Daily Diary (DD) - Day 120 of 2019

0057hrs:

Shahid Afridi also talks of Kashmiri ownership, vindicating the OBM concept introduced by yours truly in 2011...I hope he doesn't get in trouble again: https://t.co/B2B5Vv6f4Q

— Tanveer Ahmed (@sahaafi) April 29, 2019

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Now, I was just getting into reading the following article........

We are more afraid of change than we should be. 

Resisting change won’t make it disappear — It will make things worse. 

What we resist, persists. 

Resistance is a signal, not a natural behavior. 

We must listen to what it’s trying to tell us, instead…

......And then I was reminded that all information on the internet is not free.

.......

The 'Missing Persons' issue and the Pakistani State's position:

#DGISPR openly admits tht Army is behind abductions of thousands of Pakistani citizens&justifies it by saying everything is fair in love&war.he asks4the list of missing persons,the PTM activist alamzab collecting missing persons data is in jail on terrorism charges #PTMZindabad https://t.co/0Yzx7uPLUR

— meena gabeena (@gabeeno) April 30, 2019

There is much that can be said of what the Pakistani army's representative had to say. With reference to AJK, I'll just pose one question at this stage though:

What war are the citizens of AJK engaged in against the State of Pakistan; that they have to be abducted from their homes and workplaces, whereby some are never seen or heard of again?

Daily Diary (DD) - Day 63 of 2019

1827hrs:

I don't think I know this young gentleman but his tweet is very concise. Thanks for endorsing an internal political process in AJK. https://t.co/7hw7ebJgpO

— Tanveer Ahmed (@sahaafi) March 4, 2019

Now, having read through the above article, it transpires that the Urdu text of the tweet is actually a quote of Maqbool Bhat. Here's the translation:

The solution of the Kashmir issue can only be arrived at through dialogue & consensus and if we were to invite somebody to come and fight our war, we would only be damaging ourselves.

Remember that the war just requires constant struggle and (meaningful) discussion because we are a dignified and independent nation (from a historical perspective).

End of translation....

The article referenced above ends with a very appropriate couplet.

Urdu                                                                 

Khwaisho se nahi girtey phal joli me             
Waqt ki shaakh ko mere dost hilaana hoga     
Kuch nahi hoga andherey ko bura kehne se 
Apney hissey ka diya khud hi jalaana hoga   

English translation:

Not by (mere) desire does fruit fall into the lap
The branch of time my friend has to be shaken
Nothing will emerge by (just) criticising darkness
A share of the flame must be lit by us too

Now, the prime minister in the closest neighbouring country to us, has suddenly got my serious attention. I wonder if I'll get a response to this retweet. After all, I've waited many years for Pakistan to walk the walk. So much so that I've even created a twitter hashtag for it: #PakWalkDTalk

Fascinating. You've suddenly caught my attention from #AJK 4 d 1st x since we last met n 2004 (during Indo-Pak 1D series n Peshawar & Lahore). So this worthy person........do you know who he or she is or could be, that takes account of the wishes of (J&)K's people? #PakWalkDTalk https://t.co/egkkDlLEgj

— Tanveer Ahmed (@sahaafi) March 4, 2019

Now, on the surface the above tweet sounds magnanimous but let's not forget what happened to Shahid Afridi when he spoke in favour of Kashmir's independence, barely 3 months ago.

On this very day, Al Jazeera puts some spotlight on AJK - first web text feature ever to my knowledge - with this suggestive title: In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a shrinking pro-freedom space

I particularly liked the following quote from it:

Tariq Farooq, a senior minister in the AJK government, concurred with that view.

"Anybody can do anything, claim anything, discuss anything in this area. In our government, everybody has full fundamental rights to speak anything which is related with human rights," he told Al Jazeera in the AJK capital, Muzaffarabad.

Asked if that freedom extended to parties advocating for Pakistani forces to leave Kashmir, he said: "They can't say that".

End of quote:

I also gave my feedback to Al Jazeera in the following manner:

Many thanks for giving some attention to AJK. I would strongly suggest doing a similar piece on Gilgit Baltistan, if possible.

Ultimately, ditto for Jammu & Ladakh too. In that way, a global reader can get a rough idea of the various internal public narratives existing in the erstwhile princely State of Jammu & Kashmir.

I appreciate you reading this

Tanveer Ahmed

- An independent researcher on AJK

ajkpublicagency.org

End of feedback....

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The following conversation adds even more intellectual nourishment to the concept of an internal political process, which I will now write about tomorrow. Meanwhile, this footage is from yesterday:



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