In this issue, Dr Moeed Pirzada’s well-researched piece, “Kashmir, Gurdaspur and Mountbatten” points out that design to forcibly take over  Kashmir was already there; he critically examines if Maharaja could have even thought of “accession” with India without the award of “Gurdaspur” to Indian Union in the Radcliffe Award of Aug 16, 1947.

You are free; you are free to go to your temples; you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan.

GVS collected a number of classics and popular books from across South Asia looking at the partition, consequences on those affected and how it changed lives for so many forever.

GVS collected a number of classics from across South Asia looking at the partition, consequences on those affected and how it changed lives for so many forever.

Any NFC award, going forward, should try to rationalize the concerns of centre and provinces, in terms of fiscal burden sharing given their individual responsibilities. Also, to more sustainably allay these concerns, revenue generation responsibilities of each should be emphasize, so that the size of the cake or divisible pool also gets significantly enhanced.

Could Maharaja Hari Singh even think of not joining Pakistan if Mountbatten’s handpicked man, Radcliffe, had not awarded Gurdaspur to India? Was “Kashmir’s Accession with India” and India’s war in Kashmir possible without Gurdaspur? Why was Mountbatten bent upon securing Kashmir for Nehru?

Yaqoob Bangash, an esteemed South Asian historian, argues that both India and Pakistan’s new maps are based on an erroneous understanding of what constitutes Gilgit-Baltistan. While it is not in the Indian interest in the correct legal position or aspirations of people in the region, it is high time that Pakistan should recognize the correct position.

Whilst Right wing Hindu Indians celebrate victory over long gone Muslim Rulers: One year on, Kashmiris weep under a harsh lockdown where they are still cut off from the rest of the world.

Saad Rasool explains how through a constitutional travesty in removing Article 370. Modi’s Hindutva government extinguished the democratic hopes of 13 million Kashmiris, making a complete mockery of the façade that was secular democratic India. However, within a year of the revocation of Article 370, Modi is out of friends, and out of options.

State Subject law in Jammu & Kashmir as guaranteed by Art. 35-A of Indian Constitution was created by Dogra Raj in 1927 to protect the economic interests of Kashmiri Pundits, but now Modi’s Hindutva politics has destroyed this constitutional guarantee in its attempts to change the Muslim identity of Kashmir. Gandhi had fought against British imperialists; now Hindutva India is running a colony of its own.

On 6 August 2019 – with the approval of the Indian parliament, the government of India, declared all the clauses of Article 370 except clause 1 to be inoperative. Thus unilaterally stripping Jammu and Kashmir State, a disputed territory, of its special status that gave it significant autonomy.

Kashmiri Journalist based in Srinagar speaks out on the repression that the Indian state has imposed on media owners and Kashmiri journalists, "I learned through the journalistic grapevine that the owner of another English daily told his editorial staff that those who want to practice journalism should sit at home." The political order is geared towards making survival difficult for anyone who does not conform and all forms of dissent have been criminalized.