Mahrang Baloch was sixteen when her father was abducted one morning in December 2009. She soon became a leading voice amongst the students holding the state to task for enforced disappearances in Balochistan, in the tradition of women leaders of the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad. In 2017, her brother was abducted. Mahrang redoubled her efforts. FEATURES Mahrang Baloch's Struggle Against Enforced Disappearances Shah Meer Baloch Mahrang Baloch was sixteen when her father was abducted one morning in December 2009. She soon became a leading voice amongst the students holding the state to task for enforced disappearances in Balochistan, in the tradition of women leaders of the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad. In 2017, her brother was abducted. Mahrang redoubled her efforts. He slept with his eldest daughter in his arms on the night of December 11, 2009. They had spent the entire evening talking about a host of issues in Balochistan—from education to enforced disappearances. Take care of your mother and sisters, he told her. It was as if Ghaffar Baloch knew that it was his last night with his family. That year, Baloch had moved from Quetta to Karachi, a city in the province of Sindh, with his family, because his wife needed to be admitted as a patient at the Institute of Surgery and Medicine. “It has been a decade, but I still remember the color of the clothes he was wearing that night. We barely slept because we had so many things to talk about. I had a feeling that something amiss was about to happen. He passed by me with a sad smile as I stood at the door and watched him leave.” said Mahrang Baloch, the then 16-year-old daughter of Ghaffar Baloch. The following morning, Baloch was abducted on the way to the hospital by men in plainclothes. His abduction coincided with the growing momentum of the Baloch insurgency and as in the past, it accompanied a round of enforced disappearances, which have by now become the norm in Balochistan, the most troubled province of Pakistan. Baloch had joined the long list of missing persons from Balochistan. After Ghaffar Baloch’s abduction in 2009, his daughter Mahrang took to the streets holding banners and shouting slogans, a protest she continued for two years. Donning a traditional Balochi black chadar with strips of red and yellow, instead of a veil or scarf worn by women in Pakistan, Mahrang fully embraced her role as a student leader of the resistance movement. Many noticed her on social media, when she narrated the story of her father’s torturous disappearance in a video appeal that was carried by the online journal Tanqeed . “Those five years of my life were the hardest. I was the oldest amongst my sisters, so I had to be strong for everyone. I would pray that my father would come back. There was a hope that he would be back. I kept on holding onto the hope that life would be normal again,” Mahrang said. “But that never happened.” Balochistan, plagued by tribalism and patriarchy, has remained male-dominated in the political arena, with the exception of a few women politicians such as Fazila Alynani, a parliamentarian from Balochistan in the 1970s, and Zubaida Jalal, currently the federal minister for defense production. With the enforced disappearances, Baloch men are vanishing from the political scene in Balochistan, creating a vacuum of sorts. To fill this gap, Baloch women have taken the responsibility of leading the movement against enforced disappearances, political and economic injustices, military operations, and the ongoing exploitation of Balochistan. This has transformed politics in the beleaguered province. Having seen their loved ones murdered and picked up over the years, the voice of the new generation of Baloch women and girls has sparked a non-violent revolution in the face of much adversity. But at the same time, there remain feelings of alienation and distrust with the state. Much credit for the political mobilization of the Baloch women can be given, rightly, to Karima Baloch, the first chairperson of the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad (BSO-Azad). On December 22, 2020, Karima Baloch was found dead near Lake Ontario in Toronto, Canada, after being missing for a day. She is the second Baloch dissident to be found dead under suspicious circumstances in the countries they had sought exile in. Earlier in the year, the chief editor of the Balochistan Times, Sajid Hussain, was found dead in a river in Sweden, weeks after he had gone missing on March 2, 2020. Subsequently, Pakistani activists around the world demanded investigations into the suspicious circumstances surrounding both deaths. Many shared a 2017 video of former dictator Pervez Musharraf claiming in an interview that the Pakistani state would hound and capture dissidents wherever they might be. Such is the present state of the Baloch who have dared raise their voices against the injustices of the Pakistani state since the time of Partition. Karima was often singled out and criticised for her activism and political mobilization of women, particularly by online trolls, and some Baloch tribal and conservative men who told her to stay out of politics. But today, after her mysterious death, women are leading protests across the province. Among the women demanding an investigation into Karima’s death is Mahrang Baloch—who has been leading the movement against enforced disappearances and ongoing state oppression in Balochistan. As more girls came to join the Sept. 8, 2020, protest for solidarity, Mahrang Baloch, on the right and Sabiha Baloch, on the left, drag a carpet to sit on it near the Governor House, where they observed a hunger strike to demand amendments in Balochistan University of Medical and Health Services (BUMHS) act for restoration of Bolan Medical College's quota system. Photograph courtesy of Mashal Baloch. The Baloch Insurgency Ghaffar Baloch’s abduction in 2009 was the third time he had been picked up by security agencies. This era, 2009- 2013, in the troubled province of Balochistan, was marked by a state policy of ‘kill and dump.’ Alleged insurgents, nationalists, political workers, students, and activists—many of whom had been accused of “terrorism” by state agencies—were found dead after being abducted. The culprits? Most point the finger at the state. But naming them explicitly and publicly comes with a huge risk. Instead, people use euphemisms and nicknames that vaguely address the role Pakistan’s shadowy military agencies play in these disappearances. Many, with some dark humor, refer to the abductors as farishtey, or angels. Giving Balochistan’s issues a forum has had serious consequences. In late 2013 and early 2014, along with a small group of family members—mostly women—of missing persons, renowned Baloch activist 70-year-old Mama Qadeer, marched some 2,000 kilometers on foot from Quetta to Islamabad via Karachi to demand the release of missing persons. The record-breaking long march did not get the coverage it needed. With swollen feet, they reached Islamabad, but they were not heard, nor their demand of meeting with the government was fulfilled. Hamid Mir, one of the few journalists who gave the issue coverage by inviting Mama and the marchers on his talk show, later survived an attack by four gunmen in Karachi. Mir still carries two bullets from the attack in his body. In 2015, progressive human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud invited Qadeer to speak at a panel discussion at her cafe and bookstore in Karachi. Shortly after the event, as she was driving home, armed motorcyclists surrounded her car and opened fire, killing her. In 2012, the former chief justice of Pakistan outrightly accused paramilitary forces of spearheading enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Deputy Inspector-General Operations Balochistan Police, Hamid Shakeel presented CCTV footage of a private hotel, in which the Frontier Corps (FC), a paramilitary force stationed in Balochistan that is responsible for maintenance of law and order, can be seen picking up three people who went missing later. FC denied involvement in this case. In 2017, Shakeel was killed in a suicide bombing. Balochistan province, bordering Iran and Afghanistan, is not new to uprisings. The growing number of enforced disappearances can be traced to the Baloch insurgent movement that spread from the rugged mountains of the province to the coastal towns in Arabian Sea and permeated every aspect of Baloch social and political life since the earliest days of Pakistan’s existence. Soon after the inception of Pakistan in 1948, Prince Abdul Karim Khan, the brother of then ruler Khan of Kalat, took up arms against the merger of Balochistan with Pakistan. This was the start of the first round of insurgency. The movement petered out soon after but was followed by three more short-lived insurgent movements in 1958, 1962, and 1973. The insurgency is also driven by the ongoing exploitation of Balochistan’s rich natural resources. In the early 1950s, one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves was discovered in Sui, and by the mid-1950s , pipelines were laid down to supply major cities in other provinces. Since then, the central government has been accused by insurgents and local activists of taking Balochistan’s coal, gas, minerals, uranium, and utilizing them for richer provinces, particularly Punjab. The first signs of the most recent iteration of the Baloch insurgency were seen in the early 2000s, as the federal government developed a port city in the region. In May 2004, three Chinese engineers were killed in an attack in Gwadar, Balochistan’s coastal town at the mouth of Arabian Sea. Local nationalists had expressed opposition to the development of the region, saying that the benefits would bypass Balochistan and go to Punjab instead. Much of their ire was directed at the policies of the then military dictator Musharaff, who had strategically aligned Pakistan with the United States in the War on Terror, seeking to rid the Afghanistan-Pakistan region of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The United States was carrying out drone strikes in parts of Pakistan, and Pakistan’s security agencies began military operations across the country which led to numerous human rights abuses, including the arbitrary detention and arrests of suspected militants. Ghaffar Baloch was first abducted by security agencies in 2006. Four months later, on August 26, 2006, Nawab Shahbaz Akbar Khan Bugti, the former Governor and Chief Minister of Balochistan and chief of the Bugti Tribe, was killed in a military operation by Musharraf, who had once said about Bugti: “Don't push us. It is not the 1970s when you can hit and run and hide in the mountains. This time you won't even know what hit you.” These remarks were widely condemned by Baloch activists. Bugti was buried near Sui in a locked box and no one saw his body. News of his killing spread like a wildfire across the province. The towns and villages that were not part of the previous uprisings in 1948, 1958, 1962, and 1973 now actively took part in the insurgency. Residents from Pasni, the coastal region of Gwadar, and the provincial capital Quetta, blocked roads, burnt tires, and threw stones at government vehicles. Police stations, government offices, and shops were torched and damaged. Separately, students and political workers have continuously expressed their anger towards the seven decades long unjust and brutal policies of the state. A common saying in the street and classrooms was: Natural gas was discovered in Balochistan in the 1950s, Punjab consumed it in the 1960s, but to this date the people of Sui are devoid of gas. Only the provincial capital had gas. Mahrang has been speaking out against this unequal distribution of resources. She told me: “The people in the corridors of power never paid heed to the grievances of the Baloch and their national question. They always preferred the mineral resources of our land over our people.” The residents of Balochistan, particularly youth and political workers, lamented the Pakistani state’s approach towards their province and the Baloch. Many took up arms against the state and called for the independence of Balochistan from Pakistan. But not all nationalists backed the call for independence and preferred to demand provincial autonomy. The common denominator was that they were all against state oppression and the brutal rule of Musharraf. In 2008, the Baloch insurgency witnessed an upsurge, and several security personnel were targeted. Settlers in Balochistan, commonly referred to and perceived as Punjabis, were asked to leave the province, as the country’s most powerful institution, the army, was largely dominated by Punjabis. They were perceived to be colluders and enemies during the military operations to quash the insurgency in Balochistan. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, in 2006, the entire province was in a war-like state. Sui was bombed. The Baloch insurgents not only targeted the state but also waged war against political workers, who campaigned for taking part in parliamentary politics to demand the rights of the Baloch nation, and common Baloch whom they suspected of working for the security agencies. In district Nazim Kech, Moula Baksh Dashti, who advocated using parliamentary politics to resolve the human rights crisis in the province, lost his life reportedly at the hands of Baloch insurgents. The insurgents were accused of picking up and killing people and became increasingly involved in abductions for ransom. As the insurgency gained momentum, the state responded with a counter-insurgency operation. Many people, regardless of their involvement in the insurgency, were forcibly disappeared. Anyone suspected of sympathizing with the insurgents, relatives or mere acquaintances who may have studied or met someone who later became an insurgent all shared the same fate: enforced disappearance. Some were abducted to pressurize insurgents and send a message that waging a war on the state meant that their loved ones were not safe. While no proper research has thus far been conducted on the proportion of violence carried out by the state in comparison with the insurgents, the state has always been believed to be more brutal against political workers and average Baloch citizens. Counter-insurgency tactics are not new to the people of this province. They have witnessed them before: in the 1970s during the democratically elected government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Under Bhutto, the army carried out numerous disappearances. The first missing person was Asadullah Mengal, the son of former chief minister of Balochistan, Sardar Attaullah Mengal, and brother of BNP chief, Akhtar Mengal, who was allegedly killed in an encounter in Karachi. Bhutto noted in his book Rumours and Realities that he did not know about Mengal’s murder and later he was told that he was buried near Thatta, Sindh. Even the armed forces had apparently forgotten where exactly they buried him. Decades later, during another PPP government, between 2008 and 2013, Balochistan was once again engulfed by war. Then president Asif Ali Zardari (son-in-law of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and widow of Benazir Bhutto) remained silent on the military operations and enforced disappearances and announced a development package for the province to ease tensions. But these efforts were too little, too late. The present-day insurgency has evolved from its early days, with more involvement from young middle-class, educated Baloch who don't hail from the tribal belt. Two months after the killing of Nawab Bugti in 2006, Ghaffar Baloch was presented in front of the court. The case continued for three years until he was released in 2009 due to lack of evidence against him. “The happiest day of my life was when my father was released. I remember all the time I spent with him vividly.” Mahrang says. “After his release he bought bangles for me which I wore on Eid. I was so happy that he was around. But the happiness was short-lived.” On July 1, 2011, the body of Ghaffar Baloch—carrying visible signs of torture—was found on a roadside in Lasbela district, some 300 kilometers away from Karachi. Mahrang Baloch and Sabiha Baloch (sitting on the right side of Mahrang), sit on a carpet along with other girls, staging a protest in front of the Governor House, Quetta, in Balochistan, while demanding amendments in the Balochistan University of Medical and Health Services (BUMHS) Act and restoration of Bolan Medical College quota system. Students believe that the new act will hinder the progress of students from far flung areas of Balochistan to get admission at the university. Only students from Quetta (Balochistan's capital) would benefit from the admission policy without the quota system. Photograph courtesy of Mashal Baloch Dissident Voices After her father’s killing in 2011, Mahrang Baloch slowed down her campaigning for the release of missing persons. When her brother, Nasir Baloch was picked up in December 2017, Mahrang says she realized that no one was safe. It was the turning point in her life. “I was again on the roads but this time it was for my brother,” Mahrang says with a grim smile, “The deputy commissioner of Quetta told me that I had two options. Either I should sit at home silently, or spend time on roads and eventually move to Europe for my safety. I decided I will remain on the roads and protest, but I won’t flee.” “I don’t remember when I stopped becoming an ordinary Baloch woman and became a Baloch woman activist instead,” she chuckles, as she looks back and thinks about all the turns that life took, “I felt it is important to use social media if I wanted to talk about the issues concerning Balochistan. I started using Facebook and Twitter after my brother’s abduction. The first tweet I put out was about my brother’s enforced disappearance.” Mahrang’s brother was released three months and 10 days after his abduction. His release marked not the end of her activism but the beginning. She started raising her voice for other missing persons. The local Pakistani media would not give them coverage, “so social media was the only platform left for us to bring our issues forth and pressurize the government,” she said. “Initially I did not know what to write and what not to write, I worked on choosing my words carefully.” Along with organizing on the ground, she mobilized protests through social media and became a vocal voice for the Baloch missing persons on various online networks. On August 13, 2020, Hayat Baloch, a student of Karachi University, hailing from Turbat, was killed by the FC in front of his parents. This incident sparked widespread protests across Balochistan. When a picture of Hayat’s parents weeping next to his dead body began circulating online, many Baloch social media users were divided on how to interpret the incident. Some argued that it was wrong to circulate the image out of respect for the family’s privacy. Mahrang in a tweet , cited the picture that sparked the Soweto uprising in South Africa. It shows a dying student being carried in the arms of a fellow student and accompanied by his screaming sister. She said that after seeing the image, Nelson Mandela had said “Enough is enough.” When her father had gone missing, Mahrang’s uncle had advised her to speak to the media in order to plead for his return. She would desperately watch news channels to see if there was any news about her father. “At the time, Pakistani news channels gave very little coverage to the issue of missing persons,” she says, “but now, even that little coverage has vanished into thin air.” The issue of missing persons has become an eternal part of Balochistan’s politics. In the general elections of 2018, Balochistan National Party’s (BNP) chief Sardar Akthar Mengal participated in the election promising to amplify the cause of missing persons. He joined the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)-led government at the center, under Prime Minister Imran Khan, after being promised that PTI would address Balochistan’s issue of missing persons, among others. That never happened. Mengal submitted a list of 5,128 missing persons in the National Assembly. The government was unable to fulfill their promises. Mengal finally broke his alliance with the PTI in April 2020, saying that even if the government had released 500 missing persons in the last two years, more than 1,500 others had been picked up. Mahrang Baloch talks to Mushtaq Baloch, a student at Bolan Medical College and also member of Baloch Students Action Committee (BSAC) who is observing a hunger strike on Sept. 8, 2020, near the Governor House and Chief Minister secretariat in Quetta for the amendment of Balochistan University of Medical and Health Services (BUMHS) Act. Mushtaq fell unconscious but still continued the hunger strike after having an IV drip injected into the backside of his palm. Photograph courtesy of Mashal Baloch. Students and Women’s Politics In 2019, Mahrang led protesting students of the University of Balochistan who had broken their silence on years of blackmail and threats by the university administration. Newspapers reported that for several years, officials in the university administration had been using footage from CCTV cameras installed around the university campus citing ‘security’ reasons while extorting money and sexually harassing female students. As a result of protests across the province, the university’s vice chancellor stepped down. “I realized as a woman that if they would not let us get an education then what really is left?” Mahrang asks. Further, she often found that she received little allyship in her activism from around Pakistan. “The response from feminists and women’s rights activists from other parts of Pakistan during our protests was not satisfying. Since the boots [i.e. security agencies] were involved in the scandal, perhaps that is why they did not speak up. It is rare for such mainstream groups to talk about missing persons and human rights abuses. Perhaps they do not care about what happens in Balochistan, just like most Pakistanis.” Many Pakistanis say they do not understand what’s happening in Balochistan. Just a few years ago, news rarely travelled out of Balochistan. The province is rightly called a “ blackhole for media.” But today, many, if not all incidents and news reach the people through social media. Mahrang adds “I believe they are intentionally silent, and that a fake sense of patriotism has clouded their minds, so they ignore everything, even human rights abuses.” Renowned Pakistani novelist, Muhammad Hanif, puts it in a candid way: “Balochistan is not remote just geographically but in our imagination as well.” Baloch women are often leading the movements advocating the release of their loved ones. Tribalism in Balochistan is one of the reasons women have often been confined in their activism and daily life. State institutions have supported and strengthened tribalism. The government has always preferred supporting tribal leaders because it is easy to control them in parliament. Since an entire tribe remains under the control of the leader, and the leader remains under the control of the establishment, the government is able to exert control at all levels of Baloch politics. "The Sardars [tribal leaders] and the establishment have a strong nexus. The establishment brings Sardars to the parliament and so the ongoing Sardari system remains one of the biggest impediments to the development of a middle class in Balochistan. Instead, political efforts should focus on ceding power to the local people," says Mir SherBaz Khetran, a research fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. Yet in dominant Pakistani political discourse, particularly among so-called intellectuals in cities outside the province, the Baloch are perceived as an illiterate nation. Mahrang believes that such perceptions have caused Baloch women even more suffering. “Baloch women have always been a part of the movement for rights against state oppression. This challenges the dominant narrative, but most activists have rarely supported that.” When Mahrang’s father was briefly released in 2009, he told her that she should participate in student politics and talk about what was happening in Balochistan and that she had to continue her activism for the women and other people of Balochistan. “He said I won't give you any advice; I want you to analyze things yourself and make your own narrative.” Alongside her activism, Mahrang Baloch is a medical student. Over years of protests and activism, she has made sure that her studies are not adversely affected. “Everything related to studies would always excite me. School has always been my favorite place. I never took education as a necessity or something I had to do, but rather as something I loved doing.” The government of Balochistan has also been divided over the current quota system in educational institutions, arguing instead that merit should prevail. Mahrang, however, is firmly in favor of quotas. She led protests to restore the quota system, and ultimately succeeded in doing so at Bolan Medical College (BMC). “There should be merit, but after providing equal educational opportunities to all students,” Mahrang says. “You can’t expect a student from a government school to compete with a student from an elite private school.” Last year, during her protests for the restoration of the quota system and amendment of the BMC Act, Mahrang and other students were asked to meet with Education Minister Sardar Yar Mohammed Rind, who was also one of Balochistan’s most influential tribal chiefs. Instead of seeking consensus, Mahrang says, the minister shouted at her in front of five other ministers. “He said if you women were truly [representing] our honor, you wouldn’t be out here protesting,” she recalls smiling. Mahrang says at the time, she had two options: either to ignore what he had said or respond to the misogynistic act. She chose the second option because what the minister had said was not just about her but pertained to all women. She told him that what he had said was wrong. As an employee of the government, he was responsible for solving their issues. He had failed to do his job. A clearly flustered Rind (the Education Minister) began to misbehave and told her to leave because, as Rind said, “respectable women don’t protest.” “I went to the protest area and I was disturbed. I wondered whether to talk about this in front of the media. I decided I must so that no one else, be it an elected or a selected person, does something like this ever again. I did not expect the positive response I got from the people of Balochistan for speaking up against the tribal chief and minister,” she says. Mahrang made history as the first woman to confront one of Balochistan’s most influential chiefs and hold him accountable for his job. As a result of consistent efforts, protests and hunger strikes by Mahrang and her fellow students, the government finally announced amendments to Bolan Medical College Act. They also assured students that the quota system would remain intact. As an activist, Mahrang feels tired and frustrated at times but the work she does brings her joy. “The real happiness lies in activism and talking about the rights of your nation and its marginalized communities,” she says. She calls herself a nationalist. “I fight for the rights of the people of Balochistan; the land I belong to.” She quoted a line from Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of The Earth : “For a colonized people, the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.” Mahrang Baloch was first jailed in 2006 when she was a 13-year-old, protesting for the release of her father. When her uncle arrived to bail her out, she refused and said she would not leave jail until her father was released. Spending days protesting in August, having to sleep on roads and getting dragged and thrown into a police van—none of these hindrances deterred her from her activism. “I believe jail is not something new. It has more freedom, as I can read and spend time with myself in the prison,” she chuckles. “They cannot break me by imprisoning me. They would liberate me.” ▢ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Mahrang Baloch, pictured here, was a medical student who, after the abductions of her father and brother, became an activist against enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Photography courtesy of Mashal Baloch. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Reportage Balochistan Baloch Missing Persons Media Blackout Pakistan Baloch Insurgency Enforced Disappearances State Violence Military Crackdown Displacement Longform Gender Violence Histories of Revolutionary Politics Baloch Students Organization-Azad Military Operations Pervez Musharraf Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Karima Baloch Student Movements Baloch Student Long March Student Protests Student Solidarity March Journalism Baloch Students Organisation-Azad SHAH MEER BALOCH is a journalist who covers Pakistan for The Guardian . His work has been published in The Guardian, The New York Times, LA Times, Dawn, among others. He was awarded the 2020 Kurt Schork Award in International Freelance Journalism. Reportage Balochistan 18th Feb 2021 MASHAL BALOCH is a documentary photographer and filmmaker from Balochistan, Pakistan. Baloch is a trainee at DAP (Documentary Association of Pakistan) for their six month documentary training program called Doc Balochistan , supported by Berlinale Talents. Her work has been published in The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, The Diplomat and Baluch Hal . She has been awarded Pakistan’s largest-ever filmmaking grant, Stories From Southern Pakistan, by Patakha Pictures. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Gujarat’s Surat was the capital of the global diamond trade before the Russia-Ukraine war, but sanctions imposed on Russia’s diamond exports since 2022 have placed a sword to the throats of diamond workers in the collapsing industry’s headquarters. Mass layoffs and obscene wage cuts have led to dozens of labourers dying by suicide, leaving hundreds of their family members to cope without support from the Indian government. THE VERTICAL Expunging India's Diamond City Hanan Zaffar · Danish Pandit Gujarat’s Surat was the capital of the global diamond trade before the Russia-Ukraine war, but sanctions imposed on Russia’s diamond exports since 2022 have placed a sword to the throats of diamond workers in the collapsing industry’s headquarters. Mass layoffs and obscene wage cuts have led to dozens of labourers dying by suicide, leaving hundreds of their family members to cope without support from the Indian government. Roshan, 20, remembers his father, Ram Nagina Singh , as a hardworking man who spent decades polishing diamonds that would glitter in luxury stores across the world. But this October, Singh’s life came to a devastating halt. Based in the western Indian city of Surat, he once earned a comfortable salary of ₹60,000-₹70,000 ($800-$900) a month but was soon barely scraping by on ₹10,000-₹12,000 ($120-$150) as the city’s diamond industry buckled under immense economic pressures. The stress proved too much. Singh took his own life, hanging himself from the ceiling fan in his bedroom. Roshan is still grappling with his father’s sudden death. “My father didn’t say much, but we knew he was under immense stress,” Roshan recalled. “There was no work in the company, and he wasn’t receiving his wages or bonuses. He used to come home and talk about it, but we didn’t realise the depth of his despair until it was too late.” Singh’s story is tragically common. He is one of at least 65 diamond workers in Surat who have died by suicide in the past 16 months as financial hardships have deepened following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. For decades, Surat has been the world’s epicenter for diamond polishing, employing over 600,000 workers . However, since the onset of the war, sanctions targeting Russia —one of the largest exporters of rough diamonds— have sent shockwaves through the city’s once-thriving diamond industry. Both the supply of raw materials and the demand for polished Russian diamonds have drastically decreased. The European Union and G7 nations have implemented strict bans on Russian diamonds, including those routed through intermediary countries. This has severely disrupted the flow of raw diamonds to India’s factories, leaving thousands of workers in Surat unemployed and struggling to survive. The crisis has had a ripple effect, leading to widespread layoffs , wage cuts, and—tragically—suicides. A Suicide Epidemic Like Roshan, Jayantibhai’s world fell apart three months ago when her 28-year-old son, Mikunj, took his own life after losing his job. Once a diamond polisher, Mikunj had been out of work for over three months. Unable to secure another job as Surat’s diamond industry crumbled, he grew increasingly depressed. His sudden death left a gaping void in the family. “He never said anything to us,” Jayantibhai said. “What can we do now? He was our only son.” Without Mikunj, the family is struggling. At 60, Jayantibhai is too frail to work. She has already survived two heart attacks and relied on her son’s income to support the household. Her daughter-in-law, Rupali, has also stopped working. She used to tutor children from home, earning just enough to contribute. After Mikunj’s death, she withdrew entirely. “We needed him,” Jayantibhai said, her eyes welling up. “Now we are left to fend for ourselves, praying for help.” Her plight mirrors that of dozens of other families in Surat, staring at an uncertain future. Beyond the economic toll, the ongoing crisis in the diamond industry has triggered a significant mental health crisis among workers. The stress of unemployment and an uncertain future has pushed many to their breaking point. “Yes there are thoughts in my mind about suicide,” says Gohil Vijaybhai, another struggling diamond worker. For Vijaybhai, the past two years have been a relentless search for work. Once a steady earner in Surat’s diamond industry, he now moves from one labour site to another, hoping to make ₹500-700 ($6-8) per day. His company shut down when the economic slowdown, fuelled by the Russia-Ukraine war, cut off the supply of rough diamonds. “I’ve been doing this for 11 years, but now there’s nothing,” he shared. His income, once around ₹30,000 ($360) a month, has evaporated, leaving him in debt and unable to pay for necessities like rent and his children’s school fees. His three children, ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade, are now at risk of being forced out of school. “I told the school to wait for six or seven months for the fees,” he said, though he knows the money is unlikely to come. Without stable work, his family of seven depends on sporadic daily wages, and his debt continues to mount. “What can a single labourer do?” he asked. “We take out loans just to survive.” As his financial troubles deepen, Vijaybhai admits to feeling overwhelmed by despair. “When someone is under this much tension, what would he do? Suicide, right?” he asked. He is not alone; many diamond workers in Surat find themselves caught between a failing industry and rising debts. Deepak Rajendrabhai Purani, a diamond worker for over 10 years, describes the stark reality workers like him face. “I used to earn ₹25,000-₹27,000 ($300-$350) a month, but now I’m lucky if I make ₹15,000 ($180),” he said. “Some months, there is no work at all, and I have been sitting at home for weeks without any income.” Deepak, who lives in Surat with his parents, wife, and young son, is contemplating leaving the diamond industry but does not know where to turn after working there for so long. “I don’t know anything else. But how can I continue like this? We have bills to pay, mouths to feed, and no government support.” Deepak’s father, who once sold samosas from a cycle, is now bedridden with asthma. His brother, also a diamond worker, is one of the few fortunate ones who still has steady work. But Deepak knows this could change at any moment. “The companies keep only as many workers as they need,” he explained. “If there is no work, they tell us not to come in the next day. It’s as simple as that.” “There are no bombs thrown at us directly,” he added, “but this [Russia-Ukraine] war has killed us.” A Global Crisis Turning the Tide on Surat With disruptions in the supply of rough diamonds from Russia, many factories in Surat have either shut down or significantly scaled back their operations . This has left thousands of diamond workers, many of whom have spent decades in the industry, struggling to make ends meet. India’s diamond sector plays a vital role in the global diamond supply chain, with approximately 80% of the world's rough diamonds being cut and polished in the country. Surat, in particular, is the epicenter of this labour-intensive industry. However, the glitter of diamonds hides the harsh realities many of these workers face—low wages, erratic work conditions, and almost no social safety net. While Surat’s diamond workers have borne the brunt of this crisis, the impacts of the sanctions and war have rippled across the global diamond trade. India's diamond exports have experienced a steep decline, plummeting by 28% in the fiscal year 2024, and are projected to fall further, reaching their lowest levels in a decade. Luxury markets in the U.S. and Europe, traditionally strong buyers of diamonds, have also contracted as consumer spending patterns shift in response to economic uncertainties. Rising inflation has curbed discretionary spending , with more buyers focusing on essentials rather than luxury purchases. This trend has further depressed demand for polished diamonds, exacerbating the crisis for workers in Surat who depend on robust global sales. The price of rough diamonds has also skyrocketed due to supply shortages, making it harder for manufacturers to remain profitable. Factories in Surat and other diamond hubs have had to make tough decisions—either lay off workers or shut down altogether. A Helpless Union and Government Neglect As the number of suicides among diamond workers continues to rise, the local Diamond Workers Union has launched a helpline to provide emotional and financial support. Since its inception in July, the helpline number has received around 1800 distress calls. "We have saved lives," said Zilriya Rameshbhai, the president of the union, recounting how workers on the brink of suicide reached out for help. The union also provides temporary relief to struggling workers by paying school fees, supplying food, and helping them manage debt. Unfortunately, such measures are not enough to lift Vijaybhai and others like him out of financial distress. Despite its best efforts, the union is overwhelmed by demand and constrained by limited resources. “[The] union is doing what they can,” Vijaybhai said, “but we need the government to listen.” Many workers feel abandoned by the government, which has yet to meaningfully address the crisis. The Indian government, typically focused on bolstering exports to strengthen the economy, has done little to provide immediate relief to the struggling diamond sector, according to workers. Jayantibhai, who lives in Amroli, a suburb of Surat, is frustrated by the lack of response from the authorities. “They are dead silent. [PM] Modi considers Gujarat his home, but how can he not listen to our plight?” she asked bitterly. “We have tried contacting the party’s office, but nobody listens. We are just forgotten.” Other workers share this frustration. “The government isn’t talking about the diamond industry,” said Deepak. “If they were, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Workers are roaming around without jobs, and nobody is doing anything.” Government inaction has intensified feelings of helplessness among diamond workers. Ramesh Bhai, the president of the local union, stated that they have repeatedly requested an economic relief package to support both the industry and its employees, but their appeals have gone unanswered. “There is no support from the government,” he said. “All the workers have been left on their own. Nobody cares how much we have contributed to the growth of the state and country’s economy.” He also mentioned the union's proposal to establish a special board including workers, factory owners, and government representatives to address the industry's challenges, but there has been no progress on that front either. With no relief in sight, the future of Surat’s diamond industry remains uncertain. While some workers hope for improvement, others are less optimistic. “There is no guarantee that the diamond industry will see growth again,” said Deepak. “We are all just waiting and watching, but we don’t know what will happen. The future seems bleak.” For workers like Roshan, who lost his father to the industry’s collapse, the pain is still raw. Yet, he remains determined to stay in Surat, the city he has called home for over 20 years. “Everything is here,” he said. “After what happened to my father, I just hope that things get better.”∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Trupti Patel Indian Landscape (2019) Terracruda, 29 Earth Pigments of 29 Political States of India, New Delhi Ash, Acrylic medium and Gold Leaf on Fabriano paper. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Reportage Surat Gujarat India Diamond Trade Russia-Ukraine Conflict War Trade Route Working Class Labour Rights Banned Raw Materials Mental Health Suicide Layoffs G7 European Union Sanctions Unemployment Epidemic Global Crisis Supply Chain Luxury Market Consumer Spending Diamond Workers Union Trade Unions Government Neglect Inaction Economic Security Narendra Modi Industrialization Health Crisis HANAN ZAFFAR is an award-winning media practitioner and documentary filmmaker based out of South Asia. He teaches storytelling at OP Jindal Global University. DANISH PANDIT is a multimedia journalist based in New Delhi. He covers politics, human rights and environment. Reportage Surat 2nd Apr 2025 TRUPTI PATEL was born in Nairobi and studied sculpture in India at MSU Vadodara and in the UK as a Charles Wallace Scholar to the Royal College of Art. Patel works predominantly in clay, often using Indian terracotta, which is rich red when fired. Her sensuous and sensitive ceramic sculptures regularly depict the female form and question the role of women in contemporary society. Most recently, she participated in the India Art Fair 2025, New Delhi, with Project 88 Gallery, Mumbai, and was the artist-in-residence at the Clayarch Gimhae Museum in South Korea. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

In the 2010s, local blessing pills made in the Arunachal Pradesh town of Tawang were replaced by those made on the Indian mainland. The shift in production is also a story of nationalist transformations in this borderland. THE VERTICAL Tawang's Blessing Pills Bikash K. Bhattacharya In the 2010s, local blessing pills made in the Arunachal Pradesh town of Tawang were replaced by those made on the Indian mainland. The shift in production is also a story of nationalist transformations in this borderland. Spend a week traversing circuitous trails, deep gorges, and high mountain passes in Arunachal Pradesh of the recent past, and you might have come across something otherworldly. Situated atop a hill in a small town called Tawang, a region that has long been disputed between India and China, is a majestic 400-year-old monastery with intricate and colorful artwork. It is the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in India. Every three years, monks and volunteers here would chant the mani dungyur mantra one hundred million times. They would do so to bless mani rilbu , red globule-size pills made from roasted barley flour, herbs, and a fermenting agent called phab gyun . “We would sun-dry these pills for weeks and chant the mani dungyur mantra round the clock seeking blessings from the deity Avalokiteshvara,” recalls Rinchin Norbu, an octogenarian who volunteered in the Tawang monastery in the 1960s. These pills, which were highly valued by Tibetan Buddhists and took weeks to make, were eventually distributed to the public because they were believed to ensure the well-being of the people. The practice continued until the 2010s when these local blessing pills were replaced by ones made on the Indian mainland. Intriguingly, this shift in production also tells the story of nationalist transformations of this borderland. In 1959, Tawang became a major asylum route for Tibetans fleeing Chinese occupation . The 14th Dalai Lama entered India via Tawang and a large number of Tibetan refugees who followed him settled here. Thus, the population of the region grew to include Indigenous Himalayan tribes who follow Tibetan Buddhism as well as ethnic Tibetan refugees. Upon settling in India, Tibetan refugees started rebuilding famous Tibetan monasteries across the country, from Himachal Pradesh in the north to Karnataka in the south west. These monasteries produced various blessing pills of their own, which started to circulate among the Himalayan Buddhists. They have become so popular since the late 1990s that they have replaced the mani rilbu made by the Tawang Monastery. Eventually, by 2010, the Tawang Monastery decided to stop making mani rilbu due to lack of demand. Thus, Tawang blessing pills, among the most prominent locally-produced Tibetan “power objects ’ in the region, disappeared. Today, Rinchin Norbu mourns the disappearance of the Tawang mani rilbu tradition. But his 37-year old son Leki Wangchu, who is an ardent supporter of India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party, says he has always preferred blessing pills produced by Tibetan monasteries in mainland India over Tawang’s mani rilbu. “The pills from Dharamsala [Himachal Pradesh] are produced by doctors and monks trained in Sowa Rigpa [Tibetan medicine]. Most people these days choose these national jinden [pills] made by Sowa Rigpa experts rather than local mani rilbu. The mani rilbu produced in Tawang Monastery was only a local tradition brought over from Tibet by some monk in the nineteenth century,” Leki tells me emphasizing the ‘Indianness’ of the mani rilbu from Dharamsala in contrast to the obscure Tibetan origin of Tawang mani rilbu. Sowa Rigpa was recognized by the Indian government as an “Indian system of medicine” back in 2010. The popularity of the practice is rising across India following its government recognition. Anthropologist Steven Kloos has captured in rich ethnographic details the tussle between the Himalayan Tibetan Buddhists and the exiled Tibetan community in India over the ownership of Sowa Rigpa. He wrote in the journal Medical Anthropology Today , “While Tibetan medicine had been known and practiced for centuries in the Tibetan-influenced Indian Himalayan regions, it was only with the arrival of Tibetan refugees in India in 1959 and their subsequent institutionalization of Tibetan medicine there that this health tradition developed into a ‘medical system’ with sufficient standards, popularity, and political clout to be recognized by the Indian state.” While Leki Wangchu attributes the decline of Tawang mani rilbu to the rising popularity of standardized Sowa Rigpa medicine, the disappearance of various local, spatialized care practices is also triggered by the rise of right-wing nationalism in the region. In the last two decades, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS), the ruling party in India and its affiliated cultural organization that champion Hindu majoritarian religious and cultural nationalism, have made a strong ideological inroads in Arunachal Pradesh. As their vision of ‘greater India’ gains acceptance in this borderland, there is an increasing tendency among the locals to assert “Indian” identity through various means, including through purchase of commodities made in India or consumption of cultural products associated with the Indian mainland. Sowa Rigpa's increasing popularity rests to a considerable extent on its supposed “Indianness” following its recognition by the Indian government. For old-timers like Rinchin Norbu, however, the locally made mani rilbu was much more than just a medicine. It was a care practice deeply rooted in the relations humans and local deities share in this landscape and their local understandings of disease etiology. People here believe in a range of deities and spirits connected to mountains, rivers, and other geographical features of the landscape, such as yulha (land deity), tsen, and nyen (deities of the mountain). Some of these deities are like human beings with worldly emotions such as anger and jealousy. “If you contaminate the dwellings of yulha or tsen, or offend them by visiting their places in ungodly hours, they may catch you and cause illnesses such as skin disease and nerve pain,” Rinchin Norbu tells me, “If you eat mani rilbu the spirit will leave you.” Not only did mani rilbu help the local people navigate the anxieties of unpredictable encounters with local deities and spirits, but it was a traditional way of co-production of care in a specific landscape. “The production of Tawang mani rilbu itself was a localized collaborative process between monks, nuns, and lay people, as well as Avalokiteshvara, the divinity that blessed these pills,” writer Yeshe Dorje Thongchi, an acclaimed writer and novelist from Arunachal Pradesh explained to me. In contrast, Rinchin Norbu says, the blessing pills brought over from outside are “just medicines” with no relations to the landscape. “They aren’t as effective as the Tawang mani rilbu we used to make simply because these pills [and their makers] don’t know the local deities causing illnesses in our bodies.” The rise of Hindu nationalism in India has triggered new spiritual practices intended to reify a sense of homogeneous “Indianness.” They often emerge at the expense of long-standing local traditions that relate to place, community, and tradition. The replacement of Tawang mani rilbu by blessing pills made by Sowa Rigpa practitioners from the Indian mainland is just one of many such examples.∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Courtesy of Mihir Joshi. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Reportage Arunachal Pradesh Tibet Hindutva Hindu Nationalism Tawang Monastery Indigeneity Buddhism Asylum Himalayas Himalayan Tribes BJP Steven Kloos Blessing Pills Medicine Health Chinese Occupation of Tibet Space Indigeneous Spaces Spatial Relations Respatialization Labor Northeast India Sister States BIKASH K. BHATTACHARYA is an independent journalist and researcher with bylines in YES! Magazine , LGBTQ Nation, BuzzFeed, Earth Island Journal, Mongabay, The Third Pole, and The Diplomat among others. He has reported from northeast India, Myanmar, and Timor-Leste. Reportage Arunachal Pradesh 7th Jun 2024 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Pakistan continues to terrorize activists, young and old, for protesting the enforced disappearances of their brothers, sisters, and forefathers—losses the Baloch people are never truly allowed to mourn. In a letter addressed to Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, a public intellectual who has devoted the past 54 years of his life to the Baloch liberation struggle, a young Baloch journalist seeks reprieve from a fate that seems increasingly inevitable, hoping to transform her grief into revolutionary fervor. THE VERTICAL Letter to History (I) Hazaran Rahim Dad Pakistan continues to terrorize activists, young and old, for protesting the enforced disappearances of their brothers, sisters, and forefathers—losses the Baloch people are never truly allowed to mourn. In a letter addressed to Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, a public intellectual who has devoted the past 54 years of his life to the Baloch liberation struggle, a young Baloch journalist seeks reprieve from a fate that seems increasingly inevitable, hoping to transform her grief into revolutionary fervor. Editor’s Note: Sammi Deen Baloch was released by Pakistani authorities on April 1, a few days after this letter was first written. Dear Ustad Talpur, Baba Jan, you have watched generations disappear into dust. You know that time is a deceiver, that history is nothing but a long repetition of grief. Baba Jan, you have poured hope into a land that devours it. And still, you stand unshaken. I am writing to you without clarity about the purpose of my words. Perhaps, in times like these—when the sky is thick with grief, when silence is louder than gunfire, when even breathing feels like an act of defiance—writing is the only rebellion left. Or maybe it’s futile, a whisper against a storm, a candle in the abyss. How do I put into words a war, as they like to call it, which is just an unbroken cycle of operations to erase our very existence? I’ve been thinking about how adulthood is merely the accumulation of grief we carry and bury. And childhood, a baptism in violence. So, I write––tracing the outlines of our pain with ink, carving our memory into words. When bullets meet our bodies, do they make the same sound as the shackles that screeched against our land when they dragged Mahrang and Sammi? The leaders who carried the weight of history on their shoulders, who held up the sky when it threatened to collapse, who turned the grief of generations into fire. Mahrang and Sammi, who taught the Baloch they must stop being forever mourners, forever betrayed. On March 21, 13-year-old Naimat was shot . Then a disabled man, Bebarg, was dragged from his home and disappeared. Tell me, Baba Jan, how do we live through this time, where a child’s heart is not enough to satiate the state's insatiable hunger for spilling Baloch blood? What kind of state fears a crippled man’s voice? And what is more tragic than little Kambar? A child who once held a poster of his missing father, Chairman Zahid, and now, eleven years later, in the same cursed month of March, clutches another picture. This time it is his uncle Shah Jan who has been stolen by the same hands—a state that ensures no Baloch child feels fatherly love, that makes Baloch men disposable. Tell me, Baba Jan, does history ever grow weary of itself? Or will this violence continue to carve itself into our bones? Baba Jan, Balochistan stands at a precipice again. In the past two decades, they have buried entire generations, making mourning a permanent state of our existence. And today, the storm rages once more. The crackdown on the Baloch Yakjehti Committee. The arrests. The stifling of resistance. Dr. Mahrang Baloch taken under fabricated charges. The roads are flooding with protesters, repeating the same chant once more: Tum Marogy, Hum Niklengy . Our streets heard the same words when Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was martyred. When the state unleashed its bloodied military crackdown in 2009. When Karima’s voice—one of the fiercest of our time—was silenced under the most sinister of circumstances. We chanted our pain into resistance. And today, we find ourselves trapped in the same cycle, bracing for what the state has yet to unleash. This is why I write to you, Baba Jan—not just as a thinker, but as a witness to history itself. Who else but you can grasp the chaos that takes root in the minds of the Baloch when faced with such devastation? When conscious, educated youth find themselves at a crossroads, they can only turn to history for answers. But in our case, history does not reside in books—it resides with you. You who saw the flames of 2006 and 2009. You who watched as mass graves were unearthed in 2014. You who lived through the fear and silence that followed Karima’s assassination in 2020. And now, new voices have risen—heirs to those who were brutally taken from us—only to face the same violence, the same retribution. Mahrang and Sammi, whose voices once echoed through the streets, are now being held in cells. A process of erasure perfected over decades. The Baloch lose another voice. And the bloodshed continues. Mothers become wombless. Wives become widows. Fathers become ghosts. Sons search for fathers. Fathers search for sons. And now, mothers search for daughters. Tell me, Baba Jan, what is the state preparing to do next? Will it follow the same script, crushing these voices as it did with the Baloch political leadership before? What consequences will this new wave of repression bring, especially at a time when the armed struggle has only grown stronger? Is it possible that the other oppressed nations of this land will stand with us in defiance of a shared oppressor? Can we still hope that the so-called civilized world will intervene before more of our people are swallowed by this unrelenting state brutality? Or will the detention of women be normalized too? I am worried that the state is now seeking to terrify young Baloch girls who stand firm despite the leadership’s arrest. It seems as if the state is entering a new phase of oppression, sending a message to Baloch women who dare to defy: Beware. Stand down. Who will stand with us? I am writing to you for hope. I am writing to you for answers. Tell me, Baba Jan, are we destined to be forever caught in this storm, forever erased, forever replaced? Signed, A young Baloch writer and journalist∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Iman Iftikhar Mahrang (2025) Digital Illustration SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Letter Balochistan Pakistan Activism Enforced Disappearances State Violence Protests Liberation Journalism Revolution Grief Sammi Deen Baloch Resistance History Violence Writing After Loss Dissidence Disappearance Baloch Yakjehti Committee Dr Mahrang Baloch Arrests Tum Marogy Hum Niklengy Militarism Leadership Mass Graves Assassination New Voices Imprisonment Armed Struggle Repression Oppression Defiance Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur HAZARAN RAHIM DAD is an MPhil scholar in English Literature and a feature-story writer. Her work primarily explores the experiences of Baloch people in war, violence, and socio-political struggles in Pakistan. Letter Balochistan 3rd Apr 2025 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. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

In the Karoonjhar mountains—a region of ancient hills and rock formations amidst salt marshes and other ecosystems—local activists are fighting to protect the region from mining companies. For years, private corporations in Sindh have mined the mountains for granite, marble, and minerals. Despite court bans, illicit—and, as of a week ago, licit—mining continues. FEATURES Save Karoonjhar Zuhaib Ahmed Pirzada In the Karoonjhar mountains—a region of ancient hills and rock formations amidst salt marshes and other ecosystems—local activists are fighting to protect the region from mining companies. For years, private corporations in Sindh have mined the mountains for granite, marble, and minerals. Despite court bans, illicit—and, as of a week ago, licit—mining continues. The lore of the Karoonjhar mountains contains many tales. During Partition, for instance, a farmer, Kasu Bha Sodho, chose to stay in Nangarparkar while his family moved to India. Then, his family dispatched the infamous dacoit Balvand to bring Kasu Bha to them. Confronting Balvand, Kasu Bha declared, “If you want to take me to India, then take Karoonjhar along.” The Karoonjhar mountains rest on the northern edge of the Rann of Kutch, in Sindh's eastern Tharparkar district, and southwest of Nangarparkar. The rock formations in the area are at least 3.5 billion years old. The hills were present when prokaryotes appeared, the atmosphere oxygenated, and multicellular life evolved. They were there when the Cambrian explosion occurred, dinosaurs roamed, and Homo sapiens emerged. But for decades, this range—which spans 19 kilometers, with granite rocks that extend approximately 305 meters below the surface—has been a battleground between the forces of extractionism and the region's indigenous communities. It also continues to be the source of political dust-ups involving provincial governments, national ruling parties, dissenting MNAs and MPAs, rural petitioners , and the residents of Nangarparkar—even after the Sindh High Court ruled to ban extraction. At the national level, it is something of a cudgel between the PPP and PML-N. In February, Bilawal Bhutto, in a public meeting in Chachro, accused the PML-N of scheming to establish a puppet government in Karachi to exploit the mountains. “They think if their government is formed, they will exploit granite and mineral resources of Karoonjhar,” he told the crowd. But at the local level, all this seems irrelevant. Indigenous activists have long fought for the designation of the mountains as world heritage sites, and for compliance with court rulings against extraction. Precious little has prevented the Sindh Cabinet from allowing or even encouraging extraction in the past—aside from local activists and the public. A week ago, the Sindh Cabinet approved mining in part of the region. Today, a local activist appealed to fight back. When I gazed upon these peaks in early February, my mind was far from the conflicts of cabinet halls. In truth, I couldn't help but reflect on the irony of the mountains' extraction by those whose existence is a mere blip in time. The relationship people have with the mountains is evident in the words of the political activist Akash Hamirani, who said: “Oh beloved mountains! You are the land of our dreams, you are a deity, you are strength, no one can cut you.” Encircled by the salt marshes and dunes of the Rann of Kutch, the Karoonjhar Mountains are a natural refuge and sanctuary for thousands of humans, millions of birds, insects, plants, trees, animals, herbs, and mushrooms–all nourished by the waters flowing from the mountains’ sacred heights. Karoonjhar is a psychedelic world full of colors, music—and silence. Many religious and cultural sites are nestled in the mountains' folds. The mountains are also many peoples’ sole economic source, encompassing approximately 108 ancient temples dedicated to Hindu and Jain beliefs . Sardharo, a religious site of Lord Shiva. Since the 1980s, Karoonjhar has been exploited for its decorative stones. “The eyes of a capitalist see expensive and unique marble and minerals in stones, but the eyes of an indigenous person see their god in them…,” says Allah Rakhio Khoso, an indigenous elder and the leader of Karoonjhar Sujag Forum who has been fighting against their extraction for three decades. Allah Rakhio Khoso Laying on a Sindhi Cot in Nagarparkar. Beginning in 1980, powerful companies like Millrock, Pak Rock, Kohinoor Marbles Industries, Haji Abdul Qudoos Rajer, and the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) were granted contracts and leases by the Sindh Government for mining the granite rock of the mountains with dynamite. For decades, Allah Rakhio has organized protests and made many speeches whilst facing numerous challenges and death threats. “Karoonjhar is our life,” Rakhio says. “How can we let them snatch it?” In 2011, the Supreme Court halted the mining of granite using dynamite blasting by Kohinoor Marbles on the heels of public protests. Mining continued, nonetheless, accelerating in 2018, led by the FWO. This prompted an advocate from Mithi, Tharparkar, to file a petition in the Sindh High Court , Hyderabad, in the public interest for the protection of the range and designation as a heritage site. The court ruled against the mining and extraction of the mountain range. Still, mining has persisted illegally. Karoonjhar’s natural springs and stones are also a natural defense against the salinity of the salt marshes of Rann of Kutch. “If Karoonjhar is plundered, this entire region will wither into the salt desert of Rann of Kutch,” warns Akash Hamirani, a climate activist involved in the protests against mining. Groundwater wells supply potable water for the people in the villages and towns near the range. Extraction threatens to dry up these wells. One day, Imam Ali Jhanjhi penned a poem that swiftly spread across social media. Jhanjhi is a former government official, but his poems about the Karoonjhar mountains are the prime source of his popularity. In his poem, بُک وطن کي ڀيلي ويندي, (Hunger Will Claim Our Lives), Jhanjhi reveals how the extraction of Karoonjhar will affect us: They shattered Karoonjhar's bones, They silenced all my moans. When the great disaster arrives, Hunger will claim our lives. After Karoonjhar's demise, Desolation will arise. No more rivers from Naryasar will flow, Villages will vanish, row by row. Fetching water from a dry pitcher, Eyes will thirst, a painful ache, No drops left in the dams to take, Wells will turn to salty lakes. Looking up from the foothills On May 29th, I found myself once more amidst the Karoonjhar mountains, visiting the Rama Pir Mander in Kasbu, Nangharparkar. It was there that I heard Khalil Kumbhar's poem, resonant with the voice of a faqeer. With the words of the poem, he sang: Only the trader will sell, be it sister or mother, Don't cut and sell the mountain, for it is my brother. Can someone tell these sellers, the motherland is not for sale, I've tied a Rakhi to the mountain, for it is my brother. Khalil wrote this poem while imagining the Kolhi women: shepherdesses who peel onions. To them, Karoonjhar is father, brother, honour, and a beloved. “We crossed so many deserts to convey one message,” Khalil Kumbhar said, “but this one song made things easier for us. Not only did our message reach every home, but this song also connected every individual to us, and the people embraced their mountains.” He continued, “Karoonjhar is a Watan (Homeland) for the trees, birds, insects, humans, animals, and all living beings. For a businessman, Karoonjhar is wealth. For us, it is Watan.” Even from the outside, such a perspective makes sense. After all, Karoonjhar contains many delicate ecosystems, supplies water for crops, drinking, and even fills the Rampur Dam (below). Extractionist logic would extend the aridity of the nearby deserts. In 2021, Allah Rakhio, along with two advocates, Teerath Jhanjhi and Faqeer Munwar Sagar, filed another petition in the Hyderabad High Court, appealing for compliance with the Sindh High Court's prior decision and the designation of a heritage site. By 2023, no decision had been made. The extraction of granite and other precious elements from the mountains continued. On July 20, 2023, newspaper advertisements invited bids for the auction of approximately 5,928 acres spread over 17 slots near Nagarparkar in the Karoonjhar Mountains. Public protests erupted. Soon, #SaveKaroonjhar was trending on social media sites across Pakistan. Advocate Shankar Meghwar, who drafted the previous petitions, filed a third petition against the auction, declaring Karoonjhar a heritage site. The decision to auction was successfully reversed due to public pressure. On August 22, Shankar Meghwar succeeded in getting all mining leases on Karoonjhar canceled and merged his petition with that of Allah Rakhio and others. With the leases canceled, the court issued orders to clear all mining sites , asking the district administration to report back within 24 hours. The sites were cleared. “On the evening of August 30, I was targeted by these mafias you know well. They threatened me to withdraw the petition; they started with calls from unknown numbers, followed by personal meetings with life-threatening messages, and forcing me to change locations,” Shankar Meghwar told me. In the months of February and March, the mountains were set on fire more than five times. Locals believed that it was not by chance but preplanned. Fire in Karoonjhar Mountains, photographed by Dileep Parmar, a photographer in Nagarparkar who has been documenting and resisting extraction. Imam Janjhi—in the same poem—addresses those who sell Karoonjhar: Those who sold the soil for gain, Exchanged their mother for wealth and fame, Sold the pots of worshippers' pray, On peacocks' cry, they gave away, With no religion or faith to claim, What shame can touch their name? To auction off generations old and young, A business crowd has come along. The entire land on scales will lie, Hunger will claim our lives. Due to their depth, granite deposits spread far beyond the visible mountain range. Do definitions of forests justify political decisions to allow mining when they simultaneously validate the range of Karoonjhar? From the depths of the waters to the heights of the hills, people chant, “Karoonjhar is not for sale.” These hills are their past, their present, and their future. If this masterpiece of nature, forever carved in their hearts and souls, is looted, they will continue to fight, resist, and protect. But the rest is a long night of terror and displacement. On October 19, a 15-page judgment written by Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui declared that the Karoonjhar Mountains cannot be excavated for any purpose other than the discovery of historical monuments, and even then, only in accordance with international guidelines. “The Mines and Minerals Department has no jurisdiction over it since it is a protected heritage site and not available for mining or excavation,” the court stated. But just a week ago, the Sindh Cabinet approved the Karsar area—25 kilometers from Nangarparkar—for granite mining, pending approval from the Forest & Wildlife Department. The Cabinet committee argues that Karsar does not overlap with forest territory. Simultaneously, the Cabinet designated the Karoonjhar mountains as cultural and heritage sites, forests, and a wildlife sanctuary/Ramsar Site. The contradictory logic seems designed to enable future extraction while attempting to appease the public. Shankar Meghwar argues, “Karoonjhar mountains have their own range, and wherever such stones are found within that jurisdiction, including areas like Karsar, they should be considered part of it and should not be separated based on distance.” Just today, he challenged the government’s decision in the court of Mirpurkhas, calling for the Cabinet's decision to be ruled to be in contempt of court based on previous decisions. On the other hand, the case of the Sindh provincial government's appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn a prior decision protecting the mountain range remains. Meghwar, Allah Rakhio, and others continue to face death threats.∎ Poetry translated from Sindhi by Lutif Ali Halo. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 A site of extraction at the mountain range. All images courtesy of the author unless otherwise specified. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Photo-Essay Sindh Climate Karoonjhar Mountains Nangarparkar Reportage Pakistan Environment Environmental Disaster Mining Granite Sindh Provincial Government PPP PML-N Pakistan Party Politics Rann of Kutch Salt Marshes Hills Mountains Mountain Range Tharparkar Allah Rakhio Akash Hamirani Hindu Communities Jain Communities Multi-Faith Sites Indigeneity Indigenous Activism Groundwater Delicate Ecosystems Sindh High Court Supreme Court Heritage Site Protected Site Extractionism Extraction Ancient Chachro Sardharo India-Pakistan Border Borders Translation Sindhi ZUHAIB AHMED PIRZADA is a freelance investigative journalist who focuses on climate justice, politics, indigenous knowledge systems, colonialism, and capitalism. His work has appeared in Vice and Fifty Two , among others. Photo-Essay Sindh 19th Jul 2024 LUTIF ALI HALO is a lecturer in English at Federal College Islamabad, an inquisitive blogger, an independent researcher-writer, and a translator. His work is interdisciplinary in nature and revolves around politics, art, philosophy, culture, language, history, the impacts of social media on society, and discourse studies. He is based in Islamabad. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Art historian Partha Mitter challenges the cultural purity predicated on nationalist myths: natural corollaries of the denial of both the existence of the avant-garde in colonial India. and the very real flow of politics and aesthetics that allowed for the emergence of global modernism. Indian avant-garde art was cosmopolitan, concentrated in Calcutta, Lahore, and Bombay, but it remains a challenge to art historiography nonetheless. COMMUNITY The Pre-Partition Indian Avant-Garde Partha Mitter Art historian Partha Mitter challenges the cultural purity predicated on nationalist myths: natural corollaries of the denial of both the existence of the avant-garde in colonial India. and the very real flow of politics and aesthetics that allowed for the emergence of global modernism. Indian avant-garde art was cosmopolitan, concentrated in Calcutta, Lahore, and Bombay, but it remains a challenge to art historiography nonetheless. South Asian artists often deny the past of our own avant-garde. This is predicated on the nationalist myth of cultural purity fabricated in the 19th century. But if you deny history, you can't do anything. RECOMMENDED: The Triumph of Modernism: India's Avant-Garde 1922-1947 by Partha Mitter (University of Chicago Press, 2007) ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Art History Avant-Garde Origins 1922 Bauhaus Exhibition Rabindranath Tagore Colonialism Modernism Ernst Gombrich Eric Hobsbawm Primitivism Edward Said Ramkinkar Baij Bombay Progressive Artists Satyajit Ray Intellectual History Global History Avant-Garde Beginnings in India Avant-Garde Traditions Amrita Sher-Gil Academia Art Activism Avant-Garde Form Art Practice Bauhaus Calc Gender Jamini Roy Bidirectional Exchange The Nature of Global History Anti-Colonialism Partition Formalism Geometry Kunst Nationalism Internationalism Vanguardism Gaganendranath Tagore Santiniketan School Abstract Orientalism Art Nouveau Kandinsky Historicism Cubism Malevich Surrealism The Valorization of the Rural Mukhopadhyaya Nandalal Bose Lahore Bombay K. G. Subramanyan Baroda School Hemendranath Mazumdar Plurality of Avant-Gardes Exchange Picasso Manqué Syndrome Cosmopolitanism Hegelian Dialectic Kalighat Samuel Eyzee-Rahamin PARTHA MITTER is an Emeritus Professor at Sussex University, a Member at Wolfson College, Oxford, and an Honorary Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He’s held fellowships from Churchill College and Clare Hall, Cambridge, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Getty Research Institute, and others. He was a Radhakrishnan Memorial Lecturer at All Souls College, Oxford. His books include Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art, The Triumph of Modernism: India’s Artists and the Avant-Garde 1922-1947, and others. He works with the Bauhaus Foundation in Berlin and Dessau. Interview Art History 25th Aug 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

“Food organization at Columbia’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment began as the effort of just seven students organizing the chaotic assortment on the tarp, but it quickly evolved into a network attracting several student groups, professors, community members, and even other encampments, including the NYU and City College encampments.” THE VERTICAL Food Organizing at Columbia's Gaza Encampment Surina Venkat “Food organization at Columbia’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment began as the effort of just seven students organizing the chaotic assortment on the tarp, but it quickly evolved into a network attracting several student groups, professors, community members, and even other encampments, including the NYU and City College encampments.” Several hours after the New York Police Department (NYPD) had arrested their friends, Myra and six other people found themselves staring at a disorganized tarp laid on Columbia University’s Butler Lawn. The tarp held items donated by community members and student supporters, ranging from granola bars to water bottles to oranges. At the second Gaza Solidarity Encampment , formed in response to the arrests, it was rapidly becoming difficult to locate anything in the large, growing collection of food resources. “We all wanted some organization, and we wanted to feel like we were actively doing something, so we started organizing the tarp,” Myra said. “It felt really good because you could see the distinct difference [between] unorganized and organized.” Myra is an organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest , a coalition of over 100 Columbia student groups advocating for the university to divest from companies supporting Israel’s assault on Gaza, and to cut ties with Israel by suspending academic programs with Israeli universities, such as the dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University. Citing disciplinary measures taken by the University against pro-Palestinian student protesters as a safety concern, Myra has requested to remain anonymous. In April, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported on David Greenwald’s admission at a recent congressional hearing that ten students were suspended after an unauthorized “Resistance 101” event on campus. Greenwald is a co-chair of the Board of Trustees at Columbia. The tarp marked the start of Myra’s work as a food organizer for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment—a position that saw her working with several other people to organize food for over 200 students at the height of the encampment. This food organizing took place over a period of several days after the encampment’s first week. Despite the widespread international coverage on student encampments , the mechanics of sustaining them have seldom been discussed. Some of this invisibility stems from fear of administrative retaliation. Fatima, another food organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, noted that even the fact that she and Myra were requesting anonymity to keep themselves safe felt disproportionate to the nature of their work. Fatima has requested to be identified solely by her first name due to concerns about how the Columbia administration would retaliate. “We are literally just feeding people but we have to take such precautions,” Fatima expressed. Though food organization at Columbia’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment began as the effort of just seven students organizing the chaotic assortment on the tarp, it quickly evolved into a network attracting several student groups, professors, community members, and even other encampments, including the New York University and City College encampments. This was partly due to the difficulties student organizers faced in getting food and other encampment resources—such as tents, hand warmers, etc.—to campus. Columbia restricted access to only university ID-card carriers the day that the encampment started, which meant only students, faculty and other essential workers could enter campus. On the first day of the encampment, public safety officers searched bags to see if students were bringing any materials—such as tents—for the encampment with them. Even groceries were not allowed through the gates on the first day of the encampment, despite the fact that some students were living in campus dormitories with kitchens. However, according to Fatima, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment had a “beautiful problem of abundance” even during its earlier days. Students would bring leftover food from the dining halls. Despite the gates, community members, students, professors, and designated “runners” would bring food from other areas of the city and pass to other students to sneak onto campus. One student called the encampment the “least food insecure” that they had ever been during their time at Columbia—a signifier of just how much food the encampment was gathering from community members. While the encampment received numerous food donations from restaurants, students, and faculty, organizers were at times compelled to prioritize locating vegan, vegetarian, halal, and kosher food due to student groups within the encampment that followed dietary restrictions. Given that the encampment was taking place during Passover, organizers also found themselves working to figure out how to get kosher and Passover food for Jewish students while simultaneously ensuring it was compliant with BDS principles. “The unfortunate fact of Jewish life is that connections with Israel are especially tied to the products you purchase, so it was definitely very difficult to find meals for people,” stated Remi, another student solely identifying by their first name due to safety concerns. Remi is an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the two groups suspended by Columbia in November 2023 for holding an “unauthorized” demonstration calling for Columbia’s divestment from Israel. Remi relates that while making and finding food for Jewish students at the encampment was difficult, it was ultimately possible due to the help of several community members. “We ended up relying on a lot of just nice Jewish families around the city who wanted to cook and donate food for different dietary needs,” Remi said. They added that due to all the support from students and community members, the encampment was able to create a “kosher table” filled only with kosher food for Jewish participants. For many non-Jewish students, the encampment was the first time that they had ever been to a Jewish cultural event. “Inviting people in through food, through the things we eat…being able to share that with people and being able to disentangle violence from our culture and being able to offer that to people, I think that was really special and meaningful,” Remi said. Serving the integral purpose of sustaining people in the encampment, food also became an avenue for students to form a community with one another during a turbulent time—and, as Fatima, Myra, and Remi each noted, this community extended well beyond Columbia’s gates. Fatima explains that when food organizers started realizing that they had an overabundance of food, they immediately started contacting mutual aid organizations such as We the People and other student encampments in New York City. The goal, Fatima said, was to redistribute the food and supplies they didn’t need, especially warm meals and other perishables. Terrell Harper, who also goes by “Relly Rebel,” co-founded the mutual aid collective We the People in 2021. Harper first met student organizers in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment while protesting outside Columbia’s gates to support students and their cause. He said that after speaking with the organizers and discussing the collective, the organizers offered to supply food and meals for We the People’s bi-weekly community food distributions. Harper estimates that the Columbia encampment provided We the People with over 800 meals in a period of approximately two weeks. Harper added that it was hearty food too—containers full of hot meals, including chicken, rice, vegetables, sandwiches, and even desserts were brought in cars to Harper’s home or We the People’s various distribution sites to hand out. The NYPD dismantled the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on April 30th, 2024, but Fatima, Myra, and other organizers are still continuing their work to feed their community. Along with other encampment organizers, Fatima and Myra have helped to create The People’s Initiative: NYC , a collective of students, restaurants, and mutual aid groups, including We the People and The 116th Initiative. Their initiative aims to host free community meals throughout the summer and into the school year. Just as in the encampment, the people behind The People’s Initiative: NYC continue to center Palestine in their work. “Food plays a pivotal role in Palestinian culture—it connects diasporic people from across seas and ties them together with ribbons of smoke streaming out of a taboon oven,” their website’s homepage reads, “we follow in their footsteps, using food to connect communities across the city.” “Sitting by loving, committed, and revolutionary peers with a plate of joy is the way we will keep our people strong,” the site reads, “WE KEEP US SAFE. WE KEEP US FED.” ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Shared Hope, digital media. Courtesy of Mahnoor Azeem. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Dispatch New York Palestine Food NYPD Gaza Columbia University Gaza Solidarity Encampments Apartheid Divest Divestment BDS Police Action Police Butler Lawn Repression in Universities Food Organizing University Administration NYU City College Arrests Anti-Israel Protests Jewish Voice for Peace Passover Jewish Culture Kosher We the People The People’s Initiative: NYC Stuudents for Justice in Palestine SJP Columbia Daily Spectator Anti-Zionism Coalition Building Accountability Apartheid Solidarity Internationalist Solidarity Complicity of the Academy Demonstration South Lawn SURINA VENKAT is a writer and student at Columbia University in New York City. Dispatch New York 24th Sep 2024 MAHNOOR AZEEM is an illustrator, writer, and recent graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is based in Lahore. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

"For most dissenters in Pakistan, whether it's a movement like the PTM, or journalists critical of the state, the first reaction of the state's representatives is to characterize them as traitors, or funded by foreign governments." COMMUNITY Progressivism in Pakistani Higher Education Nida Kirmani "For most dissenters in Pakistan, whether it's a movement like the PTM, or journalists critical of the state, the first reaction of the state's representatives is to characterize them as traitors, or funded by foreign governments." RECOMMENDED: Questioning the ‘Muslim Woman’: Identity and Insecurity in an Urban Indian Locality by Nida Kirmani (Routledge, 2013) ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Karachi Pashtun Tahafuz Movement Postcolonial Feminist Theory Feminist Organizing Progressivism Deniz Kandiyoti Lyari Sociology Mama Qadeer Refusal of Anthropology Anthropology Baloch Missing Persons Slums Dissent State Repression Statelessness Gulalai Ismail Matiullah Jan Lahore LUMS Urbanization Islamophobia NIDA KIRMANI is the Madeleine Haas Russell Visiting Associate Professor of South Asian Studies at Brandeis University. She is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), and coordinator of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Minor. She is a leading feminist public intellectual who has published widely on issues related to gender, Islam, women’s movements, development, and urban studies in India and Pakistan. She completed her Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Manchester in Sociology. Her book, Questioning ‘the Muslim Woman’: Identity and Insecurity in an Urban Indian Locality , was published in 2013 by Routledge. She is currently working on on urban violence, gender, and insecurity in Lyari in Karachi, Pakistan. Interview Karachi 27th Aug 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Our live event FLUX: An Evening in Dissent began with an unplugged performance by Pakistani folk-pop musician Natasha Noorani of the unreleased title track from her upcoming album. INTERACTIVE FLUX · Natasha Noorani Unplugged: "Choro" Natasha Noorani Our live event FLUX: An Evening in Dissent began with an unplugged performance by Pakistani folk-pop musician Natasha Noorani of the unreleased title track from her upcoming album. FLUX: An Evening in Dissent A pre-release, unplugged version of Natasha Noorani's as-yet-unreleased single "Choro." The official music video followed by a Q&A on the video's aesthetic was subsequently featured in our 2021 event "In Grief, In Solidarity." Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval: A panel on US left electoralism, COVID19, recent victories, & lasting problems. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading 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 ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the event in full on IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Lahore Event FLUX Pakistan Pakistani Pop Women Singers of Pakistan Pop Music Retro Music Contemporary Music Contemporary Pop Unplugged Musician Folk Progressive Rock Experimental Music Khayal Gayaki Choro Munaasib Urdu Music Urdu NATASHA NOORANI is a musician, festival director and ethnomusicologist from Lahore. Noorani has a diverse range as a singer-songwriter, playback singer and voice-over artist. While pursuing contemporary Pakistani pop music, she has also been training in khayal gayaki, and was awarded the Goethe Talents Scholarship in 2019. Her solo EP Munaasib is inspired by r’n’b, neo-soul, and prog rock. Noorani is part of the band Biryani Brothers, and has collaborated on recordings with Strings, Abdullah Siddiqui, Sikandar Ka Mandar, Talal Qureshi, Gentle Robot & Jamal Rahman. Noorani was featured on Velo Sound Station (2020), and has also recorded on soundtracks for the films Baaji (2019) and Chalay Thay Saath (2017). Live Lahore 5th Dec 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

The current mood on the US left is one of extreme pessimism, particularly in the wake of movement dissipation after the end of the Bernie Sanders primary campaign. Such a moment requires reckoning with movement mistakes, thinking about the necessity of leftist media, and possibly even a self-identification with our most doomer selves. INTERACTIVE FLUX · Jaya Rajamani & Bhavik Lathia on the US Left & Media Jaya Rajamani · Bhavik Lathia The current mood on the US left is one of extreme pessimism, particularly in the wake of movement dissipation after the end of the Bernie Sanders primary campaign. Such a moment requires reckoning with movement mistakes, thinking about the necessity of leftist media, and possibly even a self-identification with our most doomer selves. FLUX: An Evening in Dissent FLUX was held at a depressing moment for media workers on the left: all "doomers", as Jaya Rajamani referred to herself at the time. Despite the Democrats winning the White House, dispiriting cabinet appointments by to-be President Biden, especially in the wake of the loss of Bernie Sanders' primary campaign left a sense of a weak Left with the dissipation of progressive movement energy by the end of 2020. Non-Fiction Editor Tisya Mavuram convened with writers, activists, and organizers Bhavik Lathia and Jaya Rajamani to discuss how to rebuild power, the Left's relationship to media, how centrists managed to defeat a historic challenge in the form of Sanders' campaign, and a reckoning with mistakes made. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Nikil Saval & Kshama Sawant: On Movement Politics at the Local & Municipal Level, COVID-19 & the Two-Party Structure Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the event in full on IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Event Panel Bernie Sanders Progressive Politics Democratic Socialism Democratic Socialists of America DSA Digital Advocacy Digital Space Funny Twitter Accounts Optimism on the Local Level Joe Biden Wisconsin Wisconsin Democrats Municipal Politics State Senate United States Progressivism Black Solidarities Demographics Populism Progressive Populism Inevitability Doomers Wisconsin as an Electoral Knife's Edge White Supremacy Fascism Republican Vote The History of the Right-Wing Trump's Base Errors in the Bernie Sanders Campaign Woke Politics Coalition Building Media Growth of Left Media Leftist Media Twitch Podcasts Liberals Breitbart Billionaire-Funded Media Messaging Status Quo FLUX JAYA RAJAMANI is a freelance writer and journalist who writes Time for Jaya , a newsletter about life, politics, art, love, the internet, and the terrible (and wonderful) things we do to each other when trying to improve the world. She has written for Current Affairs , and The Forward , among others. BHAVIK LATHIA is a writer and organizer, currently Senior Digital Director for the Democratic Party of Wisconisn (WI-Dems). Event Panel 5th Dec 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Facing a crushing electoral loss and the suffocating grip of Pakistan’s military state, the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party remains committed to Chungi—reclaiming revolutionary traditions, rebuilding popular power, and planting the seeds of a socialist alternative in the country’s most forsaken neighborhoods. THE VERTICAL To Posterity Paweł Wargan Facing a crushing electoral loss and the suffocating grip of Pakistan’s military state, the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party remains committed to Chungi—reclaiming revolutionary traditions, rebuilding popular power, and planting the seeds of a socialist alternative in the country’s most forsaken neighborhoods. In moments of quiet, comrade Sikander sang. The melody—a touch above a whisper—meandered softly, as if probing for an answer to an unasked question. Our faces were lit only by the faint fire we had made in the ceramic bowl, using styrofoam boxes as kindling. The heavy rains of the previous week had cleared the smog, and the Big Dipper now crept up over the water tank on the bare concrete rooftop. The phone signal was down. The internet was choked off. The military had imposed a total blackout. So we lit a fire—and we talked. We talked about Gilgit-Baltistan’s bustling border with Xinjiang. We talked about Fidel Castro , who had sent a medical brigade to Pakistan and, on a call before dawn, instructed his lead doctor on the strain of basmati to be fed to the cadres. We talked about the feudal lords’ grip on the people. We talked, and we reflected. In moments of quiet, comrade Sikander sang his soft, piercing song. News of the election trickled in with each teary-eyed arrival from the polling stations. Sixty-five votes at the City District High School. Seventy-four at the Government Boys High School. Twelve at the Qazi Grammar School. Seven at the Modern Public High School. By the end of the day, the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP) gathered only 2,174 votes. The two candidates were contesting for seats in the National Assembly and the Provincial Assembly from Chungi, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Lahore. Dejection swept through the Chiragh Ghar community center, transformed in recent weeks into a bustling campaign headquarters. The night before, hopes were high and predictions were jubilant. 10,000 votes. 15,000. 30,000. On the campaign trail, where passersby met Ammar Ali Jan , the lead candidate, with song and wreath after wreath of roses, a breakthrough seemed inexorable. Now, the dim hallways and winding staircases filled with whispers of disbelief and consolation. What did we do wrong? What if our critics were right? A few of us gathered on the roof. There, by the open flame, in thickening cigarette smoke, we talked late into the night about the military state and the dizzying structures of patronage that, time and again, condemn Pakistan’s people to the deathly embrace of the past. The Poverty of Chungi Few buildings in Lahore are taller than two or three stories, so the streets and neighborhoods stretch out in all directions across the flat landscape. In Lahore’s vast Defence Housing Authority (DHA) districts, the rows of homes—or, more accurately, walled compounds, often fronted by lush tropical gardens—feel endless. The DHA is the military-run real-estate developer that operates “defense” neighborhoods across the country. Pakistan’s aspiring professional class calls them home, as does the military and political top brass. Each DHA district is bookended by armed checkpoints. How many people who live in DHA cross the stark threshold into Chungi? In this peri-urban settlement that was once a village, paved streets make way for muddied and torn-up roads. The serene, airy alleys of DHA transition to a stifling cacophony of images, smells, and sounds. Cows, goats, and stray dogs mingle with the traffic, where cars and rickshaws buzz past each other from all sides at dizzying speeds. An open canal clogged with sewage and refuse from the food markets bubbles alongside one of the neighborhood’s main roads. The water is so filthy that some seventy percent of children in Chungi suffer from dysentery. These are the material imprints of a political system in which working people have had no meaningful shot at contending power for the better part of half a century. If the Pakistani left of the 1960s had put forward ambitious proposals for pulling the country towards greater equality, by the 1980s, “the socialist alternative which once seemed imminent had become a distant memory,” the politician and intellectual Aasim Sajjad Akhtar wrote . In its place, a series of increasingly entrenched regimes adopted, he wrote, “complex and sophisticated strategies of cooptation,” removing the workers and peasants from the equations of popular power and constructing a vast “patronage machine” to take their place. Then, the Soviet Union collapsed and the left entered a long era of retreat. The Pakistani state came to reflect a complex web of competing class interests—the capitalist, the feudal, the neo-colonial—that existed in permanent contradiction. Officeholders changed often. Little changed for the Pakistani people. At the top, a powerful military bureaucratic state apparatus—an inheritance of the colonial order—operated as kingmaker. This political structure seeped into every aspect of Pakistani society, threading its way through class and ethnic divides. At the scale of their lives, the people of Chungi, too, became beholden to the same contradictions that gripped the nation: above the sewage-filled canal that runs through the district, an opulent residence houses the local kingmaker. His loyalty buys the consent of the salesmen and the elders. The salesmen will secure the consent of their markets, and the elders of their neighbors. Allegedly, ten dollars buys a vote. Here, an electoral campaign resembles a suitcase of cash. What is the strategy for building popular power in Pakistan at this juncture? “None of the mainstream parties are interested in making the working class a subject of its politics,” Ammar Ali Jan told me after the election. “None of them are willing to speak of land reforms or ending subsidies for the elites. None of them are willing to confront the IMF. None of them are willing to give genuine and consistent solidarity to oppressed nationalities against state repression.” As a student, Ali Jan went to Chungi and found it to be a microcosm of the condition of millions of people around the country. Chungi revealed the futility of mere humanitarianism—a fixed road, new water filter, or food handouts—amid the tragedy that is produced and reproduced daily by the very architecture of the state. It revealed the inability of the existing order, so mired in its class interests, to bring dignity to the deprived. The situation of the people of Chungi pointed to a singular, piercing conclusion: the need to resurrect the revolutionary socialist alternative. Chungi Stirs At the start of 2023, Ammar Ali Jan and three activists of the Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement (HKM)—as it was then known—began their daily walk through the streets of Chungi . They talked with the butchers, stationery salesmen, and tailors at the bazaar. They talked with the textile weavers in the workshops and factories. They talked with the unionists whose struggles traced back decades—memories that they would soon seek to resurrect through public commemorations of forgotten martyrs. They talked with the mothers who cleaned the houses of Lahore’s middle and upper classes in a nearby DHA neighborhood. The HKM had organized in the community for some time before it embarked on the path of party-building. Pakistan’s complex structures of power were on their minds. How do you dislodge a system that dominates all the political offices, all centers of decision-making power, all structures within the judiciary? How do you politicize a dormant student body, and bring it into dialogue with the peasantry and the country’s disenfranchised women? How do you activate the workers in a neighborhood like Chungi? But they also thought about Pakistan’s old left, which had become fragmented and defeated, much of it confined to a series of old comrades’ clubs. How do you bring vitality back into a movement that has lost it? “The revolutions in Cuba and China—these were the most important things that we kept in our mind when we were writing our manifesto,” Dr. Alia Haider, an organizer with the HKP, told me. In Cuba, as in China, mass movements brought together coalitions of peasants, intellectuals, women, workers, and youth, establishing political bases that could overturn the feudal, colonial, and imperialist structures that gripped both nations. It was there, among the most oppressed, that revolutionary energies stirred. “We had read Marx, we had read Mao, we had read Fidel,” Dr. Haider said. “But when we arrived in Chungi, we saw that people who had never heard these names knew Marx. They lived Marx.” For the people of Chungi, the contradictions of class were blinding. They were visible in the sewage flowing through their streets; in the oil that the street food vendors could only afford to change monthly; in summary, uncompensated dismissals from the factories. But, like the broader left, they remained disorganized, disempowered, and dejected. “The Pakistani working class does not exist as an independent political subject,” Ammar told me. It exists in a “state of non-being, unable to assert its interests.” Its subordination has become entrenched. The politics of patronage that have seeped into every crevice and pore of Pakistan’s governing order have denied political agency to those most affected by it. It became clear that simply being voted into office by them would be insufficient. External representation on its own cannot awaken working class subjectivity—it cannot reassert its protagonism in the movement of history. What is needed, Ammar told me, is the reconstruction “of the subjective factor of the revolution—the party—with all the patience, consistency and courage that this requires.” The revolutionary party occupies a central space in the socialist tradition. Karl Marx showed that class analysis provides the fundamental starting point in understanding political parties, whose configuration reflects the stages of development and respective power of different classes. The ability of working people to represent themselves depends on the existence of a party created in their image, and carrying their subjectivity. Without such a vehicle, the working class is forced to align politically with the subjectivity of its oppressors. It becomes divided. Its political horizon becomes truncated. The revolutionary party is necessary to contain, develop, and advance the aspirations of the working masses. Years ago, the HKM first mobilized the community to sweep the streets and clean the canals, seeking to address the sanitation crisis. In 2022 , the movement organized weekly health camps around Chungi, an initiative led by Dr. Alia. With time, the imperative to institutionalize became clear. “As we began to organize the first of our free medical camps, we saw that the devastation facing the working classes was beyond our capacity to help them as a movement,” Dr. Alia told me. “So we had to not only develop the infrastructure to support these people, but also cultivate a politics of solidarity.” By August 2023, the HKP opened the Khalq Clinic , a permanent site providing free testing, consultations, and medicines to people in Chungi. The Cuban Ambassador attended the opening, recalling Cuba’s own missions of medical internationalism to Pakistan. By the end of the year, the Party had five vocational schools with courses on English, computer literacy, and financial management. Students from universities came to volunteer in droves. At first, Dr. Alia told me, they struggled to connect the problems of others with their own. But the people of Chungi transformed them and opened in them a much more expansive vision of political possibility. “Until we know what the water in the sea is like, we could not know how to navigate the waves,” Dr. Alia said. By the time the election arrived in February 2024, the HKP had mobilized seven hundred people to work on its campaign. Among them were two seventeen-year-old alumni of the vocational schools, who now managed a complex voter registration process at HKP’s campaign headquarters. They checked the voter lists against records from the polling stations. They identified and corrected missing data in the voter lists. For each entry on the lists, they prepared a folder with three sheets of paper, two pens, a ruler, and two pieces of candy to help voters navigate the labyrinthine process on the day of the election. They checked the folders against numbered spreadsheets for each of the polling stations. Within months after the election, further breakthroughs arrived. When, early in 2024 , workers from the Chawla factory learned of planned closures—and proposed dismissals with minimal compensation—they organized. Led by factory worker and HKP member Maulana Shahbaz, they won what Ammar described as the “largest golden handshake since the 1970s.” The workers’ severance package increased from roughly eighty US dollars to as much as three thousand. In October, HKP members traveled to the lush countryside of Jhang, a city on the east bank of the Chenab River, to bring together thousands of peasants for a Kissan Conference. The farmers sang, chanted, and vowed to take on the state that has long subjugated them. All along, the HKP worked to ground its local organizing in an internationalist vision, protesting regularly in solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon as they faced a merciless bombardment by Western-backed Zionist forces, and mobilizing in friendship with Cuba, itself suffocated by economic warfare. If building the revolution means preparing the masses for the task of governance, then the HKP’s small first steps hold immense significance. Carried toward their logical conclusion, their political strategy aims at activating a powerful dormant force that holds singular capacity to resolve the dilemmas of Pakistan’s oppressed—substituting the landlords, capitalists, and compradors for the masses in the equations of political power. In this context, the campaign in the February election had achieved its goals, even if it failed to secure electoral gains. Many described the vote as a referendum on Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf—a rejection of foreign meddling and the brazen denial of even the most basic democratic rights. As a local party, the HKP was not part of the national calculus. As is their wont, the other parties that had come to Chungi on the day of the election—never opening the tinted windows of their jeeps—soon left. They will return for the next election, whenever it may come: in two years, or three, or five. But the HKP has established a permanent presence in Chungi. Its organizational capacities were magnified by the electoral campaign. Now, it is aiming to move further afield: to open branches in other cities across the country, building clinics, building schools, cleaning the water, and everywhere reasserting the idea that working people are the subject of history and not the object of their oppressors. In the days after the February election, the HKP put out a statement. It began with a passage from the poem To Posterity by the German communist Bertold Brecht. The poem says everything there is to say about the permanent task that lies ahead: To the cities I came in a time of disorder That was ruled by hunger. I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar And then I joined in their rebellion. That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Eart h. ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Noormah Jamal I will never leave you (2022) Acrylic on linen SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Profile Lahore Haqooq-e-Khalq Party Elections Chungi Revolution Socialism Military Crackdown Community Discourse Discourses of War Storytelling News National Assembly Chiragh Ghar Campaign Ammar Ali Jan Pakistan Poverty Defence Housing Authority DHA districts Real Estate Militarism Armed Checkpoints Peri-urban settlements Village History Memory Dysentery Healthcare Inequality Aasim Sajjad Akhtar Working Class Capitalism Feudal Neo-Colonial Ethnic Division Popular Power Land Reform Subsidies Elitist Humanitarianism IMF International Monetary Fund Nationalism Repression Activism Cuba China Revolutionary Karl Marx Dehumanization Disempowerment Khalq Clinic Medical Internationalism Vocational Training Isolation Mobilization Chawla Factory Chenab River Kissan Conference Farming Farmers Agricultural Labor Solidarity Palestine Lebanon Zionism Economic Security Imran Khan Tehreek-e-Insaf Bertold Brecht PAWEŁ WARGAN is an activist and organiser based in Berlin. He co-founded and coordinates the Green New Deal for Europe campaign, sits on the Coordinating Collective of the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25) and serves as the Coordinator of the Secretariat at the Progressive International. He publishes regularly in Jacobin , the New Statesman , Tribune, and Politico. Profile Lahore 30th Apr 2025 NOORMAH JAMAL is a Brooklyn based multidisciplinary artist. She graduated from the National College of Arts Lahore in 2016, majoring in Mughal Miniature Painting. And earned her Masters in Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute, NY in 2023. Some of her notable shows include: Space in Time at Rietberg Museum in Switzerland and at Canvas Gallery Karachi; Sites of Ruin and Power/Play at Twelve Gates Arts in Philadelphia, and her recent solo booth at Nada Miami. Her work has been featured in various publications and media, including Hyperallergic, The Herald, The News Pakistan, The Karachi Collective , and The Aleph Review . Currently, she is a member of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts' Manhattan studio program. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

“Cultures of Chittagong Hill Tracts and other indigenous peoples are still marginalized in Bangladesh, in mainstream cultural practices. They're made invisible. And there is a kind of appropriation too. A Chakma dance is danced by Bengali dancers.” COMMUNITY Bengali Nationalism & the Chittagong Hill Tracts Kabita Chakma “Cultures of Chittagong Hill Tracts and other indigenous peoples are still marginalized in Bangladesh, in mainstream cultural practices. They're made invisible. And there is a kind of appropriation too. A Chakma dance is danced by Bengali dancers.” Researcher Kabita Chakma in conversation with Advisory Editor Mahmud Rahman talked about her own experience writing and translating in Bangla and Chakma, as well as the longue durée history of the Chakmas and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, particularly after the formation of CHT as a district in 1860. Colonial cartographies split the Chakma population between countries, districts, and states between Tripura, Assam, Mizoram in India, Burma, Bangladesh, and their global diasporas. How robust, Mahmud Rahman asks, is the readership of Chakma texts? RECOMMENDED: "Muscular nationalism, masculinist militarism: the creation of situational motivators and opportunities for violence against the Indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh" (International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2022) by Glen Hill & Kabita Chakma ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Chittagong Hill Tracts Bangladesh CHT Indigeneity Chakma Chakma History Indigenous Art Practice Indigeneous Spaces Politics of Indigeneity Language Diversity Language Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Kaptai Dam Bengali Nationalism Jumma Communities Jumma Chakma Communities Shaheen Akhtar Militarism Military Crackdown Shomari Chakma International Mother Tongue Day Intellectual History Postcolonialism KABITA CHAKMA is an independent researcher, writer and architect. Writing in the Chakma, Bangla and English languages, Kabita’s research interests include the history, literature, art, architecture, cinema, environmental sustainability, human rights, women’s rights and Indigenous peoples’ rights. Her academic papers have appeared in university journals and edited book chapters. Her investigative articles have appeared in the Daily Star , the New Age , Himal Southasian , the publications of various cultural and educational institutes, including the online platforms Jumjournal, thotkata.com, and alalodulal.org. Her creative works include poems and short stories. Her book of poems, Jawli Na’Udhim Kittei!/ Rukhe Darabo Na Ken! was written in Chakma and Bangla languages and translated into English by Sajed Kamal. She recently translated a short story by Shaheen Akhter, Chander Pahar (Moon Mountain) , for the magazine Out Of Print . In the context of a paucity of fictional works in indigenous CHT languages, she is now working on Chakma language historical fiction. Interview Chittagong Hill Tracts 9th Dec 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct