Results; "Mirpuris"
Twitter Search Results "Mirpuris"
Pakistan’s Occupied Azad Kashmiris
Mainland Pakistanis
By the term, mainland Pakistanis, I am strictly referring to Pakistanis from areas that constitutionally make up the territory of Pakistan. I am...
Asking the questions, having the discussions!
A Message to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir
Dear Pakistan Occupied Kashmiris
I speak to you through this medium as a brother from Indian Occupied Kashmir. I speak to you for our shared...
The Pahari Language of Azad Jammu Kashmir
Aside from popular conventions in how we would transliterate words from one language into another, no corresponding practise exists for the Pahari language spoken...
What exactly is cultural heritage?
What do we mean by the term ‘cultural heritage’?
For my British Kashmiri readers, I have compiled a series of short posts to educate them...
Learning the difference between Group Identities and Identity Politics
Having been born and raised in the UK, whilst ascribed an ethnic minority status from birth, I discovered that identities are complicated things. Being...
Who are Azad Kashmiris? Are they Pakistanis, Kashmiris, or Occupied Indians?
“Pakistan and India are fighting over Kashmir, a third people's land! One way to win this fight is by splitting the Kashmiris into different...
Bandwagon Britain and the Deluded BME Diaspora
Bibi and Deedee are two characters that I hope my fellow travellers on the path of enlightenment, and by that I mean students of...
The Solitary Journeyman
The needle has struck, the hour has come,
and the open road unwinds.
With a heavy heart,
I place my soul’s...
TOPICAL
Bandwagon Britain and the Deluded BME Diaspora
Bibi and Deedee are two characters that I hope my fellow travellers on the path of enlightenment, and by that I mean students of...
Pakistan’s Occupied Azad Kashmiris
Mainland Pakistanis
By the term, mainland Pakistanis, I am strictly referring to Pakistanis from areas that constitutionally make up the territory of Pakistan. I am...
The Birth of ‘A’JK Public Agency
This is our first attempt at making a documentary in 'A'JK with 'bells and whistles'. Many thanks to all my co-citizens for taking part....
MOST COMMENTED
The curious case of the anecdote becoming narrative
Internalising the negative perceptions of out-group members is not proof that there’s something inherently wrong with your in-group identity. This has happened to lots of people who have been ‘othered’ through a combination of factors that include inaccurate media portrayals, native informants and unjust social...
How Mirpuris were invented by ethnonationalists opposed to Kashmir’s Independence
People everywhere want to learn something about their past. I did too. I was born in the UK. The first member of my direct family to come here was my maternal grandad. He was a veteran of the British Indian Army. Terms can be...
Understanding Disinformation and Propaganda on Kashmir
Those who argue that Kashmir is the Valley of Kashmir and that Kashmiris are the ethnic Kashmiris of the Valley are engaged in deliberate disinformation. These sinister interests want you to think that they are making ethnolinguistic claims about the people we call Kashmiris, but...
Fake News, False Narratives and Identity Politics, Silencing Dissent through Digital Media and Search Engine Manipulation
Digital Media particularly through interactive platforms like Wikipedia and Social Media, are vehicles of disinformation and political propaganda. Whatever the nature of an online conversation, be it a family’s travel vlogs, pictures, fashion tips, food stories - “dad’s visit to Israel” - when a...
Ethnic tokenism in electoral politics and the laws of unintended consequences
There was a time when you could walk into any local Labour Party branch meeting in the densely populated Pakistani constituency wards of England, and you would realise that something was breathtakingly afoot. The room would be overcrowded. Almost entirely male-dominated with the usual...
The Curious Case of Authoritarianism, Digital Media & Pseudoscience
Don't trust everything you read online.
You'll be duped into believing utter tosh. This holds true for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Had it not been for authoritarianism and control freaks, these spaces would have been wonderful places to learn...
Appraising Mirpur’s documented history, the story of Kashmir before and after 1846
Mirpur was the name of an historical settlement in the Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir (1846 – 1947), variably known as Kashmir State, Jammu Kingdom and/or the Dogra Raj. The name Mirpur postdates the principality’s alleged founding in the 1600s. Centuries later, the...
Contextualising prejudice within its social and political settings; explaining why and how Pakistanis demonise Mirpuris
The following post was updated 30 October 2020
https://youtu.be/97IES3jFOg0
There comes a point for members of a community to stand up and be heard. And that time has now come for British Azad Kashmiris, otherwise less popularly known as the Kashmiris, but selectively as the Mirpuris.
For...
Pakistan’s Article 370 Delusions; the Free State that is not Free!
It’s ‘Azad’ - 'Free'.
"Okay!?" "It's Azad Kashmir!" "Free!"
This is Pakistan’s official stance on 'Azad' Jammu & Kashmir.
But what is Kashmir ‘free’ of?
According to the Pakistani state-enforced narrative, Azad Kashmiris are free from Indian tyranny. Women aren’t being raped by Indian soldiers, and by Indian they mean non-Muslim...
Whose Kashmir is it? Conflict, Territorial Claims & the Abuse of Myths
As in my earlier post on Israel and competing myths of exclusive origin, Kashmir serves as a good example of national myths and territorial claims. But unlike Israel, Kashmir has a special place for us. It's the place from where our forebears originated, before...
Why do anti-Semites say “Israeli Jews are not real Jews?”
You must have heard the claim that modern-day Israel is a country with another people’s language and religion?
If you haven’t, antisemitism has become so common these days (I’m speaking of hatred against Jews, and not criticism against Israel), that you’ve probably come across multiple...
The Feudalism of the Western Himalaya and Myths of Caste Identities
A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting with some local guys consuming copious amounts of alcohol to the backdrop of a varied playlist, and it dawned upon me that my opposite number were unaware of the caste titles they were fondly using as...
Muslim Ummah Syndrome and Identity Politics
Some years ago, Saudi Arabia proscribed its male citizens from marrying the citizens of four nationalities. Pakistanis were included on this list. The Monarchy had its reasons, no doubt, good or bad; the preponderance of such marriages was given as the primary reason. Apparently, marriages...
Gandhara
It’s okay to maim my name for I am an inconsequential thing
You can place me on the shelves of Primark and Aldi
Mine is a ‘budget identity’, made on the cheap - no frills!
But a long time ago, in the era of benign...
The Immigrant Conundrum and Race Relations in the UK
If you buy into far-right rhetoric, the children of immigrants, two, three and even four generations removed are not really British. Outside this nativism - something that is at stark odds with mainstream beliefs, Britain does have a problem with race - just speak...
India, Pakistan, and “Kashmir” – the Economist explains…!
This is how the Economist explains the "Kashmir" conflict using the colonial label of 'Hindus' and 'Muslims' - these are 'constructed labels' however common-sense they seem to us today! There is a huge scholarly body of knowledge that demonstrates that before the emergence of...
Imprisoned for 22 years, wrongfully; the fight for justice goes on!
This is a summarised account of my imprisonment in the UK for a crime I did not commit. I was imprisoned for 22 long years as a prisoner of conscience. I first wrote about my experiences in 2009, in a book entitled 'Dastan-e-Azam' (A...
Understanding the Kashmir Conflict, the international narrative
I've included the following account to give an idea of how skewed international representations of the Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir's are, not least because they almost all entirely rely on a small pool of 'native' actors committed to extolling the history and political priorities...
The Governance Dilemma in so-called “Azad” Jammu Kashmir
This footage makes an attempt to summarise the effort of Mahmood Ahmed Musafir in light of his herculean effort to address the near absence of governance in AJK.
#ajk #AjkMagayAzadi
DAY 53
Quote of the Day
“I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my...
Who are Azad Kashmiris? Are they Pakistanis, Kashmiris, or Occupied Indians?
“Pakistan and India are fighting over Kashmir, a third people's land! One way to win this fight is by splitting the Kashmiris into different groups, ethnicities, religions, castes, social groups, languages. When people are divided, or adopt the identities of the Occupiers naively, the...
