Assistant Professor of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at MCLA, Mohamad Junaid and Lafayette College Assistant Professor, Hafsa Kanjwal join the WBI show to discuss the the acceleration of the settler colonial project in Kashmir and the continued fight for Azadi or self-determination. The Indian BJP government’s recent passage of the domicile law in Jammu and Kashmir is a move towards ethnically cleansing the occupied territory. Last November, Indian Consul General in New York, Sandeep Chakravorty advocated for this law in order to introduce “Israeli model” settlements into Kashmir.

“I don’t keep calm, I’m continuously in outrage, I don’t have any spiritual solace, I don’t have any calm, everyday is like a new mourning.” Junaid shares- yet finds hope in Kashmiri writers, activists and artists a generation removed from state sanctioned illiteracy now documenting the desire and struggle for national liberation to the rest of the world.

“Bollywood is India’s kind of wet dream...Initially kind of creating this desire for the beautiful landscape without any regard for the local ‘ignorant people they needed to modernize’”- Kanjwal provocatively comments, drawing out the sophisticated ways in which Hindu nationalist culture legitimizes the state sanctioned erasure and potentially the extermination of the Kashmiri people.

For full show notes and cited works, please navigate to The American Assembly