Books Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016, whichfeatures nine Kashmiri photographers from different eras, is about the personal as well as the collective memory of a people and their relation to their homeland.
After the fire, Frislan, 2012. Credit: Javed Dar
In a country in conflict, there are journalists who arrive with the rapacious speed of breaking news: they land, they grab what they need, they leave. There are also those who come and stay a little longer, who want to get the story straight and see it unfold. And then there are those who call that place home, those who are there to stay and are part of the story. The different temporality of these presences produces different narratives that have varying degrees of amplification. The voracious appetite for fresh news often turns the shouted headline into the whole story, leaving the whispered expressions of the local people on the ground almost unheard.
Sanjay Kak. Source: Author provided
On the fringe of this race, there are increasingly significant experiences of the autochthonous voices who reclaim the right to their own version of the story. The discourse around daily life in a country in conflict is, in fact, often tinged with a rhetoric of survivalism and resilience, hence placing the observers point of view within the framework of aid and development.
The locals are at the receiving end; they are the objects of attention and of charitable projects, hardly ever the narrators or the active subjects of their own story.
In 2008, I had the privilege of being a part of the initial steps of Metrography, the first independent Iraqi photo agency based in Kurdistan. The aim was to provide a platform to Iraqi photographers irrespective of religion, sect or ethnicity to respond to the omnipresent image of Iraq as a country on the brink.
Focussing on reportage rather than spot news, stories of ordinary life beyond ones of roadside bombs began to emerge. From pilgrimages and community celebrations to fashion trends, from street photography to the documentation of an incipient corporate life, Metrography managed to reveal the simple truth that in spite of war, life goes on.
Editedby SanjayKak Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016 Yarbal Press, 2017
Over the years I saw the same kind of yearning in Palestine and Afghanistan, where artists, photographers and writers have started building a solid and credible counterpoint to the standardised and stereotypical representations.
Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016: Nine Photographers embodies a similar desire emerging from Kashmir.Witness is a book edited and conceived by Sanjay Kak. It is a 30-year-long journey in the history of Kashmir through two hundred images taken by nine Kashmiri photographers Meraj Ud din, Javeed Shah, Dar Yasin, Javed Dar, Altaf Qadri, Sumit Dayal, Showkat Nanda, Syed Shahriyar and Azaan Shah.
The book is an immersive experience, one that takes days to fully savour and digest. It is comprehensive, yet not encyclopaedic. It gives no explanationbut makes a request to allow for time to look and listen, and thus it opens a window to the backstage of the complex reality of Kashmir. Witness is a project as intricate and elaborate as a piece of kashidakari, an elegant embroidery where each stitch is perfectly calibrated and contains several layers and messages within itself.
There is no single definition that can fully encompass the book: it is a photography book, a history book and a book of personal stories. In its assemblage, Kak produces multiple chronologies and orchestrates a variety of registers. The passing of time is marked by the generational history that organises the sequence of photographers: from the oldest, Meraj Ud Din, to the youngest, Azaan Shah, who is only 19 years old.
Another timeline comes at the end of the book, where the captioned photographs are ordered chronologically. The (political) history of the last 30 years in Kashmir is reconstructed visually, one painful step at a time: ordinary life is inextricably mixed with the struggle for azadi, the shadows of the passer-by mingle with the strive for self-determination. Interspersed among the captions is a glossary of the vernacular of war that characterises the daily life in the Valley counterinsurgency, massacre, militant, stone thrower words that have come to indicate the perpetual state of exception that has become ordinary in Kashmir.
Brothers, Boniyar, 2015. Credit: Showkat Nanda
In this endeavour to build what Kak calls an introduction to public memory, the individual life stories of the nine photographers emerge intimately, as unique and singular, but also as part of a collective and shared inheritance of customs, trauma, anger and defiance. With a subtle but incredibly powerful shift, Witness reveals itself as a book about Kashmiris as much as about Kashmir about the personal as much as about the collective memory of a people and their relation to their homeland. This is no little change in perspective, considering that the official rhetoric around Kashmir oscillates between a pristine paradise and a restive land a disputed territory where its people are either invisible or troublemakers to be tamed.
As it was withUntil My Freedom Has Come:The New Intifada in Kashmir (2011) the previous book edited by Kak Witness comes as a timely insiders reflection on a dramatic season of unrest.
Pellet-gun injuries, Srinagar, 2016. AP Images / Dar Yasin
In an ongoing conversation with Kashmiri poet and academic Ather Zia, we have come to refer to the 2016 upheaval as the summer of the eye. After the killing of the young rebel commander Burhan Wani in early July 2016, Kashmir erupted and its people took to the streets. This was by no means unannounced as rage had been simmering beneath the surface, but no one could predict that things would escalate to such a level. The Indian military and paramilitary responded to protests and kaeni jang(stone pelting) with an iron fist. Over the course of almost four months, at least 6,000 people were injured, more than 1,000 were hit in the eyes by the infamous pellet shotguns and over 100 of them were left totally or partially blind.
Beyond the metaphor, by hitting people in the eye, the security forces tried to kill the vision of a different future. They tried to remove the possibility to look beyond the present in a fashion that differs from what is envisaged by those in power. Witness is somehow an indirect response to this attempt. It brings to the table a corpus of visual evidence that tells the other side of the story, with its nuances of affection, commitment, mourning and resistance.
In the wealth of imagery that the book offers to the reader, two photographs have caught my attention. The first is a photo taken by Javed Dar in 2015 in a recently vacated paramilitary camp at Kawdor, in Srinagar. In the middle of the debris, children play with the remnants of military equipment; smiling to the camera, a young boy carries a cargo net knotted to a stick as a trailing flag. Three generations have grown up in Kashmir forced to come to terms with the normality of an extraordinary military presence in their daily life in their schools, on the streets, outside their homes, in their playgrounds.
The second photo, taken by Sumit Danyal in 2009, is a dreamlike black and white image of a tree. The tree is blurred and ungraspable and its branches seem to have captured a passing cloud. The caption reads: In the tales of ghosts who want to be set free, what often holds them back is memory.
Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016: Nine Photographers resides in that space of memory. Kak calls it a marker, a flag planted in contested ground. It is certainly a milestone in the journey towards a recognisable, autonomous Kashmiri voice. It is a testimony to the ghosts of the past and the struggles of the future, it is a testament to what Kashmir is and has been for those children who grew up playing in the leftovers of military camps.
Francesca Recchia is a researcher and writer based in Kabul. Her work focuses on intangible heritage and cultural practices in countries in conflict.
Categories: Books
Tagged as: Afghanistan, Ather Zia, Azaan Shah, Francesca Recchia, Kashmir, Kurdistan, Meraj Ud din, Metrography, military equipment, Palestine, Sanjay Kak, Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016
Read the original post:
Witnessing the Ghosts Of the Past and the Struggles Of the Future in Kashmir - The Wire
- Kurt Saxon - Survivalism, Survivalists [Last Updated On: December 8th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 8th, 2016]
- Survivalism Wikipedia [Last Updated On: December 8th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 8th, 2016]
- Survival Plus - Kurt Saxon, survivalism, survivalist [Last Updated On: December 8th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 8th, 2016]
- Survivalism (song) - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: December 19th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 19th, 2016]
- Bomb-shelter builder busy as customers prep for 'Trumpocalypse' - Atlanta Journal Constitution [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- The Wild Eight is survivalism served extra-cold - Eurogamer.net [Last Updated On: February 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 8th, 2017]
- Commentary: Always something to panic about - Park Rapids Enterprise [Last Updated On: February 16th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 16th, 2017]
- Lynn Hummel column: Always something to panic about - Detroit Lakes Online [Last Updated On: February 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 17th, 2017]
- Phobophobes Announces New Single and UK Tour with LIFE - Broadway World [Last Updated On: February 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 20th, 2017]
- The Essential Animation Charms of 'My Life as a Zucchini' and 'The Red Turtle' - Film School Rejects [Last Updated On: February 24th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 24th, 2017]
- Green politics can save us - Drexel University The Triangle Online [Last Updated On: February 24th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 24th, 2017]
- At home with the Saviors: Recapping 'The Walking Dead' Season 7 Episode 11 - Chicago Tribune [Last Updated On: February 27th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 27th, 2017]
- MAGIC Fall 2017 Fashion Trend: Puffer Jackets WWD - WWD [Last Updated On: March 1st, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 1st, 2017]
- Wolf Pack 2017 - Creative Collectives Australia [Last Updated On: March 1st, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 1st, 2017]
- How a mythical 'hermit' criminal hid in the woods for decades - New York Post [Last Updated On: March 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 6th, 2017]
- Feminist pacifism or passive-ism? - Open Democracy [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 7th, 2017]
- 'The Walking Dead' Reminds Us That Rick Is Terrible At What He Does - Glide Magazine [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 7th, 2017]
- Wingin' It - The Portland Mercury [Last Updated On: March 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 9th, 2017]
- South London's Phobophobes Share Sinister New Music Video - Broadway World [Last Updated On: March 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 9th, 2017]
- One of Trump's treasury assistants is a survivalist who invented a bizarre techno-bow - The Verge [Last Updated On: March 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 11th, 2017]
- Brazil Really Needs Its Most Hated Politician - Bloomberg [Last Updated On: April 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 8th, 2017]
- The Founding Fathers Of Survivalism - Survive Tomorrow [Last Updated On: April 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 8th, 2017]
- Via 'The Florida Project,' meet two of the youngest stars in Cannes Film Festival history - Los Angeles Times [Last Updated On: June 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 6th, 2017]
- Click Your Hiking Boots Together: Oz Farm Is NorCal's Eco ... - 7x7 [Last Updated On: June 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 6th, 2017]
- It Comes at Night | Film Review | Slant Magazine - slantmagazine [Last Updated On: June 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 6th, 2017]
- Survivalist shares experience in Harker Heights | Local News ... - The Killeen Daily Herald [Last Updated On: June 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 6th, 2017]
- Upcoming "Far Cry" video game is set in Montana - KTVQ.com | Q2 ... - KTVQ Billings News [Last Updated On: June 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 6th, 2017]
- Humanity 2.0: The Unstoppability of Singularity - HuffPost [Last Updated On: June 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 8th, 2017]
- You'll Find Far Cry 5 ProvocativeEven if It's a Mess - WIRED [Last Updated On: June 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 9th, 2017]
- Margaret Atwood on the utopias hiding inside her dystopias and why there is no the future - Vox [Last Updated On: June 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 9th, 2017]
- Recently unveiled documents reveal anarchist strand festered at Evergreen for nearly a decade - The College Fix [Last Updated On: June 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 9th, 2017]
- Veteran teaches disaster preparation skills at Heights library - The Killeen Daily Herald [Last Updated On: June 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 9th, 2017]
- It Comes At Night stars on survivalism, the apocalypse - WDEF News 12 [Last Updated On: June 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 9th, 2017]
- What's Next for the Indie Horror Movie Wave - VICE [Last Updated On: June 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 10th, 2017]
- Next "Far Cry" video game is set in Montana - KRTV News in Great Falls, Montana - KRTV Great Falls News [Last Updated On: June 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 11th, 2017]
- Here's Everything Microsoft Just Announced at the Xbox E3 Show - TIME [Last Updated On: June 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 14th, 2017]
- E3 2017: State Of Decay 2 Features A More Open And Diverse ... - GameSpot [Last Updated On: June 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 14th, 2017]
- Map reveals where billionaires are stockpiling land that could be used in the apocalypse - SFGate [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2017]
- Map reveals where billionaires are stockpiling land that could be used in the apocalypse - Business Insider Nordic [Last Updated On: June 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 17th, 2017]
- Where billionaires are stockpiling land for the apocalypse: Map - The Real Deal Magazine [Last Updated On: June 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 18th, 2017]
- Billionaires are stockpiling land that could be used in the apocalypse here's where they're going - The Advocate [Last Updated On: June 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 18th, 2017]
- U.S. Billionaires | Apocalypse | Billionaires Buying Land - The Real Deal Magazine [Last Updated On: June 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 20th, 2017]
- Are you ready when disaster strikes? These Minnesota doomsday preppers are - Charleston Express [Last Updated On: June 26th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 26th, 2017]
- 'It Comes at Night' a Spellbinding Tale of Family and Survival - Shepherd Express [Last Updated On: June 27th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 27th, 2017]
- What it Means to Finish Pikes Peak + Results - Hot Rod Network - Hot Rod Network [Last Updated On: June 29th, 2017] [Originally Added On: June 29th, 2017]
- DJ CherishTheLuv, Music Missionary - HuffPost [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 1st, 2017]
- Review: Paranoia thriller It Comes At Night is impressively tense and ... - Norfolk Eastern Daily Press [Last Updated On: July 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 7th, 2017]
- Film Review: War for the Planet of the Apes - Consequence of Sound (blog) [Last Updated On: July 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 11th, 2017]
- Queued Up: 'The Lego Batman Movie,' 'XX,' 'Logan,' and More - Aquarian Weekly [Last Updated On: July 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 12th, 2017]
- 'War for the Planet of the Apes' Review: Finale of biblical proportions - Rappler [Last Updated On: July 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 18th, 2017]
- Do you Have What it Takes to be a Christian Survivalist? - CBN News [Last Updated On: July 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 20th, 2017]
- Fear the Walking Dead Comic-Con Trailer and Interviews - ComingSoon.net [Last Updated On: July 22nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 22nd, 2017]
- Review: Nolan's 'Dunkirk' is as Riveting as it is Groundbreaking - First Showing (blog) [Last Updated On: July 22nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: July 22nd, 2017]
- Webster - Soundblab [Last Updated On: August 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 10th, 2017]
- Silicon Valley luminaries are busily preparing for when robots take ... - Mashable [Last Updated On: August 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 10th, 2017]
- Naked - slantmagazine [Last Updated On: August 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 10th, 2017]
- Noir Thriller Wind River Examines An Ignored America - Willamette Week [Last Updated On: August 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 10th, 2017]
- What I Learned From the Neo-Nazi in My Prison Book Club | The ... - The Marshall Project [Last Updated On: August 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 11th, 2017]
- Film Review: The Glass Castle Fails on Almost Every Level - Splice Today [Last Updated On: August 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 12th, 2017]
- For Doomsday Preppers, the End of the World Is Good for Business - New York Times [Last Updated On: August 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 12th, 2017]
- Film Review: Good Time - Consequence of Sound (blog) [Last Updated On: August 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 12th, 2017]
- North Korean Tensions Are Spurring Doomsday Survival-Goods Sales - Fortune [Last Updated On: August 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 13th, 2017]
- Oregon 'Hate Map' Reveals 11 Racist, Separatist Hate Groups In The State - Patch.com [Last Updated On: August 22nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 22nd, 2017]
- 'American Made' Review: Tom Cruise Flies Between Comedy and Tension, Missing Both - TheWrap [Last Updated On: August 24th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 24th, 2017]
- Doomsday Desperation - Southern Poverty Law Center [Last Updated On: August 24th, 2017] [Originally Added On: August 24th, 2017]
- Internal Authority vs. External Authority | Alligator ... [Last Updated On: March 16th, 2018] [Originally Added On: March 16th, 2018]
- Survivalism (song) - NinWiki [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2018] [Originally Added On: April 11th, 2018]
- Life Legacy - Morgan & Nay Funeral Centre [Last Updated On: June 2nd, 2018] [Originally Added On: June 2nd, 2018]
- Surviving Survivalism | Commonweal Magazine [Last Updated On: April 20th, 2019] [Originally Added On: April 20th, 2019]
- Gary K. Wolfe Reviews Trapped in the R.A.W., A Journal of My Experiences during the Great Invasion by Kaylee Bearovna by Kate Boyes - Locus Online [Last Updated On: October 1st, 2019] [Originally Added On: October 1st, 2019]
- A brief history of John Krasinski's transformation into a guy who absolutely loves the CIA - Business Insider [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2019] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2019]
- Richard Tobin of Brooklawn accused of conspiring to initimidate minorities - Courier Post [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2019] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2019]
- Market Experts Weigh in on the Next Major Mergers & Acquisitions in Media - Observer [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2019] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2019]
- Amazon's holiday gift to Orlando's sci-fi fans is a revitalized season of 'The Expanse' - Orlando Weekly [Last Updated On: December 16th, 2019] [Originally Added On: December 16th, 2019]
- This Scary Fractal Suggests Bitcoin Price Is On Its Way to $3,000 - newsBTC [Last Updated On: January 5th, 2020] [Originally Added On: January 5th, 2020]
- Trader Who Called Bitcoin (BTC) Breakout Says Top Cryptocurrency Poised for Monster Rally to $150,000 - The Daily Hodl [Last Updated On: February 3rd, 2020] [Originally Added On: February 3rd, 2020]
- This Albertan YouTuber Is the Bob Ross of Stealth Camping - VICE [Last Updated On: February 3rd, 2020] [Originally Added On: February 3rd, 2020]
- Analyst: Bitcoin is printing the same pattern that marked Decembers $6,400 bottom - CryptoSlate [Last Updated On: March 6th, 2020] [Originally Added On: March 6th, 2020]
- Jenny Offill's Novel of Climate Dread - The Nation [Last Updated On: March 6th, 2020] [Originally Added On: March 6th, 2020]
- Doomsday Preppers Put Faith in God and Plan for the End of All Things - Word and Way [Last Updated On: March 6th, 2020] [Originally Added On: March 6th, 2020]