Megha Majumdar in conversation with Fiction Editor Kartika Budhwar. COMMUNITY On Class & Character in Megha Majumdar's Debut Novel AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Megha Majumdar in conversation with Fiction Editor Kartika Budhwar. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Interview West Bengal Politics English as Class Signifier Hindutva National Book Award Longlist Debut Novel Humor Centering the Silly The Baby-Sitters Club Debut Authors Working-Class Stories Body Politics Queerness Trans Politics 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 Interview West Bengal Politics 29th Sep 2020 Bodily vulnerability is so crucial to confront with people who are shamed, opressed, and made to feel so aware of themselves—even with where they can stand in a street, or whether they can love. RECOMMENDED: A Burning by Megha Majumdar 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:

Literary theorist Aneil Rallin rejects the conventions of academic, scholarly writing being didactic. Instead of kowtowing to the distrust of playfulness in academia, he brings to the fore in his research poesis that can purposely by “playful or elliptical or weird or whimsical or mixed-genre or creative.” COMMUNITY Radical Rhetoric, Pedagogy & Academic Complicity AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Literary theorist Aneil Rallin rejects the conventions of academic, scholarly writing being didactic. Instead of kowtowing to the distrust of playfulness in academia, he brings to the fore in his research poesis that can purposely by “playful or elliptical or weird or whimsical or mixed-genre or creative.” SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Interview Radical Rhetoric Politics of Citation Rhetoric Rupture Composition Queer Spaces Pedagogy June Jordan Susan Griffin Politics of Location Location Adrienne Rich Complicity Complicity of the Academy Academia Nature of Credibility Corporate Queer Identity Gloria E. Anzaldúa Eunice de Souza Women's Participation Gender Gender Studies Women and Gender Studies in India Queer Activism Nature of Radical Activism Universities Experimental Methods Trinh T. Minh-ha Whimsy Playfulness Centering the Silly Fragments Mixed-Genre Multimodal Personal History 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 Interview Radical Rhetoric 18th Jan 2021 Along with scholars like Trinh T. Minh-ha and Susan Griffin, I want to reject the notion that academic scholarly writing has to be pedantic, or that it can't be playful or elliptical or weird or whimsical or mixed-genre or creative. There seems to be a distrust in academia, of playfulness and creativity, it's not seen as serious or critical or important. But, I like bringing together lots of different forms, critical writing and anecdotes and notes and analysis and snippets of conversations and fragments and juxtapositions. RECOMMENDED: Dreads and Open Mouth: Living/Teaching/Writing Queerly by Aneil Rallin. 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:

Violent clashes along the Assam-Mizoram border have a 150-year-old history. The recent border flare-ups may appear most visibly in the superficial disputes of state parliaments, but they have, in truth, roots in both militarism and political economy—particularly the illicut trade of the areca nut—that undergird the construction of ethnic identities. | · FEATURES Reportage · Assam-Mizoram Assam, Mizoram, and the Construction of the "Other" Violent clashes along the Assam-Mizoram border have a 150-year-old history. The recent border flare-ups may appear most visibly in the superficial disputes of state parliaments, but they have, in truth, roots in both militarism and political economy—particularly the illicut trade of the areca nut—that undergird the construction of ethnic identities. No Man's Land: The disputed region near Singhua saw violent clashes between the forces of Mizoram and Assam leading to the death of 6 Assam policeman on duty on the 26th of July 2021 in Singua, Assam, India. Courtesy of Abhishek Basu. In July 2021, violent clashes along the “no-man’s land” border between Assam and Mizoram erupted, the latest in a conflict that dates back to over a century . This time, however, the clashes were accompanied by a battleground along party lines. In the lead up to India’s 75th Independence Day, Mizoram, the only remaining non-Saffronised, Congress-backed state in the northeastern region of India, seemingly became a target for India’s ruling party, the BJP, and its project to establish politically motivated “peace.” The seven sister states in the northeastern part of India are well acquainted with sporadic bouts of violence along their borders. The dispute along the border between Assam and Mizoram centers around contentious claims about where the exact border lies. Mizoram claims 509 square miles of the inner-line reserve forest under an 1875 border demarcation, a claim Assam rejects based on a demarcation in 1933. In turn, this contentious space has long become a locus for the political aspirations of both regional and central ruling parties and powerful groups. Following the violent clashes in July 2021, news reports quoted villagers in Mizoram as describing the situation as “a war between two countries.” The optics were indeed strange: two police forces of the same country—albeit different states—engaged in a violent shootout against each other. 48 hours before the first clashes, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah had met with the Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA) to discuss the possibility of a border settlement. Over the next few weeks, the series of police firings that began in Kareemganj, Hailakandi, spread to the Cachar district of Assam. The renewed conflict has deeper roots: on a macroscopic level, contemporary political, cultural, and economic structures continue to bolster the active construction of enemies, within and without, for both the Assamese and the Mizo populations. What appears to be behind the violent clashes along the 165km-long fluid border—alarming in breadth and scope—in the region is a complex game of both ethnic identity politics as well as the central government’s agenda of putting an end to the Burmese supari or areca nut (often called betel nut) trade, an economy in which locals from both states are involved. The import of Burmese areca nut is now illegal in Mizoram , but continues to feature in vested economic and political interests that make up the fragile peace along the Assam-Mizo border. Assam has unresolved border disputes with all four of the largely tribal states that have been carved out of it since Independence. This past November, at the border with Meghalaya, the Assam Police killed six people . In each case many diverse communities in the hilly and forested northeastern region are imbricated, with many array of exports; in each case, the conflict is oversimplified in mainstream media narratives which ignore how identity and political economy become intertwined, and few point out the common charge placed on Assam: that much of its incursions occur without consent and punishment, and regularly trammel either already-codified or customary rights that communities have over their lands. Recently, much was made of an agreement between Assam and Mizoram in the form of a joint statement. While the statement by both the state governments to amicably resolve the matters of unrest along this border have reached the third round of talks, a high-level delegation from Mizoram expressed that "there has been huge unrest among the areca nut growers in Mizoram on account of problems being faced in the transportation of their produce to Assam and other parts of the country." The joint statement also seemed to flatten the nature of the conflict, simply stating that "economic activities such as cultivation and farming along the border areas would be allowed to continue regardless of the administrative control presently exercised by either state at such locations... subject to forest regulations and after informing the deputy commissioners concerned." The problem of the in-between in this region, however, cannot be mitigated with such generalities which highlight a kind of identity performance about border disputes that tie into political parties' agendas. This past December, the opposition in the Parliament of Assam staged a walkout , aggrieved about the perceived lack of action against Mizoram after a school in Cachar district of Assam was allegedly occupied by Mizo students. Meanwhile, the plight of local areca nut farmers goes generally unnoticed in Parliament. December 2022, six vehicles carrying areca nut into Mizoram were set ablaze , allegedly by Central Customs and Assam Rifles, which regularly prevent the export of areca nut from Mizoram and Tripura by seizing them at the border. Regardless of the party responsible, an areca nut growers' society in Mizoram, Hachhek Bial Kuhva Chingtu Pawl (HBKCP) argues that farmers are suffering because the Assam Police are unable (or unwilling) to verify if areca nuts from Mizoram are local or foreign. The Mizoram government too has come under fire for its laxity with smuggling, or care for farmers. Despite the entangled politicking and trade relations between Assam and Mizoram, however, there is a deeper history of the Mizo peoples being seen as the “other.” This has only intensified in recent years, as has the illicit trade of the areca nut. Whether borne out of an acute sense of cultural or political difference, the stereotypes that circulate in Assam deploy the Mizos’ native language, their Western convent education, or their land use, to construct notions of fundamental differences in identity. Who “they” refers to, however, as is often the case, is vague and context-dependent. The Assamese in general seem to mean the Mizos, but locals often mean politicians, police mean locals, and locals may also mean their wives, many of whom hail from villages across the border. In 2021, we visited the village of Lailapur, in the Cachar district of Assam, where residents had pelted stones at policemen from Mizoram who had previously clashed in 2020 with residents of Vairengte, a town in Mizoram’s own Kolasib district, exemplifying how any border is insufficient to explain the blurred nature of the conflict. Imtiaz Akhmed a.k.a. Ronju, was born and grew up in Lailapur. He is one of several truckers who ferry goods such as areca nut and black pepper between Assam and Mizoram (goods that are smuggled into India from Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, or Indonesia). He also has a Mizo wife, and claims that their son has the cutest mixture of the facial features of the two sister states, while simultaneously asserting that there are fundamental differences between the Assamese and Mizo peoples. A few locals of Lailapur who helped set up an electric pole for this shed/post of the Assam police officers wait for permission to go and have lunch at their homes on the other side of the police barricades, in Lailapur. Courtesy of Abhishek Basu. From Ronju’s perspective, the areca nut trade is at the core of the conflict on a local level: “What can we do if the betel nut is cheaper on that side? They [the Mizos and the Burmese] have been in this business for long enough to establish a monopoly. A kilo of betel nut sells for INR 128 there, while it's INR 300 here.” But despite the monopoly, working in Mizoram has its advantages for Ronju. “I have big connections with ministers [in Mizoram] who make life easier for me by way of permissions. I get supari here for the Assam State Police at times too! Currently, my truck, loaded with tatka [tight] Burmese supari, is waiting at the border because of the blockade. The Mizos themselves will help unload it on this side though,” he cackled. Ronju emphasizes difference, but his family and work hint at complex aspects of lived reality in towns along the border. Of course, the complexities are often cynically flattened by local political parties who rely on enflaming the conflict. Soon after the initial clashes last year, Assamese politicians and ministers arrived in Lailapur. The press, both local and national, flocked to them in front of a police barricade. The Organizational Secretary of the Assamese political party Veer Lachit Sena (VLS), Srinkhal Chaliha told the media, “We will not tolerate any threat. The Assamese people will give an appropriate reply!” Locals and groups most impacted by the clashes observed the spectacle. They crowded on both sides of the narrow highway that leads to Lailapur and ends at the Assam Police barricade, located 5 kilometres away from the actual border. Several witnesses shook their heads in disappointment over what they perceived to be the Assam government's cowardice: to many, not giving statements at the border itself, or not strongly condemning repeated acts of aggression from the Mizo side of the border—where many local civilians are believed to have been seen by the Assam State Police officers—seen equipped with light machine guns (LMGs) provided to them by alleged extremist groups backing the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) government. It is important to note that Mizoram is the only state among the seven sister states of Northeast India that has yet to turn saffron, or be in alliance in any way whatsoever, with the right-wing BJP (despite short-lived alliances with the BJP and MNF part of the BJP-led coalition at the Centre, in Mizoram the party has historically allied itself with Congress ). The strong response expected from the Assamese government to counter repeated jibes from the Mizos, however, never materialized. Ronju, a local businessman, explained: "One call from the Mizo Church and MZP (Mizo Zirlai Pawl, a powerful student organization with a long and antagonistic history with the Centre and a shared relationship with the ruling MNF), and you will find village after Mizo village come together in solidarity, bearing arms like LMGs (lightweight machine guns) that too! There's nothing like that here in Assam. We're too divided." He added that he was proud of having driven through the perilous Mizo terrain all the way to Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram, several times. Ronju, who is a seemanto-bashi or a border resident, holds similar views as many of the locals standing along the highway leading to the barricades. They expect the Assamese government to take a strong stance in the face of perceived Mizo homogeneity and solidarity, as well as support from the Church. The juxtaposition of Mizo identity and Assamese nationalism is reflected in geographical landmarks along the border: the last Indian symbol on the Assamese side is a temple and on the Mizo side, a Church. Many locals on the Assamese side of the border as well as the second in command of the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force, India's largest Central Armed Police Force) battalion posted in Fainum, Assam, talk about Mizos as if they were a warrior tribe. They believe that Mizos kill on a whim; accentuate their cultural differences, food preferences and eating habits; and speak Mizo instead of Hindi or English. Such sentiments strengthen the perception that there are fundamental differences between the two communities, despite their obvious closeness either in proximity, occupation, or familial ties. "They believe they are Mizos first. For them, the [Indian] nation is secondary. Someone needs to sit down and reason with them," says S. Debnath, Barak Valley resident and former member of the Forum for the Protection of Non-Mizos. Debnath believes Mizos feel like this because of particular state practices: “There's the case of the Inner Line Permit mandatory for anyone wishing to enter Mizoram, which makes them [the Mizos] feel like they have a sovereign right to their land. They allow the Burmese in when it comes to the business of Burmese supari, but not people like us who are from other states of India." Mizoram also enjoys other affordances that allow Mizos to take autonomous decisions, like the Inner Line Permit (ILP), which evidently frustrates the residents of the Hindu-majority Barak Valley of Assam. Debnath, like several others, does not consider metrics such as Mizoram's literacy rate, population size, and economic growth that are used to explain their sovereign status—most of which comes from tribal autonomy guaranteed over the Lushai Hills, provided for in Schedule Six of the Indian Constitution. Mizoram has one of the country's highest literacy rates. Its Oriental High School is among the first convent schools established by the British in Silchar, an economic hub in the contested Barak Valley of Assam. The school also has residential quarters for their mostly Mizo staff and teachers who form a large part of the closely-knit Mizo community in Assam. Since the Mizo Church is reluctant to involve itself in the local politics of the region, the staff and teachers at Oriental High School have been asked not to share their political opinions and to stay entirely professional. Rati Bora, another seemanto-bashi , has two sons who work on farms on either side of the border. Her son who works on the Mizo side earns more than his brother, presumably because Mizoram’s economy is one of the fastest growing in the country. On July 26, 2021, Rati Bora heard the shots fired by policemen on both sides of the border and feared for her life. Her sons begged her to evacuate. She left home with her family members and elderly parents and headed for her sister’s house in the neighboring town of Silchar. The incident was terrifying for border residents like Rati at that time. Now, however, the local tea shops opened by a few families dwelling right beside the police check post in Dholakhal are flourishing, she says. Rati Bora overlooking her patch of green, now taken by the CRPF to establish camps and diffuse tensions between the two states of Assam and Mizoram. Singhu, Assam, India. Courtesy of Abhishek Basu. We watched as four local boys from the Cachar district of Assam struggled to set up an electric pole. The pole would serve as a post for the state police that would be stationed there at night for a few weeks. Later as the boys crossed the police barricade to eat their lunch of bhaat (rice) at their homes, we watched as onlookers stared at them with suspicion. Young men from bordering villages must always keep their aadhar ID cards on themselves, and even guests visiting their homes must carry their identification documents. The performativity of nationalism takes on a certain intensity for residents of this region. Locals like Ronju and Rati are intimately familiar with this performance, and with an eye to the cross-border trade, tend to hold a more nuanced view of the changing economy of Silchar. “[Despite the suspicion and discrimination], at least now seemanto-bashis from Lailapur and Sighua villages are getting some recognition,” says Rati. “Previously girls wouldn't ever want to get married to boys from here, like my two sons. Now at least there's a chance. It's not so remote anymore… there are so many SUVs and Boleros zipping by,” she says, referring to the many politicians she had seen in her area. Taking us away from the blame game at play in this region is the plight of the injured policemen of the Assam State Police, a few still waiting for doctors to remove pellets shot from the handmade guns of Mizo locals. Stuck in a rut because of delayed discharge papers and an inaccessible, unresponsive healthcare system, the policemen have issued multiple statements on maintaining peace and order in the region that are very similar to those of their politicians. Some policemen wrap the pellets removed from their bodies in delicate tissue paper and keep them in their pockets as a token of pride. Some of them eagerly share videos they recorded on their smartphones or shared by villagers on the Mizo side of the border. Until a time comes when the region’s employment issues are solved instead of vague assurances that the help mandated by the Employment Guarantee Act; until a time comes when roads are developed, middlemen are erased, the indigenous industry is promoted excluding the existing large tea and oil businesses; until a time comes when Assam helps itself and not its vote-banks, it will not be able to hide behind the central government’s exclusionary tactics of us and them. Like the rest of India, the northeast too may well fall into the trap of not asking the right questions to those in power, especially at a time the Indian economy is reeling from the shortages of resources in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. It comes down to the possibility of the Assamese being able to reclaim everything considered “illegal” about the Burmese areca nut trade. This involves cracking down on people like Ronju, their very own, who act like oil in these cracks. It is not enough to just roll the areca nut by placing it below your tongue, it is to recognize that cultures when living in proximity, obviously are bound to inform and resemble each other. We saw many a xorai or a casket-like plate in almost every Assamese household we went to, and were offered the traditional areca nut and paan, or betel nut palm. Such an act is a symbol of “welcoming outsiders,” they told us. This contrasts starkly with an occasion in one of our interviews with Debnath where he lowered the volume on the television upon hearing a TV anchor complaining about protests organized by Mizo student organizations against the draconian Indian Citizenship Act: the same legislation designed to kick out “outsiders” from Indian soil. For the Mizos, it is Bangladeshis who are the outsiders and indeed they often consider even the moniker of “Bangladeshi” disparaging. Meanwhile, for Debnath, it is the Mizos who are more of an “other,” more so than those who agree to live illegally in India. The dynamics between the Mizos, the Bangladeshis, the mainland Assamese, and the active construction of the “other” is at the heart of this story and the continuing clashes. To fully understand what’s going on at Lailapur, it is important to understand that this polarized strand of history is deeply etched in the memory of the Mizos of this generation. At the same time, it is undoubtedly true that there are two competing narratives—one told by the natives and the other by government officials. The first tells a tale of the oral ethnocultural history of the tribe linked to the land and forests: the narrative of many Mizos and organizations like the MZP. The second is the “official” history of state formation: the Assamese state narrative, if not that of India writ large. ∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Reportage Assam-Mizoram Border Dispute Betel Nut Trade Northeast India Hachek Bial Kuhva Chingtu Pawl Areca Nut Northeast Democratic Alliance Amit Shah Sister States Nagaland Arunachal Pradesh Meghalaya Tripura Assam Rifles Mizoram Assam Cachar District Myanmar Burma Black Pepper Lailapur Nationalism BJP Inner Line Permit Silchar Veer Lachit Sena Ethnically Divided Politics Political Agendas Political Parties Mizo Zirlai Pawl VLS Mizo National Front Mizo English as Class Signifier Convent Education CPRF Central Reserve Police Force Forum for the Protection of Non-Mizos Seemanto-bashi Employment Guarantee Act Mizo student organizations Indian Citizenship Act Performative Nationalism Manipur 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. 25th 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:

Information asymmetry, shadowy military operations, mining mafias, and the consent, or lack thereof, of the working class in how their information, labor, and presence are used are all tied to the production, distribution, and consumption of food, energy, and water in India. For climate journalist Aruna Chandrasekhar, this understanding, as well as the proximity of Operation Green Hunt to her hometown, led her to journalism. COMMUNITY On the Ethics of Climate Journalism Information asymmetry, shadowy military operations, mining mafias, and the consent, or lack thereof, of the working class in how their information, labor, and presence are used are all tied to the production, distribution, and consumption of food, energy, and water in India. For climate journalist Aruna Chandrasekhar, this understanding, as well as the proximity of Operation Green Hunt to her hometown, led her to journalism. Aruna Chandrasekhar There is an imbalance of power to be corrected—how do you level a playing field where, for centuries, you have oppressed, displaced communities, and always justified it for your own benefit? RECOMMENDED: " How One Billionaire Could Keep Three Countries Hooked on Coal for Decades " , NY Times . By Somini Sengupta, Jacqueline Williams, and Aruna Chandrasekhar. On how the Adani Group lobbied successfully to mine for coal in Australia and subsequently transporting it to India and contributing to energy and climate crises in both India and Bangladesh. There is an imbalance of power to be corrected—how do you level a playing field where, for centuries, you have oppressed, displaced communities, and always justified it for your own benefit? RECOMMENDED: " How One Billionaire Could Keep Three Countries Hooked on Coal for Decades " , NY Times . By Somini Sengupta, Jacqueline Williams, and Aruna Chandrasekhar. On how the Adani Group lobbied successfully to mine for coal in Australia and subsequently transporting it to India and contributing to energy and climate crises in both India and Bangladesh. SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Andhra Pradesh Climate Climate Change Investigative Journalism Coastal Displacement Anthropocene Parachuting Mining Freelancing Environmental Disaster Environment Power Dynamics Operation Green Hunt Bombay Diaspora Diasporic Distance Journalism Ethics of Journalism Displacement Evictions COVID-19 Forest Collective Energy Crisis Telugu Tamil Movement Organization Corporate Power Adani Group Coal Visakhapatnam Vizag Port Cities Labor Rights ARUNA CHANDRASEKHAR is an independent journalist and a writer from India, currently at the University of Oxford. Her interests in work dwell on themes of corporate accountability, climate change, indigenous rights and resistance, environmental law, energy, conflict, gender and public health. Her stories have appeared in The New York Times , The Guardian, New Internationalist, BuzzFeed, and many other outlets. 22 Aug 2020 Interview Andhra Pradesh 22nd Aug 2020 Save Karoonjhar Zuhaib Ahmed Pirzada 19th Jul Beatrice Wangui's Fight for Seed Sovereignty in Kenya Pierra Nyaruai 22nd Apr Dispatch from a Village Near Hamal Lake, Sindh, in August Ibrahim Buriro 12th Mar India's Vector Capitalism Model Anumeha Yadav 5th Jun Chats Ep. 7 · Karti Dharti, Gender & India's Farmers Movement Sangeet Toor 29th Apr On That Note:

With the rise of militant insurgencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakistani state now finds itself in a double bind. Following brutal crackdowns on the PTM at the hands of the state, it is not state-supported groups but Ulusi Pasuns that have emerged at the vanguard of resistance against militancy. | · THE VERTICAL Reportage · Swat Swat Youth Vanguards With the rise of militant insurgencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakistani state now finds itself in a double bind. Following brutal crackdowns on the PTM at the hands of the state, it is not state-supported groups but Ulusi Pasuns that have emerged at the vanguard of resistance against militancy. Protest at Kanju Chowk on May, 5, 2023. Courtesy of the author. On August 2, 2022, Aftab Khan Yousafazai, a young software engineer from Khwazakhela, a village in Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, returned home. For the young engineer, who grew up during possibly the bloodiest recent chapter of militancy-driven conflict in northwestern Pakistan, the return could not have come at a more inauspicious time. Yousafzai had been away studying software engineering in Abbottabad, another district in the mountainous North. Having finished his degree, he planned to spend leisure time with his family and friends while awaiting his results. The retreat proved to be short-lived, however. Less than a week after his arrival, on August 9, 2022, grainy videos of an injured police officer and other people in the captivity of Taliban in the mountains of Upper Swat surfaced on the internet. The videos triggered fear and panic in the region, as well as the rest of the country, where memories of a brutal insurgency in the scenic district were still fresh. Having seen bloodshed as a child—the district descended into chaos under the Taliban’s reign of terror from 2007-2009—Yousafzai was no stranger to militancy. At its peak, the crisis displaced two million people from the district during a huge military operation to quash the insurgency. The resurgence of militants was unnerving for someone already traumatised by the horrors of Taliban rule. His family and friends were equally distressed, exchanging feverish voice notes and messages with Yousafzai regarding the best course of action. Like many of his ethnic Pashtun peers, who had come of age in the wake of the War on Terror amidst a conflict that shattered—and continues to do so—lives and livelihoods in the border region of Pakistan, Yousafzai had latched for hope onto the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) in his varsity days. The PTM and its outspoken leader, Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen, represented the collective anguish of a population caught up between militant insurgencies, military operations, and their bloody aftermath. The young Pashteen took centre-stage in Pashtun nationalism and delivered a scathing critique of Pakistani state policies in the Northwest. He had an immediate, widespread appeal among the youth of the region whose sentiments found a vociferous advocate in him. The Pakistani state came down hard on the PTM, and as a result, it became a common umbrella for all those who had had enough of the state’s oppressive tactics in the name of security. Yousafzai and his friends kept their distance from the movement despite vowing support for it to avoid arrests and controversies attached to the PTM. With the resurgent Taliban threatening peace in his valley once again, however, the time for indecision ended for him. The young men felt the need to demand an immediate response to such dire circumstances. It was in this state of mind that Yousafzai shared a Facebook post calling for the public to attend a protest in Kabul Chowk against the return of the Taliban. On August 12, 2022, locals turned up at the venue in decent numbers. A few days later, Yousafzai and his friends named their nascent movement Swat Ulusi Pasun or Swat Public Uprising. “We want to have nothing to do with either the military or the militants. Only the masses are suffering in this war,” Yousafzai told me in an interview recently. What started as sporadic militant attacks in the summer of 2022, soon surged into a pattern that suggested a second militant uprising in Swat, as the district witnessed kidnapping for ransoms, murders and roadside bomb attacks throughout September. Swat Ulusi Pasun ’s largest gathering congregated on October 11, 2022, when thousands of people returned its call to protest in Nishat Chowk of Mingora, the largest city in Swat. Among those in attendance were the PTM chief Manzoor Ahmed Pashteen, as well as leaders of several mainstream political parties. Since then, the Swat Ulusi Pasun- inspired peaceful protests have been sweeping large parts of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Pakistani Taliban, are carrying out attacks with renewed vigour. Motivated by the PTM’s peaceful opposition to militancy and military operations, large gatherings of tech-savvy youths have travelled across large swathes of territory in the province and its restive tribal belt. Wherever there is a major militant attack, youths take to the street in protest and, most of the time, pillory the military and its leadership for the resurgence of the Taliban with provocative slogans. “No one could fight back a peaceful public resistance,” said Yousafzai. Soon after their inception, these protests began to include individuals from institutions such as the police—they, too, were threatened by the Taliban’s activity. In January 2023, a massive suicide blast at the mosque inside the heavily-guarded compound of Peshawar Police Headquarters killed more than 80 and injured 250 others. This attack prompted members of the police force to protest as they, too, blamed the state for its failure to provide security to people. On February 1, several police personnel gathered outside the Peshawar Press Club to protest the militancy and even went to the extent of chanting slogans against the military for its alleged double dealings with the militants. Such protests have happened in the wake of terrorist attacks in Swat, Lower Dir, Bajaur, Khyber, Waziristan, and Peshawar—districts in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province—where large numbers of residents took to the streets to raise their voices against growing incidents of militancy. The rising tide of peaceful resistance in northwestern Pakistan is yet another chapter in the battle against terrorism in the region. In the initial phases of Taliban militancy, Pakistani authorities forced local elders to raise militias or lashkars to combat the onslaught of militancy in their villages and towns. One morning in October 2008, reporters in Peshawar were called to the Badaber police station in Peshawar city’s outskirts for an unusual press conference. We were made to sit inside the cramped building of the police station, waiting for the arrival of Abdul Malik, Mayor or Nazim of the Adezai Union Council. He was detained earlier in August on suspicions of having links with the Taliban after an attack on a police patrol in his village. Mr. Malik was to renounce his links with the Taliban in the press conference upon his release. The wait for Mr. Malik’s arrival took many hours as police personnel tried to reassure the anxious reporters that he was not in their custody and would be presented as soon as an intelligence agency handed him over to them. It was only around noon when Mr. Malik was brought to the police station in an unmarked car. A bulky man with a salt and pepper beard, Mr Malik briefly chatted with reporters and denied having any links with the Taliban but did not open up about his detention. The press conference ended abruptly as Mr Malik left the building surrounded by police security. A few weeks later, he set up the Adezai Aman Lashkar , or Adezai Peace Militia, to combat militancy in the area. Soon after, another lashkar was set up in Bazidkhel village by a local elder Muhammad Faheem, who was engaged in a deadly war in the Khyber agency—a tribal area bordering Afghanistan—with the militant outfit Lashkar-e-Islam . A similar pattern of arming the locals to fight militants was used across entire swathes of the tribal belt and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. However, militants’ retribution against the lashkars was harsh. Abdul Malik was killed in a suicide attack in 2009, while bullet-riddled bodies of Mr. Faheem and some of his close associates were recovered from a vehicle in June 2012 in mysterious conditions. The peace militias in other parts of the tribal belt and the rest of the province also did not fare well. Hundreds of tribal elders associated with these anti-Taliban militias were eliminated in ruthless, targeted killings, IEDs, and suicide attacks. The severity of militant rage against lashkars could be gauged from the fact that barely a month after Yousafzai and his comrades set up the Swat Ulusi Pasun, on September 12, 2022, militants killed Idrees Khan in a remote-controlled bomb blast. He was the former head of a peace committee in Swat. On September 16, another former peace committee member was shot dead in Charbagh Tehsil. This was the situation that gave rise to several avatars of Ulusi Pasuns or Public Rising. Youths like Yousafzai had not only witnessed the horrors of militancy but also seen the militants exacting brutal revenge on those who sided with the state. Besides the nonstop violence, however, they had also seen a massive public outpouring of support for PTM’s anti-war rhetoric across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This is what inspired them to pursue peaceful resistance. Amidst the state’s crackdown against the PTM, arresting its workers and leaders, and the attendant media blackout of its protests, the emergence of Ulusi Pasuns have provided alternate platforms for people to raise their voices against Talibanization. They are PTM multiplied, local platforms for disgruntled youths—armed with mobile phones and using social media for mobilisation—to rally around their resistance to oppression at the hands of militants and the state. For Yousafzai, this journey for public mobilisation has been full of twists and turns. Unlike most educated youths who try to land a government job soon after graduation, he found himself centre-stage in the biggest youth uprising against systematic violence in Pakistan. Before sending that Facebook post calling for a protest against the Taliban in his native Swat, he had applied for two government jobs, expecting calls for interviews. This seemed unlikely now. One night in August, he was detained for several hours and released after a public outcry against his detention. Soon again, he was arrested a second time, spending 16 days behind bars on charges of disturbing public peace and bailed out by a local court. Yousafzai recalls receiving threatening calls from the Taliban labelling him as a stooge of the Pakistani intelligence. “I argued with the caller on the phone saying the Ulasi Pasuns have nothing to do with intelligence and after all, we are only demanding a peaceful life, right to education and work for our children.” Yousafzai is currently heading the Swat Ulusi Pasun and coordinates activities of similar volunteer organisations, which he has helped organise at the tehsil level. He coordinates these activities through WhatsApp groups, with an eye on the direction that Taliban militancy may take. However, his political activities have also created ripples in his own family life. His father, currently in the United States, is not happy with Yousafzai’s political campaigning and wants him to give up his advocacy and return to a normal life. Despite opposition and pressure from his family to return to “normalcy,” Yousafzai remains steadfast in his commitment to finishing what he has started. ∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Reportage Swat Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan Pashtun Tahafuz Movement PTM Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen Pashtun Nationalism Kabul Chowk Swat Public Uprising Swat Ulusi Pasun Aftab Khan Yousafazai Taliban Militancy Insurgency Police Action Community Building Internet Platforms Social Media State Violence Peaceful Resistance State & Media Student Movements Student Protests 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. 24th Feb 2024 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:

DESIGN DIRECTOR Mukul Chakravarthi Mukul Chakravarthi is a Senior Product Designer at Fidelity Labs, a Visiting Critic at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and former Adjunct Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. He is also a typographer, interaction designer, and architect based in San Francisco. DESIGN DIRECTOR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

WRITER Saira Mir SAIRA MIR is a physican and author of the award-winning picture book Muslim Girls Rise (2019). This biographic anthology was born out of the need to counter Islamophobia and fill her daughter’s heart with amazing Muslim women like her. Her new book, Always Sisters: A Story of Loss and Love will be published by Simon & Schuster in August 2023, available for preorder at her website. WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

ANTHROPOLOGIST Ather Zia Ather Zia is a political anthropologist, poet, short fiction writer, and columnist. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Northern Colorado Greeley, the author of Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir, and The Frame , and the co-editor of Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak , Resisting Occupation in Kashmir, and A Desolation called Peace. Her work has received the Gloria Anzaldua Honorable Mention award, the Public Anthropologist Award, among many others. She is the founder-editor of Kashmir Lit and is the co-founder of Critical Kashmir Studies Collective . ANTHROPOLOGIST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

On the Transitional Justice Act in the Maldives, the fractious political climate and repression, as well as the legal mechanisms and practices to seek accountability for past atrocities committed by the state. Could the volatile nature of Maldivian politics render the Act meaningless? INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 11 · On Maldives' Transitional Justice Act On the Transitional Justice Act in the Maldives, the fractious political climate and repression, as well as the legal mechanisms and practices to seek accountability for past atrocities committed by the state. Could the volatile nature of Maldivian politics render the Act meaningless? VOL. 1 LIVE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Maldives 7th Jul 2021 Live Maldives Transitional Justice Transitional Justice Act Ombudsman Local vs. National Politics Human Rights International Law Legal Regimes Human Rights Violations Reparations Survivors State Repression Militarism Military Coup Abdulla Yameen Mohamed Nasheed Assassination Attempts Ibrahim Mohamed Solih Legal Frameworks People’s Majlis Power Dynamics Housing State Violence Humanitarian Crisis Maldivian Democratic Party Malé Prosecutions Witness Protection Police Action Rehabilitation Reintegration Tourism Islamist Government Progressive Party of Maldives SAAG Chats 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. A discussion between lawyer, writer, activist, and Senior Editor Mushfiq Mohamed & Associate Editor Kamil Ahsan on the fractious political climate of the Maldives, repression, and the legal mechanisms and practices to seek accountability for past atrocities committed by the state detailed by the Transitional Justice Act, which passed in December 2020. What is the current political climate of the Maldives, and why should South Asians everywhere pay attention? How does the recent legislation comport with political realities? What would enforcement in today’s Maldives look like? As Mushfiq wrote in Himal : “When it comes to implementation, the elephant in the room remains: why would survivors feel comfortable seeking reparations when some of the perpetrators of atrocities hold high-level government positions?” More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. COMMUNITY Nation-State Constraints on Identity & Intimacy Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. Chaitali Sen I fight for a world without borders, but they're borders wrenched in reaction to colonialism, and fortified against the spread of English. It's interesting how capitalism homogenizes while making people want to put up walls. RECOMMENDED: A New Race of Men from Heaven: Stories (Sarabande, 2023) by Chaitali Sen I fight for a world without borders, but they're borders wrenched in reaction to colonialism, and fortified against the spread of English. It's interesting how capitalism homogenizes while making people want to put up walls. RECOMMENDED: A New Race of Men from Heaven: Stories (Sarabande, 2023) by Chaitali Sen SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Literary Solidarity Bengali Internationalist Solidarity Black Solidarities Satyajit Ray Statelessness Colonialism Language South Asian Women's Creative Collective South Asians Against Police Brutality Abner Louima Anthony Baez Literature & Liberation Diaspora Identity Community Building Post-George Floyd Moment Immigration Race & Genre Short Stories Fiction Avant-Garde Form Avant-Garde Traditions Emancipatory Politics Experimental Methods Rabindranath Tagore Mrinal Sen Separatism Tamil Separatists Punjabi Separatists Rajiv Gandhi Separatist Movements in India Indian Diaspora Syria CHAITALI SEN is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky (Europa Editions 2015) and the short story collection A New Race of Men from Heaven (Sarabande Books, January 2023) which won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in Boulevard , Ecotone, Shenandoah, New England Review, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, Catapult , and others. A graduate of the Hunter College MFA in Fiction, she is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice. 17 Dec 2020 Interview Literary Solidarity 17th Dec 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:

WEB DESIGNER Ammar Hassan Uppal Ammar Hassan Uppal is a professional designer and web developer based in Lahore. WEB DESIGNER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

ARTIST Aishath Huda AISHATH HUDA was born and raised in the Maldives. She received her MFA from the University of Illinois Chicago and her BFA from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou. She has exhibited nationally and internationally including at Gallery400, Chicago; Metafora, Barcelona; Santa Rosa Monastery, Sardinia; Diamonds La Gemma Dell’est, Zanzibar; Nehru Wangchuck Cultural Center, Thimphu; Egg Art Gallery, New Delhi; The Capital Library, Beijing; Sanshan Art Gallery & China Academy of Art Museum, Hangzhou; Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, Xi’an; and the Maldives National Art gallery, Malé. She co-founded Fine Art Maldives , an artist organization based in the Maldives. Huda is based in Chicago and the Maldives. ARTIST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE