In the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attack in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pahalgam, hatred against Kashmiris and Kashmiri students in particular surged in at least four northern states and Jammu, fuelled by right-wing groups. We spoke with Kashmiri students who had exams to write but had no institutional support. Hiding in their rooms, hoping for the worst to pass without violence, they spoke of mental and emotional trauma.

cross-posted from: https://lemy.lol/post/43264971

In the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attack in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pahalgam, hatred against Kashmiris and Kashmiri students in particular surged in at least four northern states and Jammu, fuelled by right-wing groups. We spoke with Kashmiri students who had exams to write but had no institutional support. Hiding in their rooms, hoping for the worst to pass without violence, they spoke of mental and emotional trauma.

  • nargis@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    There is no neutrality in occupation. You either condemn crimes or you don’t. I shall assume that the baseline is that the source must condemn heinous crimes. I will admit my own biases; I am pro-liberation, but not pro-terrorism, which differs from my stance on Palestine as Hamas never harmed Palestinians and is genuinely fighting a colonial entity.

    There is no understanding this conflict without history. A left-leaning Kashmiri historian had recommended Christopher Snedden’s books to me; I shall pass that along. He is quite sympathetic to independance. For the Pakistani involvement in the conflict, I’d recommend Manoj Joshi’s ‘Lost Rebellion.’ He is an Indian and worked for the government, so bias is inevitable, but he does condemn crimes in the region and has inside insights on the imperialism of both nations. It is a very balanced book. ‘Our Moon Has Blood Clots’ by Rahul Pandita is about the persecution and exodus of Kashmiri Hindus. There are other books but they must be read with a critical eye. I shall not recommend them as I think you aren’t looking for such a deep dive into the historiography of Kashmir.

    News sources are difficult. Foreign journalists are banned in the region since 2019, and the press is not free. Indian sources are almost useless without context since they’ll never have the guts to condemn the occupation even if the individual journalist knows better. Liberal media organisations that typically critique the government fearlessly, do not give opinions on Kashmir because breaking India is too far out of the overton window and will never gather public funding, on which these run.

    Free Press Kashmir is decent enough for a Kashmiri Muslim perspective. The Kashmir Walla was banned in India, it is also local. Newslaundry did some investigations into press freedom there as well. For human rights violations, JKCCS has some reports, in particular, ‘Torture’ was excellently sourced. It was also censored in India using DNS tampering (I think), seems unbanned now. It is quite harrowing though; do not read if you have a history of trauma.

    Edit: if you meant the local news channel I mentioned, I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand it, it was in Marathi.