“Take Lorraine Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun.' Well, it's a working-class family, and it's about upward mobility, but systematic racism is preventing them from having upward mobility. I remember seeing the film first and not even realizing that it was a play. Of course, it's a story about economic apartheid, but I only later saw the resonance in the tradition when I read August Wilson, Amiri Baraka, and later, Lynn Nottage.” COMMUNITY Theatre & Bengali Harlem “Take Lorraine Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun.' Well, it's a working-class family, and it's about upward mobility, but systematic racism is preventing them from having upward mobility. I remember seeing the film first and not even realizing that it was a play. Of course, it's a story about economic apartheid, but I only later saw the resonance in the tradition when I read August Wilson, Amiri Baraka, and later, Lynn Nottage.” Aladdin Ullah How do you give dignity and humanity and a platform for people that are not being represented in the arts, in film, TV, and theatre? How do you give dignity and humanity and a platform for people that are not being represented in the arts, in film, TV, and theatre? SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Bangladeshi Diapora Bangladesh South Asian Theater Working-Class Stories Bertolt Brecht August Wilson Amiri Baraka Lorraine Hansberry Avijit Roy Mel Watkins Black Solidarities ALADDIN ULLAH is a playwright, comedian, and performer based in New York City. He is a pioneer of the past decade as one of the very first South Asians to perform stand-up comedy on national television on networks such as: HBO, Comedy Central, MTV, BET, and PBS. He was the co-founder and host of the multi-ethnic stand-up show Colorblind, a member of Joseph Papp's Public Theater's Inaugural Emerging Writers group where he wrote and developed Indio during the Spotlight Series and workshops at Joe's Pub. He was also a part of the New York Theater Workshop Residency at Dartmouth, and Halal Brothers directed by Liesel Tommy (The Labyrinth's Barn Series at Public Theater). Aladdin has had staged readings/workshops of his plays at New York Theater Workshop, Cape Cod Theater Project, Classical Theater of Harlem, Lark Play Development Center, Shakespeare in Paradise Festival (Bahamas) Labyrinth, and 1 Solo Festival. His acting career includes American Desi , and the award-winning animated film Sita Sings The Blues . Aladdin is a Recipient of the Paul Robeson development grant to produce a documentary called In search of Bengali Harlem, which inspired the recent book Bengali Harlem by Vivek Bald. His most recent play is Dishwasher Dreams , a one-man show drawn from the story of his father’s migration from Noakhali, East Bengal, to New York City. 11 Sept 2020 Interview Bangladeshi Diapora 11th Sep 2020 Nation-State Constraints on Identity & Intimacy Chaitali Sen 17th Dec Bengali Nationalism & the Chittagong Hill Tracts Kabita Chakma 9th Dec Musical Genre as a Creation of Racial Capitalism Vijay Iyer 8th Nov Indentured Labor & Guyanese Politics Gaiutra Bahadur 11th Oct Movements in Pakistani Theatre Fawzia Afzal-Khan 24th Sep On That Note:

In the wake of the devastating effects of the monsoon season in 2022, villagers in Sindh contend with the loss of their livelihoods and the ecological disaster that’s become increasingly familiar. Sabu Khan Buriro was initially submerged, but the nearby Hamal Lake continued to overflow. Villagers, distrustful of the indifferent and lethargic Pakistani state, took it upon themselves to maintain and strengthen flood protection bunds. | · THE VERTICAL Dispatch · Sindh Dispatch from a Village Near Hamal Lake, Sindh, in August In the wake of the devastating effects of the monsoon season in 2022, villagers in Sindh contend with the loss of their livelihoods and the ecological disaster that’s become increasingly familiar. Sabu Khan Buriro was initially submerged, but the nearby Hamal Lake continued to overflow. Villagers, distrustful of the indifferent and lethargic Pakistani state, took it upon themselves to maintain and strengthen flood protection bunds. Photograph courtesy of Rahmat Tunio (2022). The weather in northwest Sindh remained hot and humid a month after the torrential monsoon spell that wreaked havoc in the region. Among the ceaseless deluge, the struggle to save major cities in northwest Sindh, such as Dadu, Sehwan, Johi, Mehar, and Warah, continued. In the aftermath, people themselves have taken charge of strengthening and monitoring flood protection bunds, reflecting mistrust of the state and its elected officials. As per the official statistics, which are still believed to be under-reported, rainwater and floods have impacted 33 million people, displaced nearly 10 million, and killed more than 1500. 1.5 million houses and a million livestock have also been lost, and hundreds of thousands of acres of crop fields—15% of the country’s rice crop and 40% of its cotton—have been ruined. The full picture of the destruction will only emerge once the water level recedes and surveying becomes possible. On the morning of 24th August, our village, Sabu Khan Buriro, was flooded due to intense water pressure from the overflowing Hamal Lake. The rising water soon breached the flood protection bund, and as water gushed into our village, our priority was to bring our valuables and belongings to dry patches of land. Wading through waist-deep water and in some areas chest deep water, people couldn’t take anything other than bed sheets, charpoys and some rice and wheat grains. They were forced to retreat to elevated surfaces like the flood protection bunds, which were soon packed with people and their belongings. Official rescue efforts are rare in these areas, but surprisingly, the district administration sent 5 mini trucks to evacuate the village. In a state of panic and shock as the water submerged the village, the people were evacuated and most of us ended up on the road. But this is not a story about my village alone. It’s the story of an entire region dispossessed by the floods and unprecedented rains, and the specter of poor governance, unchecked capitalism, and climate disregard that has enabled ecological collapse. Mass migration has begun. Families on the roads are forced to stay on charpoys without shelter, food is scarce, and people are struggling with basic necessities. Many people left for cities unwillingly to save their lives, but still there are hundreds who stayed back in dry areas near villages to look after their livestock or moved to safer places with the help of local boats as flood water levels increased. Thanks to the timely help of comrades from the Women Democratic Front, a Pakistan-based socialist-feminist organization, in our village, my family and I succeeded in rescuing essential goods before the village was delinked from mainland Sindh. This is the story of an entire region dispossessed by the floods and unprecedented rains, and the specter of poor governance, unchecked capitalism, and climate disregard that has enabled ecological collapse. One of the biggest challenges we are facing after rescuing our families is making contact with people who decided to stay behind. When the flooding began, the elected MPA’s family, a major feudal family in the area, instructed people to leave, but many refused in order to look after their livestock and save what little grain they could. It's impossible for 'elected' MPAs and feudal families to understand the logic of village residents. Our livestock and the rice and wheat saved from last year’s harvest are all we own. It is difficult for villagers to leave the only assets they rely upon at the mercy of the government, because we’ve learned over our lifetimes that the government isn't serious about helping people in the long term, indulging instead in corruption around flood relief goods without any long-term planning. Many of the villagers migrating have brought cattle and other livestock with them, fearing the animals would suffer from deadly ailments. Caring for the livestock and arranging for their fodder has become an additional responsibility on top of people’s own survival, but to neglect them would further threaten people’s livelihoods. The livestock and the products they offer—wool, eggs, milk, and more—are not only a source of essential nutrients, but social wealth as well. With their crops destroyed and livestock impacted, people are left with no source of earning or income for the year ahead. As villages and crop fields have turned into lakes and wetlands, cities, water sieged from all sides and acting as makeshift refugee shelters for flood-impacted people, have become a breeding ground for different diseases. Diarrhea, malaria, fever, skin diseases, and respiratory illnesses are spreading, and one of the major priorities for flood-displaced people has been the provision of medical care along with food. But in addition to physical ailments, for displaced persons, the traumatic experience of losing their homes and becoming refugees has led to psychological issues that largely go untreated and ignored. In the medical camp that we organized through the Awami Workers Party and Women Democratic Front's help, many patients, unable to sleep at night or during the day, asked about sleeping pills. This trauma has been repeating, and worsening, for those living in the floodplains of the Indus. My grandfather's brother, Hakim Ali, who is visually impaired, has spent 60 years in the fields and villages of our region. He learned to herd with his brothers in childhood and then passed that knowledge onto his sons, and now grandsons and granddaughters. He has brilliantly memorized how to navigate around the village and the grasslands around Hamal Lake, and in the mountains and fields of Kachu. He says he has never before witnessed such a long monsoon. This is the first time in his life that he has had to take refuge in a city. Signs of despair and restlessness are visible in his body language, as limited space in the city has snatched his freedom to move about in familiar open spaces. The unique experiences of each impacted person tell a tale about people's relationships with their surroundings, land, and ecology. In addition to physical ailments, for displaced persons, the traumatic experience of losing their homes and becoming refugees has led to psychological issues that largely go untreated and ignored. I first experienced displacement when I was in the 8th grade due to the floods in 2007. We lost our wooden and mud huts and were forced to take refuge in Kamber city, 30 kilometers to the east towards the Indus River. Again in 2010 floods destroyed our houses, crops, livestock, and everything on which we had established our livelihoods. My parents spent the next couple of years selling assets like crops and livestock, saving up bit by bit to slowly build a solid house for us. One summer it was a mud-made room, the next, it would be a wooden part of the house. Enduring in this way, our parents made a house out of their labor, patience, care, and most of all, love. Now, a decade later, we’ve once again lost our homes and entire livelihoods. Located along the edge of Hamal Lake in Kamber Shahdadkot District, Sindh, we and hundreds of our fellow villagers have been facing an ongoing water crisis for several years now. Due to water scarcity in the Indus River and little rainfall, Hamal Lake has been completely parched for the past couple of years. Last summer many pastoral families from our village and nearby villages who completely rely on the lake migrated nearer to the Indus for grasslands and herding. When this monsoon started, the long awaited rainfall bore happiness and hope—the hope of rebuilding the lake, of rebuilding the livelihoods entirely dependent on wetlands, of food for our livestock in the arid zones of Kachu where rain creates the possibility for grasslands to emerge. In the last couple of decades, however, rain has either become scarce or bursts forth and the dry soil is unable to soak it in, leading to floods and bringing misery and destruction in another form. The rain continued for a month. At one point it rained for 72 hours without a break. As monsoon spells came to an end in the second half of August, my family, village, and nearby villagers lost everything they had invested in the land: rice crop seeds, rice paddies, fertilizers, and their labor. People here depend on crops, livestock, and Hamal Lake’s wood and fish. In these desperate times, it’s a harsh reminder of how working people and farmers suffer doubly in an extremely unequal and unjust state and society. The government has not learned anything from the floods that have marked the second half of the twentieth century. During the floods of the 1990s, 2007, and 2010, cities had remained safe, but this time, what many are comparing to a doomsday, continuous rain has hardly left any home undamaged. Other than its capital city Karachi, every sphere of public life in Sindh has been disrupted. As village life is uprooted and completely devastated, semi-urban or urban areas aren't safe as well. Food crises have worsened, and inflation is skyrocketing as wheat flour mill owners and small shopkeepers to big dealers hike up prices to cash in on the miseries of the flood-displaced population. The rain continued for a month. At one point it rained for 72 hours without a break. As monsoon spells came to an end in the second half of August, my family, village, and nearby villagers lost everything they had invested in the land: rice crop seeds, rice paddies, fertilizers, and their labor. Climate change is intensifying the monsoon spells. When Hamal Lake dried up last year, it destroyed livestock and wildlife, the livelihoods of millions of people who depend entirely on the lake to make their ends meet. The story of Pakistan's largest lake, Lake Manchar, is no different. In recent years, it has been either completely parched or filled with contaminated water. When rain is scarce, the Indus River water is diverted to upper stream areas or dammed. But this year it’s threatening to inundate two districts in Sindh. These dual problems of drying and overfilling are directly connected to monsoon cycles becoming increasingly unpredictable in nature. According to environmental scientists, Pakistan is the sixth most vulnerable country to climate-related changes. From dried lakes to heavy monsoons, scorching heat waves and extreme winters, this is already our reality. Local, provincial, and federal governments lack preparation for climate emergencies, and their inefficiency in addressing these crises has furthered people's suffering. We can't let governments hide behind words like ‘unprecedented,’ 'natural disaster,’ or ‘punishment due to our sins.’ These are man-made disasters and a crisis of governance at the regional and international level. Economic priorities of profiteering at the cost of ecological disruption have resulted in mass miseries for the working classes. In the epoch of the Anthropocene, worsening air quality, water scarcity, extreme heatwaves and unprecedented rains are becoming a regular feature, not just devastating entire livelihoods but disrupting entire populations. Rain and floods in Sindh are not natural disasters but manifestations of inadequate infrastructure planning as well as consequences of inappropriate efforts to mold and control nature. Rivers, lakes, and natural water streams pave their own ways through the land, and disturbing their natural routes is only causing disasters. If we are to save ourselves from these devastating monster monsoons—as they are being called this year—or deadly heat waves, we need to radically rethink our relationship with nature. We collectively need to reassess our misplaced and delusional drive to alter nature according to our unbridled desires. We need to call out the elephant in the room: Capitalism. And we need to put reins on the unprecedented commodification of everything. If we do not do this and organize against this life-threatening crisis, we will be left with nothing to take protection or refuge in. Each season of the year in South Asia will bring with it a hitherto unknown face of devastation. ∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Dispatch Sindh Climate Change Floods in Pakistan Capitalism Women Democratic Front Awami Workers Party Sabu Khan Buriro Hamal Lake Livestock Crops Trauma Displacement Anthropocene Environment Sehwan Warah Dadu Environmental Disaster Disaster Capitalism Flood Protection Corruption Pakistan Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 12th Mar 2023 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

As Sino-Indian tensions rise in the new Indian Union territory of Ladakh at the Line of Actual Control, Ladakhi craftswomen like Sonam Dolma are returning to Kashmir to sell their authentic pashmina shawls. THE VERTICAL The Artisan Labor Crisis of Ladakh AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR As Sino-Indian tensions rise in the new Indian Union territory of Ladakh at the Line of Actual Control, Ladakhi craftswomen like Sonam Dolma are returning to Kashmir to sell their authentic pashmina shawls. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Reportage Ladakh Srinagar Kashmir Sino-Indian Relations China India Geopolitics Indian Union Article 370 Line of Actual Control People’s Liberation Army Changthang Labor Craftsmanship Artisans Indigeneity Settler-Colonialism Displacement Statehood Military Operations Police Action Sonam Dolma Militarization Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Reportage Ladakh 3rd May 2024 In the upscale neighborhood of Rajbagh in Srinagar, Sonam Dolma awaits a high-stakes meeting at an eatery amidst Kashmiri portraits and vintage décor. Her Ladakhi tribe’s prized Pashmina shawls made of fine Kashmiri cashmere are sought after by Kashmir’s elite who eschew mass-produced replicas for craftsmanship. In the quiet corner of the café, away from the bustling streets, Dolma prepares to showcase her wares to discerning clients—wives of bureaucrats and businessmen—who value quality and authenticity above all else. Just miles away from this serene scene lies a neighborhood scarred by floods, where Dolma’s tribe finds refuge after their daily trade expeditions. Despite this contrast, these Ladakhi women navigate Kashmir’s high society with grace, armed with exquisite products and a commitment to purity in a world of imitations. The group’s trade trips to Kashmir have become recurrent ever since Chinese troops showed up at their homeland’s hinterland in May 2020. Oblivious to the standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) where Beijing has grown its military presence, the women are making their rounds of the posh localities of Srinagar with shawls in hand. This internal drive for living has come just five years after New Delhi stripped the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. Their homeland is a new spark plug in South Asia; they live in a constant state of fear. In fact, the rise of the new front—LAC—has already proven deadly. In a military standoff, Sino-India troops have suffered casualties . But beyond these border games, Beijing has forced new orders and routines compelling the Ladakhi craftswomen to return to estranged Kashmir. These young women frequent the fraught region of the valley for sustenance. Prior to their recent visits as mobile merchants, they would mostly feel at home in Kashmir. But everything changed when New Delhi sliced Ladakh from Kashmir in a cartographic attempt to redefine the contested land in the summer of 2019. Carving a union territory out of the United Nations’ registered disputed region eventually proved costly for the government of India. It provoked China—now the ominous third party of what New Delhi calls a “bilateral issue” between India and Pakistan. However, beyond Beijing’s belligerence, the decision to make Ladakh a federal entity has far-reaching consequences for the cashmere brand and its craftspeople. With China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) occupying the winter mainstay of the Pashmina goats in Ladakh, cashmere is losing its source of thread. Ladakh’s Changthang area—the land of nomads located in the east of Leh on the Chinese border—has long been a breeding ground for the Pashmina goats. The severe temperature of the area, the experts say, makes the Pashmina thread of Changthang very thin, which in turn makes these goats the source of the finest cashmere in the world. The Chinese incursions have now made it a literal no-go zone for the nomads rearing these goats. Although China is showing no signs of retreat, the military occupation has created an existential crisis for the native animal and has raised serious concerns around the globe. The nomads are reporting increasing numbers of goat deaths. These deaths—due to the occupied winter habitat of Pashmina goats—have cast shadows on the global brand. In the main towns of Leh, the Pashmina dealers are linking the supply slump to the rise of China in Ladakh. Despite the dilemma, the cashmere craftspeople are banking on their old ties with the valley. In the larger din emanating from the LAC, their Kashmir move has become symbolic. While New Delhi has separated them from Kashmir in this territorial juggling, Beijing has reunited them . New anxieties are on the rise, however, as the processing of Pashmina may be shifted out of Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh by the Indian authorities, a move that may create an impact on the cashmere wool industry. Faced with diminishing income and mounting unpredictability, Dolma made the difficult decision to seek refuge in Kashmir. At noon when most of the citizenry works, she arrives to strike some profitable exchanges. Dolma on her way to a Srinagar neighbourhood where she sells her stuff to customers. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Dolma tells me how she was born into a family of weavers in a small village 260 miles from Ladakh’s capital, Leh. She learned the art of crafting Pashmina shawls from her grandmother, who in teaching her, passed down centuries-old techniques. Dolma reflects on the journey: “The foreign incursions into Ladakh forced me to confront the fragility of life, to adapt, and evolve.” But the looming specter and uncertainty brought by a massive troop build-up, cast a dark shadow over Dolma’s once-peaceful existence. “We spend months preparing the handicraft stuff before arriving in Srinagar for work," she says. For Dolma, these rendezvous in serene corners of the city held significance beyond mere transactions. She was not just selling shawls—she was preserving a legacy, a tradition that had been passed down through generations. In a market flooded with facsimiles, she was a purveyor of authenticity, valued for her discerning eye and commitment to quality. Away from Ladakh, Dolma considers Kashmir the second home for Ladakhi entrepreneurs like herself. This Himalayan region is their main economic link to the rest of the world, aside from being the preferable market for their indigenous products. During the post-Covid distressed times, they counted on Kashmir’s booming domestic tourism. “Kashmir has never disappointed us,” says Tenzin, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “But somewhere down the line, the region’s uncertainty reminds us of our home now. It was a peaceful land before they changed its status in the summer of 2019.” The demand for a separate entity—a union territory—was a longstanding political cry in Ladakh, mostly from the members of the ruling mainstream party. The campaign gained steam after the political party swept the regional polls. Experts feared that slicing Ladakh from Kashmir would alter the course of the disputed land. But in the run-up to August 2019, when campaigns against Article 370 became fierce, Ladakh witnessed a political wave culminating in its new territorial identity. Lately, the process in Kargil has intensified with shutdowns of demand for statehood ; even the famed climate activist Sonam Wangchuk went on a 21-day hunger strike . With the altered political reality, most of these women are now anxious about the war frenzy created by the armies in their homeland. They realize how the militarization was triggered by the summer shift—when New Delhi justified the abrogation of Article 370 as a move “to end discrimination” with Ladakh and its people. But the unilateral decision backfired when the Chinese army showed up at the LAC and clashed with Indian forces. Since then the skirmishes have stopped, but the boots remain on the ground . While the border brouhaha has given Ladakh global coverage in recent times, these girls have become weary of the hyper-media attention. Like their Kashmiri counterparts, they don’t make peace with the pugnacious news debates focusing on their homeland. The mainland television media’s so-called war bulletins have only heightened tensions. What’s further creating a false sense of alarm is New Delhi’s dithering response to the LAC situation. The region has now become a new strategic zone forcing the right-wing government to build a fair-weather highway connecting Leh with Srinagar that opened this past winter. The snowbound thoroughfare used to be cut-off for six months. But now, the Indian government’s urge to keep an unflinching eye on the PLA has put men at work during extreme conditions, including the construction of a tunnel connecting Ladakh with Kashmir. Still, these young Ladakhi women see hope in Kashmir where their products are quite popular among the urban elites. However, if the status quo isn’t restored at the LAC anytime soon, these Pashmina girls of Ladakh fear losing cashmere to Chinese aggression. In the wake of this militarized uncertainty, some of the girls believe their visits to Kashmir, this estranged part of India, might alleviate their financial situation. “Life is tough back home,” continues Tenzin, while waiting for her client inside the cafeteria, and uncertainty has only escalated after the recent border tensions between India and China. Away from Ladakh, these girls share rent, rage, and respite in Srinagar before heading back home with seasonal earnings. “Most of us belong to poor families,” Tenzin continues with a thoughtful stance. “For us, our families come first. But it’s very hard to stay focused amid the changed reality now. Be it troop build-up or frontier tensions, the sense of normalcy has taken a big hit. Regardless of everything, Kashmir is the same to us as it used to be when the people of Ladakh were part of it,” she says. “Sadly, for some of us, a sense of estrangement has come to define this relationship now. And the change is there to see.” Padma Tsering, a quintessential Ladakhi woman in her early thirties from Nyoma, has been selling Pashmina in Kashmir for the past couple of years. “We’ve cultivated our customer base in Kashmir and rely on them for our livelihood,” she says. Despite their limited political awareness, Ladakhi girls like Tsering find hope in Kashmir. “There’s a sense of security Kashmir offers despite the surrounding tensions,” says Phuntsok Wangmo, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “It’s our preferred market with loyal customers, even during post-Covid times.” Dolma showcases her shawls in Srinagar during a business meeting with her client. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Meanwhile, Dolma’s wait ends as Sadaf Khan, a young Kashmiri woman, arrives at the café. Khan expresses interest in buying shawls from the weaver. “My cousin recommended Dolma to me and vouched for the quality of the shawls,” says Khan. The café comes alive with the buzz of business, some chatter, and laughter. After bidding farewell to her client, Dolma steps out into the busy thoroughfares of the city; walking home reflectively after another successful trade. ∎ Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

Sudan’s ongoing war, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has devastated the country, displacing millions and crippling public services. Civilian-led groups, particularly the Resistance Committees (RCs) and professional unions, continue to provide humanitarian aid despite severe repression, learning from the rich history of Sudanese unions active since the 20th century. Today, emergency committees and medical unions work tirelessly to support war victims, exemplifying resilience amid chaos. Their struggle highlights a stark contrast between civilian solidarity and military destruction. · THE VERTICAL Reportage · Sudan Sudan’s ongoing war, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has devastated the country, displacing millions and crippling public services. Civilian-led groups, particularly the Resistance Committees (RCs) and professional unions, continue to provide humanitarian aid despite severe repression, learning from the rich history of Sudanese unions active since the 20th century. Today, emergency committees and medical unions work tirelessly to support war victims, exemplifying resilience amid chaos. Their struggle highlights a stark contrast between civilian solidarity and military destruction. Hashim Nasr, Boxed (2022). Digital photograph. Through Thick and Thin On April 15, 2023, one of Sudan's most brutal wars erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). This signaled a collapse of the alliance between two-armed factions. Even before the April fallout and subsequent war, their armed alliance had brought nothing to the Sudanese people but bloodshed and death; the alliance staged the military coup in October 2021 that terminated the civilian-military power-sharing agreement known as the Transitional Government which was installed in the wake of the December Revolution in 2018 . The Transitional Government (2019-2021) was composed of both military and civilians, with a rotating presidency that started with the military. The December Revolution was primarily led by millions of youths, particularly women, called the “Resistance Committees” (RCs). Although lacking in direct organizational links with the existing civilian groups, the RCs coordinated their mass protest actions very closely with them, particularly the Sudanese Professional Association . Remnants of Sudan’s Islamist military dictatorship (1989-2019) comprised two factions that had each previously attempted to seize power in the country. Working together, on June 3rd 2019, they enacted the most heinous massacre . Hundreds of peaceful protesters were brutalized, raped, drowned, and killed. On June 30th, 2019, under the combined leadership of civilian groups, millions of Sudanese took to the streets, demanding accountability for the massacres and a full transfer of power to civilians. The military eventually relented, resulting in the civilian-military power sharing agreement in August 2019. This illegitimate and violent political transformation has led to the ongoing war which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, over 12 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), and over three million refugees in neighboring countries. As the war has intensified since April 2023, the total repression of civilian activism has destroyed health, education, municipal and other civilian infrastructure, and deepened the economic crisis. In immediate response to the war, Sudan’s Resistance Committees (RCs) have morphed into Emergency Committees (ECs), while abroad, Sudanese communities collectively mobilize resources to save lives and restore livelihoods destroyed by the war. There are now numerous humanitarian, educational, and professional activities, both inside and outside Sudan seeking to help those most affected by war. Although repression inside Sudan and the lack of formal status outside Sudan limits this organizing, the collectives nevertheless strive to implement what they can. They continue to play a major role in organizing assistance and representing the Sudanese people at humanitarian and ceasefire negotiations mediated by international entities. With unwavering determination, the humanitarian aid effort by Sudan’s civilian bodies shines amidst the darkness of this horrific war. With the disintegration of the state apparatus and the collapse of public services, the RCs face highly complex challenges. Attempting to regroup and organize their membership, they continue to provide services to millions of displaced Sudanese people. Thus, a stark contrast emerges. While the military forces continue their war against each other and on the country’s resources, civil forces race to save what can be saved. These civilian forces continue amidst severe repression, killing, forced disappearances, illegal detention, torture, rape, and ethnic cleansing. The History of Trade Unions in Sudan As a central organizing force, political parties, civil society organizations, professional associations, and trade unions draw upon a long tradition of highly active political engagement that started before Sudan’s independence in 1956. Sudan has had union organizations since the early 20th century. In 1908, forest workers under British-Egyptian colonial rule, announced a strike demanding better wages and working conditions. In 1947, the first union of railway workers was established. As a result of the pressure exerted by the union movement, colonial authorities conceded the right to union organization. A labor law was issued in 1948, granting the Sudanese union movement legal status. By becoming a primary force in resisting and changing authoritarian regimes, however, the movement became a target of colonial oppression. One of the earliest decisions in subsequent military coups was the dissolution of existing unions, confiscating their properties and funds. By mobilizing their members, the unions quickly regained their strength and ability to lead. The Front of Associations (a coalition of professional, labor, and farmers' unions) led the October 1964 revolution , dominating a seat majority in the first transitional government, before being overthrown by infighting. Led by the Union Alliance, unions played a prominent role in the April 1985 uprising and the downfall of the Jaafar Nimeiri dictatorship regime. Omer Al-Bashir’s regime in 1989 resisted workers’ attempts at unionization—seeking to dismantle and control them by dismissing employees through the Public Interest Law. The labor movements, however, were ceaseless. Following the successful Sudanese Doctors Union strike of November 1989 , several professional associations organized strikes and protests in 1994 and 1996. They also continued efforts with regional and international organizations to isolate the military regime and its façade of regime-friendly unions. Therefore, during the 30 years of the Islamist military dictatorship, trade unions and associations operated through professional bodies which were strategically founded to counter the regime’s compliant civilian bodies and trade unions. In 2005, following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the military dictatorship and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M), Sudan witnessed a relative expansion of political space and public sector workers showed increased interest in unionization. Medical bodies inside and outside Sudan organized networking and coordination. Lawyers' organizations confronted repressive laws and defended public freedoms. Journalists exposed and documented violations, defending freedom of expression. Teachers gathered to address wage issues and demanded educational reform. The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) served as the unifying platform leading the Revolution for the downfall of the Islamist dictatorship regime, especially when the-then SPA joined political and civil society organizations to create the opposition platform called Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) . The 2019 post-revolution transitional phase represented a glimmer of hope. Institutions were being rebuilt, preparing the country for a democratic transition . Most professional bodies sought to gain legitimacy by organizing member elections. Some of them, like the Sudanese Journalists' Union (SJU) and the Sudanese Doctors Union (SDU) succeeded in completing free and fair internal elections. Many believe that the October 2021 coup was staged by SAF and RSF precisely due to the rising tide of organized and elected professional associations and trade unions. The Birth of the Sudanese Professionals Association Actual collaboration among opposing union factions began with the rise of popular resistance against the Inqaz or the NCP regime, especially after South Sudan's secession and the 2010 election and following economic collapse. Professional and other civilian groups started organizing their bases to hold democratic grassroot union elections. They also worked to establish effective union alliances to challenge the regime's policies and its monopoly over power and political decisions. This culminated in the formation of what was then known as the Sudanese Professionals Union in 2012 (later called the Sudanese Professionals Association or SPA in 2013) through joint coordination between the Teachers' Committee, the Sudanese Journalists Network, the legitimate Sudanese Doctors' Union, and the Democratic Lawyers' Association. The SPA page on Facebook , which played a crucial role in the December 2018 Revolution, was created towards the end of 2012. Starting approximately in 2016, the professional forces that eventually formed the nucleus of the SPA continued expanding their coalition as an anti-Inqaz political front. They continued to link their presence to specific labor demands, gaining more support. Simultaneously, civilian unrest and discontent with the Inqaz regime was boiling under the surface until it exploded. First, in September 2013 (heavily repressed by the Inqaz/NCP regime) and then, more successfully, between 13 December 2018 and 6 April 2019. Importantly, these peaceful mass protests started by RCs in the city of Mayirno (Sennar State) spread to the RCs in Atbara (River Nile State), Damazin (Blue Nile State), before blazing across Sudan.This rising tide of protests was mutually-synergistic between the SPA and the RCs movements. The SPA and RCs quickly adjusted their demands from merely raising the minimum wage and protesting against the rising cost of living, to instead calling for continuous marches aiming to entirely overthrow the Inqaz/NCP regime. Taking the lead in the December Revolution, the SPA and the RCs participated in developing the charter of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) on 1 January 2019 which adopted the RCs and SPA slogan of “freedom, peace, and justice.” These efforts culminated in the fall of the tyrant Omar al-Bashir on 11 April 2019 and continued throughout the transitional period that followed. Unfortunately, when the SPA’s constituent bodies began union-building processes, their lack of recent practical experience in union work and managing political conflicts, led to the disintegration of the FFC, with disruptive impacts on the SPA and other civilian bodies. The political alliances represented by the FFC began disagreeing on priorities. The RCs wanted to prioritize the creation of the Transitional Legislative Assembly; however, other political parties and professional associations did not see it as a priority. These disagreements deepened and widened, negatively impacting the civilian front. On August 30, 2022, in a historic step, Sudanese Journalist Union announced the successful election of their first post-Inqaz committee, followed by the Sudanese Dramatists Union. The Sudanese Doctors Union was reestablished in March 2023—just weeks before the war broke out mid-April 2023. The Resistance Committees: An Inspiring Experience The initiation and driving force behind the December Revolution is attributed to the most recent type of civilian body in Sudanese politics the RCs which also included the Coordination Committees of IDP camps in Darfur. RCs are unique grassroots organizations formed at the neighborhood level, which expanded to cities and different Sudanese states. They deliberately retain their horizontal nature and firmly reject hierarchical leadership, in order to avoid infiltration by the authorities or political factions. The presence of RCs has played a decisive role in keeping the flame of the revolution alive. The RCs formulated a comprehensive political vision, embodied in the “ People's Power Charter .” The Charter’s first draft was released for discussion in January 2022, underwent public discussions, and was revised in March 2022. Despite prevailing political divisions among FFC’s political forces and the military coup's control of power, the RC’s People’s Power Charter generated a significant amount of debate. The RCs played a more significant role in the political scene, surpassing the leadership of traditional civilian bodies (parties and unions), by supporting but also holding accountable the transitional government, and working within local governance structures. Undermining Inqaz/NCP supporters at the state level, RCs took on the responsibility of monitoring the flow of commodities such as flour, gasoline, diesel, and cooking gas. They contributed to resolving the transportation crisis, power outages, and other artificially created crises. This led to defeating the Inqaz regime’s black marketeers. The War: Massive Responsibilities Throughout the transition period, a widespread civil movement spread—undeterred by the October 2021 coup. Instead, professional unions and RCs regarded themselves as a primary tool of people power in the civil-military conflict. The union bodies, led by the preparatory committee of the newly formed Sudanese Doctors Union (SDU), established Emergency Rooms, communal shelters for IDPs, communal kitchens, and neighborhood mutual aid under the leadership of the RCs. These Emergency Rooms continue to provide life-saving food, water, medicine, and urgent supplies to millions of war-affected people, as well as the millions of IDPs fleeing the war. Similarly, the SPA’s constituent professional unions have intensified their efforts towards denouncing the war, calling for peace, providing basic humanitarian aid, exposing and documenting gross human rights violations and war crimes, defending activists detained in war zones, and organizing campaigns to stop the war and aid those affected, both inside and outside Sudan. Some professional unions have also begun envisioning the required reconstruction, recovery, and reform needed in their respective sectors once the war stops. Civilian Testimonies Shedding light on the experiences of workers’ unionization and the efforts of the medical and humanitarian emergency, offered here are the accounts of two prominent contributors. They reflect the significant efforts exerted by civilian forces amidst the ongoing war. Activist Moez Elzein is a project manager at the Al-Ayam Center for Cultural Studies and Development and a founding contributor to the humanitarian Emergency Rooms (ERs). Elzein is currently based in Kampala, Uganda, where he recently sought refuge from the horrors of the war in Sudan. He explained that since the outbreak of the war and collapse of public services, groups of RC members, professionals, and young men and women, began establishing ERs in war zones across Sudan. Inspired by the concept of “Nafir” (a mobilization call to humanitarian action, significant in Sudanese culture as voluntary and cooperative work during humanitarian disasters), they vowed to keep their work free of political affiliations and biases, which helped the idea to evolve and attract more volunteers. Elzein pointed out that ERs began their work with the idea of mutual aid rather than humanitarian aid. The idea started spontaneously among Sudanese through financial transfers to support those affected by the war, followed by the idea of ERs. Moez's words reveal the organizational capacities and experience these young people possess, developing a Coordination Council for Grassroots Work of ERs which is the largest indigenous civilian coordinating body operating across Sudan since the war began. This Council was formed based on the local governance system of Khartoum State, the most populous state in the country, with approximately eight million inhabitants according to the latest census projections from 2018. Initially, seven central ERs were formed for the seven localities, along with grassroots rooms for residential neighborhoods under them to ensure coordination and networking based on the administrative structure between administrative units, grassroots rooms, local ERs, and central rooms. Elzein indicated that the Council would evolve into a national council after including Sennar, Darfur, and other regions, thereby linking humanitarian intervention to grassroots work and local governance. Elzein describes how the ERs in Khartoum consist of 130 grassroots rooms in neighborhoods, in addition to seven central rooms. In Sennar, there are 15 grassroots rooms in neighborhoods and around seven central rooms, as well as one room in El-Suki. He noted that women's emergency rooms have also started to appear in eastern Sudan, as is the case in Gedaref and Kassala States, and there are 200 grassroots ERs in different Darfur states. Regarding how these rooms fund their activities, Elzein says, “the rooms initially received support from Sudanese people through bank transfers as donations, in addition to support from some international organizations. However, after the decline in capabilities due to the ongoing war and the worsening conditions of millions of Sudanese, the primary reliance now is on donors like the Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SHF).” Sudanese national organizations in turn, distribute funding to ERs, alongside other international organizations. Currently, the ERs depend entirely on funding from foreign organizations. Elzein continues, “there is a disparity in the number of participants in the rooms, depending on the population size in different areas and the level of interaction, even within Khartoum. For example, there are differences in the ability to communicate with various parties. Some rooms can communicate with SAF or RSF commanders in their areas, such as Karari in Omdurman and East Nile, to ensure safe passage of some food supplies needed for central kitchens or to secure the release of detained activists or residents of neighborhoods, while some areas lack this capability due to the hostile nature of the forces in control or due to pre-conceived aversion by grassroot activists to any coordination with neither SAF nor RSF.” For Elzein, one of the most significant challenges facing ERs is the repressive targeting and human rights violations faced by their members at the hands of both RSF and SAF. He adds, “in areas controlled by SAF and RSF, youth workers in emergency rooms have faced repeated arrests and severe human rights violations such as torture and beatings. Three weeks ago, one of the key workers in the emergency rooms in Eastern Nile State was arrested and falsely accused of killing a member of RSF.” Dr Hiba Omar was interviewed within the context of writing this article, to better understand the role of the medical ERs. Omar is the elected President of SDU’s Preparatory Committee and one of the prominent leaders of SPA. She has been repeatedly arrested and displaced. She says, “When the war broke out, the SDU was only a month old, and the Preparatory Committee was elected to perform specific tasks, including drafting a constitution, compiling a membership register, calling for a full general assembly, and holding free and fair union elections. We found ourselves faced with the daunting task of providing medical services to thousands of war victims after many hospitals shut down and were attacked by airstrikes and indiscriminate military attacks on them.” She recounts the details of the first hours after the war broke out, “I went to East Nile Hospital in the Al-Haj Youssef neighborhood in Khartoum and worked there for three consecutive days due to the severe shortage of staff. While we were working inside the hospital, it was bombed by SAF aircraft and then it was evacuated. So, I moved to the Ban Jadeed Hospital in a nearby area, but found it had closed. This situation, along with reports of many hospitals being out of service, prompted us to think about establishing medical ERs. We called on the RCs to support and assist us, and then we formed the first ER at Ban Jadeed Hospital.” She continues, “The war was very intense and was raging in the center of Khartoum State. This war violated all international humanitarian conventions and laws of war, with no regard for the neutrality of medical services and facilities nor protection of health workers. In fact, they were specifically targeted by both sides of the war. The expansion and intensity of the war and the targeting of hospitals, and the use of some health facilities as military platforms led to the loss of the ER’s capacities and the inability of patients to reach them, in addition to the killing of many medical staff and emergency room workers, the evacuation of patients, and the destruction and looting of hospitals.” Omar adds, “There were great difficulties in getting medical staff to hospitals, so most resided inside the hospitals, and we worked to fill the shortage due to the inability of some doctors to reach hospitals by training volunteers from RCs in medical services. The RCs provided oxygen and intravenous fluids in dangerous areas under shelling and bombing, as well as meals for patients and staff, and also transferred patients and the injured to other hospitals.” In her testimony as a doctor who witnessed the horrors of this war, Omar indicates the importance of the civil society organizations to the medical aid effort, “as a union, we contributed alongside Sudanese medical diaspora bodies such as SAPA (Sudanese American Physicians Associations) to securing critical information for the Sudanese Medical Council amid the shelling and battles; first transferring it to Al-Jazirah State and then after clashes broke out there, transferring the equipment containing the information to the Northern State in order to protect the interests of more than 10,000 doctors. The Council is responsible for training, certificates, and appointments of doctors and their specializations.” This major collapse caused by the war led Pmar Hiba, and her SDU colleagues, to work with other union bodies to establish the “Union Front,” and to expand it to include all workers in various fields who have been facing difficult conditions since the outbreak of the war, primarily the suspension of their salaries by the state for over a year and a half. “Addressing all these issues is almost impossible without stopping the war and, therefore, besides our work on professional issues, we continued work with other union bodies to achieve our shared struggle to stop the war, demand accountability, restore the revolution, and collectively defend workers' rights. We represent a broad sector of the Sudanese people together, and our positions express a large base that rejects the war, stands against its crimes, seeks justice, redress for the victims, the restoration of professionals' roles, and the enhancement and improvement of their conditions.” Continuous Work Despite the War After nearly a year and a half of horrific war, amidst the destruction caused by the military and militias allied with warring parties in Sudan, civil revolutionary forces are rising. These forces are working inside the country’s conflict areas as well as outside Sudan, where millions of Sudanese have sought refuge. Many are working to build bridges of communication with similar unions in host countries. Some have successfully traced their members dispersed in different countries as well. Various groups have started organizing training courses to enhance their capacities to deal with the war and its aftermath, while some unions are preparing to assess the scale of the destruction and thinking of how to reestablish a peaceful transition to democracy. Others yet, have begun documenting the violations and war crimes committed against civilians—and legally classifying them. Meanwhile, most unions are quietly working to provide as much assistance and support to their members by facilitating financial donations from Sudanese people worldwide and communicating with organizations that help and support refugees and professional advocacy groups. They are also negotiating with authorities in some asylum countries to ensure their members’ welfare and safety. In conclusion, the Sudanese civilian bodies such as the SPA, Resistance Committees and professional unions continue their decades-old tradition of democratic grassroot organization and advocacy for democratic freedoms despite the war. The collective experience they accumulated during the December Revolution continues to drive their commitment and inform their decision-making. They remain resolute that wars and military coups will never dent their resolve to create a free, peaceful and just. The December Revolution’s slogan, “Freedom, Peace and Justice” remains a beacon of hope for Sudan.∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Reportage Sudan Egypt Armed Forces Resistance Movement Resistance Resistance Committees Unions Medical Union Healthcare Community Civilian Solidarity War Sudanese Armed Forces Rapid Support Forces Military Coup Power-sharing Transitional Government December Revolution of 2018 Sudanese Professional Association Islamist Massacre Protest Political Dissidents Political Violence Violence Internally Displaced Persons Refugees Repression Civilian Activism Civil Society Infrastructure Dictatorship Emergency Committees Sudanese Diaspora Mobilization Humanitarian Aid Organizing Ceasefire Negotiations Trade Union Independence Colonialism 20th Century Railway Workers Colonial Oppression Front of Associations Coalition Labor Farmer Union Alliance Jaafar Nimeiri Omer Al-Bashir Public Interest Law Sudanese Doctors Union Strike Economy Grassroots Movements Inqaz NCP Regime South Sudan Secession Democracy Teachers Journalists Lawyers Doctors Facebook Social Media Civilian Unrest Sennar State River Nile State Blue Nile State Peoples Power Charter Flow of Commodities Monitoring Civilian Testimonies Cultural Studies Census Al-Ayam Center for Cultural Studies and Development Moez Elzein Activist Human Rights Violations Human Rights Youth Workers Torture Emergency Room SDU Preparatory Committee Hiba Omar Airstrike Khartoum State Sudanese Medical Council Al-Jazirah State Hope Conflict Revolution Advocacy Freedom Peace Justice Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 23rd Feb 2025 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

In the immediate aftermath of the May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, sensationalist television coverage amplified misinformation, turning a volatile border crisis into a media-fueled spectacle. As fact-checks lagged behind viral falsehoods and unverified claims of tactical victories, nationalist fervor surged on both sides of the border, eroding the credibility of journalism before the public’s eyes. THE VERTICAL Khabristan Uzair Rizvi In the immediate aftermath of the May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, sensationalist television coverage amplified misinformation, turning a volatile border crisis into a media-fueled spectacle. As fact-checks lagged behind viral falsehoods and unverified claims of tactical victories, nationalist fervor surged on both sides of the border, eroding the credibility of journalism before the public’s eyes. On the night of May 9, 2025, I closely tracked the unfolding hostilities between two nuclear-armed neighbours. I was watching a debate on the ongoing border situation on the Times Now Navbhara t news channel when the TV anchor, Sushant Sinha, abruptly paused the discussion to announce with glee that “Indian forces have entered Pakistan.” A panelist in the debate, a retired Indian Army veteran, trying to whip up jingoistic fervour, urged the Indian Navy to launch an attack on Karachi, declaring, “Set fire to Karachi Port and reduce the entire city to ashes.” While India and Pakistan’s firepower echoed on the borders, another battle was taking place inside the television studios. The latest surge in violence came in the aftermath of armed militants killing 26 tourists in the meadows of Indian Kashmir in April. India labelled these as terrorist attacks and blamed Pakistan, an allegation Pakistan denies. Following the attack on Indian tourists, some in the Indian TV media adopted an aggressive nationalistic stance . They further escalated tensions by calling for retaliation against Pakistan. Some newsrooms even openly endorsed military strikes against the country, which ignited a wave of hysteria in India. In the days that followed, I spent even more time on social media monitoring India TV broadcasts, noticing frequent bursts of misinformation. A casual scroll on X (formerly Twitter) revealed a post from an obscure account alleging that India had fired towards Pakistan. Within minutes, I searched the keywords #India and #Pakistan, and my timeline was flooded with similar claims. Indian mainstream media outlets like Aaj Tak and Times Now quickly picked up these unconfirmed posts, and within an hour, they snowballed into a full-blown conflict of speculations as early as day 1. As new events unfolded on the border on successive days, the media kept broadcasting unverified content. The onslaught of misinformation that followed was staggering: images of missile strikes, anti-air defence guns firing at targets, and armed forces downing each other's fighter jets. Editors and readers alike seemed unaware that the information was from a popular tactical shooter simulation video game, Arma 3 . Archival clips also resurfaced and were presented as proof of Pakistan’s devastation of the Indian military . Many of these images and videos were not of real-time offences but came from the Russia–Ukraine war and Israeli air raids on Gaza. As the conflict escalated on day two and three, the deluge of misinformation went into full throttle. In these moments of crisis, both the Indian and Pakistani television media ditched accuracy altogether. They deceived audiences with unverified claims , manipulated visuals, and emotionally charged distortions of the ground reality. "Across Bodies and Land" (2024), graphite on handmade paper, courtesy of Rahul Tiwari. India Today reported a breaking news story that claimed that the Karachi port had been attacked by the Indian Navy; Zee News told viewers that the capital city of Islamabad had been captured. The latter even claimed that the Prime Minister of Pakistan had surrendered . ABP and NDTV news showed exclusive visuals of India’s air defence downing Pakistan drones, even though the original video was from Israel. Besides the mainstream English and Hindi media, the regional TV media joined the bandwagon as well, amplifying the misinformation. The Karachi Port Trust posted on X, denying that an attack had occurred. However, some of the newspapers had already picked up and published this news in the following day's edition.A report from the Reuters Institute said that almost half of Indian online users receive their news from television, which makes these instances of misinformation especially egregious and impactful. One of the anchors at an Indian television station did apologise for an “error,” however, the apology came nearly 12 hours after that segment had been seen by millions of viewers in India. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the media passed off old visuals of fighter plane crashes as evidence of recent strikes on Indian fighter planes by Pakistan. Things escalated beyond newsrooms when an official X (Twitter) account of the Government of Pakistan posted footage from Arma 3 of what it claimed was real videotape of Pakistan downing India’s Rafale fighter jet. The rise of artificial intelligence played a significant role in augmenting the falsification of the conflict. AI-generated disinformation, including a deepfake video of a Pakistani military officer admitting that the country lost some of its fighter jets, was widely circulated in Indian media. Another AI-generated clip featured US President Donald Trump promising to “wipe out Pakistan,” giving fodder to Indians who believed that the United States would enter the war against Pakistan. Other AI-generated images claimed to show Pakistan’s defeat, while pictures of a Turkish pilot were falsely presented as proof that India had captured a Pakistani air force officer. A doctored version of a letter was also shared. It was falsely positioned to be from Pakistan’s government and claimed that Pakistan’s former prime minister, Imran Khan, had died in judicial custody. TV media do not operate in a vacuum, these viral clips quickly find their way to social media platforms and instant messaging mobile applications like WhatsApp. Social media users on both sides consume and share misinformation at lightning speed, especially when it aligns with nationalistic sentiment. "Across Bodies and Land" (2024), graphite on handmade paper, courtesy of Rahul Tiwari. The World Economic Forum ranked India as the country most at risk for misinformation and disinformation, which is defined as incorrect information shared to purposefully obfuscate the truth. But, false reports surged in Pakistan during the crisis as well. A Pakistani politician praised —in Parliament—about the might of his country’s air force based on an AI-generated image of a British newspaper. Of course, most military crises lead to a surge in falsehoods and unverified claims. While the media is supposed to inform the public, during these delicate moments, much of the television coverage descends into a spectacle of exaggeration, rumor, and nationalistic war mongering . From fabricated airstrikes to altered footage , the focus shifts away from facts toward constructing a narrative of preemptive victory and toward manufacturing consent for potential war crimes. In today’s digital world, this misinformation is not limited to local viewers. It moves quickly, heightening tensions and fueling broader cycles of global propaganda. The long-term consequences of such wartime fallacies are deeply damaging. By amplifying rumors and unverified stories, both Indian and Pakistani television media deepened public divisions, pushing citizens into isolated, conflicting realities. A similar situation occurred in 2019, after the killing of Indian paramilitary soldiers in Kashmir. False and misleading images and videos circulating on social media were republished by mainstream media, fuelling the calls for military retaliation against rival Pakistan. This conduct erodes the ethos of journalism. Audiences start to see all media as biased or deceptive. For fact-checkers in the field, debunking these falsehoods is an enormous challenge, and by the time fact-checked content reaches the general public, truth has already become the ultimate casualty. ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 "Across Bodies and Land" (2024), graphite on handmade paper, courtesy of Rahul Tiwari. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Reportage Delhi India-Pakistan Border India Pakistan Conflict Pakistan-India Conflict Armed Conflict Media wars Disinformation Misinformation Virality Viral Clips Soft War Karachi Social Media Manufacturing Consent Nationalism UZAIR RIZVI is a journalist, formerly with the Agence France Presse (AFP), who covers misinformation, elections, and technology. He is based in Delhi Reportage Delhi 16th Aug 2025 RAHUL TIWARI grew up in Bhadwar, a small Bhojpuri speaking village in Bihar. Rahul received an MFA from Banaras Hindu University in 2018. Strongly informed by his place of origin, his work examines regional ecologies and folklore as they pertain to both societal and environmental wellbeing, justice, and change. On That Note: How to Grow Flowers in a Bedroom 19th OCT The Lakshadweep Gambit 29th MAR Chokepoint Manipur 3rd OCT

WRITER-SCHOLAR Simran Jeet Singh SIMRAN JEET SINGH is Executive Director for the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program and author of The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life (Riverhead Books, 2022) and the award-winning children’s book Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon . He is a visiting professor of history and religion at Union Theological Seminary and a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations. In 2020 TIME Magazine recognized him among sixteen people fighting for a more equal America. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post , and CNN , and he is a columnist for Religion News Service . WRITER-SCHOLAR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

SAAG's multimedia content is displayed here, using our YouTube and Instagram channels. THE VERTICAL ENVIRONMENTAL WAR CRIMES IN AFGHANISTAN THE VERTICAL DISPATCH DISPATCH AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 “Wonderland 2” by Priyanka D’Souza. Watercolor on Paper (2015) SHARE ARTICLE: Tags Tags Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Tags Tags Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. MORE LIKE THIS Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6

ARTIST Dhruba Chandra Roy DHRUBA CHANDRA ROY is a self-taught Bangladeshi visual artist and activist. Born in Sultan-Khali in northeastern Bangladesh, he attended Shahid Syed Nazrul Islam College, Mymensingh, and Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), Sylhet. His participation in various political movements, close interaction with people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and regions, and interest in human relations with nature, and class struggle inform his practice. ARTIST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

TRANSLATOR Polly Barton POLLY BARTON is a writer and Japanese translator based in Bristol. Her translations include Aoko Matsuda’s Where the Wild Ladies Are , Kikuko Tsumura’s There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job , and Tomoka Shibasaki’s Spring Garden . In 2019, she won the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize for her debut book Fifty Sounds . Her second book, Porn: An Oral History , is forthcoming. TRANSLATOR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

In 'Daha Rupaychi Note', Hamid Dalwai tells the story of Kareem, a poor clerk journeying from Mumbai to his Konkan village for Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi. Amidst nostalgia and hardship, Kareem witnesses his village’s stark poverty, confronting the harsh realities of his people’s suffering. Through his act of charity and the symbolism of the titular ten-rupee note, Dalwai blends personal, literary, and political ideologies, exploring themes of communal harmony, economic reform, and the complex interplay of religion and identity within the socio-political landscape of post-independence India. In 'Daha Rupaychi Note', Hamid Dalwai tells the story of Kareem, a poor clerk journeying from Mumbai to his Konkan village for Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi. Amidst nostalgia and hardship, Kareem witnesses his village’s stark poverty, confronting the harsh realities of his people’s suffering. Through his act of charity and the symbolism of the titular ten-rupee note, Dalwai blends personal, literary, and political ideologies, exploring themes of communal harmony, economic reform, and the complex interplay of religion and identity within the socio-political landscape of post-independence India. Vinay Ghodgeri, The Two Pontificators (2022). Ink, digital painting. Artist · FICTION & POETRY REPORTAGE · LOCATION Ten Rupee Note LOCATION Ria Modak . 17 Feb 2025 th . Letter from our columnist . The story begins and ends with a bus ride. Kareem, an impoverished clerk living in Mumbai, decides to visit his village in the Konkan to celebrate both Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi. While his journey there is filled with both nostalgia and anticipation, his return is marked by a different set of emotions. As his aunt remarks, “everything is upside down in the village,” where everyone is impoverished and unemployed, and the starving can do nothing “except sit and wait hopefully for next year’s harvest.” Confronted with this catastrophic state of affairs, he gives away his scant savings in a “pathetic charity session” until he is left only with the titular ten rupee note. “Daha Rupaychi Note” was my first encounter with the Marathi Muslim journalist, writer, and reformer Hamid Dalwai . Written when Dalwai was just twenty years old and printed in the Marathi-language “Dhanurdhara” magazine on November 8, 1952, the story was his first published work. In a recent documentary directed by Jyoti Subhash and featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Husain Dalwai—Hamid’s brother and Congress politician—reminisced on its publication, recalling that the entire family had gathered under the dim light of a streetlamp to read it together. Despite his young age, his earliest work rings with the earnest idealism, unambiguous moral clarity, and straightforward, laconic prose that would characterize much of his later writing, fiction and non-fiction alike. Brusque and unambiguous in its endorsement of communal harmony, economic reform, and village uplift, “Daha Rupaychi Note” reads propagandistically at times, blurring the borders between literature, praxis, and even autobiography. Through this hybrid form, the interplay between Dalwai’s personal life, creative instinct, and political commitments is laid bare. Like his protagonist, Dalwai was born and raised in a working-class Ratnagiri family before moving to Mumbai in search of work. This migration story is a familiar one: my grandfather, also a Kokani Muslim, came to Mumbai in the 1940s as an officer in the merchant navy. Like Dalwai, he was of a literary bent, writing and translating between Marathi, Urdu, and English. He, too, was charming and mercurial, his disarmingly light eyes quick to anger and quicker to laughter and brandished his acerbic wit with a typical Konkan sting. If they ever met, I imagine Dalwai would have quickly adapted my grandfather’s sardonic catchphrase, “ naseebach gandu tar konashi bhandu. ” But whereas my grandfather spent those heady decades of independence hopping between port cities in Japan, Thailand, and the Soviet Union, Dalwai hopped between political organizations, from the Rashtra Seva Dal to the Samyukta Socialist Party. Frustrated by their timid stances on communalism, he eventually carved out his own political spaces by establishing the Indian Secular Society (1968) and the Muslim Satyashodak Samaj (1970); the latter modeled after Jyotirao Phule’s anti-caste reform society. Through his organizing and writing, his ultimate goal was to modernize Indian Muslim society by, in his own words, “creating a small class…of liberal and secular Muslims.” Dalwai is difficult to categorize and perhaps for that reason, he has been largely forgotten by historians, literary critics, and the public. On the one hand, he was, indisputably, a Marathi thinker. The landscape and rituals of the Konkan coast—its “distant green hillocks” and its “auspicious sounds of cymbals and mridanga”—were firmly imprinted in his literary and political consciousness. Influenced by his Marathi-medium education in Chiplun, he wrote exclusively in Marathi and encouraged Indian Muslims to embrace their regional languages rather than chasing after Urdu, Persian, or Arabic; when interrogated about his linguistic preferences, he quipped that his own Marathi-inflected Urdu, adulterated by Mumbai slang, would cause a “proper” Urdu speaker from Lucknow to collapse on the spot. His Maharashtrian contemporaries, from the humorist and performer P.L. Deshpande to the playwright Vijay Tendulkar, praised his tenacity and courage, with the former naming Dalwai as “one of the greatest enlighteners in that series from Jyotirao Phule to B.R. Ambedkar,” and, with characteristic fulsomeness, remarking that “when I say that Hamid was my friend, I feel it might come across as self-promotion: that was the extent of his greatness.” Yet, Dalwai is near impossible to locate in contemporary histories of Maharashtra, which, depending on their ideological predilections, have long sought to portray the state as the great bastion of resistance to Islamic rule, the progenitor of polemical politicians from Tilak to Ambedkar, or the financial center of independent India. In a historiography dominated by analyses of Marathas, Hindutva, and, increasingly, at long last, anti-caste mobilization, the history of Maharashtra's Muslims remains peripheral. On the other hand, Dalwai both identified with and critiqued a different lineage: that of Muslim reformers from Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. In Muslim Politics in Secular India , a collection of his essays translated by Dilip Chitre in 1968, Dalwai compared the trajectory of Hinduism and Islam. Whereas the trajectory of Hindu modernism, he argued, progressed from Raja Rammohan Roy to Jawaharlal Nehru, the “process of Muslim modernization was arrested” when Iqbal and Jinnah’s embrace of “Islamism ultimately led to anti-Hinduism.” For Dalwai, these reformers fell short on several counts: they promoted an “obsession with [the Muslim community’s] minority status,” encouraged a “tribal…collectivist loyalty,” and ignored the unique plight of Muslim women. Indeed, Dalwai is perhaps most well-known for his attempts to remedy this third issue; on April 18, 1966, he led a group of seven women in India’s first march against triple talaq and polygamy, and in favor of a uniform civil code (UCC). Here, we may note that nearly sixty years after his march, from the controversial Shah Bano case to the BJP’s inclusion of a UCC in its 2024 manifesto, many of these issues remain deeply contested. Yet, unlike Sir Syed, Iqbal, or Jinnah, Dalwai’s idea of modernization demanded militant and uncompromising secularization. Clean-shaven on principle—at a speech in Solapur, he joked, “if I were in power, I would compel all Muslims to shave off their beards”—and adamant that he be cremated rather than buried, Dalwai was branded a kafir by his orthodox contemporaries. His dedication to Muslim reform was borne more from an accident of birth rather than any deep religious commitment: “I don’t pray, neither do I fast. I believe the Quran was not made by God, but rather by Muhammad,” he declared in an interview. “I am a Muslim by birth and a Hindu by tradition.” In “Daha Rupaychi Note,” we catch an early glimpse of this iconoclastic brand of Islamic secularism. The twin celebrations of Ganesh Chaturthi and Eid dictate the story’s pacing: they precipitate Kareem’s arrival in the village; they prompt his existential reckoning, and they frame the central tension of the narrative. Dalwai’s reclamation of Hindu tradition is also, perhaps, revealed through Kareem’s references to the Ramayana. By drawing parallels between Sriram, his closest friend who “embodied Gandhi’s call to ‘go to the village’,” and the Rama of legend, Dalwai intimates familiarity with Hindu mythology and suggests at least some amount of faith in its teachings. Here, we must underscore the complex, multivalent nature of Dalwai’s religious and regional identities: as a Marathi Muslim, his perspectives on secularism, socialism, and language politics were shaped by his negotiation of the two strands of thought I have traced above. His marginalization, then, constitutes multiple, overlapping disappearances: of Muslim thought from Maharashtrian history, of Marathi thought from Indian Muslim history, and of the Islamic secular from discourses of religion, nationalism, and modernity. As Kareem sets off from Chiplun, he is overwhelmed by emotions, his heart “darkened with despair.” Caught between the financial allure of Mumbai and the moral imperative to remain in the village, negotiating between the festivals of his birth and his tradition, he chooses to remain hopeful for the future of the Konkan. How many times did Dalwai make this same journey, his thoughts consumed by these same anxieties? How many times did my grandfather? I’ve never set foot on the red soil of his native land, never peered out into the Arabian Sea from that lush coastline dotted with jackfruit and cashew trees and since his passing more than two decades ago, any tether binding me to the region has unraveled. In any case, the Konkan of his—and Dalwai’s—time is long gone. Perhaps it is a fitting tribute to both men that his son, in the spirit of “Daha Rupaychi Note,” would go on to marry a Hindu woman and raise a family where, like Kareem and Sriram, we celebrate both Ganesh Chaturthi and Eid. Ten Rupee Note by Hamid Dalwai Translated by Ria Modak After spending a year in the noisy chaos of Mumbai, my mind drifts to my village in the Konkan. I remember the uninhibited, idyllic days of my childhood, and feel the temptation to meet old friends and relatives. Every summer, I take a week or two off to visit the village, setting foot on the boat from Ferry Wharf to Dabhol. This year, however, I was too consumed by work to make the journey. A few months later, though, I managed to negotiate a vacation; my aunt had sent a message telling me to come home for Eid. Besides, it had been many years since I’d been back to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi. I decided that I would go, and booked an S.T. bus. At the Chiplun motor stand, a couple hours from Ratnagiri, some friends came to greet me. We traveled the rest of the way together, cracking jokes and chatting about nothing in particular to pass the time. Once we arrived at the village, they drank their tea and dispersed, promising to come see me again. I made my way to my aunt’s house. She lived alone, and we were very close. Since I was a child, my visits would incite a flurry of overexcitement: what shall I cook? What shall we do? Where shall we go? Even now, nothing has changed: how long will you stay? What shall we plan for Eid? Eventually, tired of her chattering, I interrupted: “Chachi, why haven’t I seen Sriram anywhere? He didn’t even come to meet me at Chiplun.” “Arrey ho! Did I forget to tell you? He’s lost everything. The farm, the land, everything has been auctioned off. But what’s to be done?” she said. “But why doesn’t he come to Mumbai then? Why is he wasting his time in this village? ‘Social work… social work…’” Kareem scoffed. “We might die of starvation, but we must still commit ourselves to social work. I don’t understand.” She let out a sigh. “I’ve told him so many times, but he always repeats the same thing: ‘we shouldn’t only look out for ourselves, kaki.’” Tears shone in her eyes. I was taken aback. I’d run into so many acquaintances from the village in Mumbai, but none of them had told me about Sriram’s condition. It’s true that we’d stopped writing letters to each other as the months passed. As I became increasingly caught up with work, I suppose I’d taken Sriram’s situation for granted. “Look, this is everyone’s story in the village. Everything is upside down. You lot who’ve gone and built a life in Mumbai, why will you remember your home in the village? You don’t even know who’s alive and who’s dead here. You haven’t sent a penny in four months. At least you haven’t settled down yet—there are some people who haven’t returned in five or ten years. Who will take care of their houses?” the old lady went on. Staying in Mumbai, my mind had become an emotionless machine. How could it be that I’d never once thought about the economic state of my village? Today my aunt had opened my eyes, and I turned inwards. The thick fog shrouding my mind evaporated. I let go of the day-to-day tedium of my clerical life, and the formality of my city sensibilities melted away. But what good could come from thinking? I’d renounced any golden dreams of idealism and ambition and was wandering in the lonely desert of pragmatism. For 120 rupees a month, I scribbled nonsense and passed it off as clerical work. I lived with a friend and ate my meals at a cheap mess. I couldn’t imagine ever having enough money to get married. The next day, I was awakened by a pair of raucous voices. At first, I didn’t pay attention, but once I heard my name, I perked up. An old woman said, “He hasn’t remembered me once in so many days. Has he returned from Africa with bags of cash or what?” Quickly, I got up and left. I didn’t see who had come. Only after my aunt explained did I begin to understand that the woman was having money problems for Eid. I felt terrible, but then my aunt prodded me: “Why are you feeling bad? This is everyone’s reality. How many people can you possibly help?” Then she took 100 rupees from me, buying what she needed for the house and paying back her debts with the rest. I felt as though she was getting even with me for not having sent money these past few months. From that day onwards, there was a line out the door. At any given moment, someone or the other came complaining of financial distress, expecting money. My tongue sat heavy and numb in my mouth. They came reluctantly, nursing their shame and hesitation, losing their courage as they asked favors. I’d only come with 200 rupees: of that, 100 had gone to my aunt. Of the rest, 90 were given here and there. Finally, I put an end to this pathetic charity session. I wanted to return to Mumbai, after all, and needed to set aside money for the return fare. Everyone I’d given money to had done me a favor at some point or the other. I was satisfied that, at the very least, those debts were paid. But my satisfaction didn’t last long. Ganesh Chaturthi came at last. In the old days, the village would ring with the auspicious sounds of cymbals and mridanga. But today, I heard nothing. Confused, I asked my aunt, who replied: “Arrey baba, how can people celebrate with nothing in their belly? The old days are gone. Two days before the Gauri Visarjan, there’ll be some dancing and that’s it, the festival will be over.” I felt like I’d been stabbed in the stomach with a sharp knife. Poverty hadn’t just made our daily life miserable: it had cast a dark shadow on our celebrations, our happiness, and our enthusiasm. I had no doubt that Eid, too, would be similarly dark. Eight days passed, but Sriram, my closest friend, still hadn’t come to see me. If anyone embodied Gandhi’s call to ‘go to the village,’ it was Sriram. Though he’d once settled in Mumbai, he had kicked aside his lucrative job in the city and instead devoted himself to uplifting the village. Finally, I went to see him the day before Gauri Visarjan. Standing in the corridor, his face lit up with joy when he saw me. At once, he enveloped me in a tight hug and cried out to his wife, “Hey, look who has come!” Coming out with a handful of ash from cleaning up, she said, “O Chakarmani! When did you come? Yesterday or what? Made it a point to come see us as early as you could manage, hm?” Ignoring the sarcasm dripping from her voice, I said, sagely: “If the mountain doesn’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain.” “Enough is enough! Please don’t bore us with the same old phrases. I’ve been telling him, ‘that friend of yours has come, go and see him,’ but he always repeats the same thing…” Catching a glimpse of her husband, she fell silent. I couldn’t wrap my head around the situation, but Sriram explained. “Don’t be flustered, my friend. I told her that Kareem has come from Mumbai. His pockets are overflowing, everyone must want a piece of him. The poor must be going to see him again and again. How could I go at such a time? He’d think that I’m just after his money, too.” Sriram laughed loudly. His laughter pierced my heart. The poverty of the village, the sheer decline of the Kokan was all revealed to me through that laugh. I said, casually: “Listen, if you’d come to ask, would it really have been so terrible?” “That’s what I told him,” his wife jumped in excitedly. “There’s always some problem in the house. I told Sriram, ‘go to Kareem bhai and bring back 10 rupees.’ At least let the kids enjoy the festival. But he refuses. ‘Forget the money,’ he says. ‘I won’t go see him until Eid is over.’” “Kay re, when I came last year the situation didn’t seem so bad,” I said. “True, for two reasons. Firstly, you used to come in the summer. Even though the harvest wasn’t so bountiful, at least people had some grain in their hands. Besides, farm work was in full swing. There might not have been much money, but people could at least find some seasonal work. Now there’s no grain and no labor, either. What else can the starving do except sit and wait hopefully for next year’s harvest? And the other reason is that this poverty has been slowly getting worse over time. Today, you’re witnessing it, all at once, in its barest form. Planting his eyes on a distant green hillock, he said in a subdued and determined voice, “All this must change Kareem. It must be changed . We must give up our narrow, selfish attitudes. Capitalism is the culmination of our social structure and the naked form of our reality; it is our legacy. This situation isn’t any one person’s fault, but at the same time, it’s not any one person’s responsibility. We must reject this futile idea that we alone can enact meaningful change. We must work for everyone, for society at large. Last year I’d said, ‘let’s store some grain from the harvest for communal use.’ Nobody listened to me. Someone would’ve benefitted by now, wouldn’t they? But nobody has any sense of community wellbeing!” And he stopped for a while. I too was eager to give him an earful. Taking his silence as my cue, I said, “Really, Sriram. Why do you insist on working in this village? Haven’t you seen what kind of people live here? Why bother struggling for them in vain?” “Nahi re!” Placing his hand on my shoulder, he continued. “This work will bear fruit one day. I have faith in it. And consider for a moment if I decided to leave everything behind. What would happen to the work I’ve started, to the hope that’s been built up? I can’t turn back now.” Then, squeezing both my hands lovingly, he asked me, “Is everything okay with you? When are you going to get married?” I replied with a wry smile, “I’m okay. I’ve been eating at a mess and sleeping at a friend’s place, but he just got married, so I’ve had to move out. An acquaintance of mine knows someone who owns a building, so with his permission I’ve been sleeping in a room under the staircase. Where could I possibly fit a wife?” Then I asked him gently, “Do you really need money?” “If you put it like that, well then yes. But why should I make your life difficult?” Taking out the last ten rupee note from my pocket, I forced it into his hands. I drank my tea, bade farewell to his wife and child, and returned home. Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi came and went, and the day of my return to Mumbai drew closer. Both festivals had fallen short of my expectations. There was no warmth in people’s celebrations. They were just going through the motions, performing rituals with an emotionless formality. I couldn’t bear to see any more, and decided to return to Mumbai as soon as possible. Suddenly, I remembered I had no money. I needed ten rupees to return to the city, but couldn’t understand how to get them. Finally, I brought up the subject with my aunt. Angered by my ill-timed munificence and diminishing funds, she said, coldly: “Where will the money come from now? You’ll have to borrow from someone and just pay them back when you return to Mumbai.” The idea didn’t sit well with me, and I gave no answer. The next morning, while I mulled over the situation, confused, Sriram came and, to my surprise, placed a ten rupee note in my hand. Without letting me say anything, he explained, “If you were in trouble, why didn’t you just tell me, baba? Yesterday, kaki came to me and everything became clear. Aren’t you leaving tomorrow?” I took the note from his hand and looked closer. It was the very note that I’d given him! There was an unmistakable stain near the watermark where I’d spilled some ink earlier. “But this money was for your celebrations! Isn’t it the same note that I’d given you?” “That’s true enough. But on the very evening you’d come to see me, I got the money I needed from someone who owed me, and I was set. What business is it of yours?” The next day when the S.T. bus to Mumbai set off from the Chiplun motor stand, my heart was darkened with despair. I couldn’t stop thinking about the grim future of my village. I thought to myself, “won’t this situation ever change?” But then again, why not? Against the depressing backdrop of poverty, hunger, and unemployment emerged Sriram’s strength, patience, and courage. Why not, indeed! Just as Sri Ram released Ahalya from her curse, transforming her from hexed stone back into a beautiful woman with a brush of his foot, this Sriram too will surely rescue our Konkan. My mind filled with happiness and hope, I landed in Mumbai that evening.∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 RIA MODAK is a musician, translator, and PhD student at Brown University studying music, nationalism, and borders in modern South Asia. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Translation Maharashtra Hamid Dalwai Muslim Marathi India Fiction Journalism Writer Reform Economy Borders Community Literature Working Class Migration Family Urdu English Political Will Anti-Caste Organizing Liberalism Secularism History Literary Criticism Regional Languages Linguistic Marathas Hindutva Maharashtra Muslim Modernization Civil Society Militant Disappearance Religion Nationalism Ten Rupee Note Mumbai Konkon Village Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Where do radical movements stand in the US? In December 2020, Kshama Sawant and Nikil Saval took stock of the response to the COVID-19 crisis at the federal, state, and city levels and discussed the many failures of two-party politics. But the movements for housing, defunding the police, and taxing corporations in Seattle & Philadelphia are also deploying innovative and unprecedented organizing strategies, most obviously at the local level, that have ramifications for movements across the country. | · INTERACTIVE Event · Panel FLUX · Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval on US Left Electoralism & COVID-19 Where do radical movements stand in the US? In December 2020, Kshama Sawant and Nikil Saval took stock of the response to the COVID-19 crisis at the federal, state, and city levels and discussed the many failures of two-party politics. But the movements for housing, defunding the police, and taxing corporations in Seattle & Philadelphia are also deploying innovative and unprecedented organizing strategies, most obviously at the local level, that have ramifications for movements across the country. Watch the event in full in on IGTV. FLUX: An Evening in Dissent FLUX was held at a peculiar time. In December 2020, there was both during a raging pandemic and following exciting victories by progressive candidates in state elections in the US, including Nikil Saval, former co-editor of n+1 , to PA State Senate. Tisya Mavuram and Kamil Ahsan convened with Sen. Nikil Saval and longtime socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant to talk about the future of left politics, relations with the Democratic Party, and the pandemic. In Philadelphia, on the actual city budget level, the [Defund the police] movement's ability to win the cuts it demanded did not succeed, as it didn't in many other cities. But what did happen, it is important to highlight, was a protest encampment of the unhoused on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway which is very near to the Art Museum, a symbolic institution of the city. It's one of the richest and most subsidized areas of the city. It's rich because it has been made to be rich. So to have this encampment protesting for housing was a physical challenge to the housing in the city, including the shelter system, which is in shambles. Despite attempts by elected officials, the encampments were able to secure the transfer of city-owned property to a community land trust. This was unprecedented in Philadelphia history. It doesn't meet the actual need, but it begins to pioneer how movements can work with officials on the left in city government, coming from an abolitionist impulse. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Event Panel COVID-19 Recall Efforts Democratic Party Progressive Politics Electoral Politics Accommodationism Bernie Sanders Socialist Alternative State Senate Local Politics Local vs. National Politics Washington Pennsylvania City Council Races State Senate Races Centrism Right-Wing Assault Amazon Gentrification Criminal Negligence Fighting the Two-Party System Migrant Workers Stimulus Package Legitimacy of the Capitalist System Demographics The Guise of Bipartisanship Capitalist Class Reactionary Democratic Elites Nancy Pelosi Chuck Schumer Insider Negotiation Standards of Living Minimum Wage Democratic Establishment Post-George Floyd Moment George Floyd Anti-Racism Mass Protests Amazon Tax Corporation Taxation Labor Movement Racial Justice Tax Cuts for the Rich Primarying Centrist Democrats Defund the Police Abolitionism Minneapolis Police Departments Mayoralties Pledges to Defund Police Career Politicians Budget Votes Movement Organization Movement Strategy Seattle Activist Politics Black Lives Matter Democratic Socialists of America Ballot Initiative Housing Municipal Politics Shelter System Encampments of the Unhoused Negotiating Directly with Philadelphia City City-Owned Properties Land Trusts Leftist Media Magazine Culture n+1 Hospitality Workers Growth of Left Media FLUX Philadelphia Seattle City Councils Labor Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 5th Dec 2020 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

“When I say that language has failed us, I mean that there is no amount of information you can give a society that necessarily means it will be compelled to act.” COMMUNITY On the Relationship between Form & Resistance Iman Iftikhar · Sharmin Hossain · Kalpana Raina · Maira Khwaja · Suneil Sanzgiri “When I say that language has failed us, I mean that there is no amount of information you can give a society that necessarily means it will be compelled to act.” The second panel from our event on 30th March 2024, "Solidarity: Beyond the Disaster-Verse," at ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn, New York, which marked the close of Volume 2 Issue 1 of SAAG. Here, Iman Iftikhar, Sharmin Hossain, Maira Khwaja, Kalpana Raina, and Suneil Sanzigir discuss how the varied forms of storytelling they use inform and are informed by their politics, resistance, and solidarity and how they feel it is most useful. This panel picks up from where Panel 1, "What do we mean when we talk about Solidarity?" ends. What follows is a discussion of form & storytelling with: Iman Iftikhar, a researcher, educator, co-founder and manager of Kitab Ghar, an Associate Editor at SAAG, and an editor at Folio Books. Maira Khwaja, a journalist, multimedia producer, and researcher at the Invisible Institute . She is also an Associate Producer of We Grown Now dir. Minhal Baig, April 2024, Stage 6 Films & Sony Pictures Classics. Kalpana Raina, a co-translator of For Now, It is Night: Stories by Hari Krishna Kaul (Archipelago Books, February 2024) Sharmin Hossain, an abolitionist organizer, artist, and the Organizing Director at 18 Million Rising that organizes Asian Americans. Suneil Sanzgiri, a filmmaker, researcher, artist, whose first solo exhibition, Here the Earth Grows Gold , opened at the Brooklyn Museum in October 2023. Photographs courtesy of Josh Steinbauer. SOLIDARITY: BEYOND THE DISASTER-VERSE Panel 1: What do we mean when we talk about Solidarity? SOLIDARITY: BEYOND THE DISASTER-VERSE Quintet Performance ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Panel 2 of the event "Solidarity: Beyond the Disaster-Verse" held on 30th March 2024. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Panel Language Solidarity Films Film-Making Capital Investigative Journalism Criminal Justice Abolitionism Solidarity: Across the Disaster-Verse Prisons Police Personal History The Petty Self Kashmiri Struggle Translation India Anti-Colonialism Two Refusals Goa Hybrid Multimedia Sham-e-Ali Nayeem Portuguese Nationalism Afro-Asianism Bandung Conference Angola Mozambique Sita Valles Portuguese Communist Party Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola Angolan Liberation Youth/Police Project Act of Listening Stop and Frisk IMAN IFTIKHAR is a political theorist, historian, and amateur oil painter and illustrator. She is an editor for Folio Books and a returning fellow at Kitab Ghar Lahore. She is based in Oxford and Lahore. SHARMIN HOSSAIN is a Bangladeshi-American queer Muslim organizer and artist, from Queens, New York. She is the Organizing Director at 18 Million Rising , building national Asian American political power that contributes to movements for racial justice, abolition, anti-militarism, and democracy through political education, and deep base building. She was the Campaign Director of the Liberate Abortion Campaign, managing the coalition of more than 150 reproductive justice and rights organizations, groups, and abortion providers fighting for abortion access. KALPANA RAINA is a senior executive with extensive financial and management experience in the US and internationally. She serves on the boards of Information Services Group , and Words Without Borders. Her collaborative translation project of stories from the Kashmiri language, For Now, It Is Night, was published in Winter 2023 by Harper Collins in India and Spring 2024 by Archipelago Press in the United States. MAIRA KHWAJA is an educator and multimedia producer. She is the director of public strategy at the Invisible Institute . Her work centers on the Youth / Police Project , where she works with young people most affected by policing in the South Side to shape new discussions and efforts around public safety. She was a 2021 Leaders for a New Chicago award winner. She worked as an associate producer on We Grown Now (dir. Minhal Baig), a film about children in now-demolished high-rise public housing. Her work has been published in the South Side Weekly , The Funambulist , and The New York Times . SUNEIL SANZGIRI is an artist, researcher, and filmmaker. Spanning experimental video and film, animations, essays, and installations, his work contends with questions of identity, heritage, culture, and diaspora in relation to structural violence and anticolonial struggles across the Global South. His first institutional solo exhibition Here the Earth Grows Gold opened at the Brooklyn Museum in October 2023. His films have circulated at film festivals and institutions globally, including at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Criterion Collection, among others. Panel Language 17th Apr 2024 JOSH STEINBAUER is an award-winning filmmaker, musical composer, and visual artist. His work has been shown in Heaven, Third Ward, No Moon, Gen Art, H. Lewis galleries, Harvard Art Museum and American Folk Art Museum , and published in Nowhere Magazine, Terrain, The Offing, Moving Poems, Scroll.in, BrooklynOnDemand , and the Times of India, amongst others. Some of his portrait drawings are currently exhibited at the Long Island City Artists' (LIC-A) newest show Drawing Beyond the Surface , curated by Jorge Posada. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct