The story of the Spring Revolution in Myanmar can be told through the footwear—the strewn, tossed, bloodied, abandoned—that is tied up with both the iconography and reality of brutal state violence. Piles of flip-flops amidst the debris, military boots stomping the ground: both are “central characters” of the Revolution. | · FEATURES Essay · Myanmar Whose Footfall is Loudest? The story of the Spring Revolution in Myanmar can be told through the footwear—the strewn, tossed, bloodied, abandoned—that is tied up with both the iconography and reality of brutal state violence. Piles of flip-flops amidst the debris, military boots stomping the ground: both are “central characters” of the Revolution. Artwork by Mahnoor Azeem. Ink collage on cardstock. Never in my life did I think that flip-flops could be fascinating. Only after a memorable incident entailing a particular pair of flip-flops did I begin to pay attention to them. An incident, yes! The one that will stay with me my whole life. It made me realise that certain footwear could carry more meaning than just “footwear”. It happened after Amay passed away. Before she drew her last breath, Amay had been struggling with lung cancer for nearly three months. At the time, we were living in a small town. Hoping that we could still save her, we sent her to a hospital in the city. We buried her there when she died. Without Amay, our journey back to our small town was desolate. My heart felt empty, as if there was nothing left for me to hold on to. Everything around me went pitch dark, as if I had been pulled into a black hole. When it was decided that all of Amay’s belongings would be given away to needy families, I acquiesced. I didn’t want to cling to her stuff—after all, I had lost Amay as a person already. Even then, something that belonged to Amay was discovered unexpectedly. A pair of flip-flops. Under Amay’s bed, lying still and quiet in the darkest corner as if they were hiding, were a pair of her flip-flops. They must have been separated from Amay when she was taken to hospital. When I looked at them carefully, I saw that the soles were worn out and the heels were ragged. Amay was a frugal woman who always budgeted carefully and spent wisely. Apart from a new pair of flip-flops for some occasions, she wore these worn rubber flip-flops on a daily basis—when she did household chores and went grocery shopping—for many years. If the straps were broken, she would replace them with new ones herself. If only one strap of her flip-flop was broken, she would keep one new strap for later use. After several years of daily use, Amay’s toeprints were imprinted on the flip-flops. Tears started rolling down as I looked at them. These flip-flops showed me beyond a doubt how Amay went through hard times in her life, and how she endured pain and suffering. That pair of flip-flops I inherited from Amay would stay with me for many, many more years. Since then, I’ve been drawn to stories, memories and lives that could be revealed by well-worn flip-flops. We might change clothes every day, but a member of a low-income household, who could barely afford an extra pair of flip-flops, had to rely on the only pair they had. Flip-flops were a poor person’s comrades-in-arms on a thorny road. Flip-flops gave them strength. They were as close to them as their own skin. “My flip-flops are my fortress!” poet Hla Than declared. After the military coup in February 2021, I collected more intriguing stories of flip-flops and their owners. A small, underdeveloped country suffering from economic asthma under COVID-19 was hit by a rogue political wave. This spring, the future of the nation became as blurry as the spring mist itself. If someone looked far into the future, they would only see a parched land. The military claimed that the 2020 election fraud made the coup inevitable. Prior to the election, “The Sound of Heels,” an election campaign song by the National League for Democracy (NLD), was very popular. It became the NLD’s triumphant anthem following the party’s landslide victory in the election, but it vanished into thin air after the military seized power. The song was dedicated to the State Counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the NLD, to whom her supporters referred as “Amay”. The song was about how her efforts gave Myanmar, an ostracised society under long years of military rule, a chance to step onto the world stage. On 1 February, the clack-clack of heels were silenced by the bang-bang of military boots. Before long, the whole country was completely under the boots. The voices of mourning mothers, the tongue-clicking of dismayed youth, the moaning of farmers out of their stubbled fields and workers out of their factories got louder and louder each day. “Join the CDM now!” As soon as the rallying cry put people on alert, all those different voices merged together—ineffectual whines turned into battle cries reverberating across the sky. If someone had ever questioned whether footwear could be frightening, the answer would have been “yes” if they were military boots. In the first week of the Spring Revolution, civil servants joined the CDM en masse. The main action of the CDM was that no employee should go to work. In some political cartoons, military generals in jackboots trampled doctors, school teachers and workers. “Stop going to office, struggle out of the dictatorship!” was the slogan of the strikers. They warned each other that if people continued to work for the military state, many precious lives, beautiful things and human values would be smashed under the boots. That’s how footwear became a central character in the Myanmar Spring Revolution. There was more to come. Within a week of the coup, thousands of young people took to the streets. In response, the military hired a group of jingoists and staged counter-protests. Some anti-coup protesters started shouting that they were out on the street on their own volition, and that they had not been paid by anyone. To drive home the point that they were from well-to-do families and that they could not possibly be bought, they came to the protests in expensive outfits and shoes. This, however, only highlighted the dire situation of most of their fellow protestors, who couldn’t afford fancy outfits. There were messages on social media condemning some affluent protesters for talking down to people from underprivileged backgrounds, including those hired by the military. In opposing tyranny, people simultaneously learned to smash any form of discrimination based on wealth or class. Day by day, the revolution gathered strength. It soon turned into a nationwide protest of people from all walks of life—rural and urban. Their footfall echoed in the streets. Now street surfaces seemed totally covered by an array of flip-flops and shoes that it would be difficult for anyone to gain a foothold there. Spring was in full bloom. On roads where fallen ones would be laid to rest, columns after columns of rallies continued to march over and over again. One of the non-violent protests was known as “Lace your shoes up!” In the early days of the Spring, security personnel seemed uncertain about whether they should use force against protesters. They tried to push the crowds off the roads, saying the people were obstructing traffic. The youth reacted by making their protests mobile. They moved around in small groups and continued to protest. They crossed the road when the light was green. They stopped when the light turned red. They shouted rally cries. As soon as they had the chance, they sat on the road, lacing up their shoes at a leisurely pace. Policemen watching them were speechless. In the following days, there were “harvesting onion” and “collecting rice grains” movements. Loose onions and grains of rice were deliberately poured out in the middle of a road so everyone could help pick them up and put them back in the bags to annoy the police. Spring flowers of a variety of colours were seen everywhere. New and creative forms of revolutionary activities shone here and there. Some people found fault with these kinds of protests. Young people were not serious, they said. Others pointed out the generation gap. Older people did not understand the state-of-the-art techniques of young people. In reality in the early days of the spring, people of all ages managed to build mutual trust and solidarity. They were full of energy, enjoying the calm before a storm. The fresh, green spring would soon turn into a fully-blown parched summer. The intense heat made wall tiles rise up and crack. A heatwave also pervaded throughout the democratic movement. The forces, standing up hand-in-hand against the junta, were hit with a bloody gust. A volley of gunfire across the sky set a flock of roosting birds on a chaotic flight. A group of soldiers and police chased down the protesters who were retreating into a neighbourhood, and beat them to death like blood-starved beasts. Even the black asphalt road began to weep, blood streaming down all over her face. After blood was spilled, the style of people’s revolutionary art also changed. Each time a group of people were chased by guns and batons, dozens of ownerless flip-flops would be left abandoned on the street. Some flip-flops were upside down, others in the gutter, and many of them unpaired. And yet most of them looked well-worn. When the security forces were gone, people picked them up and organised them in pairs for their owners to come and collect them. The abandoned flip-flops didn’t look great but they could be invaluable to their owners. In this way, I learned, rather accidentally, that flip-flops had always been important witnesses to our revolutions. In the 1988 uprising, flip-flops were scattered everywhere on the road. In the 2007 Saffron Revolution, there were many flipflops drenched in blood. Following the 2015 student protests, hundreds of flip-flops were on the road again. There was even a shoe charity campaign in 2021. It emerged after some people began to question on social media what kind of shoes would be most suitable for protests if they were to escape from violent attacks. A number of shoe donors came forward. In some places, many pairs of “used, feel free to take” shoes in various sizes were on offer. Some people who owned extra pairs of shoes shared them with their comrades. They exchanged metta in sharing shoes. They looked after each other. They became more united, realising that people were cut from the same cloth. On top of physical violence, people also suffered from psychological warfare by the regime. The longer a revolution dragged on, the more volatile revolutionary morale could become. And yet, crackdowns notwithstanding, most protesters decided to continue with their struggle. Some bid farewells to their parents and friends. “In the event that I am killed I donate my organs to anyone in need,” some people wrote in their wills. “Don’t push this person any further, / at land’s end / my flipflops are my fortress,” read the last lines of a poem by Hla Than. People prepared for a last-ditch fight. Oaths—that they would not back down no matter what—were sworn. They glued pictures of the coup leader on the roads and marched on them. The senior general’s face was smeared with hundreds of footprints. The murder of protesters became more commonplace. The number of martyrs multiplied every day. People shed new tears before old tears dried on their cheeks. They were placed under curfew. Internet access was restricted. Arrests and detentions under various charges became more frequent. People felt less and less secure. There were no more grounds for them to take a stand, so it seemed. They became afraid of nightfall. What they feared more probably was the nightfall over their future. One day I saw a photo of a pair of slippers on social media. “These belonged to a mother. They were left during a protest.” They were white and size 37. The straps were white, but not pure white. The left and right slippers must have been thrown into disarray when the wearer was attacked. There was a line of blood on the pavement that stained one of them. I learned that the owner was a 50-year-old schoolteacher. She was shot to death at that spot by the military terrorists. A bullet that hit her hand took her life as she had a heart condition. “She wasn’t feeling very well when she went to the protest,” said her daughter in an interview. The alleged “2020 election fraud” brought dishonour to members of the education department who had overseen the polling stations. That’s why she believed that it was her duty to protest the coup on the front line. Before she left home, she had comforted her daughter that the security forces would go easy and not use violence against school teachers. Sadly, the gun barrel does not discriminate—it was loyal only to the finger that pulled the trigger. One bullet after another shattered our dreams. Karl Marx’s slogan “Proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains,” echoed loudly among the masses. The daughter wept violently over the slippers left by her fallen mother. This reminded me of how I cried whenever I saw my amay’s flip-flops. What of her? Would she become interested in footwear too? In revolutions, footwear is often prematurely parted from its wearers. The group in military boots stood firm, determined to put an end to the civilian resistance. The people had no weapons, nor sturdy shields. Their flip-flops wore thin. Even then, the hot, bloody roads couldn’t be worse than hell. No one seemed to mind the intense heat under their soles. With or without footwear, their way out of hell would be an arduous journey. ∎ Endnotes : Hla Than’s poem was translated by Ko Ko Thett. This essay appeared in Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring: Witness Poems and Essays from Burma/Myanmar 1988-2021 , edited by Ko Ko Thett and Brian Haman, and published by Gaudy Boy in North America, Balestier Press in the UK, and Ethos Books in Singapore. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Essay Myanmar Military Coup Spring Revolution Saffron Revolution Hla Than Aung San Suu Kyi National League for Democracy Amay Sound Low-Income Workers Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring Student Movements Student Protests Incarceration Military Crackdown Military Dictatorship Military Operations Revolution Histories of Revolutionary 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. 24th 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:

ARTIST Latifa Zafar Attaii LATIFA ZAFAR ATTAII is a visual artist whose work examines themes of identity, migration, and memory. Attaii’s work has been exhibited internationally, including in China, Switzerland, and the UAE, Italy, India, Iran, and across South Asia. Her practice has been recognized with the Prince Claus Seed Award 2024, and she has been nominated for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2023, the Cultures of Resistance Award 2022, and the Second Prize in the Allegro Art Prize 2021. Raised as a refugee in Quetta, Pakistan, Attaii currently lives and works in Tehran, Iran. ARTIST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

The co-founder of the women-led publication Karti Dharti discusses India's farmers' movement, the intersecting realities of gender, and Dalit labour, the motivation to create Karti Dharti, the fifth edition of which you can read in Gurmukhi. INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 7 · Karti Dharti, Gender & India's Farmers Movement The co-founder of the women-led publication Karti Dharti discusses India's farmers' movement, the intersecting realities of gender, and Dalit labour, the motivation to create Karti Dharti, the fifth edition of which you can read in Gurmukhi. Sangeet Toor Karti Dharti is a women-led publication that highlights diverse voices from the farmers’ movement. Understanding how gender, the COVID crisis, and the farmers' movement in India intersect is of critical importance. In April 2021, Drama Editor Esthappen S. chatted with Karti Dharti's Founder-Editor, Sangeet Toor, on Instagram Live, about Karti Dharti's history, the state of the farmers' movement in India at the time. They mapped out the nature of the movement itself, especially as it pertains to gender, discuss the challenges it faced. Toor described how the magazine focuses on the intersection of gender and movement politics. Read the fifth edition of Karti Dharti here . Karti Dharti is a women-led publication that highlights diverse voices from the farmers’ movement. Understanding how gender, the COVID crisis, and the farmers' movement in India intersect is of critical importance. In April 2021, Drama Editor Esthappen S. chatted with Karti Dharti's Founder-Editor, Sangeet Toor, on Instagram Live, about Karti Dharti's history, the state of the farmers' movement in India at the time. They mapped out the nature of the movement itself, especially as it pertains to gender, discuss the challenges it faced. Toor described how the magazine focuses on the intersection of gender and movement politics. Read the fifth edition of Karti Dharti here . SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Live Punjab Farm Ordinances Movement Organization Gender Mass Protests Media Blackout Media Delhi Chandigarh Women's Participation Displacement Sit-ins Disinformation COVID-19 Urban/Rural Urbanization Police Action Policing Citizenship Amendment Act Protests CAA Protests NRC Protests Accountability Pragmatic Realities of Protest Kisan Mazdoor Ekta Sanyukt Kisan Morcha Labor Agricultural Labor Solidarity Organic Solidarity Dalit Histories Dalit Labor Class Struggle Caste Political Economy Village Economies Domestic Labor Farmers' Movement India Indian Fascism India Today Activist Media Agrarian Economy Agriculture Alienation Gurmukhi Protests Movement Strategy Labor Movement Workers Movements Haryana Working-Class Stories Women and Gender Studies in India SAAG Chats Environment Climate Change SANGEET TOOR is Founder/Editor of Karti Dharti , a women-led publication showcasing diverse voices from the farmers' movement in India. She is a writer and reporter who has written for The Wire and Caravan , focusing on the history of land rights and peasant struggles in Punjab. 29 Apr 2021 Live Punjab 29th Apr 2021 The Changing Landscape of Heritage Saranya Subramanian 13th Feb Beatrice Wangui's Fight for Seed Sovereignty in Kenya Pierra Nyaruai 22nd Apr Whiplash and Contradiction in Sri Lanka’s aragalaya Harshana Rambukwella 27th Feb The Assessment of Veracity: COVID-19 Mutual Aid Organizing Riddhi Dastidar 5th Jun Protest Art & the Corporate Art World Hit Man Gurung · Isma Gul Hasan · Ikroop Sandhu 5th Jun On That Note:

MUSICIAN-COMPOSER Moto Fukushima MOTO FUKUSHIMA is a Japanese artist currently based in NYC. He is a six-string bass player, composer, and shamisen player. Along with Max ZT, Fukushima forms the duo House of Waters. The band has released two albums, with its debut album, Rising (GroundUP Music, 2019), reaching #2 on the iTunes World Music chart, and the second album hitting #4 on the iTunes Jazz chart. House of Waters' sophomore album, On Becoming (GroundUP Music, 2023), was recently nominated at the 66th GRAMMY Awards for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. MUSICIAN-COMPOSER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

Megha Majumdar in conversation with Fiction Editor Kartika Budhwar. COMMUNITY On Class & Character in Megha Majumdar's Debut Novel Megha Majumdar in conversation with Fiction Editor Kartika Budhwar. Megha Majumdar 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 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 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 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 MEGHA MAJUMDAR is the author of the New York Times bestseller and Editors’ Choice A Burning , recently longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction, as well as The JCB Prize for Literature. She was born and raised in Kolkata, India. She moved to the United States to attend college at Harvard University, followed by graduate school in social anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. She works as an editor at Catapult , and lives in New York City. A Burning is her first book. 29 Sept 2020 Interview West Bengal Politics 29th Sep 2020 A State of Perpetual War: Fiction & the Sri Lankan Civil War Shehan Karunatilaka 10th Jan Public Art Projects as Feminist Reclamation Tehani Ariyaratne 29th Nov Humor & Kindness in Radical Art Hana Shafi 19th Sep Theatre & Bengali Harlem Aladdin Ullah 11th Sep Authenticity & Exoticism Jenny Bhatt 4th Sep On That Note:

COMPOSER-SCHOLAR Rajna Swaminathan RAJNA SWAMINATHAN is an acclaimed mrudangam artist, composer, and scholar. One of only a few women who play the mrudangam professionally, Rajna has extensive experience performing in the Karnatik music, bharatanatyam, and New York's jazz music scenes, developing experimental approaches to improvising on the mrudangam, piano, and voice. Her ensemble RAJAS has been received with much critical acclaim on both Of Agency and Abstraction (Biophilia Records, 2019) and Apertures (Ropeadope, 2023). Rajna has composed for the JACK Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and played with Amir ElSaffar, Vijay Iyer, among many others. Rajna is an Assistant Professor of Music at UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts. She holds a PhD in Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry from the Department of Music at Harvard. COMPOSER-SCHOLAR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

WRITER Jenny Bhatt JENNY BHATT is a writer, literary translator, and book critic. She is the founder of Desi Books , a global forum that showcases South Asian literature from the world over. She teaches creative writing at Writing Workshops Dallas and the PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship Program. She is the author of Each of Us Killers: Stories (7.13 Books, 2020) and translated Ratno Dholi: Dhumketu’s Best Short Stories (HarperCollins India; Oct 2020), which was shortlisted for the 2021 PFC-VoW Book Awards. Her nonfiction has been published in various venues including NPR, The Washington Post, BBC Culture, The Atlantic, Publishers Weekly, Dallas Morning News, Literary Hub, Poets & Writers, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Star Tribune, and more. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, We Are All Translators here WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

The debut essay collection "Southbound" explores evangelical Christianity's marriage with extremism & contemporary Georgia politics, published soon after the state was flipped blue by the efforts of many grassroots organizers, including the author. INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 9 · On the Essay Collection “Southbound” The debut essay collection "Southbound" explores evangelical Christianity's marriage with extremism & contemporary Georgia politics, published soon after the state was flipped blue by the efforts of many grassroots organizers, including the author. 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 Georgia 19th May 2021 Live Georgia Georgia Politics Atlanta Georgia Senate Races 2020 US Election AAPI Communities COVID-19 Debut Authors Community Building Activist Media Literary Solidarity They See Blue Raphael Warnock Immigration Cultural Narratives of Immigration Identity Inheritance Essays Public Space Michigan Geography Essay Form Authenticity Mapping Essayistic Practice Social Change Class Class Struggle Stories in Dialogue Gender Religion Writing about Recent History Borders Perspective United States Temporality Space Time & Space Coalition Building Churches Complicity White Supremacy Brownnes Evangelical Christianity Diaspora Nationalism Internationalist Solidarity Internationalist Perspective Nayomi Munaweera Sejal Shah Non-Chronological Form Anger Automotive Industry Vincent Chin Ronald Ebens US South Activism Organizing Electoral Politics Anti-Racism GOP Republicans Democratic Party 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. In 2021, activist, journalist, and author Anjali Enjeti published her new essay collection Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change , as well as her debut novel The Parted Earth . In May that year, she discussed the former, and briefly the latter, with Kamil Ahsan, on Instagram Live. The twenty essays of her debut collection tackle evangelical Christian extremism, white feminism at a national feminist organization, the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the South, voter suppression, gun violence and the gun sense movement, the whitewashing of southern literature, the 1982 racialized killing of Vincent Chin, social media’s role in political accountability, and the rise of nationalism worldwide. Here, Enjeti discusses the bargain between evangelical Christianity and fascism in the United States, as well as her efforts as a grassroots organizer for They See Blue in Atlanta, Georgia. 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

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 Mushfiq Mohamed 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? 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?” 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 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 MUSHFIQ MOHAMED is a lawyer, writer, and activist based in London. Live Maldives 7th Jul 2021 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

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. VOL. 2 REPORTAGE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR A landscape view of Ladakh. Dolma's homeland now facing the heat of the lurking dragon. Courtesy of Masroor Khan. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 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 3rd May 2024 Reportage Ladakh Srinagar Kashmir Sino-Indian Relations China India Geopolitics Indian Union Article 370 Line of Actual Control People’s Liberation Army Changthang Labor Craftsmanship Artisans Indigeneity Settler-Colonialism Displacement Statehood Military Operations Police Action Sonam Dolma Militarization Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 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. ∎ 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

Jamil Jan Kochai reads and discusses "A Premonition; Recollected," a short story published by SAAG that reads like a single, long-drawn breath. The story subsequently appeared in Kochai's acclaimed collection "The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories." INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 1 · On A Premonition; Recollected Jamil Jan Kochai Jamil Jan Kochai reads and discusses "A Premonition; Recollected," a short story published by SAAG that reads like a single, long-drawn breath. The story subsequently appeared in Kochai's acclaimed collection "The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories." In November 2020, SAAG Chats kicked off with an Instagram Live reading and discussion of "A Premonition; Recollected" between its author, Jamil Jan Kochai, and Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. The story was originally published in SAAG Volume 1. Subsequently, the story appeared in Jamil Jan Kochai's acclaimed collection The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories , a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award, and winner of the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2023 Clark Fiction Prize. Here, Jamil Jan Kochai and Hananah Zaheer discuss the balance between brevity and density in the story, and its inspiration both from the nature of memory and the War on Terror in Afghanistan. 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 Afghanistan Short Story SAAG Chats The Haunting of Hajji Hotak Language Disaster & Language Disaster & Faith Flash Fiction Fiction National Book Award Peshawar Logar War on Terror Memory Discourses of War Allegiance Pashto Farsi Narrators War Crimes Militarism Short Stories JAMIL JAN KOCHAI is the author of 99 Nights in Logar (Viking, 2019), a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. His short story collection, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories (Viking, 2022) was shortlisted for the National Book Award. He was born in an Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, but he originally hails from Logar, Afghanistan. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and The Best American Short Stories . His essays have been published at The New York Times  and the Los Angeles Times . Kochai was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and a Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was awarded the Henfield Prize for Fiction. Currently, he is a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. Live Afghanistan 13th Nov 2020 On That Note: The Captive Mind 26th JUN Climate Crimes of US Imperalism in Afghanistan 16th OCT Chats Ep. 4 · On Qurratulain Hyder's sci-fi story “Roshni ki Raftaar” 30th NOV

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. VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Literary Solidarity 17th Dec 2020 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 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. 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 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