On 20th July Shahidul Alam wrote another dispatch from Dhaka, detailing the list of student demands posed at the Bangladeshi government, whose signatories and organizers have since gone missing. The scale of the massacre is presently unknown but seemingly far larger than media outlets report. THE VERTICAL Update from Dhaka II AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR On 20th July Shahidul Alam wrote another dispatch from Dhaka, detailing the list of student demands posed at the Bangladeshi government, whose signatories and organizers have since gone missing. The scale of the massacre is presently unknown but seemingly far larger than media outlets report. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Opinion Dhaka Quota Movement Fascism Student Protests Bangladesh Awami League Sheikh Hasina Police Action Police Brutality Economic Crisis 1971 Liberation of Bangladesh BTV Zonayed Saki Internet Crackdowns Internet Blackouts BSF Abu Sayeed Begum Rokeya University Abrar Fahad BUET Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology Mass Protests Mass Killings Torture Enforced Disappearances Extrajudicial Killings Chhatra League Bangladesh Courts Judiciary Clientelism Bengali Nationalism Dissent Student Movements National Curfew State Repression Surveillance Regimes Repression in Universities Bangladesh Chhatra League Demands Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Corruption Rakkhi Bahini Democracy The Guise of Democracy Rapid Action Battalion July Revolution Student-People's Uprising Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Opinion Dhaka 21st Jul 2024 EDITOR'S NOTE: On 21st July, SAAG received another dispatch from Shahidul Alam, following th e one published o n 20th July. Publication was postponed due to security concerns for those involved. We chose to publish this piece without thorough fact-checking due to the urgency of the situation, the internet blackout, and news reports that do not correspond with eyewitness accounts. —Iman Iftikhar The government has paraded several student leaders on TV, and multiple versions of the demands made by student coordinators of this leaderless movement, are in circulation. The original list of demands was circulated in an underground press release yesterday. The signatory, Abdul Kader, has since been picked up. Another coordinator, Nahid Islam, was disappeared by over 50 plainclothes people claiming to belong to the Detective Branch. A third coordinator, Asif Mahmud, is reportedly missing. The Prime Minister must accept responsibility for the mass killings of students and publicly apologise. The Home Minister and the Road Transport and Bridges Minister [the latter is also the secretary general of the Awami League] must resign from their [cabinet] positions and the party. Police officers present at the sites where students were killed must be sacked. Vice Chancellors of Dhaka, Jahangirnagar, and Rajshahi Universities must resign. The police and goons who attacked the students and those who instigated the attacks must be arrested. Families of the killed and injured must be compensated. Bangladesh Chhatra League [BCL, the pro-government student wing, effectively, the government’s vigilante force] must be banned from student politics and a students’ union established. All educational institutions and halls of residences must be reopened. Guarantees must be provided that no academic or administrative harassment of protesters will take place. That the Prime Minister publicly apologises for her disparaging comments about the protesters may seem a minor issue, but it will surely be the sticking point. This PM is not the apologising kind, regardless of how it might seem. Regardless of the three elections she has rigged. Regardless of the fact that corruption has been at an all-time high during her tenure. Regardless of the fact that hundreds of students and other protesters have been murdered by her goons and the security forces. Regardless of the fact that she has deemed all those who oppose her views to be “Razaakars” (collaborators of the Pakistani occupation army in 1971). Regardless of all that, there simply isn’t anyone in the negotiating camp who would have the temerity to even suggest such a course for the prime minister. There is a Bangla saying, “You only have one head on your neck.” The ministers do the heavy lifting. They control the muscle in the streets and manage things when resistance brews. The previous police chief and the head of the National Board of Revenue did the dirty work earlier. They were easily discarded. But the ministers are seniors of the party, and apart from finding suitable replacements, discarding them would send out the wrong message within the party. Making vice-chancellors and proctors resign is also easy. These are discardable minions. The perks are attractive, and there are many to fill the ranks. The police being dumped is less easy, but “friendly fire” does take place. Compensation is not an issue. State coffers are there to be pillaged, and public funds being dispensed at party behest is a common enough practice. BCL and associated student organisations in DU, RU, and JU to be banned is a sticking point, as they are the ones who keep the student body in check and are the party cadre called upon when there is any sign of rebellion. A vigilante group that can kill, kidnap, or disappear at party command. For a government that lacks legitimacy, these are the foot soldiers who terrorise and are essential parts of the coercive machinery. Educational institutions being reopened is an issue. Students have traditionally been the initiators of protests. With such simmering discontent, this would be dangerous, particularly if the local muscle power was clipped. The return of independent thinking is something all tyrants fear. The cessation of harassment is easy to implement on paper. It is difficult to prove and can be done at many levels. Removing the official charges will leave all unofficial modes intact. Of all these demands, it is the least innocuous, that of the apology, that is perhaps the most significant. It will dent the aura of invincibility the tyrant exudes. She has never apologised for anything. Not the setting up of the Rakkhi Bahini by her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman , nor the paramilitary force that rained terror on the country and, in all likelihood, contributed to the assassination of seventeen members of the family in 1975. Not Rahman’s setting up of Bakshal, the one-party system where all other parties, as well as all but four approved newspapers, were banned. And certainly not the numerous extra-judicial killings or disappearances and the liturgy of corruption by people in her patronage during her own tenure. An apology to protesting students, while simple, would be a chink in her armour she would be loath to reveal. The body count is impossible to verify. I try to piece things together from as many first-hand reports as I can. Many of the bodies have a single, precisely-targeted bullet hole. Pellets are aimed at the eyes. As of last night, those monitoring feel the number of dead is well over 1,500. International news, out of touch as the Internet has been shut down and mobile connectivity severely throttled, say deaths are in the hundreds. The government reports far fewer. Staff at city hospitals are less tight-lipped and can give reasonably accurate figures, but not all bodies go to hospital morgues. An older hospital in Dhaka did report over 200 bodies being brought in as of last night. The injured who die on the way to the hospital are not generally admitted. Families prefer to take the body home rather than hand them over to the police. Bodies are also being disappeared. Police and post-mortem reports, when available, fail to mention bullet wounds. My former student Priyo’s body was amongst the missing ones, but we were eventually able to locate him. A friend took him back to his home in Rangpur to be buried. Constant monitoring and checking by activists resulted in the bullet wound being mentioned in his case, though a deliberate mistake in his name in the hospital’s release order that was overseen by a police officer attempted to complicate things. Fortunately, it was rectified in the nick of time. Getting the news out has become extremely difficult, and coordinating the resistance is challenging. This piece goes out through a complicated route. I’ve deleted all digital traces to protect the intermediaries. The entire Internet network being down because of a single location low-level attack, as claimed by the technology minister, appears strange for a police state that boasts of being tech savvy, but there are other strange things happening. Helicopters flying low, beaming searchlights downwards, and shooting at people in narrow alleyways—this is spy film stuff. But it is not stunt men down below. Even teargas and stun grenade shells become lethal when dropped from a height. The bullets raining down have a more direct purpose. A student talks of the body lying on the empty flyover being dragged off by the police. A friend talks of an unmarked car spraying bullets at the crowd as it speeds past. She was lucky. The shooter was firing from a window on the other side. A mother grieves over her three-year-old senselessly killed. Gory reports of human brain congealed on tarmac is a first for me. The curfew has resulted in rubbish being piled up on the streets. The brain will be there for people to see, perhaps deliberately. The raid at 2:20 am earlier this morning in the flat across the street was also in commando fashion. The video footage is blurry, but one can only see segments of the huge contingent of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), heavily armed police, and others in plainclothes. They eventually walked out with one person. Perhaps an opposition leader. My memories of the genocide in 1971 seemingly pale in comparison to what is happening in the streets of Bangladesh today. Ironically, it was the Awami League that had led the resistance then. The revolutionaries have now become our new occupiers. They insist it’s still a “democracy.” APCs prowl the streets. Orders to shoot on sight have not quelled the anger, and people are still coming onto the streets despite the curfew. There is the other side of the story. Reports of policemen being lynched and offices being set on fire are some of the violent responses to the government-led brutality. Some of the damage to government buildings could possibly be the act of paid agent provocateurs hired to tarnish the image of the quota protestors. There are other instances, less extreme, but just as serious. The impact on the average person, as most working-class Bangladeshis live day to day. Their daily earnings feed their families. As a prime minister desperately clinging on to a position she does not have a legitimate right for and a public who has been tormented enough to battle it out. They are the ones who starve. Private TV channels vie with the state-owned BTV and churn out government propaganda, and I watch members of the public complain but am unable to forget all the average people I spoke to. The rikshawalas and fruit sellers with perishable goods express solidarity with the students. Their own immediate suffering, though painful, is something they are willing to accept. She has to go, they say. ∎ Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

Where do radical movements stand in the US? In December 2020, Kshama Sawant and Nikil Saval took stock of the response to the COVID-19 crisis at the federal, state, and city levels and discussed the many failures of two-party politics. But the movements for housing, defunding the police, and taxing corporations in Seattle & Philadelphia are also deploying innovative and unprecedented organizing strategies, most obviously at the local level, that have ramifications for movements across the country. INTERACTIVE FLUX · Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval on US Left Electoralism & COVID-19 Where do radical movements stand in the US? In December 2020, Kshama Sawant and Nikil Saval took stock of the response to the COVID-19 crisis at the federal, state, and city levels and discussed the many failures of two-party politics. But the movements for housing, defunding the police, and taxing corporations in Seattle & Philadelphia are also deploying innovative and unprecedented organizing strategies, most obviously at the local level, that have ramifications for movements across the country. Nikil Saval · Kshama Sawant FLUX: An Evening in Dissent FLUX was held at a peculiar time. In December 2020, there was both during a raging pandemic and following exciting victories by progressive candidates in state elections in the US, including Nikil Saval, former co-editor of n+1 , to PA State Senate. Tisya Mavuram and Kamil Ahsan convened with Sen. Nikil Saval and longtime socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant to talk about the future of left politics, relations with the Democratic Party, and the pandemic. In Philadelphia, on the actual city budget level, the [Defund the police] movement's ability to win the cuts it demanded did not succeed, as it didn't in many other cities. But what did happen, it is important to highlight, was a protest encampment of the unhoused on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway which is very near to the Art Museum, a symbolic institution of the city. It's one of the richest and most subsidized areas of the city. It's rich because it has been made to be rich. So to have this encampment protesting for housing was a physical challenge to the housing in the city, including the shelter system, which is in shambles. Despite attempts by elected officials, the encampments were able to secure the transfer of city-owned property to a community land trust. This was unprecedented in Philadelphia history. It doesn't meet the actual need, but it begins to pioneer how movements can work with officials on the left in city government, coming from an abolitionist impulse. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set FLUX: An Evening in Dissent FLUX was held at a peculiar time. In December 2020, there was both during a raging pandemic and following exciting victories by progressive candidates in state elections in the US, including Nikil Saval, former co-editor of n+1 , to PA State Senate. Tisya Mavuram and Kamil Ahsan convened with Sen. Nikil Saval and longtime socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant to talk about the future of left politics, relations with the Democratic Party, and the pandemic. In Philadelphia, on the actual city budget level, the [Defund the police] movement's ability to win the cuts it demanded did not succeed, as it didn't in many other cities. But what did happen, it is important to highlight, was a protest encampment of the unhoused on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway which is very near to the Art Museum, a symbolic institution of the city. It's one of the richest and most subsidized areas of the city. It's rich because it has been made to be rich. So to have this encampment protesting for housing was a physical challenge to the housing in the city, including the shelter system, which is in shambles. Despite attempts by elected officials, the encampments were able to secure the transfer of city-owned property to a community land trust. This was unprecedented in Philadelphia history. It doesn't meet the actual need, but it begins to pioneer how movements can work with officials on the left in city government, coming from an abolitionist impulse. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Shebani Rao A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making Watch the event in full in on IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Event Panel COVID-19 Recall Efforts Democratic Party Progressive Politics Electoral Politics Accommodationism Bernie Sanders Socialist Alternative State Senate Local Politics Local vs. National Politics Washington Pennsylvania City Council Races State Senate Races Centrism Right-Wing Assault Amazon Gentrification Criminal Negligence Fighting the Two-Party System Migrant Workers Stimulus Package Legitimacy of the Capitalist System Demographics The Guise of Bipartisanship Capitalist Class Reactionary Democratic Elites Nancy Pelosi Chuck Schumer Insider Negotiation Standards of Living Minimum Wage Democratic Establishment Post-George Floyd Moment George Floyd Anti-Racism Mass Protests Amazon Tax Corporation Taxation Labor Movement Racial Justice Tax Cuts for the Rich Primarying Centrist Democrats Defund the Police Abolitionism Minneapolis Police Departments Mayoralties Pledges to Defund Police Career Politicians Budget Votes Movement Organization Movement Strategy Seattle Activist Politics Black Lives Matter Democratic Socialists of America Ballot Initiative Housing Municipal Politics Shelter System Encampments of the Unhoused Negotiating Directly with Philadelphia City City-Owned Properties Land Trusts Leftist Media Magazine Culture n+1 Hospitality Workers Growth of Left Media FLUX Philadelphia Seattle City Councils Labor SENATOR NIKIL SAVAL is a father, husband, writer, and organizer. Saval’s organizing is deeply rooted in the labor movement. From 2009 to 2013, he was a volunteer labor organizer with UNITE HERE. In 2016, he was a leader in U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. He went on to co-found Reclaim Philadelphia, in 2018, he was elected as Leader of Philadelphia’s Democratic Second Ward. Saval was the first Asian American to hold the position of Ward Leader in Philadelphia. He previously served as co-editor of the literary journal n+1 and still serves on its board of directors. He has been a frequent contributor to the New York Times and a contributing writer for The New Yorker , covering architecture, design, and housing. His is the author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace (2014). KSHAMA SAWANT is a socialist activist, organizer, a member of Socialist Alternative, in solidarity with the Committee for a Workers' International. A visible presence in the Occupy Movement, and American Federation of Teachers Local 1789. She has been in office since 2014 when she was elected to the Seattle City Council on a platform of a $15/hr minimum wage, rent control and taxing the super-rich to fund mass transit and education. In 2014, she became the first socialist elected in a major US city in decades. 5 Dec 2020 Event Panel 5th Dec 2020 Coalition of the Willing Aisha Ahmad 15th Nov India's Vector Capitalism Model Anumeha Yadav 5th Jun Chats Ep. 7 · Karti Dharti, Gender & India's Farmers Movement Sangeet Toor 29th Apr FLUX · Jaya Rajamani & Bhavik Lathia on the US Left & Media Jaya Rajamani · Bhavik Lathia 5th Dec FLUX · A Preface Divya Nayar · Kamil Ahsan · Vishakha Darbha 5th Dec On That Note:

As Sino-Indian tensions rise in the new Indian Union territory of Ladakh at the Line of Actual Control, Ladakhi craftswomen like Sonam Dolma are returning to Kashmir to sell their authentic pashmina shawls. THE VERTICAL The Artisan Labor Crisis of Ladakh As Sino-Indian tensions rise in the new Indian Union territory of Ladakh at the Line of Actual Control, Ladakhi craftswomen like Sonam Dolma are returning to Kashmir to sell their authentic pashmina shawls. Mir Seeneen In the upscale neighborhood of Rajbagh in Srinagar, Sonam Dolma awaits a high-stakes meeting at an eatery amidst Kashmiri portraits and vintage décor. Her Ladakhi tribe’s prized Pashmina shawls made of fine Kashmiri cashmere are sought after by Kashmir’s elite who eschew mass-produced replicas for craftsmanship. In the quiet corner of the café, away from the bustling streets, Dolma prepares to showcase her wares to discerning clients—wives of bureaucrats and businessmen—who value quality and authenticity above all else. Just miles away from this serene scene lies a neighborhood scarred by floods, where Dolma’s tribe finds refuge after their daily trade expeditions. Despite this contrast, these Ladakhi women navigate Kashmir’s high society with grace, armed with exquisite products and a commitment to purity in a world of imitations. The group’s trade trips to Kashmir have become recurrent ever since Chinese troops showed up at their homeland’s hinterland in May 2020. Oblivious to the standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) where Beijing has grown its military presence, the women are making their rounds of the posh localities of Srinagar with shawls in hand. This internal drive for living has come just five years after New Delhi stripped the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. Their homeland is a new spark plug in South Asia; they live in a constant state of fear. In fact, the rise of the new front—LAC—has already proven deadly. In a military standoff, Sino-India troops have suffered casualties . But beyond these border games, Beijing has forced new orders and routines compelling the Ladakhi craftswomen to return to estranged Kashmir. These young women frequent the fraught region of the valley for sustenance. Prior to their recent visits as mobile merchants, they would mostly feel at home in Kashmir. But everything changed when New Delhi sliced Ladakh from Kashmir in a cartographic attempt to redefine the contested land in the summer of 2019. Carving a union territory out of the United Nations’ registered disputed region eventually proved costly for the government of India. It provoked China—now the ominous third party of what New Delhi calls a “bilateral issue” between India and Pakistan. However, beyond Beijing’s belligerence, the decision to make Ladakh a federal entity has far-reaching consequences for the cashmere brand and its craftspeople. With China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) occupying the winter mainstay of the Pashmina goats in Ladakh, cashmere is losing its source of thread. Ladakh’s Changthang area—the land of nomads located in the east of Leh on the Chinese border—has long been a breeding ground for the Pashmina goats. The severe temperature of the area, the experts say, makes the Pashmina thread of Changthang very thin, which in turn makes these goats the source of the finest cashmere in the world. The Chinese incursions have now made it a literal no-go zone for the nomads rearing these goats. Although China is showing no signs of retreat, the military occupation has created an existential crisis for the native animal and has raised serious concerns around the globe. The nomads are reporting increasing numbers of goat deaths. These deaths—due to the occupied winter habitat of Pashmina goats—have cast shadows on the global brand. In the main towns of Leh, the Pashmina dealers are linking the supply slump to the rise of China in Ladakh. Despite the dilemma, the cashmere craftspeople are banking on their old ties with the valley. In the larger din emanating from the LAC, their Kashmir move has become symbolic. While New Delhi has separated them from Kashmir in this territorial juggling, Beijing has reunited them . New anxieties are on the rise, however, as the processing of Pashmina may be shifted out of Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh by the Indian authorities, a move that may create an impact on the cashmere wool industry. Faced with diminishing income and mounting unpredictability, Dolma made the difficult decision to seek refuge in Kashmir. At noon when most of the citizenry works, she arrives to strike some profitable exchanges. Dolma on her way to a Srinagar neighbourhood where she sells her stuff to customers. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Dolma tells me how she was born into a family of weavers in a small village 260 miles from Ladakh’s capital, Leh. She learned the art of crafting Pashmina shawls from her grandmother, who in teaching her, passed down centuries-old techniques. Dolma reflects on the journey: “The foreign incursions into Ladakh forced me to confront the fragility of life, to adapt, and evolve.” But the looming specter and uncertainty brought by a massive troop build-up, cast a dark shadow over Dolma’s once-peaceful existence. “We spend months preparing the handicraft stuff before arriving in Srinagar for work," she says. For Dolma, these rendezvous in serene corners of the city held significance beyond mere transactions. She was not just selling shawls—she was preserving a legacy, a tradition that had been passed down through generations. In a market flooded with facsimiles, she was a purveyor of authenticity, valued for her discerning eye and commitment to quality. Away from Ladakh, Dolma considers Kashmir the second home for Ladakhi entrepreneurs like herself. This Himalayan region is their main economic link to the rest of the world, aside from being the preferable market for their indigenous products. During the post-Covid distressed times, they counted on Kashmir’s booming domestic tourism. “Kashmir has never disappointed us,” says Tenzin, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “But somewhere down the line, the region’s uncertainty reminds us of our home now. It was a peaceful land before they changed its status in the summer of 2019.” The demand for a separate entity—a union territory—was a longstanding political cry in Ladakh, mostly from the members of the ruling mainstream party. The campaign gained steam after the political party swept the regional polls. Experts feared that slicing Ladakh from Kashmir would alter the course of the disputed land. But in the run-up to August 2019, when campaigns against Article 370 became fierce, Ladakh witnessed a political wave culminating in its new territorial identity. Lately, the process in Kargil has intensified with shutdowns of demand for statehood ; even the famed climate activist Sonam Wangchuk went on a 21-day hunger strike . With the altered political reality, most of these women are now anxious about the war frenzy created by the armies in their homeland. They realize how the militarization was triggered by the summer shift—when New Delhi justified the abrogation of Article 370 as a move “to end discrimination” with Ladakh and its people. But the unilateral decision backfired when the Chinese army showed up at the LAC and clashed with Indian forces. Since then the skirmishes have stopped, but the boots remain on the ground . While the border brouhaha has given Ladakh global coverage in recent times, these girls have become weary of the hyper-media attention. Like their Kashmiri counterparts, they don’t make peace with the pugnacious news debates focusing on their homeland. The mainland television media’s so-called war bulletins have only heightened tensions. What’s further creating a false sense of alarm is New Delhi’s dithering response to the LAC situation. The region has now become a new strategic zone forcing the right-wing government to build a fair-weather highway connecting Leh with Srinagar that opened this past winter. The snowbound thoroughfare used to be cut-off for six months. But now, the Indian government’s urge to keep an unflinching eye on the PLA has put men at work during extreme conditions, including the construction of a tunnel connecting Ladakh with Kashmir. Still, these young Ladakhi women see hope in Kashmir where their products are quite popular among the urban elites. However, if the status quo isn’t restored at the LAC anytime soon, these Pashmina girls of Ladakh fear losing cashmere to Chinese aggression. In the wake of this militarized uncertainty, some of the girls believe their visits to Kashmir, this estranged part of India, might alleviate their financial situation. “Life is tough back home,” continues Tenzin, while waiting for her client inside the cafeteria, and uncertainty has only escalated after the recent border tensions between India and China. Away from Ladakh, these girls share rent, rage, and respite in Srinagar before heading back home with seasonal earnings. “Most of us belong to poor families,” Tenzin continues with a thoughtful stance. “For us, our families come first. But it’s very hard to stay focused amid the changed reality now. Be it troop build-up or frontier tensions, the sense of normalcy has taken a big hit. Regardless of everything, Kashmir is the same to us as it used to be when the people of Ladakh were part of it,” she says. “Sadly, for some of us, a sense of estrangement has come to define this relationship now. And the change is there to see.” Padma Tsering, a quintessential Ladakhi woman in her early thirties from Nyoma, has been selling Pashmina in Kashmir for the past couple of years. “We’ve cultivated our customer base in Kashmir and rely on them for our livelihood,” she says. Despite their limited political awareness, Ladakhi girls like Tsering find hope in Kashmir. “There’s a sense of security Kashmir offers despite the surrounding tensions,” says Phuntsok Wangmo, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “It’s our preferred market with loyal customers, even during post-Covid times.” Dolma showcases her shawls in Srinagar during a business meeting with her client. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Meanwhile, Dolma’s wait ends as Sadaf Khan, a young Kashmiri woman, arrives at the café. Khan expresses interest in buying shawls from the weaver. “My cousin recommended Dolma to me and vouched for the quality of the shawls,” says Khan. The café comes alive with the buzz of business, some chatter, and laughter. After bidding farewell to her client, Dolma steps out into the busy thoroughfares of the city; walking home reflectively after another successful trade. ∎ In the upscale neighborhood of Rajbagh in Srinagar, Sonam Dolma awaits a high-stakes meeting at an eatery amidst Kashmiri portraits and vintage décor. Her Ladakhi tribe’s prized Pashmina shawls made of fine Kashmiri cashmere are sought after by Kashmir’s elite who eschew mass-produced replicas for craftsmanship. In the quiet corner of the café, away from the bustling streets, Dolma prepares to showcase her wares to discerning clients—wives of bureaucrats and businessmen—who value quality and authenticity above all else. Just miles away from this serene scene lies a neighborhood scarred by floods, where Dolma’s tribe finds refuge after their daily trade expeditions. Despite this contrast, these Ladakhi women navigate Kashmir’s high society with grace, armed with exquisite products and a commitment to purity in a world of imitations. The group’s trade trips to Kashmir have become recurrent ever since Chinese troops showed up at their homeland’s hinterland in May 2020. Oblivious to the standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) where Beijing has grown its military presence, the women are making their rounds of the posh localities of Srinagar with shawls in hand. This internal drive for living has come just five years after New Delhi stripped the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. Their homeland is a new spark plug in South Asia; they live in a constant state of fear. In fact, the rise of the new front—LAC—has already proven deadly. In a military standoff, Sino-India troops have suffered casualties . But beyond these border games, Beijing has forced new orders and routines compelling the Ladakhi craftswomen to return to estranged Kashmir. These young women frequent the fraught region of the valley for sustenance. Prior to their recent visits as mobile merchants, they would mostly feel at home in Kashmir. But everything changed when New Delhi sliced Ladakh from Kashmir in a cartographic attempt to redefine the contested land in the summer of 2019. Carving a union territory out of the United Nations’ registered disputed region eventually proved costly for the government of India. It provoked China—now the ominous third party of what New Delhi calls a “bilateral issue” between India and Pakistan. However, beyond Beijing’s belligerence, the decision to make Ladakh a federal entity has far-reaching consequences for the cashmere brand and its craftspeople. With China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) occupying the winter mainstay of the Pashmina goats in Ladakh, cashmere is losing its source of thread. Ladakh’s Changthang area—the land of nomads located in the east of Leh on the Chinese border—has long been a breeding ground for the Pashmina goats. The severe temperature of the area, the experts say, makes the Pashmina thread of Changthang very thin, which in turn makes these goats the source of the finest cashmere in the world. The Chinese incursions have now made it a literal no-go zone for the nomads rearing these goats. Although China is showing no signs of retreat, the military occupation has created an existential crisis for the native animal and has raised serious concerns around the globe. The nomads are reporting increasing numbers of goat deaths. These deaths—due to the occupied winter habitat of Pashmina goats—have cast shadows on the global brand. In the main towns of Leh, the Pashmina dealers are linking the supply slump to the rise of China in Ladakh. Despite the dilemma, the cashmere craftspeople are banking on their old ties with the valley. In the larger din emanating from the LAC, their Kashmir move has become symbolic. While New Delhi has separated them from Kashmir in this territorial juggling, Beijing has reunited them . New anxieties are on the rise, however, as the processing of Pashmina may be shifted out of Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh by the Indian authorities, a move that may create an impact on the cashmere wool industry. Faced with diminishing income and mounting unpredictability, Dolma made the difficult decision to seek refuge in Kashmir. At noon when most of the citizenry works, she arrives to strike some profitable exchanges. Dolma on her way to a Srinagar neighbourhood where she sells her stuff to customers. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Dolma tells me how she was born into a family of weavers in a small village 260 miles from Ladakh’s capital, Leh. She learned the art of crafting Pashmina shawls from her grandmother, who in teaching her, passed down centuries-old techniques. Dolma reflects on the journey: “The foreign incursions into Ladakh forced me to confront the fragility of life, to adapt, and evolve.” But the looming specter and uncertainty brought by a massive troop build-up, cast a dark shadow over Dolma’s once-peaceful existence. “We spend months preparing the handicraft stuff before arriving in Srinagar for work," she says. For Dolma, these rendezvous in serene corners of the city held significance beyond mere transactions. She was not just selling shawls—she was preserving a legacy, a tradition that had been passed down through generations. In a market flooded with facsimiles, she was a purveyor of authenticity, valued for her discerning eye and commitment to quality. Away from Ladakh, Dolma considers Kashmir the second home for Ladakhi entrepreneurs like herself. This Himalayan region is their main economic link to the rest of the world, aside from being the preferable market for their indigenous products. During the post-Covid distressed times, they counted on Kashmir’s booming domestic tourism. “Kashmir has never disappointed us,” says Tenzin, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “But somewhere down the line, the region’s uncertainty reminds us of our home now. It was a peaceful land before they changed its status in the summer of 2019.” The demand for a separate entity—a union territory—was a longstanding political cry in Ladakh, mostly from the members of the ruling mainstream party. The campaign gained steam after the political party swept the regional polls. Experts feared that slicing Ladakh from Kashmir would alter the course of the disputed land. But in the run-up to August 2019, when campaigns against Article 370 became fierce, Ladakh witnessed a political wave culminating in its new territorial identity. Lately, the process in Kargil has intensified with shutdowns of demand for statehood ; even the famed climate activist Sonam Wangchuk went on a 21-day hunger strike . With the altered political reality, most of these women are now anxious about the war frenzy created by the armies in their homeland. They realize how the militarization was triggered by the summer shift—when New Delhi justified the abrogation of Article 370 as a move “to end discrimination” with Ladakh and its people. But the unilateral decision backfired when the Chinese army showed up at the LAC and clashed with Indian forces. Since then the skirmishes have stopped, but the boots remain on the ground . While the border brouhaha has given Ladakh global coverage in recent times, these girls have become weary of the hyper-media attention. Like their Kashmiri counterparts, they don’t make peace with the pugnacious news debates focusing on their homeland. The mainland television media’s so-called war bulletins have only heightened tensions. What’s further creating a false sense of alarm is New Delhi’s dithering response to the LAC situation. The region has now become a new strategic zone forcing the right-wing government to build a fair-weather highway connecting Leh with Srinagar that opened this past winter. The snowbound thoroughfare used to be cut-off for six months. But now, the Indian government’s urge to keep an unflinching eye on the PLA has put men at work during extreme conditions, including the construction of a tunnel connecting Ladakh with Kashmir. Still, these young Ladakhi women see hope in Kashmir where their products are quite popular among the urban elites. However, if the status quo isn’t restored at the LAC anytime soon, these Pashmina girls of Ladakh fear losing cashmere to Chinese aggression. In the wake of this militarized uncertainty, some of the girls believe their visits to Kashmir, this estranged part of India, might alleviate their financial situation. “Life is tough back home,” continues Tenzin, while waiting for her client inside the cafeteria, and uncertainty has only escalated after the recent border tensions between India and China. Away from Ladakh, these girls share rent, rage, and respite in Srinagar before heading back home with seasonal earnings. “Most of us belong to poor families,” Tenzin continues with a thoughtful stance. “For us, our families come first. But it’s very hard to stay focused amid the changed reality now. Be it troop build-up or frontier tensions, the sense of normalcy has taken a big hit. Regardless of everything, Kashmir is the same to us as it used to be when the people of Ladakh were part of it,” she says. “Sadly, for some of us, a sense of estrangement has come to define this relationship now. And the change is there to see.” Padma Tsering, a quintessential Ladakhi woman in her early thirties from Nyoma, has been selling Pashmina in Kashmir for the past couple of years. “We’ve cultivated our customer base in Kashmir and rely on them for our livelihood,” she says. Despite their limited political awareness, Ladakhi girls like Tsering find hope in Kashmir. “There’s a sense of security Kashmir offers despite the surrounding tensions,” says Phuntsok Wangmo, another Pashmina seller from Ladakh. “It’s our preferred market with loyal customers, even during post-Covid times.” Dolma showcases her shawls in Srinagar during a business meeting with her client. Courtesy of Mir Seeneen. Meanwhile, Dolma’s wait ends as Sadaf Khan, a young Kashmiri woman, arrives at the café. Khan expresses interest in buying shawls from the weaver. “My cousin recommended Dolma to me and vouched for the quality of the shawls,” says Khan. The café comes alive with the buzz of business, some chatter, and laughter. After bidding farewell to her client, Dolma steps out into the busy thoroughfares of the city; walking home reflectively after another successful trade. ∎ SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Shebani Rao A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making A landscape view of Ladakh. Dolma's homeland now facing the heat of the lurking dragon. Courtesy of Masroor Khan. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reportage Ladakh Srinagar Kashmir Sino-Indian Relations China India Geopolitics Indian Union Article 370 Line of Actual Control People’s Liberation Army Changthang Labor Craftsmanship Artisans Indigeneity Settler-Colonialism Displacement Statehood Military Operations Police Action Sonam Dolma Militarization MIR SEENEEN is a freelance journalist based in Srinagar. She has worked with many international news organizations which includes The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat Magazine, TRT World, among others. 3 May 2024 Reportage Ladakh 3rd May 2024 Cracks in Pernote Tauseef Ahmad · Mohammad Aatif Ammad Kanth 2nd Dec Crossing Lines of Connection Arshad Ahmed · Chanchinmawia 14th Oct The Lakshadweep Gambit Rejimon Kuttapan 29th Mar Chats Ep. 7 · Karti Dharti, Gender & India's Farmers Movement Sangeet Toor 29th Apr Mahrang Baloch's Struggle Against Enforced Disappearances Shah Meer Baloch 18th Feb On That Note:

In Mizoram, new geopolitical and security measures are dismantling long-standing community bonds and obstructing essential trade in a region accustomed to fluid boundaries. These controls lay bare the disruptions to daily life wrought by political decisions on both sides of the Indo-Myanmar border. In Mizoram, new geopolitical and security measures are dismantling long-standing community bonds and obstructing essential trade in a region accustomed to fluid boundaries. These controls lay bare the disruptions to daily life wrought by political decisions on both sides of the Indo-Myanmar border. Manglien Gangte, Untitled (2021). Digital collage. Artist Indo-Myanmar Border AUTHOR · AUTHOR · AUTHOR 14 Oct 2024 th · FEATURES REPORTAGE · LOCATION Crossing Lines of Connection In April, C. Lalpekmuana, a 58-year-old resident of Zokhawthar on the Indo-Myanmar border in Mizoram, was grieving the death of his grandmother, Lianthluaii. The 91-year-old, who suffered from asthma, had succumbed to asphyxiation the day before. She had been a resident of Thingchang village in Myanmar’s Chin State. Lalpekmuana believes her death could have been avoided if the Assam Rifles, responsible for overseeing India’s border with Myanmar, had allowed her to cross and access medical treatment in India. However, she was denied entry following the Indian government’s decision, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) in February. According to India’s Home Minister, Amit Shah, this was done to “ensure the internal security of the country” and “maintain the demographic structure of India’s North Eastern States bordering Myanmar.” The FMR had previously allowed cross-border movement without a visa for up to 16 kilometres for communities living on either side. It also permitted those near the border to stay in the neighbouring country for up to two weeks with a year-long border permit. In 2018, the Modi government renewed this arrangement in a cross-border movement agreement with Myanmar, recognising the historical ties among these communities—only to revoke it earlier this year. Besides Mizoram, the 1,643 kilometre Indo-Myanmar border extends through three other northeastern Indian states: Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Nagaland. For centuries, communities on both sides have maintained deep ethnic and familial ties. The Chins in Myanmar are ethnically related to the Mizos in Mizoram and the Kuki-Zo in Manipur, a state currently embroiled in ethnic conflict between the Kuki-Zo and Meitei tribes. Across the border, many residents of Zokhawthar have immediate and extended family in the villages of Khawmawi and Thingchang, located 1.7 and 22 kilometres away, respectively. The people in these villages share the same myths, legends, and folklore that fill the air in Zokhawthar. “A mother in Khawmawi and Thingchang most likely sings the same lullaby to her child as a mother does in Zokhawthar,” says Lalrawngbawla, a member of a Mizo volunteer group. “We are so close that most people on the other side know those from Zokhawthar by name and face.” The lore and camaraderie extend along the Tiau River, which snakes through both India and Myanmar. Lalrawngbawla, whose house overlooks the shallow Tiau flanked by the green foothills of the Chin and Lushai hills, affirms that while the river has served as a de facto border between the two nations, it has always united the Chins and Mizos. “Children on either side would make paper boats with enclosed messages and let the river carry them to their friends,” he mentions, smiling. “This has been a favourite pastime since childhood.” The recent development, however, has alarmed locals, with tribal communities voicing that the termination of the FMR is hurting them. It was this arrangement that allowed Lalpekmuana and other Mizos to visit Rih Lake, a pilgrimage site about five kilometres into Myanmar from Zokhawthar. “With the FMR scrapped, we are now barred from visiting our holy lake which binds the Kuki-Chins and Mizos together,” Lalpekmuana laments. Locals are also troubled by New Delhi’s plan to construct a USD 3.7 billion fence along the Indo-Myanmar border. Many we spoke to fear that this proposed fence could further cripple the local economy, which relies on cross-border trade. In Zokhawthar, over 400 of the town’s 501 families are directly involved in cross-border commerce and labour for their livelihoods, according to a trade union leader. Any disruption to trade across the Tiau bridge and river would plunge them into a financial crisis. “After the Lok Sabha election this year, the Assam Rifles sealed the border for a while . No goods were allowed in or out,” states 24-year-old Lalhnehzova, a Mizo labourer in Zokhawthar who spends the better part of his day unloading trucks arriving from Myanmar. “Fencing means starvation to us.” Courtesy of the authors. A Lasting Colonial Legacy After the defeat of the Burmese army in their first war with the British in 1826, the regime was forced to sign the Treaty of Yandabo with the British East India Company. This pact ended the Burmese occupation of much of the northeastern region, including Assam, which then included present-day Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram, leading to their annexation by British India. Almost a decade later, in 1834, British officer Captain R. Boileu Pemberton drew a line to separate colonial India from Myanmar, now known as the Pemberton Line. However, the Chin-Kuki-Zo and Mizo tribes, who predominantly live in the hills of northeastern India and present-day Bangladesh, were not consulted during the demarcation. This line has since caused distress for these tribes that share connections and links that traverse the "imaginary border" and reject the idea of “colonial boundaries,” according to stakeholders from the tribal communities. During an interview, Lalmuanpuia, president of Zokhawthar’s village council, explains to us how the Mizo and the Chins have suffered since the colonial boundaries were drawn. “Our people were not given the option to choose between the countries, nor were we consulted before the demarcation,” he comments with emotion. “The issue has remained at a stalemate ever since.” His views are echoed by the chief of the Longwa village in Nagaland, which is also split between India and Myanmar. The first breakthrough in resolving the colonial border issue came after both India and Myanmar gained independence from British colonial rule. In 1948, Myanmar’s first Prime Minister, U Nu, introduced the Burma Passport Rules , allowing passport and permit-free entry for indigenous nationals of neighbouring countries up to 40 kilometres from the border. Two years later, Jawaharlal Nehru’s government responded by amending India’s passport rules , allowing similar cross-border movement for tribes along the Indo-Myanmar border. Since then, cross-border movement between the ethnic tribes of the two nations—which later formed the basis for the FMR—has continued, albeit with occasional suspensions due to the rise of militancy and multiple revisions, the latest being in 2016 . However, these measures have not dispelled the sense of coloniality associated with the border among locals. “A border demarcation that split communities on both sides was a part of colonial cruelty by the British,” explains Jangkhongam Doungel, who teaches political science at Mizoram University. “The scrapping of the FMR and the fencing are extensions of that colonialism for these communities.” Courtesy of the authors A Counterproductive Measure Soon after Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government announced the abolition of the FMR, the governments of Mizoram and Nagaland quickly passed resolutions against the suspension in their assemblies. However, the Indian government upheld its decision, citing reasons such as safeguarding internal security and managing the influx of Myanmarese refugees into India to justify freezing the FMR. Moreover, while India’s northeast may be prone to security concerns from insurgent groups in Myanmar, experts argue that fencing the entire border will be costly and “counterproductive,” given the security forces' dependence on the locals living along the border. Angshuman Choudhary, an associate fellow specialising in Myanmar and northeast India at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in New Delhi, tells us that the army relies on ethnic communities living along the border for various military arrangements, including cooperation to manage the border and intelligence gathering against insurgents. “Such a move may alienate these communities from the army,” he observes, noting that the fencing could cause “significant social and political turbulence along the border, leading to new forms of discontent that might escalate into anti-state violence.” Another challenge to erecting a fence along the border is the region’s hilly terrain. “Unlike India’s frontiers with Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Indo-Myanmar border region is mountainous and forested,” Choudhary adds. The decision to erect the border fence has met with stiff opposition from hill-dwelling indigenous communities and insurgent groups . Zo Reunification (ZoRO), a Mizoram-based civil society group advocating for a unified Chin-Kuki-Mizo region, has even taken their protest to the United Nations. An Empty Response to Meitei Demands Kuki-Zo civil society groups, as well as experts we spoke to, contend that the actual motivation for ending the FMR was to satisfy the demands of the Meitei political class in Manipur. According to the narrative popular among Meitei nationalists, the “illegal immigration” of the minority Kuki-Zo community from Myanmar has been the flashpoint driving the ethnic crisis in Manipur. Since violence erupted between the Kuki-Zo and Meiteis on May 3, 2023, the state has reported over 225 deaths, most of them Kuki-Zos, and approximately 60,000 people have been internally displaced. The BJP-led N. Biren Singh government in Manipur has long advocated for freezing the FMR as part of its efforts to curb immigration . Since the Tatmadaw seized power in Myanmar in 2021, more than three million Myanmarese have fled to neighbouring countries, according to the United Nations. India has also seen an influx of Myanmarese refugees, including Rohingyas . At least 70,000 refugees from the Junta are now living in India, with over 36,500 granted asylum in Mizoram. However, Singh’s government has taken a hostile stance towards these refugees. India’s former ambassador to Myanmar, Gautam Mukhopadhaya, challenges the justification of eliminating the FMR over the refugee crisis, stating that it “creates the very conditions it purports to counter.” “In fact, the state government has exploited the presence of a small group of refugees to brand the entire Kuki-Zo population in Manipur as ‘illegal migrants,’ and the centre has tacitly followed suit.” Mukhopadhaya’s concern resonates with many refugees we met at a camp in Zokhawthar. For 42-year-old Zarzokimi, the suspension of the FMR is undoubtedly a result of Meitei supremacism. She recounts how Singh’s government “cruelly deported” her family members who sought asylum in a Manipur border town after the coup. “If Mizoram can take us in, why can’t Manipur?” she asks. “The FMR removal is just another way to divide the Kuk-Chins from the Mizos.” Meanwhile, as India’s Home Ministry pushes forward with fencing in Manipur and Arunachal, communities along the border are confronted with the brutal imposition of a frontier designed to fracture the ties they have held close for generations. ∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Reportage Indo-Myanmar Border Mizoram Free Movement Regime (FMR) Settler Colonialism Colonialism India Myanmar Northeast India Manipur Assam Rifles Thingchang Meitei Kuki Modi Mizos Tribes Indigeneity Terrain Centre for Policy Research CPR Zo Reunification State & Media Majoritarianism Tribal Conflict Kuki-Zo Scheduled Tribes Politics of Ethnic Identity Refugees Insurgency Civil Society State Government Narrative AFSPA Indigenous Spaces Ethnically Divided Politics Sister States Local vs. National Politics Precarity Zokhawthar Tiau River De Facto Border Rih Lake Commerce Arunachal Pradesh Nagaland Colonial Boundaries Displacement Internally Displaced Persons Mizoram University Chin-Kuki-Mizo region Rohingya Asylum Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

WRITER Mashiul Alam MASHIUL ALAM is a writer and translator who was born in northern Bangladesh in 1968. He graduated from the Peoples’ Friendship University in Moscow in 1993. A journalist by profession, he works at Prothom Alo , the leading Bengali daily in Bangladesh. He is the author of over a dozen books including The Second Night with Tanushree (novel), Ghora Masud (novel), Mangsher Karbar (The Meat Market ) (short stories), and Pakistan (short stories). His translations include Dostoevsky’s White Nights (translated from the Russian to Bengali); Bertrand Russell’s Plato’s Utopia and Other Essays , and Before Socrates . Alam was recently awarded the debut Sylhet Mirror Prize for Literature. His short story Doodh, translated as Milk by Shabnam Nadiya, was awarded the 2019 Himal Southasian Short Story Prize. He is currently working on Laal Akash (Red Sky) , a novel set in the Soviet Union during Perestroika, and is based in Dhaka. WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

This essay traces the afterlife of queer activist Xulhaz Mannan’s words: once hidden in a drawer, now scrawled on Dhaka’s walls amid mass uprising. Through the collapse of Hasina’s regime, the co-option of gender rights, and the violent silencing of queer life, it asks: can a new Bangladesh truly emerge if it continues to deny the existence of those it has consistently tried to erase? This essay traces the afterlife of queer activist Xulhaz Mannan’s words: once hidden in a drawer, now scrawled on Dhaka’s walls amid mass uprising. Through the collapse of Hasina’s regime, the co-option of gender rights, and the violent silencing of queer life, it asks: can a new Bangladesh truly emerge if it continues to deny the existence of those it has consistently tried to erase? "Phobia Ends Here" (2023), acrylic in canvas, courtesy of Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin. Artist Dhaka AUTHOR · AUTHOR · AUTHOR 24 Oct 2025 th · THE VERTICAL REPORTAGE · LOCATION A Grammar of Disappearance Authors' Note: We wrote this article in the hopeful aftermath of the July 2024 uprising last year. But since then, we have witnessed a troubling resurgence of attacks on the trans and queer community in Bangladesh, some even led by organizers in the uprising. "W hy would the ones—those I cannot stop thinking about—forget me? Why cannot I live out my love freely? This is so unfair." In 1994, gay rights activist Xulhaz Mannan wrote the above in a letter, possibly addressed to his lover. Twenty years later, Mannan was murdered for publishing Roopbaan , Bangladesh's first LGBT+ magazine. Since then, his letters remain stashed away in a closet of his residence. Last year, two queer archivists, including the authors of this op-ed, retrieved and digitized them. Excerpts from Mannan’s letters now appear on one of Dhaka’s freshly graffitied walls. On 28 July 2024, Bangladesh’s then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina imposed a curfew , issued a shoot-on-sight order, and cut off telecommunications in an attempt to suppress a student uprising. In response, coordinators of the student movement turned to guerrilla art. Armed with spray cans, they scrawled messages like "Hasina is a killer" on walls, streets, and riot vehicles before disappearing. People across the country joined in. The Hasina regime fell on 5 August 2024. Street art now covers the city. But Mannan’s graffiti stands apart—it is not a demand, nor a slogan, nor a call for justice. What does it mean to find a love letter rendered as political graffiti? In a country where homosexuality remains criminalized and queer lives are violently erased, this graffiti blends love and mass uprising. It now sits beside an image of disappeared adibashi activist Kalpana Chakma . Together, they reveal the interwoven violences inflicted on queer people and dissenters under Hasina’s ultra-nationalist rule. "Phobia Ends Here" (2023), acrylic in canvas, courtesy of Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin. Mannan was murdered in 2016, during Hasina’s tenure. The Home Minister at the time condemned the victims: “Our society does not allow any movement that promotes unnatural sex.” Hasina herself repeatedly denied the existence of queer people in Bangladesh. In a 2023 interview, when asked about the criminalization of homosexuality in the country’s constitution, she responded , “That is not a problem in our country.” The Hasina regime also attempted to co-opt the gender rights movement. A 2013 government gazette recognized hijra as a gender category, allowing inclusion in official documents and transgender women to run for reserved parliamentary seats . But instead of expanding public understanding, the policy collapsed hijra, intersex, and trans identities into a single vague category that enabled abuse. In 2015, hijras applying for government jobs were forcibly subjected to medical examinations . This flattening of gender identity eroded organizing efforts. In the years that followed, state-aligned gender activists and NGOs gained prominence. They argued that Hasina’s authoritarianism was necessary to protect gender rights from Islamist groups. But their fear-mongering proved hollow. Violence against gender and sexual minorities only intensified under Hasina, whose politics local organizers now describe as “hijra-washed.” "Phobia Ends Here" (2023), acrylic in canvas, courtesy of Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin. One telling example came when progressive organisers included a subsection on trans rights in a school textbook. Islamist groups led by Asif Mahtab Utsho mobilised violently, forcing sexual and reproductive health NGOs to shut down. The Hasina regime offered no protection. The trans content was officially removed in June 2024. Queer people were targeted not only in public but also in digital spaces. The regime’s Cyber Security Act 2023 severely restricted internet freedom , forcing queer Bangladeshis into online silence. From dating to organizing, their digital presence was strangled. As the Hasina regime collapses and new proposals for justice emerge, we must remember that the freedom of queer Bangladeshis is linked with the liberation of all marginalized groups. Mannan’s murder, the co-optation of gender rights, and the crackdown on queer life were all part of a broader regime—one marked by extrajudicial killings , the repression of journalists , activists, artists, and human rights defenders under the guise of digital security, and the systematic violation of women and girls, particularly in indigenous areas , in the name of development. Hasina's ouster does not mark the end of authoritarianism. When the dust settles, we may once again see the rule of Bengali Muslim cis-men. In such a moment, Mannan’s graffiti offers a sharp reminder that Bangladesh is made up of many communities. If queerness continues to be criminalized, denied, and erased, the country will simply reproduce the same systems of violence. Queer people in Bangladesh have always fought for collective liberation—including in this very uprising. The question now is not whether they exist. It is whether the new Bangladesh is willing to coexist with them. ∎ "Phobia Ends Here" (2023), acrylic in canvas, courtesy of Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Opinion Dhaka Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

COO of Fearless Collective, Tehani Ariyaratne, in conversation with Senior Editor Sabika Abbas Naqvi. COMMUNITY Public Art Projects as Feminist Reclamation COO of Fearless Collective, Tehani Ariyaratne, in conversation with Senior Editor Sabika Abbas Naqvi. Tehani Ariyaratne One of our murals in Rawalpindi, is an image of a [khwaja sira], Bubbli Malik, on a bicycle, and she says "I am a creation of Allah." The mural refers not to violence or trauma, but is a radical affirmation of the [khwaja sira] community. One of our murals in Rawalpindi, is an image of a [khwaja sira], Bubbli Malik, on a bicycle, and she says "I am a creation of Allah." The mural refers not to violence or trauma, but is a radical affirmation of the [khwaja sira] community. SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Shebani Rao A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Feminist Art Practice Feminist Organizing Mural Public Space Art Practice Public Arts Fearless Collective Fearless Arts Residency Art Activism Fundraising Future Dream Spaces Queerness Queer Spaces Trans Politics Trans Community Wheat Pasting Sri Lanka Pakistan India Internationalist Solidarity Khwaja Siras Bubbli Malik Queer Muslim Project Tehani Ariyaratne is a feminist researcher with ten years of working experience in the human rights and development sectors in Sri Lanka and South Asia. Her research focus areas include women's labor and environmental justice. She is the Chief Operations Officer for Fearless Collective , a South Asia-based public art project with the aim of reclamation and self-representation for women and marginalized people around the world. 29 Nov 2020 Interview Feminist Art Practice 29th Nov 2020 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

"Our priority is to meet the needs of people on this planet. Not just workers. Not workers at all." A multimedia short using video archival footage, this faux-advertisement is equal parts a history of advertising & the legacy of fossil fuel companies’ manipulation and a disturbing, singular dystopia from one aesthete's point of view. BOOKS & ARTS It's Only Human AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR "Our priority is to meet the needs of people on this planet. Not just workers. Not workers at all." A multimedia short using video archival footage, this faux-advertisement is equal parts a history of advertising & the legacy of fossil fuel companies’ manipulation and a disturbing, singular dystopia from one aesthete's point of view. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Short Film Global Climate Change Multimedia Fossil Fuel Companies Oil Oil Production Advertising Electoral Politics Multimodal Simultaneity Sunrise Movement Neoliberalism Performance Art Mimesis Anthropocene Satire Absurdity Voiceover Archival Practice Video Archives Archiving Reminiscence Archives Public History Manipulation Affect Agriculture Mega Conglomerates Apocalyptic Environmentalism Art Activism Experimental Methods Video Form Graphic Design Capitalism Class Climate Anxiety Complicity Crisis Media Media Landscape False Advertising Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Short Film Global 26th Apr 2021 Like having the imagination to envision oblivion. And make it reality. Special Thanks to: Varshini Prakash Narration by: Jessica Flemming EDITOR'S NOTE: This multimedia piece, by graphic designer and artist Furqan Jawed, is the result of a collaborative effort, initially conceptualized as a story about the history of advertising & fossil fuel companies’ manipulation of the public across the world. It took place over a number of months, supplemented by reminiscences and stream-of-consciousness ideas by Varshini Prakash, co-founder and Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement, as well as exchange with editors Vishakha Darbha & Kamil Ahsan. Furqan plumbed the archives of advertising across a number of decades in India and the United States. The product was, at the time, an unanticipated, serendipitous, and surprising product of an inquisitive but seemingly-directionless collaboration. Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

· BOOKS & ARTS Comic · Freelancing A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making And what if they're union-busting but still paying really well? Not enough "choose your own adventure" content? Leave us an angry note & we will oblige. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Comic Freelancing Gig Work Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 22nd Feb 2023 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Arshia Haq describes Discostan as a “diasporic discotheque which imagines past, present and future soundscapes from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay.” The music is often inspired by the performative traditions of radical, avant-garde artists and musicians, a practice that defines Discostan's community engagement model. INTERACTIVE A Set by Discostan Arshia Haq describes Discostan as a “diasporic discotheque which imagines past, present and future soundscapes from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay.” The music is often inspired by the performative traditions of radical, avant-garde artists and musicians, a practice that defines Discostan's community engagement model. Arshia Fatima Haq · Prithi Khalique Just dance, now. At the end of our June 2021 online live event—a six-hour-long series of panels, showcases, readings, and performances—a “ diasporic discotheque which imagines past, present and future soundscapes from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay ”. Founded by Arshia Fatima Haq, Discostan is heavily invested in community engagement and social practice. For In Grief, In Solidarity , Haq curated a DJ set for us to let loose. SAAG Visual Designer Prithi Khalique produced the visuals, using recurring motifs from our event videos. Just dance, now. At the end of our June 2021 online live event—a six-hour-long series of panels, showcases, readings, and performances—a “ diasporic discotheque which imagines past, present and future soundscapes from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay ”. Founded by Arshia Fatima Haq, Discostan is heavily invested in community engagement and social practice. For In Grief, In Solidarity , Haq curated a DJ set for us to let loose. SAAG Visual Designer Prithi Khalique produced the visuals, using recurring motifs from our event videos. SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Shebani Rao A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Live Global Music DJ Diasporic Discotheque Community Building Social Practice Art Activism Internationalist Solidarity In Grief In Solidarity Visual Design ARSHIA FATIMA HAQ works in film, visual art, performance, and sound. She is the founder of Discostan, a collaborative decolonial project and record label that works with cultural production from South and West Asia and North Africa. Her work has been featured at MoMA in New York, the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, the Broad Museum, LACE, the Toronto International Film Festival, Centre Pompidou, and the Pacific Film Archive. She is currently based in Lοs Αngeles. PRITHI KHALIQUE is a visual designer and animator based in Dhaka and Providence. 5 Jun 2021 Live Global 5th Jun 2021 The Aahvaan Project · Performance Vedi Sinha 5th Jun Natasha Noorani's Retro Aesthetic Natasha Noorani 5th Jun Protest Art & the Corporate Art World Hit Man Gurung · Isma Gul Hasan · Ikroop Sandhu 5th Jun On “Letter from Your Far-Off Country” Suneil Sanzgiri · Ritesh Mehta 5th Jun FLUX · A Celebratory Set by DJ Kiran Darakshan Raja 5th Dec On That Note:

WRITER, CURATOR Pramodha Weerasekera PRAMODHA WEERASEKERA is an art writer and curator based in Sri Lanka. She writes regularly about feminist artistic practices and occasionally about art books from South Asia. Her writing has appeared in e-flux , Art Review, Hyperallergic , BOMB , and several exhibition publications. Her curatorial projects have been presented at the Khoj International Artists Association in New Delhi, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sri Lanka, and the Ceylon Literary and Arts Festival in Colombo. She is the Assistant Curator of Edition 9 of Colomboscope. WRITER, CURATOR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

Solidarity failed when it came to a dire Afghan refugee crisis, decades in the making. THE VERTICAL Everyone Failed Us Solidarity failed when it came to a dire Afghan refugee crisis, decades in the making. Arash Azizzada · Irene Benedicto “A group of women leaders are badly in danger and one of them is my mom. I really searching for a person who can help us. They attack our home at first…. I hope you can help us. Every one of us really get depressed, please help us to get out of here.” THE BARRAGE of messages I receive, like the one above from western Afghanistan on almost a daily basis has not stopped, even a year later. Desperate daily emails from Afghans seeking refuge and safety flood our inboxes. Some are social activists, human rights defenders, former interpreters, and women leaders at risk of retribution from the Taliban. Other marginalized groups such as Hazaras and Shias have already been victims of ethnic cleansing by the Taliban and remain targets of ISIS attacks. Women activists have been disappeared by the Taliban authorities. Afghans seeking evacuation hold onto hope in what seems to be a hopeless situation. No longer expecting the international community to come to their rescue, for governments and institutions to do what they’re supposed to do, they rely on community organizers like myself and others. For two decades, America bragged about what it was building in Afghanistan. Last summer, the “Afghanistan project” was exposed for the facade that it was: a hollow rentier-state that only held ever legitimacy with Western donors and not with the Afghan people. Despite obvious bubbles of progress where hope flourished amidst the violence, the impending threat of a drone strike or Taliban suicide blast was always around the corner. Some rural areas were battered and mired in misery due to violence and poverty; others flourished, led by Afghan women and marginalized communities. The only constant was never-ending conflict. It seems as if the U.S. built a house of cards in Afghanistan, created in its own image, a house that started falling when the chains of dependency were challenged. The alliance with human rights abusers, the elevation of notorious pedophiles, and funding of endemic corruption brought back to power an oppressive, authoritarian regime that is erasing women, marginalized ethnic groups, and the disabled from public and daily life. The U.S. ran prisons where innocent Afghans were tortured. Entire villages were wiped off the map, and this was excused away as collateral damage. The U.S. spent years telling Afghans to pursue their dreams, break barriers, and challenge cultural norms. Then, it turned its back on them and betrayed them. Perhaps those of us who dreamt of a better Afghanistan were at fault for having expectations of a country whose very existence was kickstarted by genocide, a country where American presidents attempt brazen coups and its own citizens storm its political headquarters. The grim reality that we bore witness to these past few months is one that anyone who has paid attention to Afghanistan could have seen coming. There is even a U.S. agency–the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)--which is dedicated to overseeing how reconstruction money was used in Afghanistan. In report after report, year after year, quarter after quarter, SIGAR wrote about the ghosts that the U.S. created–schools and hospitals that didn’t exist and a 300,000-man army that only functioned on paper. The Washington Post even devoted a series titled “The Afghanistan Papers, ” to showcase how policymakers and Pentagon officials had lied and deceived the American people about its success and accomplishments for 20 successive years. Nobody cared. The failure to value Afghan lives, however, lies not just with policymakers and elected officials. Certainly, the list of those responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan is long, ranging from Afghan elites to American elected officials from both parties going back four decades. Administration after administration has deprioritized Afghan lives and centered the needs of American hegemony. Congress held hearings on Afghanistan and yet rarely featured any Afghans. Policy discussions on Afghanistan in Washington D.C. at influential think tanks left out Afghans entirely. Afghans were left invisible in an occupation that lasted so long that it became not the “forever war” but rather the “forgotten war.” Afghanistan had disappeared from the psyche of the American people. Even when SIGAR released a report on rampant corruption that was wasting billions or when the Washington Post talked about lie after lie coming from the Pentagon, America just didn’t seem to care. The right-wing was too busy destroying democracy, the Democratic party was too busy fundraising from defense contractors, and the anti-war Left was too white to put Afghans and other impacted communities at the forefront. In our own Afghan American community, too many in our diaspora were profiting off the occupation. Their kids will go to prestigious American colleges, while Afghan girls will not be able to go to school at all and are robbed of a future. An international audience did finally pay attention to us last summer. American media, though, centered on the feelings of almost a million veterans who served in Afghanistan rather than asking Afghans how a withdrawal would impact them. The images of Afghans clinging onto the bottom of a military cargo plane had the world hooked. What does it say about our humanity that it took those tragic images for everyone to ask what we can do to help? For just a few days, people across the globe valued Afghan life. But moments like that are fleeting–Afghan history is littered with broken promises. Some of us have read enough history to know that the international community will not learn the lessons of its failure in Afghanistan and begin centering on the needs of the Afghan people. The Taliban spends every day perfecting its repression while the world has moved on, despite empty tweets and statements of solidarity. Today, as a year has passed since the chaotic withdrawal, wide-ranging sanctions on Afghanistan and theft of Afghan assets by the U.S. continue to inflict immense pain on innocent Afghan people, causing a humanitarian crisis that will likely lead to mass-scale death through malnutrition and starvation, a policy that disproportionately impacts Afghan girls and women. The United States’ attitude remains the same: focusing only on self-interest, even if it harms Afghans, except now it is done through economic warfare rather than through bombs built by defense contractor companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Afghans deserve justice and reparations for the harm America has caused in my home country. Despite that vision for the future, what America leaves behind are closed immigration pathways and a desire to pretend Afghans don’t exist in the first place. Perhaps if a few more Afghans clung onto a plane leaving the Kabul airport, someone would care. ∎ “A group of women leaders are badly in danger and one of them is my mom. I really searching for a person who can help us. They attack our home at first…. I hope you can help us. Every one of us really get depressed, please help us to get out of here.” THE BARRAGE of messages I receive, like the one above from western Afghanistan on almost a daily basis has not stopped, even a year later. Desperate daily emails from Afghans seeking refuge and safety flood our inboxes. Some are social activists, human rights defenders, former interpreters, and women leaders at risk of retribution from the Taliban. Other marginalized groups such as Hazaras and Shias have already been victims of ethnic cleansing by the Taliban and remain targets of ISIS attacks. Women activists have been disappeared by the Taliban authorities. Afghans seeking evacuation hold onto hope in what seems to be a hopeless situation. No longer expecting the international community to come to their rescue, for governments and institutions to do what they’re supposed to do, they rely on community organizers like myself and others. For two decades, America bragged about what it was building in Afghanistan. Last summer, the “Afghanistan project” was exposed for the facade that it was: a hollow rentier-state that only held ever legitimacy with Western donors and not with the Afghan people. Despite obvious bubbles of progress where hope flourished amidst the violence, the impending threat of a drone strike or Taliban suicide blast was always around the corner. Some rural areas were battered and mired in misery due to violence and poverty; others flourished, led by Afghan women and marginalized communities. The only constant was never-ending conflict. It seems as if the U.S. built a house of cards in Afghanistan, created in its own image, a house that started falling when the chains of dependency were challenged. The alliance with human rights abusers, the elevation of notorious pedophiles, and funding of endemic corruption brought back to power an oppressive, authoritarian regime that is erasing women, marginalized ethnic groups, and the disabled from public and daily life. The U.S. ran prisons where innocent Afghans were tortured. Entire villages were wiped off the map, and this was excused away as collateral damage. The U.S. spent years telling Afghans to pursue their dreams, break barriers, and challenge cultural norms. Then, it turned its back on them and betrayed them. Perhaps those of us who dreamt of a better Afghanistan were at fault for having expectations of a country whose very existence was kickstarted by genocide, a country where American presidents attempt brazen coups and its own citizens storm its political headquarters. The grim reality that we bore witness to these past few months is one that anyone who has paid attention to Afghanistan could have seen coming. There is even a U.S. agency–the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)--which is dedicated to overseeing how reconstruction money was used in Afghanistan. In report after report, year after year, quarter after quarter, SIGAR wrote about the ghosts that the U.S. created–schools and hospitals that didn’t exist and a 300,000-man army that only functioned on paper. The Washington Post even devoted a series titled “The Afghanistan Papers, ” to showcase how policymakers and Pentagon officials had lied and deceived the American people about its success and accomplishments for 20 successive years. Nobody cared. The failure to value Afghan lives, however, lies not just with policymakers and elected officials. Certainly, the list of those responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan is long, ranging from Afghan elites to American elected officials from both parties going back four decades. Administration after administration has deprioritized Afghan lives and centered the needs of American hegemony. Congress held hearings on Afghanistan and yet rarely featured any Afghans. Policy discussions on Afghanistan in Washington D.C. at influential think tanks left out Afghans entirely. Afghans were left invisible in an occupation that lasted so long that it became not the “forever war” but rather the “forgotten war.” Afghanistan had disappeared from the psyche of the American people. Even when SIGAR released a report on rampant corruption that was wasting billions or when the Washington Post talked about lie after lie coming from the Pentagon, America just didn’t seem to care. The right-wing was too busy destroying democracy, the Democratic party was too busy fundraising from defense contractors, and the anti-war Left was too white to put Afghans and other impacted communities at the forefront. In our own Afghan American community, too many in our diaspora were profiting off the occupation. Their kids will go to prestigious American colleges, while Afghan girls will not be able to go to school at all and are robbed of a future. An international audience did finally pay attention to us last summer. American media, though, centered on the feelings of almost a million veterans who served in Afghanistan rather than asking Afghans how a withdrawal would impact them. The images of Afghans clinging onto the bottom of a military cargo plane had the world hooked. What does it say about our humanity that it took those tragic images for everyone to ask what we can do to help? For just a few days, people across the globe valued Afghan life. But moments like that are fleeting–Afghan history is littered with broken promises. Some of us have read enough history to know that the international community will not learn the lessons of its failure in Afghanistan and begin centering on the needs of the Afghan people. The Taliban spends every day perfecting its repression while the world has moved on, despite empty tweets and statements of solidarity. Today, as a year has passed since the chaotic withdrawal, wide-ranging sanctions on Afghanistan and theft of Afghan assets by the U.S. continue to inflict immense pain on innocent Afghan people, causing a humanitarian crisis that will likely lead to mass-scale death through malnutrition and starvation, a policy that disproportionately impacts Afghan girls and women. The United States’ attitude remains the same: focusing only on self-interest, even if it harms Afghans, except now it is done through economic warfare rather than through bombs built by defense contractor companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Afghans deserve justice and reparations for the harm America has caused in my home country. Despite that vision for the future, what America leaves behind are closed immigration pathways and a desire to pretend Afghans don’t exist in the first place. Perhaps if a few more Afghans clung onto a plane leaving the Kabul airport, someone would care. ∎ SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Shebani Rao A Freelancer's Guide to Decision-Making Photograph courtesy of Arash Azizzada (November 2019). SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Op-Ed Afghanistan Refugee Crisis US Imperialism The Failure of the Diaspora ARASH AZIZZADA is a writer, photographer, and community organizer based in Los Angeles, CA. The children of Afghan refugees, Arash is deeply committed to social justice and building communities. He co-founded Afghan Diaspora for Equality and Progress (ADEP) in 2016, aimed at elevating and empowering changemakers within the Afghan community. He recently co-launched Afghans For A Better Tomorrow (AFBT), and has focused on evacuation and rapid response coordination efforts in the wake of America’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has written for the New York Times , Newsweek , and been featured on NPR and Vice News . IRENE BENEDICTO is an investigative and data reporter with ten years of experience working as a journalist. She has covered breaking news and written in-depth long-form stories, local and international news from eight different countries on three continents, including the political hubs of Washington DC and Brussels, and three investigative data projects on migration, public health, and social inequities. 24 Feb 2023 Op-Ed Afghanistan 24th Feb 2023 The Captive Mind Sola Mahfouz 26th Jun Whiplash and Contradiction in Sri Lanka’s aragalaya Harshana Rambukwella 27th Feb Universalism & Solidarity in a Post-Roe Landscape Sharmin Hossain 23rd Feb Climate Crimes of US Imperalism in Afghanistan Shah Mahmoud Hanifi 16th Oct Chats Ep. 1 · On A Premonition; Recollected Jamil Jan Kochai 13th Nov On That Note: