‘Yeh woh sahar tou nahi’

Extracts from this wonderful, wonderful book that I’m currently reading (this is among the things that I love about my job here – free books!).

‘This is not that dawn‘ is an English translation of Yashpal’s ‘Jhoota Sach‘. I’d heard of the book before, but what I hadn’t known was that Yashpal was a comrade of Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad.

Growing up ‘Southasian’

If I am Southasian, why did the government of India deny me a student visa to my father’s country of birth? If I am Pakistani, why do bureaucrats at the passport office harass me and ply me with needless questions about my parents’ immigration when I try to get my passport renewed? If I am Sindhi, why am I treated with suspicion in my own land?

Appeal for support: Khuzdar Press Club under threat.

The Khuzdar press club is being threatened by the “Baloch Musalla Difa Tanzeem”. These threats are serious. The group in question, which is effectively the “civilian wing” of the Frontier Corps (FC) — the paramilitary group terrorising Balochistan and the Baloch — has attacked Khuzdar before, and is not imcapable of doing it again. Please spread the word — we need all the support we can get to protect our colleagues. These are extremely brave people, who are working under extremely adverse conditions. Is this the democracy that we fought for?

‘Where is my son?’

More than 8,000 people have gone “missing” in Balochistan. These include political workers, children under the age of 14, girls under the age of 18. Does the PM really want to tell these people that there is no military offensive in Balochistan?

Can WE tell the Baloch that the Pakistani State is not fucking them over? Really?

Why was Sarkash Sindhi expelled from JSQM?

The decision to cancel his membership took a while in coming, but it’s here at last, and can be seen as an extremely welcome step taken by the GMist council of the JSQM Basheer Qureshi group.