How will it ever change?

A Jyoti Singh Pandey gets replaced by a Priyanka Reddy. Delhi gets replaced by Hyderabad. Dr Manmohan Singh gets replaced by Mr Narendra Damodardas Modi. Yet what remains constant is the head in sand attitude of our society which doesn’t want to acknowledge that the problem lies within us. 

When it is normal for the right wing trolls of the social media department of the ruling party followed by the highest office in the land to call out for the rape of Rana Ayyub, daughters of Rajdeep Sardesai and Priyanka Chaturvedi; when political leaders across party lines give tickets to those accused of rape and say aloud that it is the women’s fault and boys will be boys; when it is normal for boys to eve tease girls and their parents to just laugh it off; when it is normal for us to think that our armed forces should not be held accountable for rapes in insurgency areas like Manipur and Kashmir; when it is normal for us to blame our daughters for not always being covered in a hood even in 49 degree C; when it is normal for many honorable men to dig out bikini pictures of Gul Panag and share it on the social media because she decided to fight for AAP; when it is normal for us to bar our girls from going out after dark but it is perfectly normal for boys to be out post-midnight; when it is normal for us to give a religious excuse for everything we do to our daughters, how will it ever change? 

The police are always blamed but when have we undertaken major police reforms post-independence? We are in a hurry to bring Kashmir in our fold but have no hurry to get our basic law and order in place. We are in a hurry to build a temple but don’t want to put the same pressure on our ruling establishment to make women safety a national priority. Our biggest pillar of democracy, the media is more concerned about Pakistan’s women than the crumbling of women’s basic rights in their own country. 

We want to dream of a 5 trillion USD economy and compete with NASA in space but how will it happen if those future scientists, economists, managers and other blue- and white-collar workers cannot move out of their homes and have equal access to safety and security like their male counterparts?

#womenrights #india #rapes

Why is it your land but not mine?

Recently the US Congress decided to call for two hearings in quick succession (happens if you are the beacon of democracy in the world that decides to discuss Kashmir and not the Kurds). The hearings were meant to raise the issue around the downgrading of Kashmir to a Union Territory within the sovereign territory of India as well as highlight the plight of Kashmiris in the context of an information lockdown.

As an Indian, who still believes in her country’s diversity and the strong democratic foundation laid by the Constitution, I find everything about Kashmir wrong and oxymoronic.  Much as we might want to think of it as heaven, for anyone who has read its history will know that it was anything but that. Its history is replete with one religion, race, ethnicity replacing the other. The Nagas, Buddhists, Brahmins, Muslims, British…all superseded the other to gain rights over the land. The worshippers of Nagas, Shiva, Buddha and Mohammed all tried to gain supremacy of their own faith and beliefs over the other. So, who are its true inheritors? Whose religion should be the one faith there? Much as I would have loved to get the Supreme Court of the country involved, post its recent history I am not so sure about it…

So, coming back to the US Congressional hearings, they managed to create more steam despite being 12,000 kms afar than our own “independent” media. And if we thought that we were running away from the dogfight of the two political parties in India, Kashmiris decided to get involved in a similar fight of the two rival parties in the US. The first hearing held in October 2019 was a case study to any student of a marketing/PR/ advocacy campaign. It involved a good mix of human right activists (who have been nurtured over the years to align to your interests), academicians with a sprinkling of a representative from the minority community and a very good background pre-House briefing to the Congress representatives chairing the session. With such a good prep as many from a marketing or PR background will tell you there is no chance of anything going wrong. 

However, the problem with such campaigns today is that technology and social media does not allow the nuances of it to die down so easily, especially if those whom you had relegated to the sidelines (aka the micro minority of Kashmiri Pandits) decide to get their mojo back. As the Turks decided to continue their hammering of the Kurds and as ISIS again starts to make a comeback and the same old Israel-Palestine conflict decides to start again, the US Congress in need for some new flavor in their work decide to hold another hearing on Kashmir (in less than a month). This time a lady whose family had fled the Valley more than 2 decades back, decides to dig in the memories and the facts of 1990s. Of course, she doesn’t do it quietly. For those Kashmiris who have daughters in their families or are married to one will tell you their women are anything but docile. Rub them the wrong way or do anything unfair, you wouldn’t be able to make a difference between a bull or a KP woman. So Sunanda Vashisht based in the US decided to attend the hearing and reveal what happened in Kashmir of 1990s – ISIS style execution (beheading of Norwegian tourist Hans Christian Ostro), rape of minority women (Sarla Bhatt, Girija Tickoo…I recall some were also kidnapped), targeting of minorities who were seen as close to India, and the list is endless.

If you thought liberals across the aisle, especially those from Kashmir would stand up for such revelation, then you really have no knowledge about the conflict there. Post 1990 Kashmir has produced some stellar bunch of human right activists, writers and journalists who have painstakingly chronicled the human impact of the conflict. However surprisingly any mention of their minorities, the impact of the conflict on them attracts some very strange reactions like ‘vendetta’, ‘right wingers’, ‘BJP sympathizers’, ‘sympathy gainers’, ‘victim of Jagmohan politics’ etc. I am now trying to research if such terms were also used for the Yazidis or the Palestinians or the Kurds or the Rohingyas by their majority communities who usurped their land and drove them from the place of their ancestors. 

Yes, Kashmir is a conflict zone. Yes, India has not done everything right there. Yes, the Indian Army is guilty on many accounts in the Valley (I will put my hand and my neck out to fight for Konanposhpura). But my dear Kashmiri Muslims, is it your land only? Where are WE as you shout for azadi? Where is OUR right as you fight for the right of self-determination from India? Where is MY right to bequeath a piece of my ancestral land to my daughter? Its time you answered these questions before you bequeath grandiose ideas on Kashmir being a sovereign land to your children and honorable US Congress representatives. 

#Kashmir #KPs #KashmiriPandits #Congressionalhearings

Kashmiri Cuisine Through The Ages

 A must have cookbook if you are keen to swing the ladle for some delicious Kashmiri food. Simple steps and authentic to the core! 

I even tried Shufta, a dessert almost forgotten in most of the Kashmiri parties across the plains.

Thank you Mrs Razdan for the book!

PS: Surprisingly in an extremely unconventional Kashmiri way, Mrs Razdan is neither directly nor indirectly related to me.

#kashmiricuisine #sarlarazdan #cookbooks #kashmiripanditcuisine 

Vanara

Wish we would start giving more attention to the Southern twist to our mythologies. Our Gods do have feet of clay as this book shows. A must read! 

‘May I know why you shot me slyly instead of facing me like a man Lord Rama?’ Baali asked. 

‘You had done injustice to your brother.’

‘You could’ve faced me like a man’, Baali said.

‘You stole his wife’, Rama declared.

‘You could’ve faced me like a man,’ Baali laughed.

‘You’re evil and my dharma is to eliminate evil,’ Rama said. 

#Indianmythology #anandneelakantan #vanara #penguinpublications

Yasodhara

How little we know about those whom we worship. A poignant first hand narrative by Yasodhara, wife of Shakya Muni Gautam Buddha, her trials and tribulations as the Prince sought to find the true meaning of suffering and sought to bring peace to the world. Yasodhara fought her own battles seeking peace within herself.     "But you caused suffering to find the end of  suffering," I repeated, incapable of letting the paradox go.  "The bonds we were holding onto caused suffering. The bonds you are holding onto still." I wasn't holding on, I told myself stubbornly.

#yasodhara #gautambuddha #speakingtigerpublishing